Suddenly I understand the necessity of keeping your body in tip-top shape, as every muscle in my back seized into a lump the size of a golf ball during lunch today. Stretching didn’t help. A quick massage didn’t help. Drugs did: lesson learned.

Then I come back to hours of work - in the interest of disclosure here, I’ll say that I did spend some time this morning loafing and browsing rather than working, but hey - and I can’t tell you how infuriating it is for someone to snap her fingers at you, her face inches from yours, while saying ‘where are they? Let’s go, I have to get these done …’ and I spend the waning hours of daylight on this, the first day of summer, doing inane graphics such as what appears below when I began these projects just yesterday. I can’t tell you how many times I typed the phrase ‘honky tonk’ today, and a little piece of my soul died with each instance.

But things overall stayed buoyant. Must be the anticipation of next week’s honky tonk visits.

Journalistic quandry of the day: Saddam Hussein needs a babysitter. Or a jailer - it depends. So the front cover of the RedEye we see that Saddam needs a babysitter. And likes Doritos. But not President Bush. In other news, water is wet and journalism is stupid. I’m sayin’ bro!

Shout #2: Site of the day: thewaylitd. My boy Dave got his bad self a blog so he can wax poetic about this and that and Jesus. It’s his jollies, so props.

Honky tonks. Fuck.