First of all, thank you SO MUCH for all the kind birthday wishes! I'm just knocked over by by all of the Good Birthday Ju Ju. It was, all in all, a splendid birthday, with excessive sushi consumption, marvelous birthday roses and other assorted fabulous birthday goodness.

I've been off-line for awhile as my plate has been full of goings-on in Meat Space, primarily the co-direction of this conference, which all went off very nicely. It was three full days of terrific readings and panels. Everyone did such an amazing job and I'm just beside myself with delight! (She gave a fabulous reading, and is even more delightful in person than she is in the blogosphere!)

Since then, I kind of bottomed out from exhaustion a little bit and have been laying low and recuperating. I was convinced for a few days that I had Nostril Cancer, which would clearly entail amputation of significant portions of my face and the scooping out of large chunks of my brain. Late-night Googling of medical sites was involved. It got ugly. Now that I'm a little bit better rested, though, I've since come to realize that the Great Nostril Cancer Scare of 2005 may have been some of the Free-Floating Anxiety that backs up on me when it has no place to go upon completion of a large and stressful project. (You Poet-Doctors out there, is it even possible to get nostril cancer? Wait, wait. Never mind. I don't want to know!!)

The cats, too, say that they've been recuperating from the Great Nostril Cancer Scare of 2005.

Congrats on getting to keep your face. And on the success of your conference.

The cats look like recuperating is hard work. Such a difficult life. ;)

Glad you are feeling better. Isn't it amazing what stress can do.