An email arrived from a magazine editor this morning:

"We have all read, reviewed, and discussed your submission, A Boy's Protection, and we have to pass on this story for AlienSkin since it is too graphic for our magazine; However it IS exactly the type of horror we seek for Nocturnal Ooze Magazine. And thus, we would love to publish the story in our Short Screams section in the February 2004 Issue."

All I can say is "Yesizzle." I have no problems selling a story to a magazine that I didn't originally submit to. This infobahn thing is so very useful indeed.

In other news we have scheduled a hauling company to come by the hooch tomorrow and take away a couple of our old cat-pee-stained couches, plus some miscellaneous junk. Hopefully they'll manage it for under $100, which is about fifty to a hundred percent less than other options we've explored.

One couch already molders away in our back yard, covered only somewhat effectually by a tarp. Now I just have to figure out how to get the other, larger and more unwieldy, of those couches up from the basement without actually having to touch its urine-soaked horribleness. It's occasions such as these that make me aware of the opportunity cost inherent in not owning a chain-saw.