It's important to me to keep this site lively while I'm hard at work on Five George Washingtons, but hard for me to write short stories while I'm so focused on the intricities of a novel.
That's one of the reason's I've been turning out so many episodes of Joel Fauré, the Melancholy Male Model, which involve more cartooning and less writing. Joel seems to be popular, as well.
This month, Joel goes to a self-help group, Gorgeous Men Who Can't Find Love, and makes two new friends: Sebastién Marcovici, the world's best-looking and best-endowed ballet dancer, and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.
You may recall that Joel already has a friend: Jock, the happy male model, inspired by good-humored New York City Ballet dancer Jock Soto.
Joel's new friends are named after real people as well. The actual Sebastién Marcovici - a rising star at City Ballet - looks good, dances romantic roles beautifully, and appears to be gifted in a more primal manner, too, based on my observations from Row "C" of the New York State Theater.
I think the "C" stands for "codpiece," since that's what you're at eye level with from those seats. The Press Office put me there because I'm supposed to be writing reviews, but when Sebastién came out, it took me about half an hour to realize there was also a ballet going on.
Joel's other friend, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, I have never seen in person, and seen photographed only once - in an old issue of LIFE magazine, which showed him sitting on a staircase and complaining about his love life. I thought he would be a good friend for Joel.
March has been quite a month. I quit my job at ABCNEWS.com after they tripled my workload, then tried to convince me that it was part of being a "team player" to do everyone else's job along with my own.
I actually tried to keep it up with it all for a week before coming down with a massive case of carpal tunnel syndrome.
Anyway, it's probably all for the best, because it gives me more time to work on Five George Washingtons, although it may turn out to be the first handwritten novel submitted to publishers since the days of Edith Wharton.
My capable agent, Lisa Bankoff, has taken me to meet with several editors at publishing houses this month. They had various suggestions for improvements to the novel, some of which were good.
Curiously, however, every single editor who was interested in me had absolutely giant eyes - eyes recognizably similar to my giant-eyed cartoons. Could these editors be experiencing cartoon empathy? (Faithful readers! Do you have giant eyes, too? Tell me about it)
There were some rejections, too, and I will withhold the senders' names out of sincere sympathy for their bad taste. One rejection letter, however, I must quote.
"Lisa," the editor wrote to my agent, "despite my introduction last week to the Internet and World Wide Web..."
Gee, it must be difficult to fit that large dinosaur tail into an office chair.