This week's "Carnival of the Vanities" is up here. This floating feature of the blogosphere allows little-known bloggers to submit what they think is one of their best posts for a listing. This week's host is Winds of Change, and if you head there, you'll see that I couldn't resist putting in a plug for one of my stories from this blog.

Pick around on that list and you'll find some good stuff.

"Oh, yeah, there was some facial surgery on display last night. Women in their fifties with the eerie porcelain smoothness of a bathroom countertop stretched across their poor screaming cheekbones. They look like some kind of weird Druidic cult, these women. They all eschew tanning now of course, and with their perpetually arched eyebrows, preternaturally high foreheads and botoxed-to-neutrality expressions, they are like implacable, ghostly pale mystics in their sheath gowns and high coiffures."

"This is the understanding that it is socially unacceptable to be seen in public with a woman whose age is less than half plus seven of your age. This rule is not up for negotiation, and always works. Some examples:

18 year old males. 18/2 = 9 + 7 = 16 Acceptable
28 year old man. 28/2 = 14 + 7 = 21 Acceptable
55 year old man. 55/2 = 27.5 + 7 = 35 Acceptable

33 year old man dating a 21 year old girl? Not Socially Acceptable. See how the math works?"

"Along about 2am, I staggered semi-consciously back to the ship, pausing now & again to yark up a gallon of beer, my last seven meals, and bits of my spleen & pancreas. Somehow I made it back to my berthing area to bed-spin my way into a dreamless semi-coma."