… is online here. I have to say, I was rather proud of my answer to the second question.

UPDATE: The magazine’s cover story is about coyotes. Is it just me, or do coyotes look exactly like wolves going, “Duuhh … “?

Also, while you can’t buy the appearance of a “strong, proud, generous person with a sense of humor and perspective” at Sephora, you can buy Smashbox Color Correcting Primer, which is the best foundation primer I’ve ever used — I generally wear it alone, not with foundation, and it gives a beautiful evenness without a made-up look. It doesn’t have SPF, mind you, so you have to wear sunscreen underneath.

Yesterday I had an appointment with the psychiatric nurse who writes my Paxil prescriptions. (I went on Paxil in December when my health problems were properly diagnosed, and I’ll write more about my thoughts on that later. Right now we’re not going for the deep personal/sociological insight, we’re going for cheap laughs, ‘kay?) After our conversation, I noticed, as I always do, the sign pointing to the waiting room, and I stuck my head back in her office:

Me: I love the sign out there that says “Mental Health Reception.” I’d love to attend one someday.

Nurse: I don’t think anyone’s ever noticed that before.

Me: Well, you’ve never had an etiquette columnist as a patient before.

Summer is here, fellow dog lovers, which means it’s time to start packing a water bottle along with the poop bags when you take your little friend out for a walk. (I don’t mean that in a “Scarface” kind of way.)

The straight-up best water bottle for dogs I’ve found are Water Rovers: light, one-piece, and relatively dripless, although that latter depends to some extent on how drooly your dog is. (Milo is part African basenji, so he’s relatively dry-mouthed. Owners of Newfoundlands may have a different experience.)

I’m not getting any sort of kickback from Water Rovers for this, mind you, and I paid good cash money for mine. If Water Rovers decides to send me a bunch of free samples, though, my dog-owning friends are in luck!

UPDATE: Some ongoing technical difficulties prevented me from posting a picture of Water Rovers, so I’m trying it now as an experiment:

Yep, that worked!

“I don’t believe in much, but I do believe in duct tape.”

–Miles Straum, “Lost”

Because my friends write updates like this:

[Name] would like to apologize to Rebecca for the whole throwing-the-towel-wrapped-garter-snake-at-you incident this afternoon. It was not a good panic move on my part. The snake is no longer in my front yard and is somewhere happier than my living room due to your keen eyesight. Thank you and please visit again soon!

As a lifelong fan of Dorothy Parker, I’ve always admired how she could compress into a short story what might take other writers an entire novel to communicate. My snake-throwing friend clearly has a similar gift.

… is online here.

Technical difficulties look to have been resolved! And the blog, in a few weeks, is going to be going in a slightly different direction: less about the book, more about reactions to current events, findings in the social sciences, and so on.

In the meantime, some catching up:

Here was this Sunday’s column, and some follow-up advice.

Here is Wednesday’s chat.

I Tweeted a link to a scientific abstract that, apparently, a lot of folks couldn’t access. Here’s the abstract:

The Scientific Impotence Excuse: Discounting Belief-Threatening Scientific Abstracts

Geoffrey D. Munro, Towson University

ABSTRACT

The scientific impotence discounting hypothesis predicts that people resist belief-disconfirming scientific evidence by concluding that the topic of study is not amenable to scientific investigation. In 2 studies, participants read a series of brief abstracts that either confirmed or disconfirmed their existing beliefs about a stereotype associated with homosexuality. Relative to those reading belief-confirming evidence, participants reading belief-disconfirming evidence indicated more belief that the topic could not be studied scientifically and more belief that a series of other unrelated topics could not be studied scientifically. Thus, being presented with belief-disconfirming scientific evidence may lead to an erosion of belief in the efficacy of scientific methods.

Haven’t read the paper yet, but it sounds interesting.

Whew! We have had a major web host issue and are in the process of reconstructing things over here. So if stuff looks a little weird for the next bit, please be patient. We should be back to normal by tomorrow!

No worries about the slim posting rate here, folks. I’m involved in a weeklong event at Harvard Business School. Regular schedule to resume next week.

… is online here. I’d said in Mind over Manners that I didn’t often get questions that were directly political in nature, but that’s changed since the book came out — an unfortunate development.