I get an amazing amount of spam on this blog — really, the spamosphere greatly overestimates my influence with the American reading public, I fear. Many of them are just long links to sites where one can acquire porn or drugs, but some actually attempt to look like a real comment of someone delurking. This one, I simply adored; it came with a link to some (probably designer-fake) Ugg boots:

I all joking aside enjoyed reading your blog and frame it both educational and interesting. I hot pants be unwavering to bookmark it and secure in it as large as I can.

Yes, all writers have a dream, and mine is to have a readership that is both hot pants and unwavering!

Response was good for my fashion blogging debut on Monday, so I think I may keep this as an occasional feature. Thanks for your kind responses, everyone!

Today I thought I’d mix up two great internet traditions and do street-fashion blogging AND dog blogging at the same time. My Monday post was about the power of dressing against the season, with glamorous blacks in summer and springy pastels in winter. Well, peep this little lady who totally gets the concept:

This is Penny. Penny is owned by a good friend of mine in New York, who got her as a rescue from a puppy mill. When she first came to my friend, Penny was sick, underweight, terrified of humans, and her back legs were so weak from living in a tiny cage with her own filth that she could barely walk. She was too afraid of life to even stand up — when you stand up is when they do the Bad Things to you. Penny is also blind, which means one of three things: 1) she was blinded by someone, 2) she went blind because she didn’t receive veterinary care when she needed it, or 3) she was born that way, and a puppy mill used her for breeding anyway, despite her genetic defect.

Well, look at her now, owning the mean streets of New York! (All right, the gentrified streets of Park Slope, but don’t mess with my narrative.) Penny’s all right. My friend says that springtime green just somehow is Penny’s color, and I can see why. Penny’s like those shoots of grass that come up through the sidewalk in April. Fragile, vulnerable, delicate, but with enough hope and strength and spirit to bust through concrete.

If Penny’s story upsets you, don’t ever buy a dog from a pet store or a “backyard breeder.” Get a reputable breeder, or better yet, get a rescue dog.

And get some clothes that make you feel as good as Penny does in this picture:

Penny says, “I don’t have to see to know I’m lookin’ fly!”

That post on “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” was supposed to run today, not yesterday; I got the date wrong when I set it up. So no post for you! If you don’t get over to the Miss Conduct blog much, you might want to check out this question that I posted yesterday — it’s generating some excellent discussion.

Oh, wait, I’ve got a little sumpin’ sumpin’ for you. In the fine internet tradition of Friday Dog Blogging, here is one of Milo. He has stolen something very important and is looking very guilty.

Do you think this is his way of saying he wants a little two-legged brother or sister? Not gonna happen, little man!

(Note to any concerned dog lovers: this happened shortly after we got Milo. He gave up the pills immediately without a fight, as we have trained him to do. We do NOT normally leave medicines where he can get them, and he developed common sense about living a in a house very quickly and won’t try to play with anything that isn’t one of his toys.)

I’m on Twitter (robinabrahams, if you want to follow me), and have been since early May, before the book came out. I’m still not entirely sure how to best use Twitter, but I’m in there, gamely tweeting away. Here is my short happy life in Tweets:

And so on …

I’m going to hope this (rather attractive) gentleman has simply not read “Othello.” What’s particularly bothersome is that his handle suggests that at least one other person thinks “Othello” is a good name to signal “romance.”