A serious topic this week, but one with a hopeful bent: a new site makes it easy to get screened for sexually transmitted infections — and to share your negative results with potential lovers, or to get personal attention and references if you have a positive test result:

Wired News: Stop Sex Infections the Smart Way

In the podcast, the CEO of the service talks about how eventually it will be able to help reduce the number of sexual assaults that occur. And on the blog, more details about how the service protects your privacy.

Yes, it’s that time again: NaNoWriMo. Where we commit to writing a 50,000-word novel in November.

Here’s the official site:

National Novel Writing Month - National Novel Writing Month

This November I will be out of town for several days; I have a business trip for a client, a romantic weekend with the boyfriend so we can remember what we look like, and a speaking engagement in Calgary. Therefore, I have started my novel early and am trying to get to 20,000 words by November 1. I’m around 17,000 now, so, there’s a chance.

Yes, it’s an erotic novel, why do you ask?

I like the t-shirt this year too.

Also, this explains why I’ve not been blogging except over at Sex Drive Daily, and even there, I’m not posting as often as I probably should. Only so many hours in a week, only so many words you can write when you write for a living, eh?

I can’t remember who it was, but someone called and was going to stop by, and I said “OK, cool, I’ll go put on some pants.”

And I realized that I say that a lot. Even when W lived here, I don’t know that I got fully dressed until I had to leave the house. I work bare-assed or in panties most of the time. I don’t know if this is laziness or comfort or a well-thought-out plan to avoid using any more clean clothes than necessary (like not getting any more dishes dirty than needed).

I think I’m going to put that on the list of possible epitaphs for my urn. “She went with her pants off.”

Hey, it’s better than “caught with her pants down.”