Friday is my Fun Day. My I-don't-have-to-run day.

Today is Friday so I decided to make pancakes with a side of crispy bacon. I'm not working a day job these days. On Sunday I will end my tenure of 2.5 years as one of America's irretrievably unemployed to take on the title of Landlord. I inherited a condo and this Sunday two bright young female college students will move in. This will bring me my first steady income in quite a while. And it'll help me afford my lavish writer's lifestyle! I will be Landlord/Web Designer/Writer.

Sunday will also mark the start of my book giveaway thru Goodreads of PROSPECT OF MY ARRIVAL. This book was chosen by Penguin editors as one of the Top 10 novels in the 2008 Amazon contest. To enter to win one of my 20 free softcover books -- I think I'll autograph them for the heck of it -- go to http://dwightland.homestead.com/novels.html The estimated pub date for the softcover and e-book is August 1, 2011.

This morning, the fog rolled into the Chicago which is always pretty. And the temperatures dipped but that's refreshing. I have a good self-pub package with Createspace. I love that I can go to their site and type in my phone number and ask them to call me in 5 minutes! It worked great and the staff have been very warm and helpful. I told CS that I'd finally gotten permission to use the third internal image and should I send it. She said to wait for the full edit of my ms. which is due to me next week! Then I can send it along with any other edits. Turns out to send the images compressed, I don't need a program. I just save the 3 images in a folder on my PC, right click and choose COMPRESS.

So things are moving forward. By the way, there is this fine asian guy on GLEE who in real life is the show's choreographer. Harry Shum, Jr. He has the best abs. He's my new fitness hero. Tonight I'll to a kickoff for my gay buddhist group. Sunday I'm going with friends to my pal Anne McGravie's reading of her new play. I did her website too -- annemcgravie.homestead.com

Hope you are all well and productive and moving closer to your dreams. By the way, the letter "i" fell off my laptop. And though I kept reattaching it, I decided to order a new one. Even the krazy glue failed after a while. I guess that tells me that the letter "i" is very important in my writing. No jokes here about self-absorption!

DID YOU KNOW? Did you know that toward the end of 2010, millions of 99ers were cut off from unemployment? I was one of them. A 99er is someone who received 99 weeks (almost 2 years) of unemployment funds. I'm fortunate because I have some property and some alternate skills. But millions of people have gone without any kind of financial assistance for half a year. This is unprecedented. How do they pay rent, buy food? Some are maxing out their credit cards, some are getting help from family, some are moving back home. Will the others go on welfare? Experts predict the job market won't improve for about 4 more years. I'd like to see more media cover of the plight of 99ers over the past six months. And less coverage of Charlie Sheen. In the past year, in spite of a supposed upturn in the economy, I've seen three Borders stores close in Chicago, Blockbusters, Linens n Things, several good restaurants, clothing stores, and a live theater.

DISCUSSION TOPIC:
Tell us about your ongoing projects. Or your fun plans for the weekend.
I notice several bloggers have guest blogs. Do let me know if you'd like to be a featured a guest blogger on "Long Day's Journey Into Dwight." You could write about anything, of if you'd like some suggestions you might write about books and movies and websites and people you love; your experience self-publishing; about being gay or asian or buddhist or left-handed or a virgo. I'm open.