Lo! My Natal Anniversary Is This Very Day!

At 10:13 this evening, I will turn 43.  That’s right; at least for this year, I’ll be in the primes of my life.
That sound you hear is the next “tick” counting towards my inevitable demise – a situation that might well cause you to go, “Shouldn’t I give this poor old man a present of some sort, perhaps with candles atop?  That seems like some sort of tradition.” And lo!  There are two things you can do!
First off, if y’haven’t noticed, I’m blogging my butt off for the Clarion Blog-A-Thon.  I’m doing my usual Clarion Echo schtick, writing live fiction for a secret community of donors, which is both wonderful and sad; the wonderful thing is that I think this is the best Clarion Echo I’ve ever had.  Since I’m plotting a novel, this is really getting into the nitty gritty of “How do you balance creativity with achieving the goals you want for this story?” – and as I develop character profiles and themes and explain why things do or do not work, I’m really displaying a lot of how the writers’ process goes.  I wish I’d had access to this kind of thing back when I was still struggling.
The sad thing is that this is my lowest-attended Clarion Echo ever.  Oh, the people in there are talky and vibrant, but several of my usual writer-buddies from part Echos are missing.  I’m left wondering whether “plotting” just isn’t as big a draw as “pure writing,” even if I find this detail more fascinating.
In any case, if you wanna make a weasel feel happier as he crawls his way towards the grave, then donate $5 and join the community!  More people in there make me happy.  That’s the way this works.
Failing that, if you’d like to get me an inexpensive gift that will nevertheless make me do little happydances of joy, feel free to post cheesecake pictures of yourself in the comments here. (Alternatively, if they’re spicy or you’re shy, mail ’em to me at theferrett@theferrett.com.)
If you do not know what cheesecake pictures are, they are not pictures of desserts. According to Wikipedia, which is always correct and never in error, “For ‘Cheesecake’ in the sense of female glamour photograph, often sensual, see Pin-up girl.” A slightly antiquated term, but hey – if Justin Timberlake can bring sexy back, I can bring cheesecake back.  (And I’m antiquated at this point, so I can use antiquated terms!)
(As always, every year I do this, some guy goes, “Oh ho, here I am! You didn’t expect this!” and posts a picture of himself. And it’s true that I’m straight, but a) I like seeing pictures of people anyway, b) I’m never shocked by photos of guys, and c) as far as I’m concerned, posting cute pictures of yourself where women can see them is always a good idea. So it’s like whoah, you sure have put one on me, sirrah.)