"What Color Bear Are You?"

Okay, to Robin, Michele, Dineen, and Mel, many thanks for reminding me that I'm not, to quote Shelley (? I think?), "an abstract demon beating his wings in a void." Or to put it less opaquely, thanks for the shout-outs, ladies! And don't think I've failed to notice the fact that "Robin, Michele, Dineen, and Mel" sounds like a very marketable name for a singing group. Do any of you have any pressing engagements in the next six months? Kids, family, jobs, books, etc.? If not, and supposing I could induce my wife to make a lateral move into music management, I'll bet we could make a mint.

More about the Agency (and the reason for my title here) in a minute, but first, to Bad Alice--thanks for coming back and posting and responding so nicely to my comment. No, I don't think anybody today thinks that terrorism is just an illusion; unlike Communism, it's too in-your-face for that. And I do believe that the vast majority of Americans who oppose the current Administration's approach to the war on terror are doing so in good faith. As for the matter of Communism, I started to write some comments and these quickly morphed into many paragraphs, so I figured I'd better save it for another post. In the meantime, thanks for reading, everybody!

I've been wanting to get back here and post for a couple of days now, but we've had a guest: Nephele Tempest, who in addition to being our L.A. agent is also a friend. It's been great for her to have an opportunity to work at the "home office" and enjoy all the great support Deidre, Pamela, and I get from our fabulous staff--Samantha Jenkins, Julie Ramsey, and Elaine Spencer--but it's not been all work: on Monday, the six of them went for a spa day at the Ritz-Carlton as a reward for hitting our sales goal in '05.

And Nephele is also staying with Deidre and me and our two daughters. Upon seeing her for the first time in a year, our three-year-old--who refers to herself as "pink bear" when she's wearing a cute little bathrobe she got for Christmas, one that is indeed pink with a bear design--informed us that Ms. Nephele was "a purple bear." Pink Bear has this talent for deciding what color bear someone is, a gift I discovered one night when she informed me that Daddy was both a red bear and a brown bear. Mommy, as I recall, is a white bear, and Big Sister is a blue bear.

I'm thinking that maybe this ability to identify people's bear color may indicate a future for her as a killer literary agent. Often we dream with our kids of a day when they and their cousins will take over the company from Deidre and Pamela, and though she's the youngest of the group, Pink Bear has the kind of tenacious spirit that might bring her to the forefront. If she can one day identify future bestsellers with the same ease that she does bear colors, Deidre and I need not worry about our retirement plan.