Normally I am up before seven in the morning. Usually about six is when I wake up, scratch what needs to be scratched, putter around, wake up, surf a little, make coffee for The Debra - all that sort of thing. But last night we stayed up late watching Fellowship of the Ring and afterwards I read a bit more of the novel to Debra before bed, so falling-asleep time was about 1:00am. So I slept soundly through six o’clock and had just started working on sleeping through seven when my cell phone rang and I awoke to the blunt force trauma of a Christina Cheney banzai charge slash telephone conversation.

I love Christina. Love her to death. Known her since our early days in college (just after her MASSIVE big hair days) and all through her years of dabbling in nascent web industries and into her consulting life and jet-setting between Hawaii and LA and New York. She’s a great, very dear friend. But if a Shelby Cobra could go 0-100-0 in ten seconds then Christina could do it in five. But maybe without the stopping part.

So the phone rang at seven and I answered it in an utter fog and upon my pushing the Answer button and mumbling “This is Michael” I was assaulted by Christina, bayonettes fixed.

I have yet to recover.