Alas, I have fallen behind with submissions. I’ve started working through the backlog, but I still have a ways to go this week. My apologies to all submitters for the delay. Barring any further catastrophes, you should hear from me before too long.

I’m also working on the next issue. It’s about two thirds done and should go up in the next few weeks. Lots of wonderful poems in this one — I think you’ll find it worth the wait.

Judging from all the furor over Philip Sandifer’s “I am Ready to Serve my Country” flash piece, I have to wonder how the University of Florida’s police department would do with the reading comprehension portions of the FCAT.

I suspect not well.

Requesting a DNA sample over a work of fiction is scandalous enough. If, as Sandifer suggests, the driving force behind this is pressure from the university president’s office, then it’s an institutional disgrace. So much for academic freedom.

Writers beware. Klingon translators and Jeopardy champions, head for the hills.

Yes, the hair is gone, happily sent off to Locks of Love.

If you find your own hair getting rather longish and you’re contemplating lopping it off, you might consider donating it. Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that “provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children 18 years and younger suffering from long-term medical hair loss.”

They accept lengths of ten inches and longer.

I made a valiant effort to find Sanctuary but was taken down by a Sandman (my nephew Logan, no less) on my birthday. What you read now is just the ghost in the machine.

Had I survived the journey, there may have been a different result for Emily’s Burn Level Challenge. As it is, I am somewhat surprised to announce that I was not hideously disfigured by UV rays nor, as Ãron darkly insinuated, did I burst into flames upon arrival at the beach. In fact, I remained relatively unaltered until my final day on St. George, when I entertained the reckless notion of going out after 6:30pm without a reapplication of 60 SPF sunscreen. (Other phantoms, be forewarned.)

Let’s see. I’d say I’d have to score a 3 for select bits of my scalp, 1.8 for my shoulders and chest, 1.6 for my face, and 1.3 for consequential pinkness in generally exposed areas. I am not at all sure what to do about my forearms, which appear to have jumped the scale entirely for, and I am not making this up, actual brownness. I’m shocked. My freckles are shocked. Should I eliminate my arms from the calculation? Hmm. Would I balance out the omission if I also exempted my concealed torso from the final averages?

If so, that gives us about 1.37. A very slight edge for Ãron (1.7) over Melissa and Matt (1.0), who had more faith in the power of sunscreen.

However, I should probably point out that the critical 6:30 outing was Ãron’s idea. In general, I had better sun safety sense: