does Sean Connery have bodyguards?

I've slept less than two hours, from about noon to 1:45PM today. I was up all night, learning the ins and outs of my wonderful new Israeli word processor, Mellel. I'd wish the designers in Tel Aviv a Happy Hannukah, but I understand that Hannukah, as a Christmas competitor, is much bigger in America than in Israel (not to knock the event or the history to which it refers, of course!).

I also wrestled with my Mac OS X and discovered some neat stuff about PDF conversion.

"Why is all this important?" you ask.

It's because I'm reaching a crucial phase with one of the books I'm trying to put together. This is the religion-related book, the one my mother can sell at work (oh, damn-- she might be retiring next year). I've compiled a huge manuscript, and am in the process of weeding out the unwanted material-- never an easy task for a literary narcissist. The next phase will be editing the material, cleaning up the prose, tying themes together, giving the book some sort of coherence. Right now, it's just a disparate compendium.

The phase after that will involve formatting the text-- proper fonts, pagination, chapter/section headings, the addition of any graphics, etc.

Then the whole thing gets converted to a monster PDF and uploaded to my CafePress site.

But we're not done! I also have to design the front and back cover, as well as the book's spine. Anything good takes time; this might be a few months, but my point is that, as of this weekend, there's been a surge in my progress thanks to the all-night tinkering. I can now create exactly the PDF I want, formatted to taste.

Now I just need to think of a title. Suggestions? If I like your suggestion and use it, you'll be credited in the book. I'm thinking of something that cleverly combines most or all of the following themes: Christianity/Presbyterianism, Zen/Buddhism, Eastern philo/religion, interreligious dialogue, and philosophy of religion. Feel free to wax poetic. How about:

Even Testicles Erode: A Presbyterian Appraisal of Buddhist Emptiness and Other Matters.

Phallus-ophy: A Nasty Man Laughs at God

The Garden Within My Buttocks: Scattered Religious Insights by a Christian looking Eastward

Goddammit: An Irreverent Look at Eastern Philosophy and Religious Pluralism

...etc.

(No, the above titles aren't meant to be serious, but they're in the spirit of what I'm looking for.)


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