So if you read his blog, you already know. But if you just got here: My other partner, Monk (usually referred to here by his blog nickname, Roman) had a fire in his shop Wednesday night.

Not a good thing. Quite bad, in fact. In what I’m told is the usual way, the water from the sprinklers, and the firefighter’s axes, did more damage than the actual fire. (Not that I’m dissing the firefighters, you understand.) Monk, Nerdy and Tambo spent all yesterday mopping and sweeping and carrying loads of now-worthless merchandise out to the dumpster. And then I bought them stiff drinks.

Today, they are able to summon, barely, some flickers of optimism about the future. But it’s a helluva mess. He sent me some pictures. Here’s Monk and Nerdy (I think that’s Nerdy?) looking at the outside of the building. A shot of the standing water on the floor, and a box of Bridget Harrington’s new bondage book, ruined by water damage.

He'll get everything going again, of course, and there is insurance, although god knows what getting money out of them will entail. (I do not have good experiences with insurance companies.)

In the wake of this, I’ve gotten several emails from kind readers asking me if they can donate to a relief fund. It’s a very sweet idea. I mentioned it to Monk, and his reply was: “Wow, that’s very kind and generous of people. We’ll definitely get back up and running no matter what, but if readers want to do something to help us along and speed up the process, I would think that was a really nice gesture on their part. It would certainly help me make sure all my employees still get paid on time.”

So if you want to, you can donate whatever you want here, through Paypal, and I’ll see that it gets to Monk.

Monk also said that cookies, supportive emails, and some patience are very much appreciated. Oh, and pictures of naked boobies. Those help, too.

Oh, and the usual Friday fodder: My new column, and the calendar...