Marking Years On The Severance Clock, Lovers Piled In The Shadows Like Soiled Socks

(Cf.)

…if, of course, by “mid-July” we mean “early September,” and by “normal service” we mean, well, this.

So what have I been up to? Oh, the usual. I’ve been reading a few books, making some mixtapes, listening to records new and old, watching a couple of movies, most of them terrible. I lost a toenail, and a tooth. I travelled, and I came back. I wrote for profit, and I wrote for fun, and sometimes it was the same thing. I got my thumb smashed by a baseball, but it got better. I tore the muffler off my car with my bare hands, and nearly left it by the side of the road on the way to the State Fair. I talked to constitutional scholars, to preachers, to truck drivers. I told my troubles to strangers, and listened to the complaints of people I do not know, and sometimes money changed hands. I worked nights, and slept too late in the mornings, and wandered around groggy and useless during the days; when I was writing for money, there were stretches when I hardly slept at all. I got sozzled on cheap beer at a minor league ballpark, and ate fried Oreos on the fairgrounds. I watched in awe as fireworks bloomed endlessly over the city skyline like it was the liberation of Paris. I got some bad news, and made some bad decisions—and quite a few good ones. A few times I lost my temper, and several times I thought I was going to lose my lunch. But I rediscovered optimism, and remembered love, and got through with little permanent damage but the wounds of Time, which kill us all in the end and so are hardly worth worrying over.

I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.