It has been more than one official year since I planted official words in this particular e-soil, and my only excuse is that there is no excuse, as Arnold Schwarzenegger would say if I were to put my words into his mouth. (You’d have to remove that filthy cigar first, Arnie. Make room for me. Hmm, that sounds like bad gay innuendo. I take it back, but leave it up, thus having it both ways . . . that is what double entendre means, right?)

Am I still using this ridiculous Textpattern software? Why, yes! I can never remember how to use it when I return after my long absences. Formatting through markup, Jesus Fucking Christ, what is this, 2002? Did someone do a typo in the year?

Hmm, what to report? I read Thomas Pynchon last summer. Turns out, mostly REread. I always thought of myself as having barely cracked the man’s oeuvre, but it turns out I’d already read all but one of his books. And it ALSO turns out his BEST one was, drum roll, the one I omitted. So, I’ll need to reread it—eventually—to achieve parity, as well as to verify that it really is the best one. (I’m talking about Mason & Dixon here, but you know that already, natch, right?) I would also like—eventually—to reread Against the Day (which, to complicate the narrative, is the one I didn’t actually read this summer, since I’d just read it a couple years ago and it didn’t seem necessary this time around, so sue me), and then I’ll have officially read all of Pynchon’s books twice, and top THAT at your next cocktail party, amirite? Except, I never attend cocktail parties . . . in fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to one in my life. Probably never will. Unless this blog really explodes, of course. That makes you an A-Lister, right? When the blog gets rocket boosters? They call it the Big Time where I’m from. “How’s the view from up there?” (That’s what they sarcastically ask, standing right next to you, holding their martinis. And you answer with a placating grimace and sip your own martini and thank Goober that this is just some lame-o laboring class fantasy that’s probably going to conclude with a total whimper of a parenthesis. After all, tomorrow’s Monday.)

What else? Oh, I shall be appearing in another anthology sometime this year! Found that out today. Excellent news, but I swear I was planning this blog article anyway. The Pynchon thing is important enough to merit a bloggy shoutout, don’t you think? I will of course reveal the antho deets when those deets are knowable. Monitor this bat channel for dem ol’ deets, fam.

Ah, and according to the Eibonvale site, their release of my chapbook Furious in the Expanse should occur in “early 2020,” so monitor etcetera, and I will dole out the deets, ontology permitting. (I’m not really 100% comfortable with the definition of that word, but I feel like it’s okay to be on rocky ground when it comes to philosophy because no one else fucking knows what it fucking means either, so they’ll all get a good ol’ fucking chuckle out of it whether it’s witty or fucking not. Plus, when all else fails, “fucking” is just fucking FUNNY. Amirite?)