Wild blue yonder, here we come.

I stand now at a mere fraction of an hour away from being On The Road, ready for Swampstockin'. And I'm not even taking near the insane amount of stuff I'm usually inclined to, though Stacy might disagree. (The klong yaw's always an awkward fit. It's hard to travel light with a good-sized klong yaw.) And I'm doing the World Premiers of two, not one but two, brand-new songs. Well, sort of new anyway. Newly completed, like.

I wonder if, as we approach the WV border, I'll be able to not think of Rose's line from GOOD INTENTIONS: "Don'cha see, John? It's you what makes 'em bad."

Anyway, it's off and away with me to the Land of Summer's Twilight. Back in four to the mundane world.

Happy, happy! We are on for the all-weekend Swampstock, after only a little wrangling. That's two, count 'em, two four-day weeks on the heels of each other. Whatever shall I do with myself? Otter dance of exultation and joy!

But no Tony this year. Bummer bummer bummer. He says he will definitely absolutely make next year, for the 10th anniversary. He'd better. It won't be the same without those groovy prog licks on "Master van Rijn." Profound sigh. Otter dance of melancholy and resignation.

AND I get to deal with this whole pimping situation, which there's just no way I seem to be able to come off looking good in. I don't think that angle occured to me back when it seemed like a good idea to introduce single friends to each other. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for chemistry anyway, or at least alchemy. Who knows - maybe a furry hat with ostrich feathers will turn out to be my thing.

During some fit of literary masochism, seeing as I just don't have enough books I'm about halfway through, I started PERDIDO STREET STATION the other night, and I'll tell you what - that China Mieville is one twisted dude. I think it was the bizarre eroticization of the bug-headed chick that tipped me off. Damn fine book so far, though. I needed a break from wanking the hell all over NOBILIS anyway.

Er, back to work now.

A moment of contemplative vainglory, imagining myself in a future as a famous author, and having it be revealed that once I wrote an instruction manual for the document imaging system for the George Washington University. Chaos ensues as mad fans pursue the elusive monograph, which may or may not still be extant. A dubious copy sells for upwards of $100 on the internet. Soon enough it becomes part of the general legendry surrounding me, with much debate over whether or not the manual is apocryphal, and I, secluded in my cabin in Massachusetts, carefully avoiding either confirming or denying the rumors in interviews. The mystery will be unsolved even with my passing.

Well, come on. Wouldn't we all go nuts to hear that Neil Gaiman in his youth wrote, say, a programming textbook? Wouldn't copies suddenly appear on Ebay and be fought furiously over? Stranger things have happened.

A fellow can dream.

Last night, despite rainy dreariness and some marginally dodgy sesame chicken from Wok Gourmet, proved fairly productive; I got in a few hours of work on the Ligottiesque story suggested by the recent TLO discourse, and pondered the future of Jenny Haniver, Orwn Dvarra and a handful of like creations. All was well. I find it's quite useful to have the thumbnail-size version of the Jenny Haniver portrait Spyder did for me (which even at that scale has personality in spades) staring up at me from below the monitor with that sardonic look in her eye, the panatella at the corner of her mouth trailing blue smoke, looking as if she's about to say, "Okay, genius, time to put down the iced chai and start typing." Brilliant. Thanks, Spyder.

Solitude helps. Or at least it allows me to play Current 93 with no fear of offense. THUNDER PERFECT MIND is every bit as good an album as they say. Boy, was I grooving on "Hitler as Kalki" for the trippy stuff last night.

All this while Stacy is off learning the fine art of editing, which I think she's better at than she gives herself credit for. Bit of a double-edged sword though. I don't think I can hand her something I've written ever again without feeling like I'm eight and showing off my first Tolkien pastiche. "Oooh, Johnny, very nice. And do you think you'd like to become a writer someday?" Gaaahh.

And now the frelling AC's on the fritz again. Any more of this and it really will be funny. In a desperate, black-humor, defeated-by-inanimate-objects Ionesco kind of way.

I do enjoy having the place to myself once a week. Last weekend was very therapeutic, having lots of me-space for a few days. Got to watch odd movies, read CORALINE and NOBILIS and the new LUCIFER, and discover a recipe for Beef in Oyster Sauce (which could be summed up as, "Cut up some beef and vegetables. Cook the beef and stir-fry it with the vegetables. Open a bottle of oyster sauce and pour it all over that motherfucker." Pragmatic folk, the Chinese).

But I hear tell I very nearly got a visit from my brother, and that would've been good too. I'm easy to please. Especially when it's for someone for whom "straightening up" means "make sure there's at least one clean glass and try and remember to shove the porn under the couch." So dammit, Tony, next time just show up.

Which reminds me, I need to practice "Ziggy Stardust" for Swampstock in a couple of weeks. A bit sad about probably having an abbreviated stay this year, but duty calls, so what the fuck. That's a day or two I can spend getting in some quality slack this fall.

That's all I got for now. More as I think of it.

Well.

I've been reminded recently that I haven't exactly been keeping up with this lately. (I haven't kept up with my haiku journal, either, if that makes any difference.) Fair enough. I suppose six months (!!) is quite enough of a hiatus, or sabbatical, for anyone.

So I managed to shake the funk afflicting my writing that hung around all winter, and produced a handful of stories I'm fairly proud of. Nothing up on the site yet, but, hell, there's only so much time in the day.

Not much else to add here, except that I'm back. The public may now rejoice.