Anne just told me this:

"Last night, I walked down the hallway, past Nolan’s room. I looked in, and saw that he was in his bed, with the light off, snuggled up next to Riley [who sleeps on his bed — all 47 pounds of her.]

"I said, ‘Hey, pookie, are you going to sleep?’

"He looked up at me, and said, ‘No, mom, I’m just layin’ here.’ He paused for a second and added,  ‘Here’s your sign.’"

I’m still laughing.

I finished work on the chapbook last night, and as soon as I get an illustration from Ben (who did all the art for Dancing Barefoot), it’s going to a local print shop. I doubt I’ll have it on Friday, but I will have it at the convention on Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and I gave it a title. It’s called "More Than This."

I spent the first half of today working on Games of our Lives, then had an epiphany (to be discussed on today’s RFB) that lead me to write a fictional short story called Language Barrier.

It’s with my editor, but I have a little excerpt which I can share now:

I became aware of voices behind me. Two women. They spoke with heavy Russian accents.

"Martina," one of them said, "you don’t understand. He пребывания вне поздно, никогда не выбирают вверх после себя, and doesn’t even know me!" 

"Sophia, вы возбужены –" She was older than the first.

"I am not excited, and don’t talk to me like I am a child. Будете вы моим другом или не?"

"Of course I’m your friend. And of course I want you to be happy –"

"So why won’t you support me?"

An Escalade pulled up in front of the restaurant, bass thumping, temporarily turning the window into a mirror. I caught a glimpse of their reflection: Martina, the older one, faced away from me. Her hair was huge and processed. She wore a light colored top. Sophia, younger, had black hair and pale skin. The Escalade drove away and I squinted my eyes against the midday sun. I looked down at the tan line on my left hand. Two months and it still hadn’t gone away. Two months and I still felt bitter, when I didn’t feel numb. Two months and I was alone in a restaurant, fantasizing about fucking a girl I hadn’t even seen, based on her sexy Russian accent.

More to come . . .

I‘m working like crazy on this chapbook, so it’s been a day of intense output, with Real Jazz on XM to provide me some inspiring input. I’ve narrowed it down to three stories across about 17 pages, and it’s going to be pretty damn cool, even if I say so myself.

Jesusmotherallahbuddha, I really need to get out of the house, and stretch my legs and my brains. Just walking the dogs around the block between thunderstorms isn’t doing it for me. I’m going nuts here.

I really need to get the hell out of suburbia, man. I think there’s a trip up to Lucky Baldwin’s in my very near future, so if you see a guy sitting at the end of the bar surrounded by empty glasses which were formerly pints of Guinness, scribbling like mad in a Molskine notebook, approach with caution (or with another pint.)

To take a little break tonight, though, I’m playing in my weekly WWdN game at PokerStars. It starts in 20 minutes, so if you’re interested in goofing off with some poker nerds and me (redundant redundant) fire up the client and go to Tourneys -> Private and look for WWdN #17.

Speaking of PokerStars, my friends from the marketing department sent me a TON of hats, T-shirts, and cool ‘Stars schwag to give away at the convention this weekend.

Ryan and I keep quoting this line from Family Guy: "And I, uh, thought that dogs, uh, laid eggs. So, so, so I, uh, I learned something today."

and

"Hey! Where’s my money?!"

Okay, back to work for fifteen minutes, then it’s poker time.