I know what you’re saying, kids: “Gee wiz . . . I love the feel of human skin in my garments, handbags, and accessories, but isn’t there a way to have that fleshy touch without hurting anyone?”

Why yes, my son – there is a company that designs clothes, bags, and accessories out of synthetic human skin.

I have an active and diseased imagination  . . . and I can’t make this stuff up.

Egads!  It’s about time I crawl out of the refuse pile that has become of my room and update.

I’ve been incommunicado lately, spending every waking our to beg my book for the White Wolf Novel Contest complete.  It is done and sent and thanks to those of you who helped with critiques and comments on the work.  The book’s working title is Strangeness in the Proportion: a love story on the other side of entropy.  Hopefully I’ll win, and you’ll all get to see it on the shelves of a bookstore.

What else?  In no particular order:

-I’ve spent the last weekend and half week recouping from those brutal weeks of pumping the novel out.  I ingested massive amounts of caffeine (more than I ever have in my life) and I think it affected me physically.  The last day of writing consisted of about 28 hours at my computer before I finally emailed the product off and collapsed.  I got to spend the weekend away from my freaking house . . . and down in southern IL at Genenda’s new place.  We celebrated her new teaching job, new apartment, and my finished book: mostly we drank, watched movies, and read comic books – combined with being in a change of scene for a few days, was exactly what I needed.

-I’m looking a friend’s script for a short film he’s going to shoot sometime soon – seeing if I can punch it up, writing wise.  It’s a post apocalyptic story.

-I want to do a fiction reading sometime soon, maybe in Chicago . . . we’ll see what I can work out.

-I may need to start looking for a source of income soon . . . gulp.  Maybe the novel contest will come to my rescue and give me the dough to work on getting the epic poem published.  I’ll likely be teaching some writing classes online at UIS come Fall.  Just call me Professor D!

-For my birthday, my Mom got me (kind of as a gag) a complete set of Spiderman bedspread and pillow cases.  The conversation went thus:

Me: “Oh cool. Oh . . . damn . . . ”
Mom: “What is it, honey?”
Me: “I’m never getting laid again . . .”
Mom:  [laughter]

PAX!

I find myself coming back, again and again, to this quote, as time goes on:

“There are three rules for writing the novel.  Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

-W. Somerset Maugham

My Dad’s been reading my stuff the last week or so (from my thesis and some of the early-draft chapters of the new novel).  He said to me, “You’re either some sort of genius . . . or you’re totally insane.  Where does this stuff come from?”

Mostly, it comes from my head.

Jokingly, looking at the fallen angels and voodoo verses of the epic, he said, “All those years of good, Catholic school upbringing and where did it go?”

I told him it all went into a dark epic poem.

With email from my advisor . . . my thesis is officially DONE!

Dear Josh,

I have the minutes–they are fine!

I’ll call the Dean’s Office as soon as it opens–in another hour–to release all of your paper work–you are done! 

Read part of your thesis to Jim–and I cried–because of your characters and because I am so proud of your writing–hurray!

Get well–don’t call–keep writing–I’ll email again after I’ve reached the Dean’s Office!

DO take care of yourself!

-nancy  

Who can combine morbid and technical forensic pathological jargon with romantic poetry?

THIS guy!

It’s 3:17 a.m.

You bleed bad metaphors stained with coffee.

It’s 3:21 a.m.

You bask in the twilight-laughter of a black-light.

You bleed black fountain ink; stain your leather-bound journal with coffee.

It’s 3:26 a.m.

You wonder what magazines a vegetarian-cannibal would have in the bathroom.  Does he drive a hybrid?  Is there room for the bodies?

You stain the enamel-bone-shards, smiling in your mouth, with coffee.

You don’t have whitening toothpaste.

It’s 3:29 a.m.

You think of the past.

You think in the present tense.

You think in the ultra-fly-screw-and-die-in-24-present tense.

You have revelations – like a goofy/reverse translation of your name is “German Jesus”.

You stain your shirt with coffee.

Fuck

The artist, Kristoffer “Razorback” Frisk, emailed me back and said I had his blessings to use his work, “Fallen Angel”, on my book cover (so long as it wasn’t a commercial venture, and wished me luck.  Check out his portfolio on his webpage http://clik.to/razorback (the website menu is chained to the angel/demon pic).

Below are a couple of images of his I really liked:

It’s been a long, draining day, full of insomnia problems, crushing financial concerns, magic show problems, and worries about not getting this novel contest completed in time. I’m feeling just depressed enough to finally get to sleep.