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The Four Day Getaway

It’s been a scandalous four days since I’ve posted here. That feels like far too long, but I do have a good reason — or rather, a set of reasons, some better (and more painful) than others — for the negligence. I’ll explain myself and ask for the mercy of the court, in the form of a short day-by-day update and exciting weekend recap. Starting with:

Wednesday: The first excuse is always the best, and on the first day I actually wrote something. The owner of a new story collection website contacted me — and several hundred thousand of his closest friends and random internet strangers, no doubt — to have a look at his site. I did, and decided to submit a reworking of an old tale I posted here a while back. As I explained to him, it’s:

“…an experience that had a profound and lasting experience on me — a tale of intrigue, deception and betrayal. And graphite.”

“The weekend has been a different animal altogether. “

If he’s good enough to include it in the collection, I’ll have proof of my not-slacking off on Wednesday soon enough. Stay tuned, pencil fans.

Thursday: On Thursday, I did no writing. But I did talk comedy shop for a few hours with my friend Jenn. Who apparently has something against garden gnomes, which is understandable. They look like little shrunken Santa Clauses, without the presents, or the reindeer. Or the cold-weather gear. Kind of creepy in my book, too.

Jenn also reported that the hilarious Mug of Woe book will be hitting stores soon. There’s a release party scheduled for us in a couple of weeks, and an actual, honest-to-god physical copy of the book that exists now.

I have to say, if this is all a devious and elaborate ruse just to make me think I’ve had a story accepted in a printed book, Jenn’s really gone all-out for the gag. It’s just possible that the thing’s really going to press. And Amazon. And from what I learned on Friday, Kindle. Good stuff.

By the end of the evening, we’d moved on from discussing practical matters concerning viable and current projects, and devolved into some kind of threat involving a transvestite pig wearing fishnet stockings. And possibly singing numbers from the Rocky Horror soundtrack. This is not especially unusual.

Highly disturbing. But not unusual.

Friday: The weekend has been a different animal altogether.

(And thank goodness, if we’re still talking about the cross-dressing pork chop.)

On Friday, the missus and I slipped out of work a bit early and headed south to Cape Cod. Some friends of ours have a house down Cape way, and we decided to get away for a “relaxing weekend”. Lounging. Eating. Couple of beers. Maybe some light walking. Relaxing.

So naturally, the host and I find ourselves sitting on his deck at 4:30 in the morning, drinking beer and debating nothing in particular for the five-and-a-half hours since the sane people have gone to bed. And I find him saying:

“Hey, the sun’s coming up. Let’s get another beer, and go fishing.”

And he finds me saying, inexplicably: “Sure. Why not?”

Now, I’ll be honest. I’m not a complete stranger to the region of three or fourish in the morning, and staying up for one dubious reason or another from the night before. And I’ve occasionally had some sort of conversation at that time of day with whoever had been caught in the maelstrom with me. But those discussions are usually along the lines of:

“I’ve got to get some sleep.”

Or: “Man, this is going to hurt tomorrow.”

Or possibly: “Hey, whose pants are these, anyway?”

But never: “If you grab the rods, I’ll go find the waders.”

Never before Saturday morning around sunrise, anyway. And if I’m lucky? Never again.

(Predictably, we didn’t catch anything. I haven’t fished in probably twenty years, and lost a lure to the ocean on a spectacularly bad cast.

So while no fishes were harmed during this wacky episode, we did manage to litter up their habitat a little. I’d call that a ‘draw’.)

Saturday: I got to bed a few minutes before seven am. We missed by mere minutes the early-to-bed crew getting up for breakfast and biking and backstroking around the Cape — or whatever the hell it is morning people on vacation do. I slept until maybe two in the afternoon, and was in no shape, mood or position to write anything for the rest of the day. Or speak or communicate in much of any way, come to think of it

(I did use something that could be considered ‘sign language’ around noon, when my wife came into the bedroom and gave me the “Wake up, sleepyhead!” routine. But I only used one hand — and just the one finger — so I’m not sure it counts.

It’ll probably cost me. But I’m not sure it counts.)

On the bright side, I managed to play bocce on the lawn later in the evening, so some of the old motor skills had apparently returned. Unless you ask the deck table I knocked over, or the fence slat I need to repair before I leave, or the squirrel minding his own business behind an azalea bush when I nearly bowled him into the street.

Things will hopefully return to some level of normalcy soon. In the meantime, in case you were wondering if I’d died, I just wanted you to know:

No.

Almost, from laughing.

Nearly, from sleep deprivation and stupidity.

And no, but I wished for death for most of the day.

So there you go. Update complete. I’m going back to bed. Ciao.