Catchup

Cross the Kansas state line and the first thing you see, looming out of the dark, is the billboard proclaiming: 'EVOLUTION IS A FAIRY TALE FOR GROWNUPS.' This was two weeks ago, an adventure to the heartland to see E. - a weekend involving some of the best BBQ I've ever had (burnt ends on open-face bread, in a tiny linoleum-and-flourescent joint with yellowing celebrity photos on the wall and register-mistress with gold front teeth), a bit of medical intervention on a barely-alive fish, a hot tub, miraculously preserved artifacts from the 19th century, and a mildly terrifying sojourn through Ivanhoe, a little slice of Mogadishu in smack-dab in the middle of Missouri.

I've been back for awhile, but busy. M. and I are currently chewing away at a screenplay, a romantic comedy. We write nights and email the pages back and forth, then spend downtime at work picking over each others' copy. At the same time, also working on the book, which I'm trying to make as dark and gritty as possible; and shifting between these two modes - light and breezy, Peckinpah-on-a-bad-day - often several times a night, induces a kind of mental whiplash. Thankfully, I have the attention span of a ferret on crystal meth. And other than that, ghost-writing a few pieces for Big Shots who don't have time to churn out their own copy, and becoming cynically insurgent over the job.