Anyway, this prompts a lot of thought. And key among the thoughts is the one of where the future will be, if there is a future to be had at all. I have really made extremely little progress in figuring this out for myself. I know I will not be living in Princeton anymore, and I’m pretty sure there are wide swaths of the country I can rule out for either lack of friendship/support or lack of interest in ever being there. Georgia comes to mind. Iowa, maybe. Seattle, a town I’d desperately like to live in someday, is just too far from any close friends. Same goes for anywhere abroad, except maybe parts of Mexico. Though I hear it’s tough to do regular border crossings.

There was a list at some point, though the list sometimes feels too narrow and other times too broad. Two cities have risen near the top, though they both are towns where I have no super-close friends. In one of them, I do have a whole debate team that would be the main source of my sustainability and interest for the year I could spend there, there being New Brunswick, New Jersey. In the other, I know no one, but would be a short jaunt from the Grand Canyon, long established as my spiritual home and epicenter. This one being Flagstaff, Arizona, the town I just told my friends in LA after Kunkel’s wedding would probably be my first choice of places to live if practicality were no object.

It’s by no means exhaustive – there are plenty of other places both west and east that are in contention. And even if they contend for 2010-2011, there’s no telling how much longer I’d stay in the same place. Both New Brunswick and Flagstaff would kind of be project towns. The former being a place to throw myself into debate, hoping to find satisfaction from fulfilling the coaching commitment I already made to a group of exciting and improving youths on the verge of their potential. Probably for just one year at the absolute most, to fulfill the commitment and see this year’s batch of seniors through while still laying the groundwork for a program that will (hopefully) have arrived by that year’s end. Flagstaff would be about me becoming a bit of a Desert Rat, spending maybe up to half the nights outside or in tents as I tried to hike every trail in the Canyon or maybe even embarked on an endless jaunt through the wilderness. To get in shape, to heal myself and restore my faith in the soothing light of the high desert. The same could be done, with more familial support and less natural perfection, in Albuquerque. Maybe – maybe – even somewhere in southeastern California that’s in range of all the friends I have in LA.

In thinking about these choices, it’s become increasingly clear that I will have regrets no matter where I go. And not just in the sense of the decade of regrets I’m only starting to come to grips with in my own head that pertains to the crisis writ large. If I go west, I will forever regret reneging on my commitment to Rutgers, feel bad about leaving the program I was helping to build in the lurch at the outset of arguably their most critical year. I will writhe that the opportunity to work with those kids is another casualty of what Emily has done to me, that the kids I’d be turning my back on would be unwitting victims of her recent rash actions. Conversely, of course, staying east offers numerous challenges to forming new bonds with people. For reasons I have been routinely unable to fully explain to others’ satisfactions, I feel enormously uncomfortable in the east. I find it to be cold (not physically – I like that kind of cold), uninviting, harsh, unwelcoming, and populated with people generally even more emblematically so. The idea of embarking on my most fragile and vulnerable year of existence on Earth in such an unforgiving environment seems almost pathologically stupid. And so I would regret, every time I was sad or lonely or desperate, surrounding myself with the forbidding world of the east instead of the relaxed, warm, and welcoming confines of the American west.

These are not the only factors involved, of course. Proximity to friends and family are huge, and made more complicated by the idea of sort of choosing between friends, or rewarding friends in some de facto sense for being near other friends and thus creating more of a safety-net community. It’s arguable that I shouldn’t try to do anything this year, instead drifting for weeks at a time from one friend to another. This seems bad because of the aimless stasis and limbo it might engender, but also seems safer in some ways and more likely to remind me of how much I have to live for. Not one of these choices is easy.

There’s also the factor of being too much of a dead weight on friends. I’m not saying this so that forty people e-mail me in the next 24 hours and reassure me that they are happy to do whatever they can for me – I already know you all feel that way. And thank you. But at the same time, I can feel the palpable toll that I and this situation are taking on the people that I care about. Anyone I stay with for a while ends up seeming exhausted, drained, and almost annoyed. I get it. It’s human. I am too great a burden to be shoved on any one person right now, or even a collection of people. Folks have to live their own lives, get married, have good times, embrace experiences that are not convincing their friend why there’s a reason to go on. And here again is perhaps the case for New Brunswick or Flagstaff, somewhere that the relationships I rely on day-to-day are tinged with less overall overwhelm at the depths of what I’ve lost. Granted, that may be infeasible – it’s possible that no one will meet me for 3-5 years without immediately being confronted by me as a broken semi-person. I don’t know. But there’s something to be said for forcing me into a situation where I have to form new bonds. There’s also a lot to be said for the idea that I wouldn’t do that even in a town where I knew no one, that I would just draw inward until my very sense of an outside world collapsed entirely.

There are no right answers. Such is the nature of calamity. There may be hope – maybe, I’m not sure – but there are no right answers. And so I continue to spin my wheels in futility, to face my impossible choices and decisions, to try to talk over the repetitive intractability with those who’ll listen. I know how I feel about regions of the world, though, but this isn’t the only factor. And I’m still not sure how I feel about the world at all, and whether it can still be the place for me.

I am trying, as calmly and slowly and rationally and logically as possible (under the circumstances) to figure this shit out.

It’s been emotional. It is utterly clear to me that it was the right decision, though even clearer that the best possible decision would’ve been to come out here on Monday the 19th. I will never get to undo that one, though at least I didn’t make it worse by not flying out here at all.

Still an incredible number of decisions to sift through on my return, including how to try to craft a life for one after living for two for so long. Every assumption, location, and activity is on the table. Options start to narrow in my mind, only to explode again with further thought. It’ll probably take at least a month before I’m anywhere close to a single decision.

Tag, August, you’re it.

Nevertheless, the limit is still sky-high and so she had a few hundred sheets left that expire on 1 July of this year. Today, I decided to use up as many of those as possible, printing a clean single-spaced copy of the most up-to-date versions of ADO and The Best of All Possible Worlds for posterity in case something happens, plus fifty sheets of Duck and Cover blanks in case something doesn’t. It’s always good to be prepared for all foreseeable possibilities.

I am heading to Philadelphia any minute now, then on to the greater LA area to see a bevy of friends and the wedding celebration of David Kunkel. Then finally a week in Albuquerque before returning here briefly only to set out again across the East Coast and then on to Africa. Quite a bit going on in the next few weeks and months, hopefully.

For reference, here’s the Tour image again, still accurate to date:

Feeling generally pretty good. Looking forward to editing TBoAPW, to spending some serious quality time with a lot of friends and family who I don’t see that often. Looking forward to the relaxing, renewing feelings of summer. Looking forward to lots of things.

But as I held the near-ream of paper in my hand, the more than 230,000 words worth of novels I’ve written in the last nine months, I was also looking at now. And for the first time in a long time, feeling good about right now. About the recent past. This feels as much like an arrival as it does a departure.

See you soon.

In any case, the main point of this post is to get you to go off-site, but specifically to two key sites from the women in my life.

The first is my wife’s new blog. Those familiar with past efforts may be the slightest bit cynical, but this is likely to stick since she’s blogging specifically about her upcoming internship in Liberia. Given the massive lack of distractions in Liberia and the overwhelming fascination the trip itself will likely inspire, I’d say it’s going to be a mighty interesting series of posts, assuming the internet stays up. So stay tuned there.

The other site is my mom’s sock doll auction to benefit KUNM, the Albuquerque NPR station. For those of you who’ve seen her adorable sock dolls, this is a chance to get two for the price of whatever the ABQ public deems appropriate while benefiting a good cause! Pretty neat all around.

The blog runs through the end of the summer (at least) and the auction runs through June 6th.

And I’ve gotta run because we’re going to Philly and DC for a whirlwind weekend before Em ships out Wednesday.

And if you want to leave not only this web site, but web sites altogether, may I recommend you head to the Barrow Street Theatre and watch Our Town? Em and I did last night and it was a religious experience. Seriously.

It’s nice to get reminders of this, lest I begin to give in to consternation with any given personal quest or quandary at any given time. Though the below-announced “tour” is not a book-signing tour, yet, or anything of that ilk, it is a hearty reflection of how great my friends are, how many of them I am blessed to be able to see, and how fortunate I am to be in a position to contemplate some serious world travel as well.

Coming off a non-weekend weekend spent with the Philly crew, playing endless Wii Mario Kart and real-life tennis (6-4, 4-6, 6-5* over Fish in a reaffirmation that we are just as evenly matched as we were in the ill-fated Spring 1995 intramurals), I cannot express sufficient excitement about the summer ahead. More than anything, my visit just now was marked with exceptional depth and breadth of conversation, the greatest gift we humans can give those we are personally tied to. To have so many old friends with whom I can converse about such an array of topics at a high level makes me even luckier than I know I am.

*We didn’t do the proper tiebreaker thing because both of us forgot how to score it and we were exhausted already.

It is with this incredible fullness of heart that I announce my complete summer plans – possibly the most ambitious and wide-ranging itinerary I’ve ever undertaken. The “theme” is of course related to the thread that runs through these summer plans, work on my third novel (second this year), The Best of All Possible Worlds. The summer kicks off on the actual first day of summer, which happens to be my deadline, and will take me straight through the week of the first debate tournament of next season. I am preparing to be overwhelmed.

Here we go:

If we haven’t made specific contact about spending time on the tour in the above places and times, please send me an e-mail and we can sort things out. Some of this may be subject to a little tweaking, especially the dates that revolve around driving on the Eastern Seaboard rather than booked plane tickets. I may release an edited draft of this with some of those Eastern cities more specified before it’s all upon me.

Now the focus is making sure I can hit that deadline so everything else is viable.

If you’ve forgotten which country that is, here’s a refresher:

You’re Liberia!
Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, you are free at last. You’ve said this many times in your life, but today you’re really hoping that it sticks. As a child, you ran away from injustice and oppression, only to
find new forms of it as you became older. Despite your many pains and struggles, you have eternally turned a hopeful eye to the future. You have long felt tied to those who first held you down, but their help has been dubious at best. Your favorite book is Roots.
Take the Country Quiz II at the Blue Pyramid

You could even celebrate with a T-shirt.

In all seriousness, though, I’m very excited for her, though not wild about how much of the summer we’ll likely be spending apart. This should fill in the details of my summer pretty quickly, though, which will lead to further announcements before too long. We’re both elated, though, to finally add Africa to our list of continents visited.

She will be working for the Liberian government directly, in their National Capacity Development Unit. More details to follow at some point on what exactly this entails.

April, you seem to be doing your best to make a late save here. I like it.

Click the above to become a fan of this site which, if you’re here, you already enjoy!

This is certainly no reason to join Facebook if you haven’t already, but it will make your enjoyment of the BP a little more streamlined if Facebook is a big part of your life in the status quo. I will be updating every time there’s new content (why did I sign up to do this again?) here, including D&C strips, blog posts, quizzes, updates, and so forth.

Plus, this is clearly the gateway to the long-awaited Blue Pyramid Facebook quizzes, which have been in the works for a long time, but might actually come to fruition once the BP has a fanbase to launch from on Facebook.

If the entire Internet is going to take place on Facebook in the future, the BP might as well be part of the picture. So click away! See you on the ‘book…

1. The Book Quiz II is done, but not being launched yet, because I’m actually being (gasp!) strategic about my webpage for once. Launching the quiz on one of the least Internety days of the year (everyone’s out traveling today) would be a classic Blue Pyramid approach, but I’m thinking that a launch at weekend’s end when everyone’s returned to their computers and are preparing for CyberMonday is actually optimal timing. So you’ll have to wait just a few more days to find out what other book you are. Quick preview, though: I’m apparently Jane Eyre.

2. Fordham went pretty well. I got to debate in a demo round between 4th and 5th round, running an emergency case I’d written about why RNC chair Michael Steele should publicly condemn Sarah Palin. One of our novice teams broke to novice semifinals, then won their semi round, advancing to finals and ultimately finishing second. While it’s not as glorious as being in the varsity outrounds, it shows that I’m probably doing something right that the younger generation is having such success. And it bodes well for the future, which is where it’s at. Taking the long view is a big part of coaching. At the end of the semester (we’ve basically hit the end of the line for tournaments the team can afford), I’d say we’ve exceeded expectations, with a varsity break, a novice break, two novices on the NOTY board, and countless winning records.

3. American Dream On is 105,820 words (~423 pages) and counting, with 14 chapters to be written in the next three weeks. Last night’s session was one of the best, writing a highly anticipated chapter that went even better than I was hoping, I think. I have to review it, but I’m pretty excited. The final push will take the book up to about 125k words or so, but I’m pretty optimistic that I’ll make deadline with other priorities (quiz, debate, etc.) fading out as December 15th approaches. I can’t wait to have people read it, but I’m highly conscious of the need for one solid round of editing before it makes the rounds of the volunteer reading corps. I do think that the palpable excitement of getting it out to people will fuel my energy for making a more prolific than average push to actually hit the deadline, which only further ups the excitement.

4. We got our car back, not having to pay any part of the ~$11,000 worth of damage to the vehicle. It’s pretty sobering that a crash where one’s car receives an out-of-control onslaught while stopped can do damage worth about 40% of the car’s original paid value, but such is the nature of things. So far, all the repair looks good (it’s guaranteed), but it’ll get a nice little workout on the way to DC today. All signs point to it being fully functional, though, so I’m grateful for that (in addition to, you know, surviving the ordeal in the first place).

5. I’m now running late.

Granted, I’m here in this situation now to write books, not really short stories. Though I have been newly inspired to write some stories, they aren’t exactly intended to be my focus. So this success offers a bit of a dilemma – how much do I divert my efforts if the stories keep coming? On the one hand, stories have a lower threshold for publication and indeed may almost be a prerequisite for getting a larger work printed by a significant press. On the other hand, my success in writing books is going to depend on setting a deadline and making it stick. And if my daily 3,500 words are being diverted from longer works to shorter works, it’s going to be hard to keep to the deadline.

All of this is coming at the same time as I contemplate a major overhaul of the Blue Pyramid, both the front page and subsequent pages. I’ve decided, for example, that it’s time for me to have a navigation bar. The BP is suffering its biggest drought of traffic since the quizzes came out, which is hardly surprising in the face of how much I’ve neglected it. And I don’t want this to distract me from any sort of writing, though one can’t be writing 24/7. And I can’t help but think that a traffic revival could only help the general momentum of all my projects – getting my name out there and having something serious and creative to refer people to when they’re asking who the heck I am anyway.

Regardless, I was contemplating all this and wondering what to do about having a possible writing section of the BP linked on the nav bar when I remembered that I once assembled my so-called collected works before. And I was shocked to rediscover that I wrote no fewer than 51 short stories in a 3-year period from September 2003 through August 2006. Fifty-one! Now that’s productivity.

Granted, of course, few were of really sustainable value (other than the process and its incredibly helpful practice in improving my writing – hard to imagine being able to write Loosely Based without that kind of narrative experience behind me) and many of them were outright absurd. Although, it does make me wonder how many plots are retrievable – rarely were the ideas the dealbreaker in the stories so much as the execution. But still, 51 stories while going to school and living a full teenage life. That was some dedication. I really used to be so much cooler than I am now.

So I’m newly inspired as I stare down my tentative deadline of December 15th for American Dream On and contemplate a full slate of stories to compete with its completion. Surely I should be able to outpace my fourteen-year-old self in volume of output. Surely, like anything, enough work input will lead to worthy output.

And speaking of output, if you’re interested in being on the list of potential readers for either stories or the novel when they’re ready, let me know. I sort of threw Loosely Based at most of my close friends at the time it was done, with mixed results. Some of the recipients still haven’t read it. I’d prefer to take a much more measured, opt-in approach to the next stage of my writing life. A few folks have already volunteered through Facebook, which is great. My only request would be that you are completely honest in your readings and that you look on the work as an attempt at art, not an opportunity to try to analyze me or find yourself in my writing. You won’t be there. And I don’t need cheerleading – I need earnest, critical feedback.

Standing in the shadow of my youth, here I go.

Speaking of the move, though, we finally have a rough outline of the six-week trip across the country:

So we’ll be coming soon to a town near you!