GET OUT YOUR PENS AND PENCILS, THIS IS A FREE WRITING EXERCISE

Hello blogspotters!... I thought I'd look for an excuse to put up a
post so you wouldn't have to keep being greeted by the MacBook Air
(agreed, friendly commenters - it's pretty but it's also pretty much
not what I would buy if I had eighteen hundred dollars begging to be
spent).

(although kudos to you early adopters)

(and I'm sure if I had enough loose change, I would join you)

What am I up to? I'm at the airport.

Why am I writing to you from my phone in an airport? Because I slept
through my alarm, found a later flight, and will be sitting at Gate D2
for the next five hours. Sweet Chicago home, here I come. Eventually.

In the meantime, I thought we could keep each other company! (the
"you" in this particular "we" can be a passive one).

Let me catch you up. And by catch up, I mean "type whatever comes into
my head until I can't think of anything else."

(can you tell I'm typing from my phone? there's less editing and more
asides - like this one - more parentheses and quotes)

(I will work on this)

(starting now)

I've skipped out on enough of the northern winter and am heading back
to single digit degrees. I'm also heading back to all things Anathallo
- WE'RE GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER!! - and that sounds really
great to me. I was thinking about it last night... but I don't know if
we've taken this long of a break in half a decade. Intense, maybe? But
if there was ever a time to get away, get our minds right, it was now.
I'm so excited to see everyone. And to be headed to the UK. And SXSW
in the spring (South by Southwest, for those of you abbreviatedly
disinclined). And to be heading out with _______ (maybe!) a little bit
afterwards. Hopefully we can fill in that blank for you soon enough.

But right. This all feels good. It's been important to me to get my
bearings again, to feel sorted out. The record is coming out soon,
we'll be touring, and I think this whole go-around will be more
enjoyable because we were able to catch our (collective) breath.

Why haven't I been posting? No, I didn't trade you all in for Madden
football (my ranking reached 50, I put down the controller, and that
was it). No, I have been writing but nothing has been coming out
right. One post, especially, was just entirely too sentimental. Maybe
if i can fix it I'll put it up this week. If you go to Manchester's
myspace and read their post about our UK tour... well. What Andy wrote
was just entirely... it was very nice. Look at me -still - it's been a
week and all I can manage is "it was very nice."

It meant a lot. If I can manage more, I'll be sure to post.

I'm also still waiting a couple days to put up Cloverfield thoughts.
If you're going to see it, the less context the better.

What else, what else... If anyone else was watching the debate (Josh?)
on Monday, I'm sure you can imagine. I was literally out of my seat. I
don't think I had ever seen anything like it (maybe when I get to a
computer, I can link and youtube everything I'm writing about)... the
first fifteen minutes were out of control and from everything I can
find online, you pretty much came out of it feeling stronger about
your candidate. Depending on your favorite senator, you could make a
case for each winning. Except Hillary. JUST KIDDING. I suppose the
narrative can only be written once the votes are cast and there's a
winner. Then we can figure out what it all meant. It was just wild,
though.

And Heath Ledger, of course. But there, too... I have nothing to add.
It's sad and it's sad that my response is mainly abstract. I think
that's why I have nothing to say... I don't want to follow this story
with a strange sense of... I don't know how to put it. I don't want to
treat it like a story. A macabre form of entertainment. I want to
leave it as sad.

I don't know if that makes sense.

Okay. On that, I'm going to think I'll end this (strange little)
airport update. There's a chic-fil-a around and I'm pretty sure that's
the finest southern meal I could hope to leave on.

And if anything else exciting happens here in the next three hours,
I'll be sure to let you know.

:-)

EMOTICON!!

Bye!