Like yesterday, when I wrote that there would be a number of image type files posted in relation to said party on Saturday. What I actually meant was that, possibly, in some alternate universe such an event might occur.

In my defense (because the other thing I can certainly be counted upon is, after breaking my word, having a lot of excuses) I was working on novel # 2 most of the night. I have to turn in pages for my workshop class tomorrow. So, you know…

Plans are coming together for another installment of Random Acts of Insightfulness. Please feel free to anticipate this to your heart’s content.

I would also like to point out that Gilgrim’s Grand Gallery of Gratuitous Graphicy-style Goodness is once again “up” for your perusal.

And one last point today. It being April 1st, it is a certain person’s birthday. I will not, however, mention this person by name, nor wish him a “happy day of birth” until he can pull himself away from his damn Civ II for 3 stinkin’ minutes! I’m just sayin, for a network admin, he exhibits a serious lack of internetz wherewithal…or laziness.

There is a new poll up in The Polling Place if you feel like clicking some boxes and then a button…I mean, what else are you doing right now?

Is one way to describe my current state.

I’m on my second iced venti latte, and unlike the first one that I had at 6 AM, this second iteration was made with FIVE shot of espresso (instead of the standard three). I am only about halfway through it and I am already starting to feel…weird…odd…jumpy…slightly paranoid…

April 15th - 17th will bring the &Now Festival to the campus of Chapman University. What is &Now you ask? Well, official website of &Now 2008, how would you answer that question?

&NOW is a biannual gathering for authors and critics of contemporary, innovative literature and art, including fiction, poetry, e-writing, visually-driven writing, and other kinds of mixed and indeterminate genres.

Basically, writers, artists and critics will gather for three days and read, lecture, discuss, etc. If you happen to be in/around Orange CA, then you may want to take a look at the schedule of events.

Now as all Normalinauts know, Chapman is where I am currently pursuing two (semi-worthless) graduate degrees. For some reason (my guess is a mixture of apathy and obliviousness) I did not find out about said “festivities” until, literally, last night when I discovered that fully half of my current workshop class will be participating in readings over the course of the three days. Well, good for my classmates…bad for Kilian…

Now that I am informed about the whole “festival” I would like to highlight a few specific events. First off, James P Blaylock and Alicia Kozameh will be reading a on the 17th as part of a group entitled “Sexual Stealing; Skin; Fabulous; Exile/Home/Immortality.” I had the opportunity to hear Kozameh read last year and I highly recommend seeing her if you get a chance. And, of course, we are all aware that James Blaylock is considered a good friend of Normality Restored. In Blaylock’s own words, he will be reading a “short story that I wrote.” So, that’s a fairly glowing recommendation, I think. Also, David Antin will be the closing speaker on the final day of the event, for all you poetically minded out there.

And, as I mentioned, several Chapman students will be reading throughout the event. While I can’t speak to every student reading, I can suggest that, if you happen to attend, you might want to make a point of hearing Cruz Medina, and Daniel Schutz on the 15th, Ryan Wirick on the 16th, and Danielle Soucy, Nidzara Pecenkovic, and Jazmine Green on the 17th.

Of course, my inability to realize such an event was taking place at my very own school means that no one will be graced with a reading by yours truly. Though, even if I had submitted something for consideration, my guess is that I would have been told in no uncertain terms, “thanks but no!”

Today is a day of two very different stories…

Here’s a nice story:

Sometime, I believe it was early afternoon, on Wednesday I recieved a text message from gilgrim saying that he and APril were on the way to the hospital. A bit later a second text message came in, saying that, no they weren’t headed to the hospital, that gilgrim was an idiot, and all further text messages would be approved by APril (as a sidenote, I didn’t actually receive these until Thursday, but that’s another story…).

The wife told me earlier on the phone that she recieved a text stating that while pre-labor has been going on since Wednesday, the actual post-pre-labor…or labor, if you will…hadn’t yet started. So at some point soon (hopefully today) we’ll get to welcome Salem into this confusing/exhilarating place we call “the world.”

Here’s one that is (I believe) less nice:

The daughter has had, essentially, a non-stop ear infection since right around her first birthday. Today she is 20 months old and the whole family (well, the wife and I) got to wake up at 3:30 to head down to the hospital (we had to be there at 5) so that the kid could get tubes put in her ears. The placing of tubes in ears is, I’m told, the most common (in this country, at least) surgical procedure performed on children under the age of 7. The whole thing took less then five minutes. Well, that’s great, and hopefully there is no permanent ear damage to the kid. The doctor said she already had some scar tissue in there, but he didn’t anticipate it would cause her any problems later in life.

So that’s not bad, really, so much as annoying to wake up that early. Of course, I also got into work late, and while my hour drive home is never appealing, it is even less so at 6 pm. Again, still just annoying. But today’s fun doesn’t stop there, oh no! The wife called a few hours ago to tell me that there was a swarm of gnat like bugs flying around our porch, and that some had gotten in the house. I’ll not bore you with the details, so…WE HAVE FUCKING TERMITES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just yesterday we had a very nice gentleman come out to the house to give us an estimate on some work we wanted done to the house, and we’ve been researching what vacation we might take this summer. All possible because of the nice tax return we got this year…guess what…no home improvement or vacation for us, oh on….BECAUSE WE HAVE FUCKING TERMITES!

Can you tell I’m a bit upset?

And you know, I had planned on writing two very good posts today. They were totally informative and engaging and covered topics important to my readers…or not, whatever…