Pub Daaaaay!!!

The landscape of my interior life is littered with ideas. Notably, it's a bit harder to find execution amongst the dreamer's detritus within. But in at least one way, that changes today. 

I am super-thrilled to announce that today my book, The Adventures of JoJo The Small Town Hound: Vol. 1, Leesburg, VA and the Curious Case of Dog Money, is live in the world, available on Amazon.com for your enjoyment. Or that of your 7-10 year-old friends, more accurately.

The whole thing has been a fascinating experience, and I think the thing that's most fulfilling is the fact that I actually did something I'd envisioned. Only took 53+ years. Here's to the next one.

Small Town Hound: An Update

When we last checked in on my children's book writing process, Dave gave me some excellent ideas. If I were writing a crypto-socio exploration of the oppression of dogs. I considered his advice and proceeded accordingly. 

Today's post is a brief check-in to let you know where we are. And where we are is surprisingly close to actually having a book. Those aware of my predilection for procrastination and warehouse of ideas that never got to the next step might be surprised by that fact. Heck, I'm kinda surprised by that fact. I think the difference in this case is that I'm working with someone else to make the book a reality, and while it's easy for me to quit on myself, it's a lot harder when there's another person to let down. 

In this case, that person is an illustrator and graphic artist named Jessica. You can see some of her work here. She's a talented artist, and as importantly, she's a detail-oriented project manager, which has kept me on track. 

And so we're gonna have a book ready to print in about two weeks. Gulp and zoinks. The next step is to figure out whether to self-publish/self-print or go through Amazon to fulfill. I'm hoping some of the shops here in my little town would be interested in retailing the book, so I think I want to figure out how to get at least an initial run printed, so if y'all know anyone who knows about this sort of thing (kinda looking at you, Rootsy) I'd be much obliged.

For now, here's a preview of the cover for your viewing enjoyment.

Gheorghasbord

Whittling some metaphorical sticks while avoiding grappling with the issues of our time. Here's what's rattling through the aging brain.

Watched a bit of Federer/Dimitrov last night, an evening after watching Nadal play Maren Cilic. I texted Zman on Monday wondering how Nadal's body doesn't simply explode from the force he applies to his strokes. Lots of HGH, according to our expert. Nadal is 33 years old, Federer a preposterous 38. The Swiss star looked every one of those years last night, fading badly over the final two sets to lose his quarterfinal match to the journeyman Bulgarian. The Flushing Meadows crowd was visibly upset at the champion's wilting. He's defied time for an amazingly long stretch. Perhaps time's caught up. Fed's always had a pretty good perspective on his career, and he seems to understand what's important, saying post-match, “I’m looking forward to family time and all that stuff. So life’s all right.”

Life's all right, indeed.

My dog, thinking deep
thoughts. Right before
rolling in dead fish guts.

All right for me and the fam, too, which is a blessing. We spent last weekend at friends' river house at the confluence of the Rappahannock River and the Chesapeake Bay. Many of you know that we adopted a puppy a few months ago. This weekend was her first chance to really cut loose off the leash. Between the various families at the house, there were a total of five dogs. It was bedlam from breakfast to bedtime. There's a little salt pond on one side of the house, and our puppy, JoJo, discovered how much she loves water. There may be no return. Hard to imagine how much we love this goofy spaz that only entered our life in June.

Speaking of goofy spazzes, check out Charlie Slowes' call of Kurt Suzuki's walkoff homer from last night's Mets/Nationals game. As Whit noted in the comments from the previous post, the Mets blew a 10-4, 9th inning lead, giving up seven runs in the bottom of the 9th to lose 11-10. Thomas Boswell says it's one of the 20 worst losses in the long history of Major League Baseball. Ouch, babe.

The radio call of Kurt Suzuki's #WALKOFF home run is the song of the summer.@CharlieSlowes // @DaveJageler pic.twitter.com/bOavak1BxI

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 4, 2019

Moving along, please fasten your seatbelts, because the jarring disconnect between the last nugget and the next may cause injury.

I've been reading the New York Times' epic 1619 Project, which traces the history of slavery in America from its beginning to its undeniable impacts on our present day society. The project is comprised of a series of stories on a broad range of topics, from the actual mechanics of slavery, to enslaved people's impacts on music and art, to how slavery explains Atlanta's current fucked-up traffic patterns, among many things. It's unsparing, and it's hard to read. Predictably, elements of our intelligentsia call it leftist propaganda, probably without having read any of it. Regardless, it's important, and more of those of us who live comfortable lives free from ever having to personally confront what it's like to be the other should try to digest it. Slavery colors our world today, whether we try to deny it.

A little bit more whiplash to end these meanderings. Someone on Twitter posted yesterday that the President* stands like he's a centaur whose missing his hind legs and now I can't unsee that image. Here for your viewing pleasure.