A short conversation.

Hey!

Oh, hi. Welcome back.

Thanks!

It's good to see you again.

Yeah. Thanks.

So you...uh...been keeping busy?

No, not so much really.

No?

Well, you know, work. Work is work, right?

Mm-hm.

But nothing, you know, nothing that would really exhaust me, exactly.

Nothing that would keep you away from other things...

Right.

...like your blog, say.

Right.

Still, you haven't been around much.

No. Well, you know what I'm like. Often very up and down. Excited about something one day, bored by it the next. I'm like those annoying kids who can't focus on one game for any longer than about a half an hour. In fact, I was quite a lot like that as a kid...

You're getting sidetracked.

Right. Sorry.

So...what else is new?

Um...I've done a few more cartoons, desperately need to get those posted here. I can't even remember what the last issue of Stick Figure Drama was, but the print version has now seen up to issue #13.

Three months...

There's no stopping me. Heh. Although I'll be taking a short break after this current "story arc" is done (what a brilliantly pompous phrase -- "story arc") to let some guest artists do some work in the Stick Figure Drama world. Although, really, that's more just to fuck with people's heads than anything else. It's not like I need a break from drawing stick people. Although, sometime around week nine or ten, I actually started looking at the art, and trying to take little, tiny, talentless baby-steps towards improving it. God knows why.

Anything else?

We shot the first scene of the movie about...oh, about ten days ago, I guess. Shot it from late afternoon into early evening, just a couple of hours, to get a two minute scene. Three set-ups, about two to three takes each.

How'd it turn out?

I'm still working on that. I spent two evenings putting together a rough edit of it that still needs some tweaking. The video looks a little cold. And it looks like video, as opposed to film. I haven't gone through yet to try out any of the little "tricks" I've read about online to make stuff shot on video look more like film. And the sound is terrible. Really bass-y, and echo-y, and just kind of...thick sounding for lack of a better word. But I think this rough edit of a single two-minute scene looks better than the entirety of the Clockwatcher short that I filmed two years ago, so that's something. Although that might just be because I'm shooting in widescreen.

Anything else worth mentioning?

Ah...no, not really. Um. I bumped into an old friend who was passing through town. We met for coffee. Chatted. He's a writer as well, so there was some mutual comiseration or...does comiserating imply mutuality?

I think it might.

Did I even spell those words right?

Just leave it alone and move on.

Right. Anyway, it was a nice chat. I don't get out very often anymore, so it's nice to have any excuse to get out. And seeing old friends just makes that excuse a little nicer.

So did chatting with a fellow writer help get your off your ass and back onto the blog?

Ah, not so much.

So what was it?

Pink Floyd, I think.

Pink...what are you talking about?

Well, I was listening to...well, actually it was more old Roger Waters stuff -- Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, particularly. It just reminded me of my adolescence, when I'd be locked in my bedroom with my music cranked and I'd just write constantly. Oh, the crap that I would write. Terrible, terrible, unreadable, make your eyes bleed and fall out of your head crap. But I did it all the fucking time. And I just started remembering that, and how important it was, and how it'd been a couple of weeks since I'd written anything -- longer than that since I'd written anything substantial -- besides my column, which after ten years I can almost do in my sleep, sad to say.

And so, with the burning urge to write, you headed to blogger.com and started to work?

Ah, no, actually, I went and read some old Roger Waters interviews.

Oh.

But I knew I was only stalling, so in the end, yeah, I came over to blogger.com. Obviously.

Do you think anyone really cares about this?

No. But I'm kind of having fun doing it, so fuck 'em.

Are you ripping off Tony Pierce right now?

I don't know what you're talking about.

With the whole "conversation with your blog" thing which he does often and, I might add, so, so well.

Is that what I'm doing? Talking to my blog?

You tell me.

I haven't said you're my blog. Neither have you.

Correct.

I could be talking to...I could be talking to anyone, really. I could be talking to my computer. Or some random person online. Or some fictional creation. Or even, I mean, I could just be talking to myself right now.

True.

As schizophrenic as it might seem.

Mm-hm.

Because, I guess, really, at the end of the day, that's exactly what I'm doing right now. Right?

Pretty much, yes. So if you're not stealing from Tony...

Yes?

And this is, essentially...would you say this whole conversation thing is meant to allow you to talk a bit about what's been happening in your life without making a boring post out if?

Um...

Sort of a literary trick, I guess, creating a fake interview kind of situation...

Well...

...which is, I think I should point out, very similar to some stylistic tricks used in "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"...

Oh, for Christ's sake...

...which is a book that you have, on more than one occasion, claimed a fondness for.

Will you shut the fuck up?

I'm just looking out for you.

How's that?

I thought I'd point out all the places where you could be stealing this style from, and acknolwedge them publicly, to disarm those that might accuse you of ripping off those other sources.

Oh.

Like I said, just looking out for you.

Yeah. Thanks.

I must confess, though, this is nearing a point where it will cease to be entertaining.

Agreed.

Any final words?

Well...I noticed in my StatCounter logs that someone on August 23 decided to poke through my entire archives to get all caught up on everything. So, Hi to whoever you are. Anything that makes my statcounter counter spike like it did that day is welcome. Drop me a line and tell me how miserably boring I am. Whoever you are, strange mystery person.

Anything else?

I really, really want a cigarette right now?

How many days since you've had one?

Two...?

Good boy.

Shut up.

Anything else?

Only that this wasn't a very short conversation after all, was it.

No. No it wasn't.