The World Seemed To Shimmer A Little

According To My Daughters, My Most Irritating Habit Is Asking For Cups Of Tea.

You Are Obvious, Boy. You Are Difficult To Miss. If You Came To Me In Company With A Purple Lion, A Green Elephant, And A Scarlet Unicorn Astride Which Was The King Of England In His Royal Robes, I Do Believe That It Is You And You Alone That People Would Stare At, Dismissing The Others As Minor Irrelevancies.

And I Thought, Eight Years Ago, When I Began Carefully Charting The Progress Of American Gods, Nervously Dipping My Toes Into The Waters Of Blogging, Would I Have Imagined A Future In Which, Instead Of Recording The Vicissitudes Of Bringing A Book Into The World, I Would Be Writing About Not-even-interestingly Missing Cups Of Cold Camomile Tea? And I Thought, Yup. Sounds About Right. Happy Eighth Birthday, Blog.

There Are Some Dogs Which, When You Meet Them, Remind You That, Despite Thousands Of Years Of Man-made Evolution, Every Dog Is Still Only Two Meals Away From Being A Wolf. These Dogs Advance Deliberately, Purposefully, The Wilderness Made Flesh, Their Teeth Yellow, Their Breath A-stink, While In The Distance Their Owners Witter, "he's An Old Soppy Really, Just Poke Him If He's A Nuisance," And In The Green Of Their Eyes The Red Campfires Of The Pleistocene Gleam And Flicker.

I Wanted To Be An Author As Far Back As I Can Remember, Mixed With Occasional Bouts Of Wanting To Be A Werewolf When I Grew Up. But Mostly, When I Daydreamed, It Was About Being An Author.