This week is, of course, Halloween-- our tribute to the old Celtic festival Samhain, and the appropriate time for the professions of nurse/doctor/army chick/hobbit to suddenly become intensely "sexy." A lot of you may be asking, "Kev, what particularly hilarious costume have you come up with for the festivities on ol' Hallow's Eve?" and I would reply, "Oh God, I still have no idea, why do you keep bringing this up at such inappropriate times?" Then I would Facebook message you later bc I felt guilty about the way I spoke to you.

Writing is important, friendz, and indeed the lifeline that separates this blog from, say, a blog dedicated to LOLCATZ, but the book re-writes are moving in slow and mysterious ways. Would you believe I still haven't printed out a copy of my book to read through for the re-writes? Would you consider that I thought about saying that I had, because I felt so guilty that I was letting you down? Do you see what our relationship is doing to me?

I want to say it's not my fault, but that's obviously not true-- it's quite obviously my fault, but I caught a particularly busy week at work last week, my boss was in to-- blah, blah, excuses, excuses, etc. That is the issue. It is so easy to make excuses. See? I just did it earlier, but the issue is, nobody but yourself cares, or notices... the only thing that'll change when I don't get my own writing in is my likely my mood, which'll go from light and fantastically high-spirited to dark, and close-mindedly eager to consume six packets of Swiss Miss hot chocolate (w marshmallows!) using milk instead of water. This will have to improve if I have any hope of being able to make one sided small talk with Jodi Picoult (when I inevitably run into her in the dried fruit section of Trader Joes) beyond:

"Remember when we had a column next to each other for six months or so? Crazy right??"
"Ummm... you don't by any chance want to purchase four million copies of my book? Ha! No, I mean, of course I was kidding..."
"Oh, well, that depends on what you mean by 'published'..."
"Yeah, that does make it kind of difficult. I mean, I could send it to you in PDF..."
"Oh, no, totally, I know, this has been quite an economic downturn. Maybe we should just exchange emails and I'll shoot it over to you..."
"Ok... so you're saying I just send it to: jodip@TheInternet? No dot com or dot org or anything? And that synchs up with your iPhone?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't even realize my body was blocking the exit! Anyway, it was so good to see you again! And not to be annoying but can you get it published and sold before Friday-- I've got to go to this Halloween thing, and I want to casually slip that into conversation..."
"No, Jodi. I have no idea what I'm dressing up as."

Wow. That really went much longer than expected. Jodi is quite the talker. Comments should include costume ideaz, deep thoughtz, and your honest opinion of Seven Layer "Magic" Barz. Feel free to make me feel tiny if it makes you feel tall.

There's Always Someone,
Cooler Than You

Ben Folds

Friends--a little ways back I made reference to how impossible it was to jump back into something after you've been away from it for so long, and I made a sweepingly clever reference to starting to run, and then eventually training for a marathon. That all seemed well and good when I was just writing about the idea of getting back into something, but in actual practice, I kind of hate it.

Who are these characters I wrote about? Jumping back into this was like having lived in Denmark for eight years, leaving for twenty, and trying to come back and enter a Danish spelling bee... things sounded vaguely familiar and I could remember what the main point of whatever I was trying to do was, but sub-points were lost on me, and small, less influential characters bounced off my brain like small, inexpensive Superballs. So I guess what I'm trying to say is: I can't write right now. I need to go back and read the entire book-- a briefly daunting task, but probably necessary seeing how I did write it-- and then make notes of where things need to change. And I need to print the book out, another daunting task in the age of interweb, and something I will inevitably do at my father's house.

So the best way that I can rationalize things in the age of rationalization is by saying that at least I know where I need to start, and I know what I need to do, and my fresh eyes will probably wreak editing havoc on the weakest links within my book, destroying them, and making them flee their homes where they have complacently sat in rent-controlled comfort due to my lazy managing of the space.

Please tell me you fared better or at least fared in an exactly parallel manner, giving us something to talk about waiting in line for drinkz during the Comments reception.

Scenic,
World

Beirut 

Friends--I've spent much of the last week in the girlish splendor of NorCal, out at Stanford's homecoming-- a school I didn't attend--  appropriating much more than my standard allotment of Vitamin D and feeling insanely jealous of the people that managed to trick, steal, or academically impress their way onto this campus. Moving aside the fact that I would've never been able to get in, I am 86% sure I should've gone here.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad while visiting my friend Frank at UVA Law School.
Me: Dad, UVA is ridiculously gorgeous! The senior quad has all these singles and they've each got their own firewood and Thomas Jefferson built the whole school by himself with, like, three oxen, George Washington's cherry tree axe, and--
Dad: Yes, Kevin, it is a nice school. What's your point?
Me: My point is that I probably should've gone here.
Dad: Well... if it makes you feel any better, you probably couldn't have gotten into any programs there, undergrad or grad!
Me: That...that doesn't make me feel any better. Actually that makes me fe--
Dad: I love you too son.
(Hangs up)

The good news is, I don't think about these things at all. Pushing past my inferior academic achievements, I want to talk about my book. Do you remember my book? I called it my thesis, and complained about it incessantly? It was, like, 300 pages, 220 of which weren't that bad? No?  Well, start paying attention, bc it's time to bring that sucker back out and finish up the last re-writes that my pseudo-agent-friend bugged me about twice before mentally writing me off as someone who'll never actually finish anything, which is ridiculous... Because I did finish! I defended it as my thesis! And got critiqued! And felt really overwhelmed with the work I had to do! And then I got a steady job, took on several mag stories, and pushed it to the back quadrant of my mind, the place where I keep the Red Sox starting lineup from RBI Baseball (Don Baylor!) and an alarmingly staggering amount of knowledge re: Marvel Comics from 1990-1993.

I am planning on making the proper re-writes starting next week. I am allotting two hours every morning from 8:30-10:30 to be my "finish your damn book" time. I figure I can use this time because I normally spend it riding through the Internetz on a quest to find old, hilarious That's So Raven episodes and music videos involving C&C Music Factory. I mean, I still plan on doing those things, but I'll just do them later. Anyway, consider yourself warned. Kevin is back on the novel train, pumped up to complain about it, and even more pumped up to speak about himself in third person! I will now spend the entire rest of this week thinking of clever things to title this new blog path, and utilizing the hilarious complexity involved in replacing "s's" with "z's". That, friendz, is just how Kevin rollz.

Baby Baby,
Baby

TLC

As most of you may know by now, our venerable editor-in-chief Maria Schneider is leaving the magazine to pursue other options, and I just wanted to take this opportunity to say a few words about her. Maria was the one who--as an assistant editor-- originally "discovered" me, reading my pathetic query for submission for "Writing a Literary Masterpiece" and inviting me to submit work. For years she worked as my editor, prodding and poking things in an appropriate direction and using her skills to help turn the somewhat pathetic into acceptably average, and the acceptably average into good.

As we both grew--she moving up the editorial ladder, and I in several directions at once-- our relationship became strained, mostly because the burden of dealing with me became too much to bear, as I can be arrogant, lazy, and unabashedly random, and she could be (to me, at least) infuriatingly stubborn, and the combination boiled over like a pot of water you originally wanted to make Annie's Shells in, but forgot to take off an extremely hot stove, because you passed out watching Reno 911. We moved apart as she reached the top editorial rung, taking over the editor position from our dear friend Kristin Godsey, and she smartly passed me off, which cooled our temperamental relationship and allowed us to work in a more fruitful and productive manner for the rest of our time. 

Despite our own head-butting, Maria will (and should) be missed by everyone involved with WD. She brought a deliciously wry sense of humor, a passion for books, a blunt, honest approach, and the open, intelligent mind to be welcoming to any and all new writers. She helped make and shape my writing career, and she ushered a fresher, newer, less self serious tone into the pages of the magazine. These are the pillars she has left behind, and she should feel good about them. Or--at the very least-- she should bring them up alot.

And while we're doing the farewell thing, this feels like a good time to also announce that this month's WD contains my final column within the magazine, ending my streak of columns somewhere on the sunny side of 3 years. Now don't pretend to freak out-- I will still have the weekly blog, and will occasionally contribute to the magazine-- but it just felt like a good time for us to wrap that part and for me to move on and pursue my first love-- amateur back-up Hip Hop Dancing.

So we've got a lot of semi-goodbyes. Maria, you will truly be missed, and Kevin's column, you will also be missed-- but mostly in hindsight. Now don't you all start leaving your jobs-- it looks like I'm going to need a Sugar Mama:)

Comments will be judged by accuracy, landing, and overall performance during the high bar routine.  

See Me and Julio Down,
By the Schoolyard

Paul Simon