"How Are You Doing?"

"Why Haven't You Called?"

"Did you get my email?"

"When are you going to hang out next?"

"Come on! It's only for a few hours!"

I get some version of one or all of these questions all the time, and the same way people don't really mean "How are you doing?" when they ask, "How are you doing?", I usually give some half-assed excuse of being "too busy" or "too tired" as an answer every time. It's not that it's untrue, because I usually am "too busy" or "too tired" at any given moment these days, but it's the details I tend to avoid.

I realized a week or so ago that in the past year, I've dramatically scaled back my social life to the point that, other than Dan and Xia who now live next door, I frequently go weeks without speaking to (or in many cases, even emailing) the majority of the people I consider friends. Salomé just posted a sobering account of our typical day, and seeing it spelled out is rather depressing, in a "Why the fuck are we killing ourselves like this?" kind of way. American Dream, my ass!

Anyway, a quick update for those of you wondering:

1) Westchester poetry gig went well, though Zork exaggerates quite a bit on my performance which I felt was rather flat. The bad weather didn't help any, but the handful of people that turned out seemed reasonably entertained, so it certainly wasn't a disaster. Nevertheless, if I perform again any time soon - a consideration which Zork literally browbeat out of me! - I'm going to have to make a point of hitting an open mic or two and shaking the rust off beforehand.

2) Things at Buzzscope are moving along pretty smoothly as I continue to develop an editorial staff that I won't feel embarassed to be associated with. ie: The fucktard I gave the boot a few weeks back - in an email exchange that ranks up there with the best of Guy vs. Keith, minus Keith's intellect - popped up with a column on The Pulse, one of the few comics sites left from which he hasn't been either outright banned or burned bridges with, and got ripped in the talkbacks as someone posted a negative comment he made about his new editors on his MySpace blog. (The internet is a wonderful place, no?) Ironically, the column is exactly what he was going to do for Buzzscope before he imploded, and after seeing the first installment, I'm glad it never had a chance to run with us!

3) Eric's in town next week, which means the band will get back together at some point for drinking and other obnoxious behavior. "Lock up your children and sedate your wives..."