When the first hard copy of my novel arrives in the mail, my feelings are somewhere between proud and terrified. A proof copy is the first hard copy of a novel and it is the last chance for a writer to check for mistakes or catch any problems before the book is available for sale.

I take out a pencil and sit on the couch. I am wearing no pants.

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The prank call seemed like such a good idea at the time.

But then, so does almost anything when you’re sixteen years old and being mischievous. I was playing the part of Ron Rivera, mild-mannered Toyota salesman. Mr. Schorpp, a neighbor who was having a problem with his newly bought Toyota, was on the other line eating up my apologies and phony offers of compensation. I offered full remuneration and cocktails and dinner with us and “the wives.” In hindsight, Mr. Schorpp must have thought it odd when Ron Rivera offered a night out at the movies. But I was sixteen, and that seemed like a perfect way to make up for a faulty gas gauge.

Making the situation more illicit was the fact that I was standing in the Schorpp’s kitchen and Mrs. Schorrp was chuckling away in the corner. She had been the instigator of the joke, though Mr. Schorpp would never believe this line of defence.

As my lark continued, something began to dawn on me with growing horror – Oh my God, it’s working. Read the rest of this entry »

As we roll into Pittsburgh, it’s as though a Shankha trumpet announces our arrival from Mount Washington, awakening my friends out of their moderate, thirtysomething lives and regressing them to their wild twenties for a weekend. Simultaneously, local pubs are warned to ready their booze-slinging A-team for the coming onslaught.

Shortly after, we arrive at my favorite pub and before I sit down at the bar there is a quadruple shot of Rumpleminz placed in front of my projected seating arrangement. Collin gives me a terrified, ‘please mommy don’t let the bad man hurt me,’ look and I respond by saying to the bartender, “Give him a Jamesons.”

Collin shoots me another, far less cuddly, glance.

I feel a trite guilty and look back at the bartender, Turner, and say, “Make it a double.”

Collin’s face goes from confused, to angry, to the look a guy gives in a slasher film right before he realizes that he should have called the police and not gone down into the incredibly creepy basement with a butterknife.

Like that man, Collin shall pay for his crimes.

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The Over 30 Roadtrip rolls into Washington DC through air so thick and damp that we have to drop an anchor. DC is the muggiest place I have ever been in the real world (Florida doesn’t count – ever). Three minutes outside in the heat and I morph into a sloth. We trudge through streets that are like a jungle and Collin and I are in a gooey national geographic special searching for red-bellied lemurs and the elusive hot dog stand.

But there are monuments to be viewed.

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I pull the pick-up onto the PA turnpike (Hell’s Road) at a safe and reasonable speed. Collin is reading a fantasy novel. Kenny Rogers is telling us all about a gent who knows when to hold ’em. We are supplied – 2 ham sandwiches (with mustard), 2 apples (Granny Smith), 2 granola bars (1 chocolate, 1 peanut butter), a bag of blueberries and 2 Capri suns (kiwi strawberry – 100% juice)

The only thing that worries me are the apples – I have forgotten to bring floss.

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6A, a window seat, on DELTA flight 104 is more technologically advanced than my laptop and any car I have ever owned. The control panel alone sends me into a neolithic shame spiral.

Before I can sit, I am offered a choice – champagne or orange juice. The decision is made with disturbing ease.

My aisle-bound cohort could be Hagrid’s stunt double in the Harry Potter films. I tell him I’m a nervous flyer and he laughs and waves over an attendant. Hagrid explains my predicament and I am embarrassed by the fuss. He can tell that I am a rookie. She comes back with a rocks glass of Irish whiskey. I am prancing towards intoxication and we have not yet left the ground.

Oh my God, I think as I sip (gulp) down the whiskey, welcome to the big leagues.

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I was writing at the kitchen table of the small cottage when a sense of dread drew my attention to the wall. A large moth was fluttering along the baseboard. Before he could get into the air, a plump black spider came out of a cave-like hole with ridiculous speed, grabbed the moth and sped back to his lair with him.

A moment later, the spider came back to the entrance of the hole, booty tucked under his right four legs, and gave me an intense glare that proclaimed – you’re next, you two-legged bastard.

He disappeared into the hole again. Read the rest of this entry »

“It’s been found that 52.3% of people who have lumps on their genitalia have been doing garden work,” the man says this with absolute confidence. He is immense and sitting behind a desk smoking a cigarette. His face flab jiggles with every movement, partially concealing that a portion of his jaw is missing.

There is no way to fully appreciate the man’s voice. He has a slight lisp, almost slur, which sneaks out of the side of his mouth as though he’s trying to convey a prohibited secret. Imagine Marlon Brando if he were a character on the Muppets. Each sentence rivals the last in its grandeur and extended syllables.

This man is The Šaš, and The Šaš is my doctor.

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It’s a cool morning and I’m sitting in my home office, a breeze is coming through the open balcony door. I am drinking strong coffee and have just eaten a bologna sandwich with mustard. Běla the cat is asleep on my lap and Django Reinhardt is playing with unfair, three-fingered grandeur. I am reading about World War II.

All is right in my world.

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I get on the tram and it’s brutally hot. After tricking an old woman out of her seat with promises of duck liver, I sit down and take slow breaths in hopes of lulling my body into a false sense of temperate comfort. It doesn’t work. This is mainly because of the six Italian tourists who decide to keep me company by standing inside of my rectum.

Summer-time in Prague is a constant battle between my extreme hatred of the heat and my love of the minimizing effect it has on Czech women’s clothing. This lack of clothing is an enjoyable part of the Prague spring mating ritual.

Women dress to attract the opposite sex with their bare, life-sustaining breasts, tanned legs and displayed contraceptive patches. The men strut around with cocksure attitudes, biceps brandishing faded, hepatotoxic tattoos and dreaded mullets puffed out like peacock tails. I take part in the ritual, wearing glasses and holding a book, conveying: I am intelligent; allow me to fertilize your eggs!

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