So does anyone . . .

. . . still check this?

I Think . . .

. . . my last posting was about having to pay another year's internet dues to keep this URL .

Then I never really posted again.

I got an email telling me I've been billed for another year of domain service, so once again we're at the place where I'll feel the need to use this rather than throw money away.

So . . . what's new?

Getting married in two weeks. It'll be a western-themed affair in a Chinese restaurant.

A few pages from a script I wrote (and posted here) were shot and will hopefully interest someone into helping finance the rest. You can check out the trailer at: www.bloodontheplain.com

The Fiancee (formerly The Girlfriend) and I bought a place and are now nestled in lovely southern banks of Edgewater.

We're honeymooning through the Southern US territory so if anyone has some suggestions about towns to see, I'm all eyes. (Birmingham? Is there anything going on in Birmingham?)

Hope You're Well,

A.v.E

So There I Was . . .

. . . smoking a cigarette in between tacos and beer at a south loop bar. To the left was a storefront window into the Xtreme Sport Fitness Center where New Year's resolutions were being honored. To the right, another window. This one displaying rows of people in sweats jumping ropes and stretching before their boxing fitness class began.

I went back inside and ordered another round.

The car battery was still charging and it would be at least an hour before I could go test it and see if I could drive home.

Otherwise, it would be the train and the hope that my car isn't ticketed or worse for being left overnight in the garage.

Follow me on Twitter . . .

uptownsinclair.

After the clerk looked at the things I'd brought to the counter he asked if I ever think about how my life didn't turn out the way I thought it would and if that made me sad.

Ever realize . . .

. . . that you've been giving the same response to the same question for so long that even you don't realize when it becomes a complete lie. I've always said that I keep things healthy by only smoking one pack a week. When I found the carton I bought two weeks ago was empty, I realized this is wrong.

When people ask how long I've lived in Chicago, I say a couple years. According to the plaque hung in my cube, I've been here for at least six.

Just kidding. There is no plaque.

Warm-Up . . .

. . . twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet floor.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet floor.

I'm still working on Blood on the Plain, but am starting to tire of it. Normally, I'd put it away and come back when the mood strikes me, but I gave my word to someone that it'd be complete by the end of the month. Someone wants to make the fucking thing so I'm left watching a kid I'm in no way able to care for.

I'm trying to nail the art of the long sentence. As a warm-up and to stave off the feelings of neglect for this blog, I'm going to work on expadning one passage here before you.

James Dodge enters one hovel and is met with a knife dug into his forearm. He stares at the hilt dangling from out his arm then takes in his attacker whose wife crouches in the corner, sobbing as she clutches their child. Three shots are heard.

James Dodge tears through and past the burlap covering into the single-bulb lit shack where a woman's sob is heard before the Mexican swings a long blade which is caught between the divining bones of wrist and forearm and pushed through like an arrowshot until the chipped blade tears out the underside of skin and the hilt presses full against the surface of arm which Dodge lifts to examine as if adjusting for a meniscus or some parallax perspective before dismissing the findings as inconclusive and raising his sidearm and firing into the chest of his attacker sending the screams of both the mother and the child she's carrying into a roar of agony and fear which is silenced by another pull of the trigger before finally a third.

I fucking love long sentences.