• Location: Amazonis Sulci
• Mood: cold
• Music: David Bowie, "I'm Deranged"

Howard Hughes is old enough to know better.

Today, I'm going to write, 1,000 times, "I am no longer twenty-five years old." That would come to seven or eight thousand words (depending whether you count "twenty-five" as one word or two) and take care of any goddamn writing quota I might have for today and a number of days to come. Uh. Anyway. I am no longer twenty-five, and worse still, I'm out of practice. And this morning (almost afternoon) I have a hangover that would immobilize a giant ground sloth, yet here I am, typing, typing, typing away. Personally, I blame Brian De Palma. 'Cause I know it was that gawdsawful Black Dahlia thing that got me thinking about lesbian strip bars. Yesterday evening, even as Spooky was planning a perfectly wonderful Kindernacht, I was plotting something more...let's say "adult" and leave it at that. Byron called, and I asked if he knew of any lesbian titty bars in Atlanta, because Byron knows a lot of titty bars, and no, he said, not officially. That is, he did not know of any titty bars officially set aside for lesbians. We'd heard about a place up on...gods, I can't even remember...but I do remember the place is called Swinging Richard's. However, it all seemed rather vague. We went to dinner at The Vortex at L5P. I was good and only had one beer. We came back home. The boredom was oozing from my pores like pine sap. I searched through Creative Loafing for anything interesting. The closest I came was a performance of the "Vagina Monologues" at Grandma Luke's...and actually, Spooky was the one who found that. She pointed it out, and I said something like "No, no, not pussies and pancakes. That's not what I mean at all."

But I was persistent, and finally, sometime after ten, possessed of only a dim rumour and my best boy drag, we set out for a Certain Part of Town. Not a lesbian strip club, but a strip club where lesbians are not unwelcome. This is the South. You take the scraps you're thrown. And I decided it would be a Good Idea to mix any number of energy drinks with Mexican beer and shots of tequila. My grand triumph of the night was managing not to throw up. And I did not go to jail, so if I groped anyone, they either a) asked for it or b) are used to that sort of thing. I know I kept introducing Spooky as Cap'n Bee Fart, because...well, never mind. It seemed funny at the time. Because drunks have access to an entirely different sense of humour. And now, I have this goddamn hangover. And a message on my cell from Harlan. And I think I'm expected to work. But at least I'm not pissing anything unnatural, which I take as a good sign.

Yesterday...ugh. The time has come to write proposals, and all day yesterday was spent on one paragraph. One damn paragraph that I will rewrite today. The encapsulation of an unwritten book. An idiotic endeavor if ever an endeavor were idiotic. Yesterday I found the page of notes I made for Joey LaFaye while we were in Rhode Island, a page of notes dated 7/27/06, and there was hardly anything there I could use, hardly anything I hadn't already rewritten in my mind. I exchanged a stupendous number of e-mails with sovay yesterday, and I thank her for letting me kvetch in her general direction while I wrestled with this idiotic endeavor. I cannot summarize an unwritten book. How many times have I said this? I cannot summarize an unwritten book, because (one, two, three) it hasn't happened yet! But still, I have to try. This one and two more. And that's what I'll be doing with today. And maybe writing a poem about ravens who are wizards, or wizards who are ravens.

A question from the comments to yesterday's entry:

Which brings me to a question. Would you have any qualms about selling the movie rights to your work? Which of your books would you most like to see on the big screen? Who would you want to direct it? Who would you want to act in it?

Well, actually that's more like four questions, isn't it? Er...the book I'd most like to see adapted for screen, that would be Low Red Moon, with Daughter of Hounds in second place. Brian De Palma is who I'd most prefer did not direct. I'd be fine with del Toro, or David Fincher, or any number of other people. Just not Brian De Palma, please. I've been saying that Scarlett Johansson is my pick for Narcissa Snow. I've been saying that for years. In Daughter of Hounds, Deacon should be played by Steve Buscemi. Clea Helen D'Etienne DuVall would be Sadie. The Bailiff would be played by Sid Haig. Soldier has to be Katee Sackhoff. Ian McShane has to be George Ballou. And that's as far as I've gotten, because these damned actors take forever to return my calls.

Okay. That's enough for now. The platypus says it's time to hurt myself some more. Sounds good to me.