Happy Armageddon!

Hey, I need to blog again. I know. Parents were in town Christmasweek, and then 'Pockets and I flew back east for a wedding in Pittsburgh/to see if my new niece/nephew had arrived on the scene, but that's no excuse: Benazir was assassinated/bumped her head; Pakistan devolved into a riotous and blood-spattered free-for-all (which led to the destruction of, among other things, my aunt's car...while she was driving it); The Wire season premiere dropped On Demand; Mike Huckabee became the would-be-nominee for a bit, then started to talk about things not related to our Lord and Savior/love handles; Giuliani became irrelevant; and Will Smith secretly converted to Scientology (which makes him still more electable than Romney). Also, Happy New Year! Here's to hoping that nuclear holocaust/impending Chinese colonization/bird flu/Britney-LiLo-Winehouse's inevitable group overdose and-or suicide pact decides to put off plans till '09 at least.

You Are Coming to a Sad Realization. Cancel or Allow?

Richie Valens died at 17. Buddy Holly at 22. James Dean at 24. John Keats at 25. Otis Redding at 26. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin at 28. And Percy Bysshe Kelley at 29. With my own 29th birthday fast approaching, I find myself--a little lighter of pate, a little heavier of paunch--in a brooding mood.

No, I haven't a death wish. It's just that I had planned to do a lot in my 20's. To be specific, I had planned to write a great novel and liberate myself from the workaday life, but yet I languish in writer's lethargy, only occasionally considering my scraps of a first chapter, which I have been revisiting for years now. Chapter Two of this book, a sin-soaked, South-Asian-American bildungsroman about a school-teacher in New York, exactly the kind of work that wins you Michiko Kakutani's favor, is as far off as ever. And now comes the following disheartening news: Uzodinma Iweala (pictured), whose mom worked in the same place my dad worked (but in a higher position), who went to the same tiny high school I did (but then went to a better college), who is four years my junior, and who published his debut novel in 2005, has just been named one of Granta's best young American novelists. I've never met the guy, and the only thing of his I've read was in the New Yorker a little while back, but still I seethe with the most malignant form of jealousy

Yet, sadly, jealousy, that lazy bitch, doesn't spur me to action.

So, with my 29th birthday--my 30th year on Earth--descending upon me, ton-of-bricks style, I promise you this, singular reader: a great work of fiction...sometime in my 30's.

vows!

i will complete that renga soon. sorry for those who may have been eager with anticipation. i was out of town for a bit.

thank goodness gawker didn't take president's day off bc they've unveiled my new favorite feature about the vows section. i haven't been this excited since they outed that creepy dude who married the taiwanese japanese woman.