08.24.08: test signal
Stephen? Where the hell are you?
-- Stalin, Hell

I'm still here, Stalin. I don't want to make excuses, but I had graduate school and work from September until the end of June, with various trips mixed in. Then I went to Europe for ten days, then I came back I went to Poughkeepsie for one weekend and Philadelphia for another one, and I had to get surgery, and various people visited from out of town. I've had my hands full!

Excuses, excuses! Surgery?
-- Stalin

Very minor surgery. A few years ago I developed some kind of small bulge in my lower abdomen; it was like someone embedded a ketchup packet in there, only it hurt. In my usual way, I just kind of lived with it for a few years. Finally I went to the doctor, who referred me to another doctor, who said it was a benign tumor that should be removed. So I had it cut out earlier this month. It was the first time I've had surgery. I was surprised at how much like a TV drama the surgery ward was.

On a scale of one to ten, ten being Leningrad, how would you rate your summer?
-- Stalin

Six? I've done some cool stuff - I went to Sweden and saw the Panorama of New York City in Queens - but have felt conflicted through a lot of it, to be honest. Which is mostly my fault.

What else is new, Stephen?
-- Stalin

Are you being facetious, or do you really want to know what else is new?

Whichever you like. What is going on with your manuscript? Remember, the writer is the engineer of the human soul!
-- Stalin

I'm kind of lost with the manuscript. It's overlong and overwritten and basically kind of a big jumble at this point. Some of the best writing I've ever done is in there, somewhere, but I have no idea how to extract or organize it. At the same time, I've been going through what is either a transition or crisis, or both, part of which is the suspicion that writing is an exercise in futility and like who cares and why bother? It's easier and maybe even better not to try. (I think this is what happens to a lot of creatively inclined people as they enter their thirties and come to focus less on themselves.)

If I had that kind of attitude, the Nazis would've turned Stalingrad into a beer garden!
-- Stalin

True. Speaking of war, how do you feel about the whole Georgia-Russia thing?

Capitalist pigs! Stephen, you think too much about everything. He who thinks too much is lost!
-- Stalin

Yes.