I’ll be at the Fulton Lounge, starting at 7pm, reading my essay from the Field-Tested Books book. I’ll read alongside a lot of pretty awesome writers, including friends Joel Reese, Scott Smith and Dave Reidy.

The Field-Tested Books series is a pretty awesome phenomenon. Don’t you want to witness a phenomenon?

A lot has happened since I last posted. Here it is in chronological order, with a fun rating on a scale of 1 to 10 following:

• My apartment was broken into and lots of stuff was stolen (0)
• I moved (2)
• The Celtics dominated the universe (8)
• I got married (12)
• I went on my honeymoon (11)
• My brother got married (10)
• I went back to work (1)

So now that all of that’s done, I’m ready for the summer to begin. I haven’t seen a lot of people in a long time, so if anyone would like to come out to this reading I’m doing tomorrow night at Powell’s North, 7pm, we could hang out afterward.

As for this site, I’ve been thinking of switching up this blog format, as blogging hasn’t been much of a priority for me since about April 28. So I’m hoping to make it a little different and a little more consistent in the near future. Thanks to anyone who could possibly care.

For a week now I’ve drafted and deleted various posts about the election, and how increasingly angry and disenchanted I’ve become with it. It all boils down to this: I believe in Obama’s attempts to elevate the political discourse in the country, and was impressed by how on-message his campaign had been for so long. I think that has all but disappeared now, thanks largely to the fact that the Clinton campaign can’t discern the difference between an opponent and an enemy, and Obama has, perhaps inevitably, succumbed to it. It’s disappointing and disheartening.

So I’d rather just watch a video like this (turn off the sound, the commentary is annoying, or, maybe, that’s just reflective of my current mood):

I got stuck on a CTA train this morning for two hours. In a tunnel. So we got out and walked. In the tunnel. I wrote the whole thing up for Time Out Chicago, the quote below will take you there:

I’m as big a fan of visions of post-apocalyptic America as you’ll find, but what I learned today is that being a part of one isn’t that fun.

Downtown brethren: I’m reading at 5pm this Wednesday night. Come straight from your workplace!

Shoot the Messinger’s pager has been blowing up lately, thanks to attention from some bigger fish. First Maud Newton linked to the Tournament of Books post, then Gossiperia mistook the post about the TOC April Fool’s issue for actual celebrity news, and yesterday ESPN’s TrueHoop grabbed yesterday’s Celtics volley.

So welcome to any newcomers. Book and basketball fans, take heart: I write about that stuff fairly often. Celebrity gossip lovers, not much I can help you with. Except to say that Rahzel dumped his girlfriend over the phone while riding in the backseat of my car, about nine years ago. Hope that helps!

UPDATE: I shouldn’t be so glib. The onslaught knocked the site off its axis, but it’s all better now. Phew.