Day Two of Ender's training has begun. All successful writers, most notably Hemingway and Sylvia Plath, have battled and overcome at least one orca whale in their lifetimes. Since he's only a baby, I let him start out fighting on dry land, on the home turf of the living room, no less.

The orca whale wasn't hard to locate; a few pods are always cruising around the neighborhood, spy-hopping and whatnot. I dressed Joshua up like a penguin and had him crawl around on the porch. When the orca breached, I nabbed him. I also caught a few Jehovah's Witnesses but those I just tagged and released.

* * * * *

The Otter of Despair has taken more twists and turns. The original concept was for a sea otter, but my editor felt that river otters were more "accessible." I countered very politely that it would muck up the ending, as it is very uncommon for an otter that is living mainly in a river to drift off into the fucking ocean.

After security guards pulled me off him, I was escorted out and told to conduct all future negotiations over the phone.

Oh, he's calling now. "Hello? Of course it's me, who else doesn't hang up at the sound of your grating voice? ...Ah, so you understand why it can't be a river otter? Good, I-

"You want to change the 'of despair' to 'of happiness' and the 'otter' to a 'pig'? ...I understand. Say, are you coming to the Fourth of July party? Good, good. You should wear that tie, the really thick, strong one. It'll be perfect. Yes'um. Goodbye."

Well that seems to be that.

I'll have to scrap my idea for the sequel. Otter of Despair was going to drift to South America and run into a romp of giant river otter. They're great, they can grow up to six feet long and weigh over 75 pounds. That's the size of your Jewish uncle. Well, these river otter eat piranha and will rescue OOD from being eaten by a school of them. Then OOD will join the romp and learn a valuable lesson about eating piranha. And since there's no seaweed in the river he'll soon float along to his next wacky adventure.

I only have the roughest outline for book three, but I can tell you this: it will have Venom in it.

This is going to be the cover of the twins' latest album. I probably never mentioned they were in a band before. That's because they're not. I just like to make stuff up sometimes.

I tried to spike their hair up. I've decided that the best way to ensure that they are embarrassed by their baby pictures later in life is to try to make them look cool. Then, years and years hence when what I consider cool is horribly lame, I'll bust out these pictures.

I'm still looking for a store that carries baby emo outfits. They're this generation's equivalent of sailor suits.

* * * * *

The Otter of Despair has a new ending. There has been some confusion about the seaweed bit. I guess I sort of assumed that everyone knows that when sea otters sleep they wrap seaweed around their fat little bodies as they float on their backs to keep from drifting away. So that's what sea otters do. I'm not sure what river otters do; probably wrap river rocks around themselves or logs or something.

So in failing to wrap it up, OOD floats away into the night, same as the first edition. The difference will be in the illustration of last page, the one that says "THE END?" Somewhere in the drawing will be the split pieces of a familiar-looking bivalve. Did OOD finally crack his clam as he drifted off? Will we ever see him again? River otters don't really wrap themselves up in rocks, do they? All these questions and more will be answered in the next installment of Otter Of Despair: River Requiem.

* * * * *

I've decided to train Ender to be a writer. He's coming along well; he has already mastered the mid-morning nap.



So when I die at 40 without finishing the odyssey of OOD, Ender can pick up where I left off. He'll be my little Brian Herbert, and I guess Joshua can be my little Kevin J. Anderson.

Assuming that Josh can master the mid-morning nap, that is.

My 25th year spent as a sentient conglomeration of recycled matter hurtling around an ancient nuclear explosion has been good times, straight up. So far, anyway. It's possible that tomorrow the invisible string that holds Earth in orbit will snap and we'll fly off into the ether like a broken paddle ball. The sun will send up solar flares that would appear exactly like the face of a disappointed child were there still anyone in existence who knew what a disappointed child looked like.

If it does, though, I will take comfort knowing that in riding my bike to work to help the environment, though futile, will temporarily make me the fastest bike rider in the universe.

Look Ma, no hands.

I saw The Pillowman, a play by Martin McDonagh. I did a bit of work on that set (all the reviews raved about the amazing puttying job) and earned tickets as well as my minimum wage. I enjoyed it very much .

Today I dismantled the set, put it in a big truck, and laid it to rest in a dusty warehouse. So it goes. It's kind of hard taking a down a set. Emotionally, I mean. Imagine watching your childhood playground being torn down. A playground you helped build. A new playground will go up in its place. All you can do now is try not to forget.

The afternoon of the play I met Jaclyn at the bookstore and we conspired to place our biographies inside over-sized coffee table books about the impact of birthdates. We also plotted to create a companion book for The Pig of Happiness.



The title will be The Otter of Despair.



The otter has been holding that clam for three days. In the book he tries to work up the motivation to crack it open. It's going to be easy to illustrate it, too. He'll just keep raising it up halfway, slowly lowering back down, raising it, lowering it, raising, raising, raising, oh, lowering it again.

In the end he will fail to wrap seaweed around himself at night and drift out into the open ocean. But he'll still have that clam.

I guess there's a little otter of despair inside of all of us.

28 Minutes Later

After a few hours of fitful sleep, what I just wrote no longer seems funny. I was going for lugubrious but I think I only succeeded in bumming myself out. It's my own fault; everything falls apart when I try to rhyme.

Guillermo Looks at 25

I feel no greater at 25
Seems like 24, just more so
Don't look dead, nor much more alive
Perhaps a slight thinning in the torso

Eyes that can't notice what they've seen before
Torn stained pages of thesaurus
We talk to ourselves much more than ever
And more than ever, bore us

Food is hungry ashen paste
Billows as it sustains us
Our memory holds fast upon
any vivid scenes that pain us

The royal We rings sad a ruse
So clearly solitary
Now 25, no more or less to find
Than all that ever was me



Sorry, I haven't attempted poetry for quite some time. Heh, I do miss straining meter to the point of breaking.

Blog, as of this February we have been together four years. I confess, I don't know where we stand anymore. I don't tell you everything anymore and I'm partly sorry. But it is late and let's not concern ourselves with that now. Let us contemplate this picture of Sarah Mclachlan with a tree growing out of her back.




Isn't this nice?

I'm in hasty preparation for turning 25 this Saturday and the subsequent mid-life crisis. It's well known that Guillermos only live to be forty years old (at best) and that on their 25th birthdays they suffer mid-life crises (Guillermos are also notoriously poor with numbers.) This milestone event involves unhealthy workout regimens, the shunning of furniture, and growing out a full head of hair. This very evening I went to the store and...bought some hair gel.

I haven't put any money towards hair styling in many years. I'm a little nervous.

I'm sure it can't be that hard.