The Final Countdown

Some jokes stick with you for a lifetime. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do.

This is especially true for one's first meta-joke or anti-joke. (I'll leave the classification to experts.)

For me, long before "How many surrealists does it take to change a lightulb?--let alone Interrupting Cow--there came a simple exchange I've never forgotten.

Guy One: How do you keep an [individual] in suspense?
Guy Two: I don't know. How?
Guy One: I'll tell you later.

Today I am Guy Two, the joke at least temporarily being on me. This writer in general and entry-level humorist in particular is kept in suspense until March 1, when my collection Notes of a Tourist on Planet Earth is released. There will be more waiting for reviews and sales figures, but all of that flows from publication.

And now I am down to "The Final Countdown." Yes, I went there, referencing the cheesetastic single by Swedish band Europe.

And what does an [individual] in suspense do?  Recent experience suggests the following:

1. Concentrate poorly.
2. Sleep poorly and/or with stress dreams.
3. Turn every conversation with others, or train of thought while alone, to the book.
4. Check social media obsessively to see if anyone has read, liked, or passed along a book-related update.
5. Search the Internet at least as obsessively for references to the book.
6. Repeat steps 1-5.

My dog is strangely unaffected by all of this.

I don't what's coming next, but I suspect the waiting is the hardest part. Tom Petty had this figured out a long time ago.

Three days until the publication of Notes of a Tourist on Planet Earth.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

I should have known. Tom Petty had this figured out a long time ago.


Today is February 18, and Dowsing and Science will be released on March 1. In any long view, that is the blink of an eye, an instant. Right now, though, that period of anticipation seems like an eternity.


My author's copies will arrive any day now, and then the reality will start to sink in. My publisher is graciously sending out review copies, a great weight off my shoulders, and I can move on to the business of hoping and fearing what reviewers might say.


Publicity arrangements so far include a blog tour with four stops scheduled in the next couple of months. Anyone who would like to extend that tour is welcome to get in touch.


Barring anything disastrous, there will be a Washington, DC launch event at some point in the spring. One venue that seemed promising for that purpose is closing at the end of this month, so event planning begins all over again.


Now there are readings and talks to schedule, and invitations are more than welcome. Fortunate are the writers who have agents and speakers' bureaus, and it would delight me to become one of them.


But for now there is the waiting. So close, and so far away, is the publication of Dowsing and Science.