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Yousef Al-Mohaimeed, Wolves of the Crescent Moon, Podcast

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"Anyway..." I said.

In truth, Gav and I never had much to say to each other. He was the reprobate mate of a boyfriend at university, and to him, no doubt, I was the snooty girlfriend. We were only talking, twelve bewrinkling years later, because we were at a wedding, watching my ex and his bride perform a strange, leaping dance, some Russian variant on the volta, with which Elizabeth I and her toyboys used to outrage the royal court.

I didn't voice this opinion, lest it was misinterpreted as sour grapes (I love my husband, I like my ex and his lovely bride, just so's you know). Before I thought of something else to say, Gav spoke.

"So, what are you up to?"

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"At times I pity it, a century lost inside another one like a toy boat / floating in the pump room." - Sarah Manguso

What are you doing? Well, you're reading this, of course.

What are you supposed to be doing? If you're anything like my weary comrades on this morning's commuter train into New York City, you're swamped, you're buried, you're mired deep in the weeds, and new weeds just keep sprouting up wherever you've slashed the old ones back. You're busy, man. You should be meeting deadlines and working the phones and printing out a new cover sheet for your TPS reports. You should be doing, you know...your job.

And yet for whatever unfathomable reason, a series of random clicks has led you here, past that old Whitesnake video on YouTube, past your Facebook page (where you presumably felt compelled to announce that you're a fan of Echo & the Bunnymen and burnt toast), through some wired Borgesian labyrinth of tangents and whims, all the way to the Penguin blog. Howdy!