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April 5, 2008

You know, it used to be that I knew where I was going, I knew exactly how to get there, I had complete confidence in myself to make the right choices in any number of situations.

But it’s been a long time since I was seven.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 9 Comments

April 4, 2008

Also, am I the only one who thinks David Archuleta is giving mediocre performances on purpose so that he can explode as a star in the final weeks of American Idol, since the people who are consistently brilliant throughout never win Melinda Doolittle?

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 8 Comments

April 3, 2008

I need help.

(Yes, yes, ha ha ha.)

In preparation for the release of Swish, I’m updating my website, with the generous aid of this gorgeous gentleman (and while I’m at it I should mention that she valorously rescued me from a horrible web-host disaster that I was about to bring down upon my own head).

The problem is that now I am confronted with the dilemma out of which I found my way, when last confronted with it, by cheating. It was all well and good labeling individual pages “Books” and “Music” and “Blog,” but the man who has never been seen in the same room with me was utterly helpless to think of what to label the home page itself. Working in concert, he and I decided to fill the page with reviews of the book to correspond with the release of which he had timed the launch of the site; it could then very easily be labeled “Gay Haiku Reviews.”

But the imminent release of a second book renders that title inappropriate. Unfortunately, neither he nor I has any better ideas this time around. The two we’ve come up with so far are Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate (“abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” inscribed on the gates of Dante’s Hell), and Mene mene tekel upharsin (when a spectral hand wrote these words on the wall in the court of Babylon, the prophet Daniel interpreted them for King Belshazzar as “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting”; neither Belshazzar nor the Babylonian empire lived to see morning, and we got “the writing on the wall”).

Somehow these seem a bit . . . I don’t know, frivolous.

One friend suggested “Gay Gay Giddy Gay Gay,” but, while it’s accurate, I feel that this title lacks sufficient gravitas.

Another offered “Raconteur,” which I actually like very much, except that the kind of guy who labels his home page “raconteur” is the kind of guy I dread running into at parties.

Anybody?

Addendum: I see from tinman’s comment and from a couple e-mails that I haven’t been clear. All I mean is that, for the sake of consistency and aesthetic felicity, there has to be something at the top, since there’s something at the top of every other page. It can’t be my name, since that’s already there, above the photo.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 12 Comments

April 2, 2008

I’m taking down my amazon.com wish list. This is all I want anybody ever to give me.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 9 Comments

April 1, 2008

It happened again today. This time, though, I thought quickly enough to write down what I’d said to wake myself up:

“Well, I could, if they weren’t a restaurant and didn’t undoubtedly weigh several hundred tons.”

I have no idea to whom I was speaking or what I was speaking about. When I told E.S., we had the following conversation:

E.S.: That sounds just like what you say in your sleep at home.
FAUSTUS: How do you mean?
E.S.: You say things that don’t make any sense but I can always tell you’re angry.
FAUSTUS: …
E.S.: I mean, really it’s no different from what you say when you’re awake.
FAUSTUS: I hate you.

Posted on by Joel Derfner | 5 Comments