That's My Bix!

Oh hi.

Well, this is awkward. How did I used to do this again?

So.

It’s been awhile.

Thunderburst recap montage: (Imagine a Sia song playing, perhaps “Breathe Me” or something super classy and not schmoopy even a little) Since we last spoke, I decided to get my Phd in Creative Writing, I threw a book and author festival for about 6,000 people, Margaret Atwood and I went bird watching together, I got a bunch of fellowship offers to various graduate programs, I decided to take the very best offer, Esteban decided to come with me (originally we were going to LDR that bad boy but then decided nah that would have sucked), I quit my terrible tech job, my dog died, we put our house on the market, we moved to Las Vegas, now I teach school and take grad school classes and edit a literary journal as my actual job.

Okay, that was a lot to take in. Many ups and downs. I’ll give you a moment. (Stop the Sia. STOP HER BEFORE SHE DOES EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!)

Are we there yet? Okay!

Vegas is weird. Our house in Vegas is enormous — but I miss the house that’s pictured above, which is our old dining room and part of my office in Green Bay. That room now looks like this, which is one of many heartbreaking things that I’m writing-about-but-not-writing-about in this update.

That’s sad. Let’s instead enjoy a photo of me and one of the people who basically make me work harder and harder at being a decent writer. She’s very wee and very smart and told me that I’m too sensitive because I couldn’t eat shrimp for four years after reading The Year Of The Flood. She told me I needed to toughen up or I wouldn’t survive the apocalypse. I said “Ms. Atwood, I think we all know that if the apocalypse comes, I’m cannon fodder.” And she laughed because she had already decided that anyway. She is wise.

Good thing she didn’t hear the story about my aversion to pork.

Yes, she’s in my car. It was a bright point in my year.

So now I work with word people. In the last three months, I’ve met three people who were nominated for National Book Awards. Pretty good clip! I also have had several stories published and someone actually reached out to me and solicited a reprint story, which I thought was only the stuff of legend and/or happened to people like the lady in the above photo. Maybe some of her talent rubbed off on my passenger seat.

Over on Facebook, for the last year, since The Incident in November when we basically went to the Darkest Timeline (Oh hellloooo long time readers of That’s My Bix! did you ever imagine a day when I would have begged George W. Bush to come back? That is today, my friend. I miss that goober like you wouldn’t even believe.) I have been doing this thing called #bixquestions where I start a daily conversation thread. It seems to be fairly popular, although what I’m doing isn’t that big of a deal, basically recycling Reddit forum questions and/or ideas I’m seeing online. I had thought at that time about resuscitating this page but I decided I didn’t want to turn the spotlight on me. We were all aching. We were all hurting. We were all in dismay. We still are.

Be the light you want to see in the world. That’s what they tell me. Some fortune cookie or other, at least.

I miss Green Bay. I miss Wisconsin. I miss my friends there. But this page? It’s still here. And I hope you are too. Hello friend. How have you been? I missed you.

The comments want to hear the elevator pitch version of how you’ve been doing.

PS. Holiday Card Exchange for 2017 is on. I repeat, Holiday Card Exchange for 2017 is a go! Sign up here.