Yes, I'm still alive. I'm not sure how glad I am of that after this week so far but I am, in fact, still here.

One of my coworkers has been sick from work for the first half of this week so I've been extremely busy during the day and then exhausted at night. I'll try to update here a little more frequently over the next couple of weeks. Besides, I miss you guys.

Let's see . . .what's been happening . . .

I got to watch a bunch of people I used to love make asses of themselves this week. A very good friend of mine announced to this group of people--some of whom I used to be very close to--that he and a certain young lady of their aquaintance (we'll call her Persiphone here) were with child. Now this came as a shock, that's understood. Nobody really cares for Persiphone you see, and these people have engaged in some fairly mean-spirited gossip-mongering and spitefullness behind her back for quite some time. They call her stupid. She really isn't. One nickname in particular? "Ms. Piggy." She isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, fat.

I have to admit that I have been a part of this in the past. Yes, she can grate on your nerves a bit. Yes, she can try a little too hard to climb to what she perceives as your intellectual level. Yes, she has a bad habid of mimicking what she hears and doesn't really think through anything on her own.

Does she deserve this kind of nonesense in this situation? No.

Now my friend and Persiphone weren't really a couple when the pregnancy occured (other than the obvious coupling)and they really aren't now, either, as far as I know. But this friend of mine is a special man. He has had some extremely difficult times over the last year fighting troubles of the soul that have taken him to the darkest depths of self-understanding. But from the beginning, he has tried to do right by his friends. He would never walk away from an unexpected pregnancy.

To watch these same friends turn on him in this difficult time is sickening. Here's a newsflash: Persiphone is going to be the mother of his child. She's going to make a wonderful mother. They're happy about it. She's going to be a part of his life for the next eighteen years and hell, we've put up with many worse character flaws in this particular group of friends so get over it.

If you want to talk either of them down, don't do it around me. I'll drop you on the spot.

In other news:

My lovely wife has call-backs for "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead," today. Send her good thoughts.

I've signed up for two weekend novel writing workshops for next year. Considering the fact that I've written hundreds of short stories but not even one novel, committing myself to write two next year is a huge leap for me. My first deadline is in May. So I have five months to get it done.

No sweat.

Well, maybe a little.

Joseph Haines, signing off from The Edge of The Abyss