It’s been busier than usual up here at Shangri-La. I won’t say this has left me bereft of time for blogging, but it has rendered me a bit more scattered than usual. I can focus on the book and on the upcoming play, but other than that, my mind is a aglow with transient nodes of thought…

…forgive me. Hedley Lamarr moment there.

So I thought I’d just clue you in on what’s been occupying my mind when I’m not arranging letters on word processor pages.

–Casey and I devoted many of our jokes to taking the piss out of frats in our riff on Yor The Hunter From the Future. Funny how topical that material has become. Funny and depressing. The fraternity system hasn’t changed much since I went to school, when its members were known primarily for its binge drinking, date rapes, and AIDS jokes. Of course, since frat members are mostly (in many cases exclusively) white, conservative, upper middle class types, right wing media defends them by blaming their racism on anybody but them.

Of my friends who joined frats when I was in school, I kept them as friends by thinking as George Carlin did: “I love and treasure individuals as I meet them. I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.”

–From the idiotic to the sublime, there’s now a spacecraft orbiting the minor planet Ceres, another one approaching Pluto, and a third space probe that might have found a potentially life-sustaining ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

–I miss James Garner.

–I enjoyed The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. More please.

–I’ll be delving into casting my play soon. Since we’ll be working gender and racially blind I’ll be really curious to see who ends up being my Reinhard Heydrich.

—Star Trek Online is a shockingly addictive way to misspend time. My Vulcan character’s an Admiral now.

–I should sleep in the near future.

–I’ve been thinking more about my biracial heritage, largely because one of the characters in my next book shares that in common with me. The format of this post precludes my saying anything complex about it. But if you’re curious about what being biracial is like, I suggest starting with this Vox article.

–My ability to make sense I deteriorating rapidly. I’m off. Until later.