You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas

[For those who don't know, that's a line from Davy Crockett offered as a response to his district when he lost his bid for election to Congress in Tennessee. And yes, we here in Texas do dearly love that line.]

It's been a weird weird couple of weeks round the old hovel. So weird in fact that I've scarcely made mention of the looming Austin Film Festival. It's Tuesday morning, and tomorrow is Arrival Day, that day before the first panel of the fest, the day upon which many of the pilgrims start to trickle into the Driskill Hotel Bar and start to look for familiar faces.

Ordinarily I'd be nipple-deep in prep for the affair, in both the logistical and psychic senses: getting my mind into the proper frame to network like a beast, to run without sleep for days at a stretch, to endure the rigors of too much beer and too little food and too much fun and not nearly enough time. But this is not a normal year. Where normally I go to Austin hoping and praying to score some great new contacts and connections—people with whom I might possibly maybe spark the beginnings of a professional-personal relationship which might in time lead to some useful access for my writing output—this year...well, things are just different.

The totally unexpected Nicholls Finalist news has created this whacky situation where I am fielding (and sometimes fending off) loads of contacts from Hollywood folks somewhat desperately trying to get to ME, which feels kinda like the antelope waking to find that the lions and hyenas are fleeing in terror from him one surprising Thursday.

"Huh," Mr. Antelope might say. "Now ain't THAT peculiar..."

Well, yeah. Yeah it is.

I've been so busy with these Nicholls contacts—and prepping the seven-pound pile of supporting documents like letters and resumes and such required by the fine folks over at Nicholls World HQ—plus the usual two scoops of bullshit which passes for my "normal" life) that I've barely had time to look up.

This is not meant to seem like a complaint. It isn't. This whole episode has been bizarrely humbling and sobering, as I still have a hard time believing absolutely that it's not a very complicated and very cold-blooded joke, but it's also already been great fun, as I get to look at the Caller ID and see incoming calls from big name agencies and big name studios and big name pizza chains ("ok... how do I get to your house...?").

But tomorrow is AUSTIN, and I've not begin to prep or pack. The laptop needs loading. Bookmarks need transfer to the laptop's browser. Important addresses need to be backed up. Scripts need to be archived to CD, transferred to the laptop. Profiles need to be studied, credits memorized, faces committed to memory. Documents, schedules, and confirmations printed and stowed for travel. Phone numbers checked into cellphone memory.

It feels like it's the day before Christmas and I only just now started my shopping.

So much to do. So little time.
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mad scrambling B