Well, I’d love to tell you good folks that I was able to finish the hallway and clean up the mess, but that would just be too easy. Instead of the three solid days of work I thought I’d put in on the place, reality stepped in and hit me upside the head—Saturday was spent recovering from a walloping hangover due to a late-season holiday party, which required copious amounts of water, comfort food, and videos to fix; Sunday we took Penn to a behaviorist, cleaned up the house and visited with the Brizzis, and Monday I got an even later start but worked up until 11pm.

Unfortunately, there’s a nasty seam right at the foot of the stairs that needs to be feathered out and smoothed, the taping upstairs is more extensive than I thought, Hunter S. Thompson killed himself, it was too wet/cold to get the Scout indoors, and I can’t hold my liquor as well as I used to.

On the positive side, the freelance fairy keeps dumping stuff in my lap, so I’m going to be busy for the next eight or nine months at least.

R.I.P. Over at metafilter, the post on HST’s passing has reached 492 comments at this writing, which must be a record of some kind. In college I got into a Beat/Wolfe/Thompson phase and burned through Fear and Loathing in one feverish night (no small feat, I can testify) which, after reading the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and drinking a six-pack of Boh, was much more accessible. Later, I read Hell’s Angels and re-read FLLV several times to soak up what I’d missed the first time. Drug user, journalist, gun nut, misanthrope, patriot, American, author, original: his dispatches from the wilderness will be missed.