Well, folks, I put away my suitcase.

I realized it had been sitting open on a chair in my bedroom, in various states of pack and unpack, since March. It's what, August? It's not all tour, of course--that ended at the close of May. But my own life has taken me all over the durn place this summer. Now the suitcase is put away, and my spinning head (Exorcist-style) is slowing down, and I'm finally able to take in what's going on around me. Which, in truth, is not much--and that's just fine with me.

So I find it's a lazy late summer, hot and sticky where I am, people out in droves at the coffee shops and outdoor cafes, on their front stoops and standing on the corner, puttering in their gardens, walking around the lakes. It's a perfect time of year to grab my laptop and hit my favorite coffee shops to people watch and get some work done. Work has felt so scatterbrained the last few months--working here, in a New York hotel room, in a Starbucks in Florida, a golf resort somewhere else (don't ask), never really knowing where I am, feeling like I have to wrestle my brain to the ground in order to get it to produce anything coherent. But now, hooray, I'm back at my desk at home, and the work is coming along like gangbusters. Feels awfully good. I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time writing notes in longhand, which I never do, and I'm going through at least one pen every few days. Either I talk too much (entirely likely) or there's a lot brewing. Who knows.

I'm reading a ton. Latest is Eat, Pray, Love--any thoughts on that one? And an old friend just reminded me of two books by the brilliant novelist Kirsty Gunn--Rain and The Keepsake. Both incredible, and if you haven't found her yet, find her now. I'm dying to start Going Native, by Steven Wright, kind of a modern On the Road (which I just reread--good grief--what do you guys think of that one? I'm mixed). Find myself thumbing through a lot of e.e.cummings again lately, and FINALLY catching up on my blasted New Yorkers. Have also been madly making mixes. Latest favorites are The Weepies, Glen Hansard, Regina Specter (lord but I've fallen in love with her stuff), and a few others.  Anyone, anyone? Thoughts on these? CALL FOR SUGGESTIONS: I'm dying for new material. Groups/solo artists I need to know about?

So that's the scoop from a place relatively near Lake Woebegone. More soon.