I still ... live. 

Man, it's been a while since I've been over here. If anyone has been checking in, thank you, and I hope not to let you down again. But the pre-Gen Con push is finally past us, so it looks like I might be stopping over a bit more. 

With my birthday around the corner, it's becoming increasingly poignant how important my friends are to me, and – consequently – how much I miss them. To cure myself of that lethargy (and because I didn't have a word count deadline tonight!) I picked up my deck and went out to skate. 

Now, for context, I used to skate all the time at night. There was a period in college when, considering my evenings, I actively had to make the decision between allotting my most productive hours to either writing or skating. 

You'll notice I didn't publish a lot during college. 

That's since changed, and now I do most my skating in the mornings, and mostly at the skate park. But because of the way I "came of age," daylight skating and park skating have always felt like placeholders for the real thing: skating street after the sun goes down. 

And as I dragged my body out into the darkness, I was struck by the very strong sense that I was making a mistake, that my days (nights) of hitting the concrete hard after dark had passed me by. 

More powerfully, was the realization that I didn't even see them go. 

But I'm nothing if not stubborn, so I hit the hill and beat my way down to the church, with its new parking asphalt parking lot, and low ledges. 

And of course, it was magical.

An hour later, I made it back home, scraped and bleeding, but also feeling more at home in my body than I have for a while. 

Feels good to be posting again. Feels good to be skating after dark. Choose Death still lives. 

//H