So I wanted a hardcover of Rumored to Exist, because I’m funny about that, so I made one.  Check it:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/jon-konrath/the-annotated-rumored-to-exist/hardcover/product-20974619.html

It’s a hardcover edition of the annotated version that I originally released in 2004.  In fact, it’s the exact text from the 2004 version.  I would have preferred to go over it again, starting with the 2011 re-release and add back in the annotations and do something else with the book blah blah blah but I don’t have time.

Differences in this edition:

• Hardcover, with a slip jacket.
• The paper quality is slightly better than standard POD.  It’s more of a cream color.
• The cover is an alternate of the original cover.  Same location, but taken during a snow storm.
• The back cover is a bunch of my notes on legal pads and post-its, along with the post card sent from the Astrodome by Larry Falli.
• A ten-page introduction explaining the history of the book (up to 2004).
• A facts and figures section.
• A Q&A about the book.
• The 2002 first edition text (possibly with some minor changes) in a different layout.
• 547 footnotes explaining parts of the text.  This isn’t some DFW/Nabokov “the footnotes are another work of literature” thing; it’s just straight-up reference material.
• No UPC or ISBN.  Only for sale at Lulu.  No digital edition.

I don’t expect anyone to buy this - I just did it so I could have a nice hardcover on the shelf.  If you do buy it, expect a great delay from lulu.  It took them two weeks to send mine.  But I think it’s worth the $20 - it’s very nice to see it with the glossy slipcover and everything.

OK, back to work on the next one.

I totally forgot about this.  A long time ago, I found this program that would scan a text file and generate haiku from it.  I don’t know exactly how it worked; I guess it would find syllable counts of 5-7-5 in the text.  So of course, I fed Rumored to Exist into it.  It looks like it was a copy of the text from shortly before it was published, and not the final draft. Some of these are uncannily funny.  It’s like doing some Burroughs cut-up shit - some of it is hopelessly random, but some of it fits together far too perfectly.

Here’s the best of the output from it.  Maybe I should put this all in Helvetica and dump it into a pocket book.

I could feel the hair on my head falling out, my muscles atrophying.

CIA was outside in a van, or his phone was ready to give out.

I couldn’t even email her and ask if she was the same person.

He couldn’t bring a gun into a federal building anyway.

Uralic-Altaic and Latin American languages blended.

I thought it would be in Ohio, it turns out it was in Japan.

Klan was headquartered less than an hour from the governor’s mansion.

Nick told me about a version of MovieLine that worked for pornos.

Skee-Ball tickets and a Hubert Selby, Jr. tattoo on my cock.

I drilled her right there on the tile. Within a month, it became mundane.

I was so bored I masturbated to the JC Penny catalog.

Doctor McCarthy will see you now,” the nurse yelled across the concourse.

RM: No, you dumb fuck, I said it was like some bitch puking on your dick.

That’s been my breakfast every morning for the last decade, still is.

Carve your name in my brain if you think it will stop the fucking nightmares.

I wish it was a computer, but even my computer was dead.

They brainwash kids with angel dust, impregnated in blue star tattoos.

I should invest my money in whether or not I should take a piss.

X-ray comparisons between the Dark Lord of the Sith and John Merrick.

Bread, bread… Ghostbusters caught the holy ghost in one of those ecto-traps.

I finished the loaf of bread, and drank a gallon of flat Perrier.

Marco said. “Not the film, but a perfect view of the event itself.

I found myself in the men’s room of the DNA Lounge in San Francisco.

God would have to send back Ahnold to the manger to try to stop it.

They could even let the good guys win and it might be entertaining.

It would make a good recordable MiniDisc commercial, really.

And I had hours to find Nick and get back on a plane for New York.

Jed cracked open a cold one while Elrod, well, cracked open a cold one.

With my extensive studies in vomit, I can spot fake puke at yards.

Tito, reading from a copy of USA Decay. “Fuck!” I said.

It didn’t feel like skin-to-skin contact like the package claimed either.

I could grind them down and make counterfeit paper pulp in my bathtub.

Never give money to strangers, unless you know just how strange they are.

It’s like that Cheech and Chong movie where they had a truck made out of dope.

I shove the clipboard up his ass. Okay, so I have issues with UPS.

But I won’t pay those bastards at Time-Warner for their mind control.

I liked the Behind the Music on Ice-T though. He’s pretty funny.

I need you to go thirty clicks up the river and catch this frisbee.

I dropped a fiver on the counter for my drink, and ran for the door.

The human body is engineered to fail in an emergency.

I raped the cancer surgery reward with a Dremel moto-tool.

Leisure Suit Larry with a vibrating pager attached to your wong.

And you couldn’t sleep on the beach and bum tourists’ change at this resort.

I never went to class, so I’d have a lot of trouble finding them.

Outside, sirens were going off everywhere, the riot underway.

Peter Criss threw his drumsticks to the screaming fans in the coach section.

Plus when I wore it all day, I lost five to ten pounds in sweat. Nitrous…

Pure oxygen rushed through the nosepiece, and I inhaled deeply.

The Gremlin didn’t have AC, or even a functional vent fan.

I could pick up my paycheck, and I didn’t have a dime to my name.

Tito finally bitch-slapped him and told him to shut the fuck up.

John Voight would play the chief, and utter the “I’m too old for this shit” line.

With some napkins and a straw that’ll work in the ambulance, of course.

I’d break em in half on the first stroke.” “Dude, I think you’re fucked up,” Nick said.

Shooting Six People in the Fucking Face with a Bulldog Revolver.

I checked out all of those religious books and drenched them in human blood.

I asked about this, he said it kept the CIA from reading his mind.

Weren’t you born in like ‘61?” “Dude, I was there, but not during the war.

IQ test last night, so I know I’m not stupid, but it could be the drugs.

Santa Claus shapes in a piece of plywood with a table saw sans guards.

I’m gonna fuck him, and break that god damned gimp arm in half with my cock.

I pour gasoline all over myself and light myself on fire.

I pushed him, and watched him fall to his death. Then I went to 7-Eleven.

Man, and that’s why I kept setting off the metal detectors. It worked.

Her only piece of photo ID was a postcard of Niagara Falls.

I can’t just write “THIS IS MONEY” on a piece of paper and spend it.

I figured they had to use potent stuff to keep out the cockroaches.

I got the second one, and found the first, she could have it. She’s gone too.

I guess I’ve officially re-started the edits on Rumored to Exist. I spent some of last night hacking at the text, trying to turn some of the “one-hit” stories into longer pieces. There are all of these parts with a single plot element, and they somewhat fall flat. It’s cool to work through these in edits and get some more length and depth in there. I think after (if) I finish an edit like that, and add the 55 fragments that are missing, the manuscript will be about 100,000 words long.

I just had to buy another lunch because the sandwich I made was rancid. I hate packing my lunch, but I hate buying lunch downstairs or down the street. Spending $3 on a tiny pasta salad or a half of a sandwich isn’t worth it. I’m almost used to eating the same stuff every day when I bring my lunch. Sort of like how David Lynch ate lunch at the same place for 17 years in a row or whatever.

I’m reading a Phillip K Dick book (I don’t remember the title) that takes place in 1960 in an alternate universe where the Japanese and Germans won World War two and divided up America between themselves. It’s not perfect prose - I’ve liked PKD for his ideas and stories, but never for his flowing use of the English language. Anyway, it’s an eerie and strange idea, and it reminds me a lot of an American version of 1984 in a way. Everyone thinks 1984 was such a high-tech story (the people who don’t read it), but it was really about the low tech situation. I should re-read 1984 right after this, it’s been a while. I bought a new copy at a garage sale about a year ago - it looks like it was originally from a school library. My old version was falling apart - I bought it 5 years ago for a class, and got a few reads out of it.

Orwell’s awesome, even outside of 1984 and Animal Farm. I’ve read Down and Out… many times in recent years. It’s a great book to read when you’re poor and out of money - one of my favorite college reads.

It looks like none of the CDs I ordered from cdconnection will make it - they’re all out of stock. I went CD shopping last night, and bought 2 Tori Amos singles and 2 albums by Tony MacAlpine, this mid-80s guitar hero type. I thought he dropped off the face of the earth, but here he is…

I finished my first line edit of Rumored last night - it took about 13 days, not all of them productive. The next step will be to enter all of my changes into the computer - I edit on paper with red pen and then integrate everything into the original in emacs. It takes longer, but I like working in bed with a clipboard. More intimate… plus I’m lazy and like to lay down and write.

The next step will be to go through and rewrite each and every paragraph. Maybe 10% or 20% will stay, but the rest will be chopped up and redone from scratch. That’s a bit extreme, but there will be changes. Too much of the book talks about me - I need to obfuscate it. It’ll be a lot of work, but fun.

Almost forgot today. I was busy editing Rumored with my little clipboard and my little red pen.

There was an earthquake today, just after noon. It was a 4.9, out in the Puget Sound close to Bremerton. It freaked me out, being on the top floor of a 10 story building that’s all glass and electronics. This thing is built like a tank, but it still shook and waved around like part of some Disney ride or something. No damage, maybe some people’s pictures fell off the walls. Still, it was a little weird. This is earthquake 2 since I moved here, 3 really but I missed one because I was in San Francisco. It’s really like number 200-some since I moved here, but you need a seismograph to catch all of the other ones.

I’m thinking more about writing and future projects and stuff. Nothing I can talk about, but I do want to keep going in the same direction as I am with Rumored. I’m hoping to do a lot of writing over the summer, after I finish the edits. We’ll see.

It’s been a year since I started my current job. Nothing too eventful about that. I don’t like talking about my job too much in these journals. Just know that I have a job, and I work it, and I’ve been there a year.

All of a sudden, the sun is out like gangbusters. Maybe it’s time to go home and play.