Coming Up for Air

(Cue Thus Spake Zarathustra from 2001)

We, and by we, I mean I have emerged from a nearly two-year slumber not unlike the mighty cicadas which are now swarming over the disgusted citizenry of suburban Chicago. Of course, we (I) only slept for two years, while they hibernate for seventeen, but I am told they do that for reasons that relate to prime numbers, and two is a prime number as well, so quit being so quick to judge.

Many of our loyal readership is likely wondering what happened? Where have they been? What new trend-words or "twerds" have we been missing out on without the staff of Slanguage to hold our hand daintily like a southern gentlemen guiding us past somebody's darling and assuring us that the terrible conflagration would soon be at an end?

Cast your minds back, back as far as September 20th, 2005, a Tuesday, my fourth favourite day of the week (for obvious reasons). Fred and I were packing our belongings into an old ruck-sack in preparation for our upcoming trip to the Annual Conference on Post-Modern Fiction sponsored by the editorial board of Teen People and held in Uppsala, Sweden. As we bickered playfully over how David Foster Wallace would react if Fred wore his favorite Old Navy blazer to the Auster Cotillion, neither of us knew what adventure, or tragedy, lay ahead... By tragedy, I am referring to how Fred died. I'm not sure if that was clear.

To be continued...