All year long while I'm teaching I say to myself, "It's all right if you don't get much work done, you'll have this vast vacation in the summer and you'll catch up then." Well...now is then. With the kids at school and me relatively free I need to race ahead on my various projects. The question is which one? I sent a query to the NYTimes magazine about doing an update on my New Black Aesthetic article, which I would love to do and I'm in a final edit now for a piece for the NY Times for Father's Day and another for Real Simple magazine.

What I am most anxious to start however, are the longer term projects. There are a few movie ideas out there and then I have an idea for a literary, experimental spy novel as well. We shall see.

In the meantime I did get to yoga which my body craved. I'd been running myself a bit ragged since January. I love being busy but frantic? Not so much.

And did I mention that I lost my cellphone last week and have been without one ever since? If crack is half as addictive as a Blackberry I don't know how addicts ever quit.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FYI the Philadelphia Book Festival will be this Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18 at the Parkway Central Library, 19th and Vine. My panel is Sunday at 3:45. None other than Barbara Walters is headlining.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It is so weird being pretty much done with teaching. True, I have a pile of student scripts to read and Friday I have to consult on some student films but during the school year literally every moment from 7 to 11 or 12 is taken up with something that I have to do so now, this bit of freedom feels like heaven.

As I blogged on BABBLE.COM, i took my girlfriend and our blending families to the Bronx Zoo. This weekend we're all going to Philadelphia. I'm on a panel at the book fair down there. I'm still working to get the word out on the book up to father's day. After that I'm done. It is what it is.

I'm also starting in on new projects which is always scary and exciting. There is a film that I am dying to write, an adaptation of another book. And there is my interracial beatnik love story that has been deviling me for years. I intend to crack it back open and fix it this summer.

Other than that my summer plans are so much in the air. I need to figure out something quick. I remember August here in the city was a soupy mess.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

It doesn't feel real but yes I'm done with Columbia classes till September. To celebrate I went to yoga today for the first time in months and I'm pleasantly whupped.

Now it's time for me to get cranking on my own projects: I have to re-write a script of mine and I'm up for a screenwriting assignment and I still have to light a few more fires around the country to get Bedtime Stories more noticed. It's selling pretty well and it seems that people can now find it in stores but there haven't been hardly any reviews at all. I know I shouldn't complain but the reviews -- be they positive or negative -- are your day in court and I think I deserve that. We'll see.

Life with A, my new girlfriend, is going well. She's a single mom so we have a lot in common. Our blended little family is so cute together. Her daughter is almost two and my kids, especially Chet, love to pick her up and play with her as if she were a puppy. Ava helped me change her diaper the other day. I could tell it was a huge thrill for her. I told her to think of little M as a "real" American Girl doll.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It has been such a pleasant surprise getting so many nice emails after MSN.com republished an essay I'd written last year on dating and the single dad. I've been so moved by the well-wishers.

Coming back to New York and the chilly rainy Spring has been a shock. It was 90 degrees in LA and I was tooling around in a PT Cruiser convertible. My friends there kept bugging me to move back but a few days of sun couldn't seduce me. LA is a wonderful place to visit but living there was soul numbing for me.

The Dr. Drew Show, however, was so fun. What a smart, funny guy. I hope he has me back on again. For an hour we just sat there in his studio and talked to callers about everything. I can see, however, how easy it is to be caught saying something you shouldn't. It's so easy to forget you're on air.

The other surprise about my trip was that very few of my friends have bought my book. Four of my best friends out there sheepishly admitted that they hadn't gotten it yet and then finally clicked on to Amazon and bought it in front of me. One of them, Yule, had an interesting excuse. Since it's a memoir he was afraid I'd said something about him that his wife wouldn't like so he was planning on reading it secretly first. I assured him that the only secrets I divulged were my own.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)