I’m back in Astoria. Not for long, but for all of April at least. I have a massive stack of notebooks and photos (a digital stack, but a stack nonetheless) from my travels in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar–I’ll put those together into a few posts soon.

Now I’m just enjoying a little minor calm. I was supposed to be jetting off to Lebanon at the end of this week, but when I got back from the UAE, I realized that was utter folly. My brain was totally full, and I was fried. There’s nothing like canceling plans to make you feel like you suddenly have all the time in the world!

This is false, of course. I have to write a book, on a deadline. The deadline’s not till December, but at the rate time is whipping by, I’ll be freaking out soon enough. Actually, I’m doing a little preemptive freaking out, just so I’m in practice when the time comes.

This leads me to point #1 of this post: the return of the Queens Writers Fellowship. After last year, I’ve got a small crew of people who pop in from time to time. But I’d love to have someone in the office for the better part of April. We have lots of space, facilities for lunch, good coffee, etc. Drop me an email and tell me what you’re working on. I’ll be here typity-typing all of April (except for April 5, 6, 20 and 27).

Point #2 of this post: Astoria Ugly is rolling along. It got a mention in the Wall Street Journal recently, because I imagine when you type “astoria new apartment buildings” into Google, the word “ugly” just auto-fills. AsUg, as I’ve started calling it, is more than a year old, and the ugly just keeps coming. It couldn’t have gotten this far without the excellent winter blogsitting of an architect named David, who has since moved to Puerto Rico. I never met him in person. I love the Internet.

Point #3: Queens Love is rolling. I’m contributing, but barely. More than 10 other Queens geniuses are filling it up with images that make my heart swell with borough pride. Queens Writers Fellowship participant Jeff Orlick is the genius who started it. I predict more great things.

Point #4: I have to warn you, there might be a lot more pictures and a bit less text on this blog in months to come. All writing energy is getting channeled elsewhere.

And on that note, back to work.