So I have all this news building up, and I find myself with a few spare Sunday minutes.

I’m in Five Islands, Nova Scotia, near Parrsboro. At an awesome place called Mo’s. It’s a cafe/hostel/gallery/venue for art of all kinds. The women in the kitchen are making biscuits and rhubarb muffins, and I’m drinking coffee and feeling like I snuck in the backdoor of heaven somehow. Shhh, don’t want Saint Peter to figure it out and send me back down.

If you were here, you’d see me wiggling around on this wooden chair, trying to scratch the bug bites on my upper thighs without actually appearing to be scratching my ass in public. Life is good.

Kev played here last night, at a big outdoor party. Steve Bowers and Keith Mullins were on the bill, too, and Alana Yorke. It was lots and lots of fun. We had a wee fire afterward, sat around drinking beers and singing songs and laughing so hard. We stayed at the hostel last night, sleeping in bunk beds, and it was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time. Now, the coffee and the promise of a rhubarb muffin.

Last night was particularly fun because I got to sing with the band. This is something we’ve been doing more of lately. I’ve got back in the habit of carrying around my battered copy of Homing, and Bowers has got in the habit of asking me up on stage to read from it in the well between the A section and the B section of the song of the same name. And then I get to sing the B section with the band. A section that is Meaghan Smith’s part on the record. Usually there’s a female vocalist of some sort also on stage, whether it’s Meaghan or Fleur Mainville. But last night, it was just me. After I finished my reading, I looked at Steve. He winked. I pointed to myself and he nodded. I took a deep breath and sang that beautiful chorus, with its refrain of “always homing and never home.” And we brought the house down. It was easily the best five minutes of my week.

We’re gonna do it again at the Carleton in Halifax on Thursday, drop by if you can.

Oh, and the screen thing. Did I mention yet that Homing has been optioned? And that I’m starting work on the screenplay? Well, it has and I am. It’s terrifying and awesome and so very strange. Oh that little, accidental book and the places it insists on taking me.