I am no longer on a boat (despite what my inner ear thinks).

One of the primary reasons I got a waterproof point-n-shoot camera was so I could do stupid stuff like this:

HI FISHES I’M A BIG DUMB PRIMATE WANT TO PLAY WAIT COME OUT I CAN’T BREATHE DOWN THERE WHERE ARE YOU GOING

Before I write anything here at all, I need to give an enormous and heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who made stuff and put it here while I was gone. I almost don’t want to write my own dumb stuff, because I’m dragging the curve down. I’m lucky and grateful to know so many awesome and creative people. If you haven’t, yet, go check it out. It’s way better than this thing I’m about to write, I promise.

So. I am home. Castle Wheaton sits in moderate seas, according to my inner ear, and Anne and I were never coming back, according to our pets.

This was our sixth JoCo Cruise, and I am so grateful and I feel so lucky to be asked back five times more than I probably should have been. This cruise was the second best for me, coming in just a few lengths behind the first one, and I am already counting down the days until next year’s cruise. (By my math, it’s 6000 days away, because I am not that good at math or counting or numbers and instead choose to do this thing called “emotional math” that I learned from TV. It’s the kind of math that lets me believe the things I want to feel, and it’s all over cable news so it must be true).

Anyway, it was the same incredible gathering of incredible people that it always is, with some truly wonderful concerts and performances. I’ve been a fan of Imogen Heap for ages, and getting to see her perform live, in a relatively small space, creating an entire song using her own technology is something I can’t adequately describe but will never forget. The comedy performances were hilarious, and inspired me to at least attempt to write some new material and start working out a new set.

I only have two regrets: that I went to sleep before the Ted Leo and Aimee Mann show (as The Both) because it was at midnight, and that I didn’t have the courage to at least try to do something in the David Bowie tribute show, which is almost certainly making its way onto various video and blog sites as I type this now. Yes, I spent three days without a voice because I did something my friend Mike Selinker called “The Human Mic Drop” (worth it), but I think I could have made it work, if I’d had more courage. Maybe next year, as Cubs fans say.

I want to get into more details about some other things, but I’ve been awake since 5am my time, and I don’t have a whole lot of motivation and creative focus at the moment, so go read Scalzi’s post about the boat, and come back tomorrow for more from me.