By any stretch of the imagination, tonight was supposed to be spent a) in a bed, b) sleeping in said bed, c) gathering my strength by sleeping in said bed and d) prepping for a 9 a.m. race and gathering my strength by sleeping in said bed.

None of those four conditions has been fulfilled. Instead, I’m running around a 75-year-old building that looks like a castle, studying up on arcane history for 150 articles that will compose the largest feature ever - by far, at 30 pages - this magazine has ever seen. Excuse the emphasis, but this is going to be the best fucking issue. Ever. And the publication has been around since 1880.

So much for the race.

Just 48 short hours ago, I listed my somewhat dicey turns of phrase that will inevitably appear in print. So - the poorly-chosen phrase updates for Thanksgiving Day are

• ‘four separate glacial periods between Newfoundland and Ireland’
• ‘compared to an astronaut, Captain Nemo and Lewis and Clark’
• ‘Anyone feel like a luau?’
• ‘an obscure hamlet in rural Alabama’
• ‘the original temple to our mother goddess’

By the numbers, I’ve ’slept’ (read: stayed overnight, working) at the office two (2) times in three (3) nights; I’ve made approximately one hundred seventy four thousand, three hundred twelve (174,312) individual keystrokes and consumed five (5) bags of coffee grinds. The grinds were consumed in liquid form, but I have no idea how many cups that equals.

And just for good measure, I’ve given twenty-two (22) dirty looks to coworkers who say asinine crap like ‘hey, you look tired.’

Best. Fucking. Issue. Ever. Give me your address and I’ll send you a copy when it’s printed in January. Maybe.