Damn, AWP was good this year. Not too much booze, not too much running from venue to venue. Dinner with close friends. Dancing with Emily and Claudia. Three happy strolls through the book fair. I remembered almost all names and faces (sorry Walt; the beard really changes your look). I bought Ann Quin’s Three and Tlooth by Harry Mathews and finally got to see Sam Ligon read and I saw Adam Levin again (briefly met in Chicago two years ago, so happy to hear all the good press for Hot Pink). I saw Adam Robinson breakdance and gave him all the hugs. There are people I’m always really glad to see in life and one is Gene Morgan and one is Adam Robinson and another is Tim Sanders (come visit, idiot) and another is Lindsay Hunter and her husband Ben. It was cool to give Blake Butler a high five. Mike Young and I had a great talk about water in California on the way to the train. Oh and I saw Vanessa Place read and nearly cried and went over to say hello and made a happy ass out of myself, all sober. People said such kind things to me about the book, either that they were looking forward to it or that they had enjoyed it, and I appreciated all of that very much during this first week out the gate. Also I was careful not to mess up my new glasses. I didn’t suffer a single fool. Kyle Beachy hosted two solid parties and I only hid at the end of one, in a dark room, under a coat.
Archive for the 'achoo' Category
I went to the chiropractor this week. There were devices that moved and tables on which large men were manipulated spinally by women. The chiropractor pressed my upper spine and it sounded like someone broke an egg in my chest and I gasped and she apologized for startling me. She showed me that my legs were different lengths and then tapped on a spot under my ear and then my legs were the same length. Now I have to learn a different way to sneeze.
I ain’t read Justin Taylor’s new book but this review sounds like Almond dictated it to his secretary while plugging his ears firmly with his fingers:
But novels depend on rising action. Characters can’t just wander and brood. They have to be driven by passionate agendas, and the conflicts between them have to be dramatized.
I mean, this seems so easily disproven that it seems kind of rude to try. I just sneezed and my snot spelled out Beckett and Joyce and carrots. Gross.
I am typing this flat on my back in bed because my back’s all fucked up, did I mention? I wore a back brace for scoliosis when I was a lass and now the promised spinal degeneration has begun in earnest. I heard a story once about a ballerina who had such a strong core of muscle after a lifetime of training that when she grew very old and broke her hip, she could drive herself to the emergency room and walk in on her own power, her muscles holding the broken bone. Nobody believed her until the x-ray. Anyway that’s my goal: to become a ballerina.
Here’s where I’m reading at AWP:
I am on five allergy medications. Five! Two up the nose, two down the hatch, one in the eyes. I feel like my brain has been wrapped in plastic and squeezed into a balloon. Just now I was standing at the large window of the allergy clinic, watching a fish extend his tail above the water as he swam in his shallow pond. I watched him kiss some green off a rock. The woman at the allergist put a burning shot in my arm right when the other woman walked into the room and asked how my day was. I said MY DAY IS FINE
My personal key to enjoying the holidays is turning off the radio whenever a Christmas song plays. I have to save up my tolerance for Christmas Eve, when I help my dad with the service at the Presbyterian church where he is an usher. Imagine me handing out candles to families, etc. Usually I have bathed. I operate the lights during the light-dimming the ceremony like old times. I sit back in the secret room by myself and hold a hymnal on my lap and try to sing all four parts of the hymns.
It's the most wonderful time
What else. We’re in the home stretch preparing for this show on Sunday. I’ve got to pick up tables today and transport them to the venue. I think I’m going to make some baked goods for the volunteers, maybe buy some egg nog.
I figured out a big element in the thing I’m writing. Looking forward to getting some downtime next week. Right now my brain is a sponge in the world. It’s a bag of frozen peas. A woman across the room is unwrapping the wax paper around her sandwich. The receptionist said, “Nobody is here today. Nobody is here today. We are invisible.” I have been sitting in this clinic room an hour longer than necessary now. I like to be a bag of frozen peas around people.
