Where have you been lately?

Hi.
I am feeling much better. You know how people say, "I didn't sleep last night"? They almost never really mean it. Asthma is one of those fun ones that make you stay up all night. So there were about four night in a row through which I only slept about one or two hours. That kind of insomnia makes everything a blur. It makes writing really hard to do. Those waking hours are pretty useless, but I still got a lot done, e.g., I read at Studio One, published a book by Sara Mumolo, and went to the Idiolexicon reading. During the past two days, I have slept something like 20 hours. I am still quite tired, but I know ther are many of you who read this blog every day, and I wanted to let you know I am OK, well better than OK. . . I'm getting better.


My reading with Barbara Claire Freeman and Trevor Calvert went quite well by all accounts. I feel like I wasn't even really there. I felt disconnected on stage, like none of my thoughts were connecting with any of my other thoughts. Barbara Claire Freeman was pretty awesome. She made a big deal about how much Jack Morgan has grown in popularity over the past two years (how many more people hate me than did before), and Trevor Calvert was great. I always like him; he said something funny about Optimus Prime I liked. Jared White came out to join a lot of other people. It was a good turn out for a Friday in the summer. I thought it was altogether a really good reading, and I am proud to have been a part of it. By the end of this summer, we'll get all the kinks out of the series, and we will be f'ck'n awesome by next season.

The Idiolexicon reading was on Monday. It was a fun reading in kind of a weird venue. I like the idiolexicon readings. Marcus Merritt had some strong poems I really liked. Hugh Behm-Johnson was awesome, too. I have to say that I didn't expect that good a reading. It;s been a while since I've heard some good poetry. It's been a while since I've been to a reading that wasn't mine. I think I am going to take a short break from reading so that I can start going to other people's events more. Cafe Royalle had a really nice bartender.

After Idiolexicon, my friend, poet Sophie Sills, said there was a secret performance down the way of none other than Michael Hurley at Gravel & Gold. That's where I learned that it was Bastille day. Gravel & Gold is a nice little store where hipster ladies can shop; the ladies who run it are really sweet people who like to be nice and have parties and dream about marshmallow cupcakes. They had nothing vegan, but they had 2-buck-chuck. I wanted to buy something so I could support them, but I didn't really fit in the store with all the women trying on dresses and sweaters, so I stayed outside, which was fine because I got to hear Michael Hurley, who is selling paintings there, from start to finish. I felt fortunate.

We went to a bar after that that I didn't like very much with people I thought didn't like me very much, which is pretty normal on that side of the bay. No one introduces anyone to anyone else in San Francisco.