Like Simon and Garfunkel Because I Love the Bay.

By all accounts, David Larsen was fantastic last night at his reading at the EYEBALL HATRED reading series at Pegasus. I wasn't there. I am in a fairly excruciatingly dismal place.

I will be leaving it tomorrow morning. I will go to the Lab Poetry Marathon tomorrow evening to see Edward Foster, Judith Goldman, Andrew Joron, Dana Teen Lomax, Denise Newman, and Lisa Robertson. How wonderful that, after having missed two great readings, I can attend a super-gigantic reading! And one of my favorite things in the world, NEW YIPES.
What's frightening:
I don't know how I am going to leave the bay. Everyone leaves eventually. I have to live in New York before I die. . . and India. . . and maybe Japan for a longer time. But how will I leave the bay? Everyone I love is here. I have met the best poets, people, and bloggers right here. The people here are rather smart, and the bookstores have books in them I actually want to buy. . . if I had money to buy books.

It wasn't always like this. My first few months in Berkeley, I was disappointed and didn't like it. One of my only friends, who had lived there for two years, felt the same way. It felt hopeless. That person ended up being a deplorable, worthless human being, and I love Berkeley, SF, and Oakland. How could you live in the bay area for two years and be miserable?

My time away has been hard. It wasn't Fullerton's fault, it wasn't Billy Collins's fault, it was the San Francisco Bay's fault, because somewhere along the line, I kind of fell in love with it.
There's a lot of fancy cars in Orange County and a lot of big houses, too. Very beautiful beaches and rich people. But there's no art. There's no character.
Having Grown up in Los Angeles, I will always defend Southern California, but I haven't called a place home for many, many years. I thought that I had lost what that word meant.

Tomorrow morning, I'm finally coming home.

lover's cushion.