Then After the Show its the (After Party)

Hello kittens. Are you all disoriented post-Daylight Savings? I woke up yesterday somewhere around noon after sleeping like a tiny infant child.  Between a hotel party, two bottles of Sweet Red, and a late-night-roommate-living-room dance party I’ve accrued about 12 hours of sleep in the last three days. The resultant high is either severe delirium or the fact that it finally feels like spring outside.

You guys, we made it! Every year I think winter will kill me off, and every year February ends. March always happens. I stop crying on my way to work. My heart loses approximately 35 lbs. and I can breathe again most mornings. I don’t know exactly what I want to say here except that I’m alive and that feels really fucking good.

Ok, let’s talk about things.

Set wrist/view from our hotel room

Friday I was invited to read poetry in a town far away (AKA Corvallis). So we rented a room in Albany, because what better opportunity to party like rock stars? Only without heroine or breaking anything in the hotel room. Because we all know Maria has enough shit to deal with already.

[Note: telling us our housekeeper’s name was a really solid move, Phoenix Inn. We would have been much less reserved if it was you, The Hotel, cleaning up after us. But knowing that a real-life human being would have to scrub the shit out of those carpets? Well-played.]

Poetics Corvallis happens the first Friday of every month at Interzone Café. I was honored to share a reading space with representatives from Calyx Press, a dozen or more open mic performers, and a room of eager/engaged/attractive human beings. I performed two 15 minute sets, and somehow maintained witty, albeit self-deprecating, banter with the crowd.

On the subject of poetry—

          “So do you like, have groupies now?”
          “Ummm, not really. I mean, poetry doesn’t get you laid. It’s more like, ‘Hey girl.
           Wanna come back to my place and talk about my depression issues?’”

All jokes aside, poetry might actually be something I’m good at. Like, there’s potential for me to be famous. Not rich, though. Poets don’t get rich, because too many of us thrive on struggle and friction and darkness. Red wine and intravenous drugs. Ok, maybe not the drugs because that’s dangerous behavior I don’t endorse. What I mean is:

my specialty is living said
a man(who could not earn his bread
because he would not sell his head)

On the subject of needles—

          “You let your friend tattoo you.”
          “Yeah, I mean she sterilized the needle…”
          “….”
          “And she’s a real artist. It’s legit.”
          “….”
          “I probably have Hepatitis C.”
          “Wrong tone of voice there. That probably should have been more serious.”

After returning to the hotel (and promptly being kicked out of the pool for noise complaints), we retired to the hotel room for a night of revelry. Expectations included drinking, laughter, and merriment. Unexpected things? Stealing salt from the kitchen to clean wine stains, talking until after sunrise, and calling a bakery in Baltimore at 4am.

On the subject of foreign cuisine—

          Mo: “Good morning. Hello, yes. Is this Little Italy? We have a very important question.”
          Fancy Stephen: “Am I on a radio show?”
          Mo: “No, we are just seven girls in a hotel room in Oregon.
                  We need to know the difference between Italian and French baguettes.”

Apparently it has something to do with elasticity. Straight from the source.

When the bloom made our heads heavy we sprawled across the bed and clasped hands to keep moored during the ebb and flow of memories. Tell me about your first. Tell me about your last. Who would you be if you were a movie? If you were a character? What are your symbols, and what do they mean? To who?

On building relationships—
    “You’re really good at deflecting.”
  “What do you mean?”
  “Case in point.”

But I kissed her bare ankle, and we tucked ourselves into sunrise anyhow. An hour later, everything still the same but somehow Before and After. Stumbling sticky-eyed heavy down to the pool. Saying goodbye in the cold hallway. On the drive home I nearly killed a heron crossing the interstate. It glided into the median; posed as I passed by, stretching its wings and neck. Or maybe that’s the dream. A crazy story told by crazy people should only make you wonder. I don’t know where the truth ends and the metaphor begins, but I think that’s where I live.

And now it’s three days later. I’m lying in my bed. A pile of laundry is glaring at me from the middle of the room. That Cat has finally stopped putting toys into my roommate’s shoes. I am so full with the people in my life it makes me ache in the softest places. I am breathless with anticipation; this season of giddy. You guys. Spring. We made it, and I am so glad you’re all here with me still.

All my love.

-b