Reading Recap

Much to my delight, there was an audience. Thank you audience!

I read poems about bras, camisoles, poligamy, stairs, sleeping, vegetables, gardens, pancakes, penises, an amusement park, wind, marriage, freckles and other miscellany. Towards the end of my reading something felt wrong. I finished with a poem about a man beating and eating his pregnant wife (it's a good closer) and walked over to my chair and reached for my orange juice (I wanted pineapple, but Shafer warned it might be skunky). I didn't make it to my orange juice and magically the ceiling appeared (The Four-Faced Liar has a pretty neat ceiling). Shanna made sure my brains didn't spill out of my skull. That was thoughtful.

During Rob Ostrom's reading, my cell phone rang (cause everything is always all about me and why should I have to turn off my ringer just cause somebody is reading poetry?). I was at the other end of the room resting so Shafer turned it off and in the process put down a whammy. When I turned my phone back on it wasn't working and everything was stuck and I was all "I'm a very important person and surely that's a very important message and I need to get it!" Finally a mysterious man in a pink wig came to my rescue, but wouldn't tell me how he fixed it. I retrieved my message. It was Laura telling me she couldn't make my reading.

After Max Winter's reading I chatted briefly with his parents. We pondered why the hell anyone would ever move *to* Pittsburgh and then I asked how they managed to raise two poet sons. Apparently their mistakes were letting their sons interact with poets when they were children and not pressuring their sons to become doctors, engineers and lawyers. Good stuff to know. From this point on, Gideon is forbidden from all poetry readings. Mommy needs a son she can brag about to all the other crones when she's forgotten at the nursing home.