All Japanese Girl Rolls

And, boy, is my visa card tired. But it was fun. Here are some hightlights:

Got to see my brother for the first time in at least two years. Ain't he clean-cut and looking healthy?


He loved seeing Ada read at the KGB Bar. Also got to meet Knox (who is on Verse Daily today, and read the next night in Brooklyn at the Stain bar):


Matt enjoyed it too, and snapped this photo:


Matt also chilled on Saturday night after the PBQ event, and enjoyed a number of cocktails with Marion and others:


I got to spend way more time with Jason and Michael than I have in a really really long time. I didn't mean to close my eyes, but it was harder and harder to keep them open as the night wound on:


Meanwhile, after the fact (and after a kickass Giants Victory!) I discovered this morning, at Laguardia, that I somehow booked my return flight on February 20th. Yes, I was angry. Yes, I deserved the $100 fee to change it for not being more careful in early October. And in the flight-canceling fog that's descended on the midwest, I decided to rent a car home and drive, rather than wait for the next flight...which would have had me STILL waiting, right now, as I type this blog. But I got a Mustang, so floored that in 50 ft of visibility home:


But it's all ok. I give you THE TAKE:


Those top ones that are hard to see would be the latest Tuesday, Lemon's Mosquito, and Ms. Kathleen Graber's Correspondence.

All and all, I'm pretty pleased with the conference. However, I stand by my initial idea that NYC is a bad idea for an event like AWP. Too much stuff going on. I never want AWP to be in a place where I order a pint of Miller Light and get asked for $9.75. Efff that noise.

But it was great to see everybody. I have a lot of reading to get myself into now. And have to send a certain typewriter to a certain poet; these conversations happen after the open-bar events.

Isn't it nice to be home?