After the last of the readings, which were superb tonight (I will be picking up some of Peter Turchi’s books straightaway), I grabbed some beer and headed back to the dorm. It was already past 10 PM. There’s apparently quite a party going on just down the way, but I don’t have the sense that I want or need to party tonight, so I planned to sit on the cool porch of the Ballfield Dorm and write a little.

Frederick was already out here when I arrived, sipping away on a Sierra Nevada, so I sat down to chat a bit, and shortly, Chris, Kevin, and Stan joined us. The conversation was of a typical character for this experience– there’s a strong intellectual/literary component to the chat, but it generally lacks the passion or joviality of a real friendship. It’s more of a culture of overlap: you may share an interest, but you don’t connect. Everyone hoards every experience with a stolid enthusiasm but seemingly little excitement. No one gets sloppy because they’re talking about a thing they love, even if the discourse veers towards the things they love.

This isn’t a bad thing; we are fellows due to proximity more than affinity; we have little more in common than that we write, and who doesn’t write? Drive to do doesn’t seem to translate into drive to feel, and I myself am quite guilty of that, partly because I do feel somewhat like an undercover reporter who was let in for a story but doesn’t truly belong, and will almost certainly betray any trust.

This guardedness gives me a whole new appreciation (as though I lacked any) for improvisation, in which strangers routinely lay bare their best and worst impulses for complete strangers, and are rewarded instantly with a connective laugh or sigh of appreciation. But even more, it gives me great appreciation for having found someone for which no topic is entirely dispassionate, because we are so uniquely intertwined that we cannot help but be sensitive to each other’s every little care (the only physical parallel I can muster would be if I were interested in her toenails, though quite frankly, I am not… though, again frankly, I cannot think of anyone else’s toenail clippings that I would even deign to examine, so perhaps the example will suffice).

So, wife, I love you and miss you, and were you here, I would no doubt be distracted, but would feel more complete.

Final score:

Poets 21, Fiction Writers 18

Went into Asheville last night and purchased an alarm clock that doesn’t blare, but whines, and a box fan that doesn’t hum, but roars. This had the curious effect of waking me by a really subtle, drawn groan. I will continue to run the risk of not waking when I should wake.

Also purchased soap and shampoo, which made today’s shower vastly superior to yesterday’s. What kind of nincompoop goes off and leaves his soap and shampoo? I am that kind of nincompoop.

While I enjoyed yesterday’s lectures on an intellectual level, today’s got me really excited– I could tell because I had a physical reaction– a quickening of breath and pulse– in each of them. And seriously, I had no expectation that I’d enjoy either particularly. I was scared to death of the class on translation, because I wasn’t terribly fond of the poet being discussed. But I found that translation, in just about an hour, became a fantastic puzzle of intent; one that, were I perhaps more talented with any language, I would attempt. The romanticized notion of translating from Chinese is particularly enticing, but I don’t know enough of Chinese culture to attempt a translation with a literal translation provided. (Plus, I would probably need to work with Ladybug to provide that rough translation, and she’s CRAZY.)

There was also a lecture on time and immediacy of sensation, which delighted me not because of its subject (Anais Nin, sorry, but snoooooze), but because of its implications for two of the ideas that I am in some stage of developing into poems. So my motivation is selfish, completely selfish, but the faculty have told us to attend to these lectures in the most greedy ways, and I oblige. I cannot imagine that the lecturer will, upon seeing my notes, which are to be turned in, be able to make any sense of the sections titled “Dr. Manhattan” and “Hawkman.” (And yes, in case you were playing along at home, my next two poems will be about comic book characters.)