March 8, 2018

Offered to share a taxi with Melodie down in the lobby, but it turns out she had a car, a sleek Audi, and drove me and her friend to the Convention Center. She has published a memoir of caring for her aged mother. I lost my badge in her car and had to pay $50 to get another one.  Did almost nothing at the Meeting but wander the Book Fair from one end to the other, as I never quite managed before. It was great to be lionized at the various magazines where I have been recently published, especially at the New Ohio Review, which has not yet recovered from my poem’s leaping from their pages intro Best American Poetry. I am very much more involved than I was when I went to Seattle. Talked with scores of the smiling faces behind the tables, determined to be pleasant and cheerful all the way. Bought too many books, accepted too many hand-outs. Sat a long time sipping a drink at the bar across the way, soaking in the sun which was both hot and not. Hellacious getting a taxi back to the hotel. Uber and Lyft have never once worked for me. Didn’t go to the keynote speech, because I was exhausted, and because I feared being stranded downtown unable to summon a ride. Drank vodka at the hotel bar beside a man who assured me I’d much rather have my X-ray read by a machine than by a human.