Friday

AWP day 2: (This is probably a skimmer)
Friday:

1) My "Friends" Brian Whalen and Annie (I can't remember her last name...Binder!) are dating.
2) All Flyway wants for my conference registration is for me to sit at the Flyway table in the bookfair. Twice.
3) There was a moodle chart set up for the purpose.
4) Annie and Brian are dating. They registered before me.
5)I thought: I do not mind getting up. Christ, if I have to get up at 8, it is like a 2 hour vaction from regualr life.
6) I thought: I'll take the first booth time save people from getting up (also, I thought no one would really get up that early and so I wouldn't really need to talk to anyone).
7) Annie and Brian chose to take the 2nd. morning time slot. Together.
8) Like nested dolls.
9) or two mute swans.
10) who embraced necks and now are stuck.
11) like braces entwined.
12) They thought: We don't want to get up early. There is nothing that we want to see in the morning. We'll work the book table. Together. Screw anyone this time would maybe be convenient for. And we'll make someone else wake up early and s/he'll have to take a second time too boot.

13) It was Friday the 13th, my friend Ritchie Duncan wrote a nice funny erudite movie review for that, here. And I was sitting at the Flyway table at precisely 8:30am. It was nice and quiet. Elizabeth sat with me for a while, drinking coffee, and waiting for JoeFred, to come and share the table with me. He did, it was fun, flirting with the girls that came to talk to us. Giving away free stuff (the table had nice free stuff to give away, tea, soda, biscotti, old journals...and the great thing about giving someone a gift, is that they are beholden to you. You soften their hearts and they are not predisposed to hate me. And it doesn't have to be a big thing, it could be submission guidelines and a smile. They have to love you!

The moral of the story is this:
1) Brian and Annie are, my "friends."
2) Writers are mostly nice and normal, but there are a couple crazies out there.
3) Sitting at the table was a nice way to give me the courage to go and talk to people at other tables. They were after all, like me. Or I was like them, because I too sat at a table...joint-ownership.
4) I was going to get free junk.

Basically I hung out in the Bookfair room for the morning. The first conference i went to was, "The duty of the writer" at noon. "Learning" from their Nelson Algren mistake, Joe, Amy, and Elizabeth all joined be to hear about the author's doody.
Sometimes it is to late to learn a lesson. The duty panel stunk. Your duty was basically, "to the poem." I mean come on! It is fine to think that higher goods grow out of a focus to your art. I think it is a rather limited view point, but whatever, if that is what you want to disect, go for it. But don't pretend about duty, you are talking about effect. Title it: The Effect of Poetry. and I don't gotoit.
Duty is something else, it implies a higher calling. I try not to fall blindly back to Ed Abbey, but sometimes it is hard. About halfway through the talk I thought, if Ed Abbey was alive there is no way he'd be invited to this panel. But he should be. And if he was there, what would that look like. He would be powerful, dynamic, and ultimately...since he'd be speaking so far outside what these panelists were approaching...awkward, unwelcome.
The worst part of the panel, was not the panelest themselves, who were relatively charming and interesting...but not talking about duty...The worst part was the questions the panelists left FAR to much time for.

In which I propse a rule: No question should be longer than 4 sentences. Anything longer than 4 sentences is not a question it is a point (or maybe even the dreaded, by me, "take"). No one came to hear your take. If your take was important, or informed, or well put together, you would be on the panel. You aren't so be brief.

for the next panel, Elizabeth went to hear the Greywolf reading. Joe went to hear Deb Marquart, and I buggered about the book fair. My stratedgy when looking for booths was to find cute girls and tables that focused on fiction. I met some nice people, saw some really nice looking journals, and eventually Amy and Joe showed up with sushi for me. How sweet was that, Amy!

Basically that was it for the Friday session, Amy and I cruised through the bookfair one more time trying to see who could gather the most free pens.
Then we sat around for an hour counting our pens and seeing who could fling our AWP badges the farthest. Sweet.

Friday night was fun, we attended the Flyway party and then went to diner at Hackney's (thanks dad). followed by Amy and Joe heading north on the El, while I attempted to goto the Ecotone party. It was midnight, the bar was closed, and I was on State Street, but didn't know where my hotel was. Good times. So I walked north, called Elizabeth once. Woke her up. called her again.
And when i finally goto the Palmer house, asked the front desk for what room was mine.
I slept like an angel.