Sleepless in Denver

32º ~ city lights stretching to the base of the mountains and then a void of night sky~those gods and goddesses in charge of sleep, they do forsake me

I bought a new camera in honor of AWP, a pocket camera that seemed less conspicuous than my hefty one that I never take out of my bag, so I'm trying to take a few snapshots along the way to share.

Day One of AWP was amazing and the expected whirlwind. It happens that my flight arrangements coincided with colleague and friend, Antoinette (I'm using first names only, not to be coy, but b/c I didn't ask permission to use full names and I'm feeling like I should have), and we had a great talk during our layover in St. Louis. That's her in the airport photo. She also took this great new profile pic of mine, so many, many thanks, Antoinette! I love Southwest Airlines and their line up by numbers system as we all got to talking to one another, plus the attendants from Little Rock to St. Louis just cracked me up!

On the plane ride from St. L. to Denver, who did I happen to meet, finally, in person, but Stacey and her family. That's her doing what teaching writers do on the plane to AWP...schoolwork. I admired her dedication as I read some of the back issues of journals that had been burning a hole in my bookshelf at home for months.

Once at the hotel, I managed to check off all of the listings for today on my geeky Excel spreadsheet calendar. I am now more aware than ever that I won't be saying that for days 2, 3, and 4.

First, there were drinks with Charlotte and Adam~I completely forgot to take their picture, perhaps the peach martini could be to blame? C & A introduced me to some other nice folks, and I look forward to seeing them all soon.

After a brief respite in the quiet of my room, I went out to dinner with Suzanne, as lively and beautiful in person as I've known her to be online. Suzanne was a sport about my fumbling the new camera, but I never really got a photo to do her justice. Instead, here's a scene from our walk back to the hotel after attending the off-site diode/makeout creek reading. While the whole afternoon/evening was wonderful, the great Thai food Suzanne and I had for dinner was divine. Also, of equal divine-ness...I now have a copy of Suzanne's new book girl on a bridge. Can't wait to read it on the plane home! The diode/makeout creek reading was a blitz attack of poetry. Fourteen readers, many of whom I was in awe of for their deft use of humor in their work. I do wish I could do that!

Well, gentle Reader, I doubt I'll post quite so much in the next few days, but I found myself awake in the wee hours after a seriously sound sleep of four hours. I hope to now be able to sleep once more and be fit & trim for Day Two. If you're at AWP and see me nodding off, please steer me towards the hotel and beg me to sleep.