Well, today have to check out, drive to Houston, and board the late flight back to Seattle…really exhausted…yesterday spent time in the bookfair and got to see Charles read, got a review copy of a book from a reader Amber Flora who was great, met Deb Ager and little Olive (so cute!), saw Eduardo and Mary again and Victoria Chang, chatted with the Beloit Poetry Journal folks and the Poetry Flash people (who do the hard work of keeping up poetry calendars in the West coast,) and finally! got to walk up and down all the aisles, which is surprisingly daunting. I gave props to Steven Shroeder and Ivy Alvarez at their respective publishers (Bat City Review for Steve, Red Morning Press for Ivy)…took Glenn (as promised) to the Iron Works barbeque joint, which was very tasty, then took a side trip to the Wildflower Preserve, which was pretty barren, I was told, due to a year-long drought, but we still saw flowers and birds (mockingbirds, a strange no-crested cardinal, warblers and nuthatches as well as the expected grackles) and saw the meadow and native trees and cacti. We stopped on the way back at a local ice cream place, Amy’s and had grapefruit ice (because it was ninety outside and hiking about in that is also daunting) and an art gallery next door had a band and free drinks so we checked out some really amazing glass art (much more affordable than equivalent art in Seattle – I was totally wanting a stained-glass and steel butterfly sculpture.) After showering (again – did I mention Texas was hot? and not so much a dry heat) we tried to get dinner but every single restaurant was completely booked, out of everything (because of the several conventions in town) so after waiting a while we took off to go to the 8:30-10 Academy of American poets reading which had Marie Howe and Marilyn Nelson who were terrific, then dashed to get quick Mexican at a place called guero’s and then ready for Reb Livingston’s party (which we were by no means on time to, sorry!) We ran up to Denise Duhamel and Nick Carbo to tell them how great they were, stuffed pajamas in a bag to change into, and were on our way…Reb’s friends who were very gracious had a lovely house and there was even a “make out” room set up for the party complete with disco ball which totally took me back to my older brothers’ parties in the seventies. We were like two and a half hours late so the party was winding down but it was really cool to talk to everyone…you can tell my brain has turned to mush, can’t you, because nothing in this entry is remotely eloquent.. One thing we talked about at the party was how at this AWP there were policemen checking badges at the bookfair and readings, which sucked for Glenn, who didn’t have a badge, and also for people selling at the bookfair, since they got less traffic because of it…at both Chicago and Vancouver everyone could waltz right in. It seemed also perhaps the local restaurants and hotels weren’t quite up to the tasks at hand…I’m still glad I made the trip (with the help of a travel grant, thanks Washington State!) Ready to be home now…