Party!

Katrina and Eric. Among those who joined, they were two that totally dressed up for the party. As it turns out, the two of them will be moving to Aurora soon, where she will be pursuing an arts degree.

Talked some with Eric at length, as he offered me some box sets of cassette tapes. Turns out, he was looking to ween down his collection, as he already had CD duplicates or mp3 files. He then told me that he had brought a long a ton of tapes to give to anyone who wanted them.

And he wasn’t kidding about a ton of tapes! We rooted through some things, and he ended up giving me a Gil Scott-Heron tape. And even though a lot of these are dubs and mixes that he made himself, I’m still convinced he could have gotten a decent amount on ebay or something for these.

Taking pics of the food, just because I wanted to document the end results.

These cucumber things were freaking awesome.

For a while, I moved out back and lounged in the patio area with folks. Left to right it’s David and Erin (who also joined in on the costume front), Abbey and Chad.

I talked some with David about Damien Jurado and, specifically, where pink champagne falls in the overall social heirarchy of champagne fanciness. Mostly, I was trying to suss out what a particular line meant in one of Jurado’s songs.

Chad and I talked poetry some, and I tried my best to avoid asking the dreaded questions many MFA-folk dislike hearing, too close to graduation. Dreaded Question #1: How’s the thesis going? Dreaded Question #2: What are your plans after graduation?

Chad recently won a pretty big award (something in the neighborhood of $750 for a poem of his). Pretty freaking sweet. He was incredibly nice, and we discussed trading poems/exercises back and forth some, as a means to spur one another along writing more.

Earlier in the night, I met a woman named Barbara (no pictures though). I hung out with her at length in the backyard, just the two of us. I found out she’s got plans to move in to a trailer in the middle of the woods, post-graduation. She’s already done some work on the place and, at the time we met, was planning to move in in about a week or two!

On hearing this, I began to wonder what it would be like to hole up, away from the world and just write. Deep down, I know it’s more a matter of discipline for me (and less one of isolation). But damn if the idea of a trailer in the woods somewhere didn’t sound just a little attractive. I miss being around writers.

This isn’t a great shot, but I wanted something that sort of captured the dark/lighting out back. Abbey is chatting with Amy, who is in her second year as a Poetry MFA.

A bit later into the night (circa 12:30 AM), there was a general move to go out to a bar. Folks separated out, and a caravan of sorts was made to a place called the Hangar (I think the roof came from an actual airplane hangar, or some such thing).

I had been nursing a few beers all night, and at the bar switched it up to Jim Beam. There was a band playing, but we all ended up grabbing some seats outside and stayed out there until the bar closed down.

L to R it’s Paul, David and Erin. Paul is a resident tech geek, and we talked a bit about computers earlier on (he’s also in the Lit program). I got to chat more with Erin as well, and we kicked around our favorite movies/books/poems. She mentioned Donne’s The Bait as her favorite poem, and was able to recite a lot of it right there on the spot!

A few more folks from school. L to R it’s Stephanie, Meyerhoffer (I think that’s his last name), Chris, Abby, and Amy.

Earlier in the night, Abby and I got into some really great conversations. We were talking at length about children’s books and how much we both dug Chris Van Alsburg. And while most people know him for Jumanji or The Polar Express, one of my favorite books by him is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, a really great book that you should check out if you don’t know it.

Of all the mysteries, this one was my favorite.

Abby and I also talked a lot about writing, and ended up discovering a mutual admiration for Elizabeth McCracken. I think I won points by reciting the first line of her short story, It’s Bad Luck to Die. I also confessed to my showing up at a reading of hers, with the full intent of throwing myself at her.Abby countered with a pretty funny story about being star-struck when meeting McCracken for the first time. McCracken was a visiting writer or something like that, and looked over a lot of the stories submitted by students (Abby’s as well). When Abby went to get her book signed by McCracken, I believe she wrote something to the effect of how Abby writes a great opening sentence.

This? Coming from McCracken? Seriously high praise, in my mind, as I’m still able to recall that first sentence from It’s Bad Luck to Die pretty clearly. Abby was really proud of this comment (as she should be), but also very excited that I was enough of a fan of McCracken’s writing to know how awesome a compliment that was.

After this photo, everyone more or less called it a night. Paul was kind enough to drive us home, and a few other folks took off to some after-party somewhere. Back at Abbey’s place, Paul and I hung out a bit, chomping on leftovers. A bit later, Abby stops on by and joins us for a late gin and juice. I want to say Paul took off around maybe 2 AM, and Abby and I talked a bit more after that. I think I finally conked out around 2:30 or 3. Something like that.

It’s a shame this weekend was so short. I had a blast meeting folks, and was reminded strongly of my friends in grad school, back when I was doing my MFA. I think I’m going to be looking for another excuse to trek down to Carbondale in the future.