Readings and surprises

So the reading happened (more about it later), and afterwards I'm standing around chatting with people, and these two women come up to me and they look really familiar, in the way that someone looks familiar when you haven't seen them for a year or two and their hair is completely different than it was when you last saw them, and you're thinking "crap, who is this, I know I know this person" and then they turned out to be Julie and Lainey. Who freaking drove all the way from St. Louis for the reading. Hell, I'm happy when someone drives across town to hear me read. Nobody's ever driven from another state to hear me read before. Too freaking cool.

I did notice that when I read my poem "Aero" and introduced it by saying it was dedicated to Rebecca Loudon, these two random women were sitting back there all poking each other and grinning, and I couldn't quite figure out why. Now I know. *grin*

So the reading went well, I think. We had probably about 45 people in the audience (I didn't count them, and I'm really bad at estimating, but that seems about right) -- most of the seats were filled, which is always a nice feeling. I think I went a little over my 8 minutes (oops) but for once I don't think I babbled on too much with my introductions, which I have a tendency to do. I read "Fog, Provincetown," "Aero," "Animals at Night," "The Problem of Birds," and "Hold." It was especially good to hear Shana (our "Special Guest") read, as we read together many many times when we were in a writers' group together but I hadn't heard her read for a while.

I probably have more to say about the reading, but this post was interrupted for like 45 minutes when both of my cats wanted to snuggle up on my lap for a while (all together now: awwwwwww) and now it's 1 in the morning and I'm tired and a certain couple of St. Louisians may be calling in the morning if they want to meet up for breakfast/brunch. So, more later, perhaps.