blog post

I went to Boston over the weekend. I rode in a plane that flew there, no problem, and my friend Josh met me in the chilly air and we took the subway back to his place in Jamaica Plain and he cooked up a roast. He is a great cook, like so good it's weird, like how come you decided to do cooking so good.

Then on Saturday I went via commuter rail to Providence and met with Mairéad Byrne, whose collection of poems, The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven, I'm publishing in a month or two. It was a delightful afternoon meeting with her, talking about the book and poetry in general and the business of poetry. I felt very privileged and then I took the commuter rail back to Boston and caught up with Daniel Trask, a diligent novelist who self-published a great, thoughtful book called DMR about working in a home for the mentals.

Then I watched the Ravens/Steelers game (irksome loss) at the Cask & Flagon, which ESPN called the second best baseball bar. It's right there at the butt of Fenway. I thought for a minute about taking a picture of the back of Fenway but instead wrote it with the ink of memory. Then I rode on a plane back to Baltimore. It seemed to take forever but finally I got home and look at me now: I'm at my desk at work.

So what's next? This weekend I'm driving up to Ithaca to go skiing with my brother, Alan. He probably won't cook a roast, but we're going to celebrate the New Year with some restaurant people or something.

Publishing Genius gets to nominate someone to contend at Opium Magazine's Literary Death Match on January 30th. Who will I pick? Remember "Thumbs Up 7-Up" from when we were in 3rd grade? I feel like that.