Tallahassee - Part 1

October 14: Reading with Brian Turner at Florida State University. The Warehouse, 706 W. Gaines Street, Tallahassee, FL.

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I am writing from a fluffy white bed at the Doubletree Hotel in Tallahassee, exhausted...

Had dinner last night in New York at a wonderful vegan restaurant called Blossom with a nice friend named B. I met B three years or so ago through my sister, who used to give him poker lessons. She set the two of us up thinking he was “my type.” We went on a couple of dates… I blew him off for someone else and then regretted it, but by the time I said anything, he’d gotten into a serious relationship and is living with that girlfriend still.

Not that this is at all apropos of anything at all, except for the fact B is an equities trader and the both of us were talking about the Dow and the economy, the potential impending collapse. He is worried he might lose his job and said—in all seriousness—that I was lucky because I had “anther career,” i.e. poetry, to fall back on (oh how I laughed), whereas all he knew was trading. We split a bottle of wine, ate honorably and long. I went home and conversed with my roommate in the yard until 1 in the morning.

From that—drunken musings on an unpleasant economic future in the rotten bleeding bleating heart of the mess, New York City—to an alarm at 4:40AM this morning to catch a flight to Tallahassee, the state capital of Florida.

Frank, a nice graduate student in the poetry program at Florida State University, picked me up. Here is Frank meeting me at the airport:



Here is a picture of Tallahasse (you can see it's pretty flat):



I am here to read tomorrow night for the creative writing program. I have to say I’m pretty excited to be getting out of the rotten bleeding bleating heart for a couple of days, but I’m also pretty tired. And the economy's still tanking. Today, stocks staged a rally due to the promise of a massive infusion of capital in the form of equity stakes in banks. I am skeptical, however, and sick of all the writing and talking and editorializing... It's like commentating in the background while an entire herd of elephants takes ill and collapses...