goad on the road ... epilogue
I'm back in moldy old Portland after feeling like a pinball that bounced up to Seattle, down to LA, up again to Seattle, and finally hitting TILT in this splendiferously livable micro-metropolis which has always embraced me and made me feel part of a thriving, productive, progressive, compost-friendly community.
I'm sad to report that there are lesbians in Seattle, too, but on the plus side, I didn't see any in LA. At least none who bore the telltale Northwestern George Gobel look.
Bumbershoot (I can't bring myself to say that word—I cringe even TYPING it) was an explosion of cotton candy, dayglo posters, face-painting, "spirit dolls," juggling sticks, annoying "street performers" who spray-paint themselves silver and stand absolutely still, and a feel-good, hidey-ho, near-nausea-inducing sense that maybe we all CAN get along and that the world won't soon swallow us whole and spit us out like watermelon seeds.
To a small crowd of zine-a-rinos, many of whom have yet to discover the glories of masking their animal musk with deodorant, I read several of my "Notes from Undergoad" entries and sang an a cappella version of George Jones's "Open Pit Mine."
There is potential good news on several writerly fronts, yet I hesitate to say more for fear of jinxing myself. I have resolved to cease self-jinxing and have in fact jinxed the very act of jinxification.
