Crashing the Ahhpp

The Ahhpp conference, like I like to call it or as all those fancy writers call it the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), came to Austin last weekend. Mike paid his $45 dollars and was a good writer supporting the cause. I crashed it. No name badge or cloth tote bag for me. No, no, I was the lone tech-writer hanging around to soak up some of the spilled bourbon and gossip of 4000 writers. The weekend was also distinguished as being one of those rare occasion where the company I was keeping loves reading poetry as much I do. In fact one, friend said that Austin had over this weekend all the people in the country who actually write and read poetry. Very true and very sad. I think poetry just doesn't get enough exposure. In some countries the government hires people to write poetry and poets are immortalized in coins and statues but we have different priorities here and that is fine.
There are some great websites like http://www.poems.com/ that brings poems right to your CPU in easy bite size pieces.

Anyway, I digress on my poetry soap box. With the conference came a handfull of our good friends from around the country. Some I had seen as little as two months ago, others I hadn't seen in almost 8 years and some confused me with other people. I took the mistaken identity as a compliment (even though it was from a professor I admired) - I am just going to tell myself I look better than my bad dye job, cheap clothes, out of shape college days.
As you would expect when a mass of writers gather, there were a few good stories/experiences to come out of the weekend. On the first night of the conference, Mike and I went to dinner with an old friend of his from undergrad, who has become now an old friend of mine. After a wonderful dinner of Thai food and a fantastic Pinot Noir we headed back to the Hilton. Our friend needed to buy a bottle of wine for "room party" later in the weekend (apparently if you stay in the hotel there is a lot of craziness after the readings and the panels) so we stopped at the only convenient store within walking distance of the hotel. As we approached the door, a large woman, puffing on a cigarette stood in front of the door and told us we were not going in there until she had finished her smoke. She was working until 1 AM without any relief (it was now 9) and she was going to enjoy this cigarette. We had no problem waiting for her to finish we could take a walk down sixth and show our friend the famed row of live music venues. As we were turning around we decided to ask her if she even had wine. In answer to our question she said "oh yeah wine has been real popular tonight. I have sold more bottles than I ever have this early on the shift." We were cracking up by this point. We told her her sudden rush in wine had to be because of the 4 thousand wino writers in town. She later told us one guy even bought 4 bottles. Our friend said "he must have just gotten a rejection." We laughed and she looked sad for the imagined, rejected artist. I hope she restocked the wine for the rest of the weekend because after this conference a week long film and music festival begins and I am sure film makers and musicians make writers look like Mormon school teachers.
The other exceptional story to come out of the weekend was told to me by a friend. As wesat around our favorite table in the hotel bar we began talking about cats because in the last six months Mike and I find any excuse we can to talk about cats. I was complaining about the cat's recent swat at me the night before and our friend said well at least she didn't pierce your nose. We all got really quiet. Recently, she was leaning over her cat to give him a kiss on the forehead and a lock of her hair fell in front of his face. As we all know, no cat can resist something dangling in front of him so he followed his kitty instincts and batted at the wily hair. As he batted at the hair his claw caught our friend's nostril and pierced right through the lobe. Apparently, though it was a lot easier to get the claw through the nostril than out of it and our friend describe that both her and the cat were pretty panicked. Someone then asked her how long he was stuck to her nose and she responded "When you have a cat attached to your nose 5 seconds is a long time." The lesson of the stoy is of course don't give your cat kisses.
The weekend came to an end with a reception of free booze and food and lot of chatting up of old friends. Not a bad way to spend a weekend. Of course I am looking forward to my day off on Friday and spending a weekend of just hunkering down at home.