It's been awhile since I last met up with the whole fly-bunch. 

It's crazy when I think about it. It's been 5 years since I first met my course-mates and it was 3 years ago that I said these words in front of a bunch of people. LIKE REALLY?! 

In it, I have this run-on-sentence-that-is-the-length-of-a-paragraph: 

"The fact that we were and still are so different but yet able to experience such camaraderie because of our common love for the big blue beyond is something that I’ve always found endearing about the club, and the friendships I have forged over the past year in my pursuit for wings will be something I will always treasure just as much as I do for the wings themselves."

Definitely one of the wiser things the 18-year-old-me thought of. (: 3 years on, my license has lapsed, and I am not sure I will ever fly again. The thought saddens me but I am beyond thankful for these friendships and mentorships. 

These people have taught me important lessons about flying, but on hindsight, there were/are many more important lessons about life and people that I picked up over the course of that year that I am not sure how else I would have learnt. 

It was great to see everybody again. Now, we will all go back to leading all our little lives mostly in surprisingly diverse fields. Till next year! (: 

(or maybe, by the request of my pseudo-instructor, if we find some time to pop by with some teh-tarik, we will)

9:00 AM Friday: “Jay, can we smoke in your mom’s car?” “No.” “Can we eat in your mom’s car?” “Yes.”

10:00 AM Friday: “Aaaugh, that guy with a ladder in the back of his pickup just pulled in front of us! This is like Final Destination!”

11:00 AM Friday: “Aaaugh, we’re driving into fog! This is like Final Destination!”

12:00 PM Friday: “I’m going to check us in at Wisconsin Dells on Foursquare. What should I say we’re doing?” “Say we’re giving Paul Bunyan a blow job. Say it takes all of us working together.”

1:00 PM Friday: “According to my iPhone, this ‘wintry mix’ will become less wintry and more mix-y as we get coser to Chicago.” “You’re like a folk meteorologist.”

2:00 PM Friday: “Put on a Rihanna jam. I’m going to make this stuffed bear dance to it.”

3:00 PM Friday: “Shit! I just drove through that toll without paying! I did that one before, when I was listening to The Social Network on audiobook and the Mark Zuckerberg sex scene came on.”

4:00 PM Friday: “This weather is good for being stuck in traffic in.”

5:00 PM Friday: “There’s the hotel! Right across from Burrito Beach.” “Oooh! I want to go to Burrito Beach!”

6:00 PM Friday: “Okay, let me tell you the Tumblr names of the people we’re about to meet.”

7:00 PM Friday: “The Red Line is down because of a medical emergency.” “Do you think someone fell onto the tracks?” “Nah, it’s probably just a regular sort of medical emergency.”

8:00 PM Friday: “We’re looping!” “Is that a drug?” “No, we’re looping the menus of DVDs! This one’s pleasingly minimal.”

9:00 PM Friday: “Can we just seat ourselves? Like, in this booth?” “Well, actually, we do prefer to seat people ourselves.” “Like, in this booth?” “No, like at that table over there.”

10:00 PM Friday: “I’m thinking of taking out the domain precum.life.”

11:00 PM Friday: “This literary dance party isn’t bad! See those two guys just leaning against the bar over there? They’re probably composing erotic sonnets.”

12:00 AM Saturday: “Do you think they’re paying that writer to dance on the stage, or did she just take it upon herself?”

1:00 AM Saturday: “I totally ripped my trousers climbing that fence to climb on that moose.” “Trivia fact: in Minnesota, each person is allowed to shoot exactly one moose during his or her life.” “So there are exactly as many moose in Minnesota as there are people?”

2:00 AM Saturday: “Did you steal those yard signs and that house plant?” “I’m borrowing them.”

8:00 AM Saturday: “You kind of cuddled me last night.” “Oh, that’s nice!” “Just with your feet. I thought you were Jay, and I thought, ‘This is awkward.’” “Yeah, I tried to cuddle Jay over here. I forgot he wasn’t you.” “That’s true. I remember that. But you noticed right away.” “Yeah. I was like, ‘Whoa!’”

9:00 AM Saturday: “Someone’s tampon fell into my shoulder bag.” “That’s weird.”

Green Mud Update #1 - AWP 2012 Conference

Hey lovelies!

It's been a great first week of the project. Thank you so much for your generous contributions. We're already over 1/3 of the way! It's been humbling and exciting to hear all your responses. I have every confidence that we'll make our goal, but we need your help to keep spreading the word!

Good News:

Some of my poetry will be published in a Trans and Genderqueer Poetry online feature for EOAGH: A Journal of the Arts, as part of this Trans Anthology project.

Several small, independent, and experimental presses are taking interest in the novel.

Great Art:

Check out these people I'm meeting and talking with at the conference:

Erin Costello, and her SpringGun Press (Denver)

Amaranth Borsuk & Brad Bouse, and their interactive poem: Between Page and Screen.