Forgotten dates: AWP Chicago

So I went to Chicago for AWP, and I thought maybe it was April, but it turned out it was February. I got to see these lovely people, the Erik/Erics.
And this awesome painting. (I can't remember who painted it, but I'm sure I wrote it down somewhere)
And I had more than one lovely meal with Lisa B, which is a coup in and of itself. I think this was the delicious vegetarian restaurant that Lisa scouted out with her super sleuth skills.
I'll try to figure out what happened in April. If anything.

Post-Reading Break-it-Down

First, I love our valiant MC. He was so over the top nice in his introduction. You know what I'm talking about.
Second, I DID read the F-word/sex story and everyone seemed to love it. I'm not sure all the elderly folks in the room loved it, but everyone else seemed to. My former student and her friend liked it. Some random audience members I didn't know liked it. My smart fiction friends got the whole "unreliable narrator" thing. Thank you, friends.
Third, the person I read with was nice and lovely and new to me, so that's always cool, to meet a new writer person.
Fourth, a friend and I had an interesting conversation about the first-person, which is always interesting (to me anyway), talking about narrators, etc.
Fifth, I gots paid! There is money to be made in fiction, friends, don't let anybody tell you different.
Now, I must go collapse into my bed.

I Love Fall!

Every time I go out and do something amazing in Nature, I wonder, "Why don't I do this more often?" What's the point, I ask, in living in this most amazing place if I don't get out there more?
This is actually me, biking away from my friend, who took the picture. See? I think it is heaven.






This is my friend Dean who, I've decided, is definitely one of the top 5 nicest people in the world. He is SO nice. He took me and Jane mountain biking today. At place pretty close to where I live that I have only been to 2 or 3 times in 10 years. Sad. And pathetic!









Here Dean and I discuss something Really Important. I think I was telling him about some personals I read on Salon. com. They were funny. I might have mentioned the one where a guy was looking for either a woman, or a couple (two women). Cuz you know how lesbians are dying to find a straight guy to have sex with.






I like red trees in fall. Beautiful.












I hope you all had weekends as beautiful and edifying as mine. Now it's back to work. But only for another week and then there's another weekend. How lucky is that?

What I'm Doing Or Gus's Epic Journey

Just to get it out of the way: I'm not writing. The word whore has not been whoring. She has been shoe shopping and music swapping (thanks High Touch!), and she has been making rhubarb crisp, and she has been running with the dog.
To wit: This morning I made plans to trail run with a friend to Dog Lake. How can you go to Dog Lake and not take the dog? You can't. So I loaded up the dog in the small car and off we went.
Once on the trail, we encountered some other trail runners. We ended up running in front of and behind them most of the way to Dog Lake. Just before Dog Lake I called Gus back to me, gave him a treat and held his collar so he wouldn't get too far away. When we got to Dog Lake, he jumped in like a good dog and ran around a bit. Then the runners passed by the lake and I saw him chase after them. I walked in that general direction and after a few minutes I began to call him. No luck.
I ended up going about another mile in the direction of the runners calling Gus and whistling. I encountered some hikers who had come from Big Cottonwood and they had seen Gus "leading the pack" of runners. Eventually I realized I couldn't catch up with the runners and turned around. My friend and I agreed to go back down to the parking lot and wait for the runners. She thought maybe they were running a loop which would be 10-12 miles.
We waited in the parking lot for about ten minutes when a mountain biker came dashing down the trail. She rode directly up to us and asked "Did you lose a dog?" She had taken the dog from a group of hikers who had taken him from the runners who, it turns out, were not doing a loop but were running over to the next canyon, probably at least a 15 mile run. Her friend had Gus on a leash and was riding him down to the next parking lot. After I got in the car, I let myself cry a little, but just a little.
We met up with Gus at the parking lot. We had probably been separated for about 2 hours. He was glad to see us and seemed to just want to get into the car, though I made him drink some water first.
He's been sacked out on the dog bed since we got home. I think he'll be tired for at least two days.
So today my plan is to eat chips, drink water and iced tea, maybe some wine later, grill some salmon and not leave the house. It's too damn hot out! And I'm still a bit shaky from the adrenaline of running around looking for Gus and not finding him.
But then I did find him, so it's a happy ending. Thanks to lots of nice people who like dogs. The biking woman even said if she hadn't found us, she would have taken him. So the world is full of good people who love dogs.
Let's hear it for nice people who just want to reunite dogs and their owners.
In other news: I made the Lone Star iced tea and it's delicious.