BEING GONE: POETRY TOUR REVISITED

This post may be the 2011 version of another post I made about traveling.
 
Being gone: Writing as reconstruction, memory as re-representing / atrophying mechanism, and the existence of multiple bodies coinciding at different velocities, accelerations, decelerations and identities in spaces* usually designated as houses

*the majority of places we read were houses   

+This is a remembrance, as writing is, of a certain time, a recalling of the days I shared traveling and reading poems from April 15th, 2011 - April 30th, 2011 with my friends Andy Gardner, Maryn Jones, Jimi Payne, & Matthew Whispers.  

*This account was written in September, five months after poetry tour happened, and with substantial help from my tour notebook. I do not believe I could have written about this tour this in-depth from memory. I remember trying to write this back in May, closer to when poetry tour happened, without the notebook, and being able to remember a substantial amount more; but now, hardly anything comes to mind if I do not consult the notebook. The memories have been moved to a deeper chamber of the mind, perhaps, and I now need a key, pass-code, trigger, something. Of course, when I re-read the tour notebook and edited it into the following accounts, I remembered everything, I found the cloister where these instances are stored and was allowed to sort through them. Like watching a documentary of your life. But you can pause it and move around in it, smell it, touch it. Change it, even. What I've found after completing this post is that writing, when we revisit it, is held like clay in the hand of our brain, and we engage with it in infinitely complex ways, ways that elucidate, obfuscate, recreate and make new meanings with the always changing versions of ourselves that must relocate the past as time passes.

APRIL 15, 2011 — COLUMBUS, OH & CHICAGO, IL   
I get home from the school I work at at 6:15 and finish packing my things for the trip. We're planning on leaving for Chicago asap, but time has decided to move faster and us slower. Andy and Maryn are milling around, getting their things ready, too. At work, this four year old Cameron and this five year old Connor, were comparing their bicep sizes, Connor telling the younger, more naive Cameron that he couldn't even fit into Cameron's shirt, his muscles were too big, you know. We leave our house (Monster House) around 7:30ish and stop by Maryn's house (the Legion of Doom) so Maryn can get something she forgot. I don't remember much of the car ride to Chicago, besides its length, and how night came on and day turned off while we were still in Ohio. We have a little trouble finding Matthew's apartment, eventually do, park, get out and hold a bunch of bananas over my head in some kind of triumph as Matthew approaches our car. We do some little celebratory-kick-off song-dance on a sidewalk and dodge some dog poop on the grass. A piece of gum I tried to throw out the window has stuck to the passenger's door and is still there and will remain there for several months. Matthew lives on the third floor of an apartment complex that is above an auto repair shop. In the morning you can hear the sound of bolts being unscrewed, a humming of sorts, a buzzing of deconstructions and working exclamations. Drink some Old Styles and sit around, talk without intent for a good minute. Matthew and Andy are looking through a leftover box of baseball cards Matthew found in his room when he moved into his apartment. Some of his roommates come home drunk, bikes in tow. We share smokes by the window and I grow tired, a little drunk. In the morning, I awake to tires being taken off cars and a roommate who asks if I'd like coffee, yes, I would, thank you, and he brings it out into the main dining room area in two glass pitchers. We talk about Cleveland. He's from Kansas. We know some mutual people, someone from Kansas who lives in Cleveland. Pack up our things and leave to meet Jimi Payne at the Flying Saucer for brunch.  It is the first gathering of the totality of our tour crew.  Jimi walks across the street holding a sleeping bag and another bag of other stuff. We dance and wave our arms around as he approaches. Eat steamed kale with miso sauce that is damp and one of the last greens I will eat for two weeks. Crossword puzzles are being passed around and our waiter is giving us the sign that we have overstayed our welcome, so we get up and go, coffee cups half full. On the drive to Milwaukee it snows. 

APRIL 16, 2011 — MILWAUKEE, WI
We pull into Milwaukee, a city I have never been to before, the Riverwest neighborhood. We don't have a place to go yet, so we park, get out of the car, walk in a wet, heavy snow to a nearby coffee house. It is 5pm or so. Hand-painted mural walls, kombucha, vegan baked goods. Veggie chili, even. Two cops are sitting together in full uniform sipping coffee. Matthew buys me a coffee and we sit in a wobbly bench-booth, pass around crossword puzzles, kill time. Jimi and I talk about Terry Eagleton, how Jimi has watched some of his seminars on youtube, essays we've read, the book I'm currently reading. Matthew writes that we are boring on a brown napkin and passes it towards us, then to Andy and Maryn. Leave after a bit more sitting. On the way out we see a flier for the reading where it says I am from "Colombus" and that Jimi is from nowhere. Walk to Shannon and Eric's apartment, which is right next to a bookstore that reminds me of this Christian bookstore in a shopping complex in Akron, Ohio. The laundromat below Shannon and Eric's apartment is called Soapies. A harsh wind blows and I remember it is mid April, feel confused slightly. We walk back toward the coffee place, because Shannon and Eric aren't home. End up going to the place the reading is at, Cream City Collectives.  Someone named Heather lets us in and gives us a little tour, explaining how things work there with a touch of pride in her voice. The place has a magenta-pinkish colored front door. It's an infoshop—slogans and insignia emblazoned and adorning the walls, black flags and zines, a lending library. Heather has to go, but assures us it is okay for us to stay there, hang out, eat our peanut butter and trail mix sandwiches, corn chips with salsa. I staple some poetry chapbooks and take in the interior of the space, which seems to have not so much window light coming in. Shannon and Eric arrive and Shannon and I go to the Riverwest food co-op. She buys me a Kombucha wonder drink with her foodstamps. The guy who rings us up effuses an unfriendly feeling, which turns out to be a misperception by me, because he is surprisingly free-spirited, soft-spoken. We wait for people to show up to the reading.  Drive to a beer store. I'm going on less than seventy dollars to my name, but split a six pack of Negro Modelo with Jimi. The reading starts. A guy with a quiet voice, petite body and glasses, reads first in a chair near the entrance of the infoshop. The front door of the place is right next to where he reads and he is frequently interrupted by the squeaky door opening and closing. Two folks from St. Louis read, someone whose name on the flier was Boop. The other guy has an enigmatic Brooklyn accent. They do mostly (or all) their readings from memory, political incantations and ruminations mottled with feelings of reclamation, solidarity, the like. A friend I've met through DIY shows named Andrea reads some short, playful poems. Jimi, me, and Matthew. It feels strange to read and only have your perception of what the atmosphere is like, a mere gleaning of what people think, or know or believe, or feel that particular day. This feeling will pervade the entire tour. After the reading, Matthew tells me that we should switch poems. He reads mine, I read his. We go to a bar, play pool, drink two dollar pints of a local microbrew with Andrea and Audrey. A band plays cover songs and the lead singer / piano player has an iPad on a stand with lyrics of the songs hooked up next to his keyboard. A vending machine sells packs of smokes alongside Doritos. The night distills into itself and we head back to Shannon's place. Matthew laments a former crush that is resurfacing. Buoys bobbing.  We semi-drunkenly chat outside. I fear I am not really in moments, that I see too much into the future, that I negate possibility by seeing straight to the end. Matthew says it's okay, I don't really, I am in moments, too, come on. Tea and chatting and sleep. I am first up and make tea and greet Andy as he plods into the kitchen. We go out on the roof, take in the frigid air, talk about something, I forget what. Shannon is babysitting an almost three year old named Eureka who says 'aw shucks' a lot and a baby boy named Samson. Walk to the food co-op at baby-infant pace and get some breakfast making supplies. Crossing the streets with these kids is a meaningful task, and I feel at home, a reminder of the school I work at. How every-tiny-inconceivable-thing is meaningful. I play banana phone with Eureka on our brand new fair-trade organic bananas. Jimi sells a bunch of buttons to a re-thread place. I buy a toothbrush (I haven't bought a toothbrush in my life, ever) and Jimi buys razors from the same place we bought beer at the night before. In monotone utterances we say "sell buttons, buy razors" as a kind of definitive chant for this moment of the tour. Sell some of our books to that bookstore (Woodland Pattern Book Center) that reminded me of a Christian bookstore. It is a non-profit bookstore and they have a million books of poetry from everyone on the planet. Meet some affable folks who work there and talk about our tour. When we leave, after a hearty breakfast and Dora the Explorer with Eureka, it is chilly, but warm where the sun is. 

APRIL 17, 2011 — MADISON, WI
The drive to Madison is an easy one. 1.5 hours west on I-94. We head straight to the coffee house, Mother Fool's, where the reading will take place. I remember driving in Madison before on a tour with the Sidekicks, but not much else about the town. It has a loose, free-spirited vibe. Houses and shops co-exist on the same block. We pull up and get out. Meet Carrie Lorig, inhabitant and poet of Madison. She is very kind. I think I order a coffee. Free for performers. I am grateful. Contemplate buying a baked good, but remember my waning funds. Plus, the sensation of having a mostly empty stomach for days is something I have learned to be able to do. Christie Taylor reads first, in a disgruntled, remorseful tone, it seems. James Schiller reads next. He is nicely dressed and his poems feel like poems. Heavy set with metaphor, swift jumps from image to image. Not particularly lucid or accessible, but still strong. I think I enjoy it. I meet his wife, Lauren, after he reads. Jimi reads, makes the connection between his book (Austerity Pleasures) and what has been going on in Madison with the protests about recent austerity measures. I am impressed by his on-the-spot meaning making. Smoke break. I read. Meet someone named Ishmael who is a neuroscientist, works in public policy, says something about how amazing the brains of artists, poets, the like, look under brain scanners when they're doing their work. His appreciation is met with ours. We get $3.50 in donations. Go to the Weary Traveler, a restaurant / bar that has a kombucha 'factory' in its basement. Jimi gets a vodka drink that has kombucha in it. Carrie's boyfriend is with us. We split a pitcher of a dark, local beer. On to another bar, this one more sporty. Pool tables. Wrap around bar. Run into Ishmael again, talk more and more about how important his field of study is, what he is trying to do with it. He says something about trying to change the government's policy regarding science to consider neuroscience's findings more acceptable, which would ameliorate some of the old, violent myths about putative differences between people. I have a moment where I can't believe I just met a neuroscientist, think "what is my life." In the morning we wake up to sunshine and Carrie makes coffee. We part ways, putz around by the capitol building for a bit. My mind wanders to the videos I saw of protests here not even a month ago, still happening. Jimi sells some buttons to a re-sell store and we hit the road. We stop at a subway on I-94. Some place called Orange Moose Lodge. A guy watches us order food then stops me, says, "I couldn't figure you guys out. What music do you like? What's your deal?"

APRIL 18, 2011 — MINNEAPOLIS, MN
Monica who set up the show greets us at the door of the house we are reading at, Psychic School of Dream Actualization, and a feeling of deja vu overcomes me. (Minneapolis gives me that eerie familiar-warm-feeling of Ohio.) The street looks like Clifton Blvd in Lakewood. The house is welcoming, walls adorned with homemade art, upside down thriteen colonies flag, a Ronald Reagan quilt. One of those word-scroller machines has "Ayy bay bay" scrolling on it, facing the street. The house reminds me of my house in Columbus. The people remind me of my friends back home. Some more uncannily than others. My heart melts a little. Roommates are milling around—everything seems aesthetically planned out; more of an 'art' feel than a usual punk house.  There is a black lab / greyhound mix named Huck. There is a worry-faced orange cat named Geo who is super sweet. In typical house show style, we wait for people to show up for the show. There is wine and beer. We go to a liquor store, Maryn and I split a six pack of something. Smoke some smokes, drink a beer on the porch. In the kitchen, Jillian is making a pizza, and I meet some punks who are trying to unionize the food co-ops. They know Matthew and a good amount of my other friends and their bands. They remind me of Kent friends. Lots of familiar feelings and faces at this reading. It is nice and comfortable, but also confuses me a bit, makes me miss people, question individuality. The you that is you. The show starts around 9:30. The first band sounds like Cold War Kids. Talk to Jimi and Jillian about Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Something magical. Matt reads nervously next. Monica's band plays. She tells us she recently discovered the "bend" key and we all laugh at her "discovery" as she bends notes during a song. Jimi reads next and "covers" one of my poems, "All scarecrows." Ross, the singer from the first band, tells me he had deja vu during the end of the poem and into Jimi's banter. Another band plays, with horns, sounds Irish-y. People seem drunk in general. I read poems. Jimi says its the best he's ever seen me read. A journalist guy talks to me for a while. He is ingratiating to the point of nausea. I ditch out of the conversation. Walk into the kitchen where Jillian and some others are crouching on the ground, she says, "Want to perch with us?" And I do. The singer from Sorry OK has been "perching since [he] was a kid" so we all indulge for a little while. It's surprisingly difficult to do for a long time. We are laughing asking him questions. His name is "Shuge." It is one of those moments where you are building something with people and creativity flows and love is stirred around like a spirit. And then it is over. I step under a mistletoe and Griffin joins me, implores the symbolism of the mistletoe by looking up at it then at me then at it then at me. I laugh. He says, "I'll make it easy," and turns his cheek towards me. I go to kiss his cheek and he kisses me on the mouth. In the living room, Jillian is playing music of different styles, from swing to hip hop to 90's to dance. We dance a bit. Journalist guy is hanging around, trying to get some kind of a story. It is very weird feeling. He chases the dog around for a while. Leaves awkwardly as we are about to fall asleep. In the morning I wake to Geo cuddling me. Make tea with a pot Cori gives me. Jillian comes downstairs and we laugh about the night before. She makes us coffee. Jimi and her go to the Walker Center for the Arts and the rest of us stay put, make lentil soup. When we all get back together, Jimi and Jillian from the art museum, Andy and Maryn from a walk, we take off for Chicago.
  
APRIL 19, 2011 — CHICAGO, IL
(Once we left Minneapolis, this day seemed like it never existed.) It is sunny, 50 degrees in Minneapolis, then it snows, blizzard-style, all the way through Wisconsin and rain ushers us into Illinois. Two semi-trucks have flipped on the highway and we sit in traffic for a good few hours. I drive for approx. 8 hours and am delirious, hungry, and crazy when we arrive at the reading in Chicago at Parasite Lost, an apartment inhabited by friends Sara Drake and Cassandra Troyan. We are 1.5 hours late and most people have left. I feel too crazy to talk about anything else than how crazy I feel. We read poems, half-present, and leave to go to Matthew's apartment soon after. Eat some tasteless burritos at some late night place, drop off Jimi at his apartment and say our farewells to him, as he will not be joining us for any other days of the tour. I feel sad. Somehow on.

APRIL 20, 2011 — GRAND RAPIDS, MI
As we are trying to leave Chicago, Maryn realizes Jimi took her sleeping bag and not his. We try to go to his apartment in the morning, but no one is home. We leave the chaos of Chicago for the lovely quiet of Grand Rapids. The Ethel House, where we are reading, has an ornate wrap around porch. As we approach, Sam greets us. He is tall, lanky, blonde with a scraggly, short beard. We drop some stuff inside, walk around the area of Grand Rapids we are in. A coffee shop called Godspeed! You Black Coffee. People selling random items on the street. We buy beer from a place called Smitty's, walk back to Ethel House. There is a potluck and I eat some orange tofu w/ rice. Marlee comes home and we start soon after. We pack into a little living room annex that looks out on the neighborhood street. It's a quiet, family neighborhood. There's approx. 20 people sitting in this room when I begin reading poems. There's times when I feel defeated, pointless, about poetry and what it does, and then there are moments like this when you realize you are sharing presences, not just objects, or goods, with people, things they may carry with them for a long time, unknowingly.  At least, that is my experience with poetry. We are usually not encouraged to share what is written on our hearts with each other. This is the hidden gift of doing things like this, I realize. It's not really quantifiable, which is its pain, as much as I may like it to be. Matt reads after me, then a lady named Karen reads a short story. Sam and Marlee do a performance piece together in which Sam reads the letters that make up the poem and Marlee twists her body into those letters as they are being read. I sell more chapbooks than at any other reading. I feel like I can buy an actual meal soon. And more beer, which I buy in the form of a PBR tall boy. A guy named Zach whom I met in Chicago at Zine Fest came out and he tells me he'll be in Columbus for the reading, too. Marlee tells a spooky tale about taking stuff from an abandoned house in Ann Arbor: playing cards with a stolen deck of cards from the house and relationships falling apart because of it. One of her friends walking out of her apartment to find her car gone, and to find it parked outside at the abandoned house, with a card from the stolen deck under the front tire. A cat stuck in a tree, one of the playing cards stuck in its collar. So they returned all the stuff to the house, and things seemed to get better. Recently, at a bar, Marlee took out her ID and a card from the stolen deck came out, too. We all go buy just one more beer from Smitty's. Play video games. Andy and Maryn buy tickets for the Archers of Load reunion show in Chicago. Go to sleep. In my sleep, Maryn tells me the next day, I said, simply, "Bilbo Baggins." We go get breakfast / lunch at a place ten minutes away on foot called Gaia.  I get a tempeh reuben. Marlee says I have a nice head of hair and that as I age I will only become more handsome and beautiful. She has a BFA in dance from Michigan, I learn, and is parts of lots of local art groups, doing great things. After we leave we head downtown, ride the giant tire swing, and wish the Segway tour would come over to us and let us try them.

APRIL 21, 2011 — DETROIT, MI
We get into Detroit. I usually forget what happens during car rides. We took 96 and 94. I remember that. Blair, who set up the reading, graciously last-minute, lives in a house, duplex looking place. When we park outside of it, two ladies are gardening, digging up dirt and putting yellow flowers into the ground. A dog barks at me and they tell it to shut up. We're pretty early so we play catch in a field across the street from Blair's neighborhood. It's actually just a bunch of overgrown grass next to a dilapidated apartment complex. This kind of vibe is everywhere in Detroit. It's like Cleveland, but on a larger scale, encompassing a more serious air, actually frightening. Blair's neighborhood is where all the younger, more conscious, white kids move to, Matt informs me. We walk around; wherever there is a turn there is also an empty building. A football field with cleats strewn about the entrance to it. An old charter school. It's ghostly. Maryn's wearing shorts and someone at a gas station we pass yells, twice, "Ain't you cold?" Back at the apartment we have tea and Blair is making vegan sloppy joes. People are nice, neurotic, young. It is a potluck. First band is fresh out of high school style, it seems. One in an Army sweatshirt plays a handheld drum, the singer sounds like Bob Dylan, etc. I read after them, standing in the squash shaped basement. One of Maryn's ex-boyfriends is there, Jordan, and we are hanging out a bit. Blair and another guy play folk punk style songs. Matt reads last and people are engaged and engaging, asking him about his job, about his work in Chicago, the political climate there, etc. We drink and talk for several hours. Someone worries that our poetry has no heart. I assure him it is there. Matt and I get in a lengthy chat about what poetry is and what it should do. I mostly argue the "inexplicable, no intention, but directed with love and earnestness" position. Matt wants to change people's lives, the world, and now. I feel small, I say. Maryn and Jordan have emotional talk and she gets two milkcrates of her stuff she left at his parent's house. In the morning there is tea and potatoes. Our hosts are very kind, generous. We go to an island on Lake Tacoma called Belle Isle and look at plants. There is one called a "Punk Plant." Everything in this city reminds me of Cleveland. We take a photo together by the gardens and leave.

APRIL 22, 2011 — CLEVELAND, OH
When we cross into Ohio on I-90 I know where I am. We get to Coventry in Cleveland Heights around 5:30 to eat at Tommy's w/ my parents and sister. They are running late. When they arrive I feel excited to see them. See an old friend from when I lived in Kent. He tells me he is going to be a father. Our meal runs into the beginning of the reading time, which is just next door at Mac's Backs, a bookstore. I meet Suzanne, one of the owners, I think, and she is very nice. Reminds me of my writing professors at Kent State (and later I learn she knows them, shares time w/ them sometimes, amazingly). We mozy into the basement of the bookstore, sit in chairs, and stare in one direction. Mallory starts the reading w/ a story about a math teacher and goes into one about the people who shop at American Apparel. She has projections of her drawings that coincide with the story. I think about how young Jordan and her were just a couple of years ago. To see them growing is almost like how I imagine being a father or teacher is like. When I read my first poem (that includes a memory from our collective childhood) my sister guffaws and I can't finish the poem without smiling. Jordan reads poems about being nervous, I think, that I haven't heard yet and we hang around for a while, sell some books, before leaving. Cleveland feels amazing—I know all of its roads and buildings, am of its air. I can look at a person and feel home. After the reading we buy beer at a gas station and head to Jordan's house in Solon. Maryn says she likes, just everything feels like home in Ohio, in every city. We play ping pong and drink beer. Talk, talk. My sister comes to hang for a bit, I haven't seen her since she left to student teach in Greece, and it feels refreshing to hang out. We're up til 5, wake up at noon; fruit, coffee, skating, basketball, Cindy, Jordan's mom, does my laundry and we leave.

APRIL 23, 2011 — KENT, OH
More familiarity. Traveling should seem foreign, right? Not so. Walking around Kent is like having a re-occuring dream; each step is a step towards someone I know or kind of know or used to know or have seen before; into buildings I have been in before, on sidewalks I traversed for 3.5 years. The feeling is a mixture of comfort and heart-wrenching helplessness in the face of Things Can't Stay The Same. We get coffee from Scribbles, burritos from Taco Tantos, walk down by the Cuyahoga river, look around Last Exit Books. I pick up Touching Feeling by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick on a whim. People in Kent are still folky and holky, living their small lives and laughing a lot. I miss it. The Who's Your Mama? Earth Day Festival is closing up on Main Street. I got my direct deposit from the school I work at put into my bank account yesterday at midnight, so I suddenly have a boost of funds, which feels nice. Have some good talks with people about the miscegenation of poetry and music at house shows. Matt Scheuermann arrives and I feel relieved and elated to see him. We are reading at the ARM House (formerly the Vineyard) for this year's ARM Fest. I read poems and Matt reads right after me. We sneak away to Stone Tavern (formerly Professor's Pub, one of my main hangout spots / bars when I lived in Kent) and drink $1 Black Labels until we have to get back so Matt (American War) can play his set. It feels amazing to be able to be traveling and see such a good friend, share time with them, however briefly. We have to leave for Syracuse, NY—Matthew's hometown—where we will stay the night, because we have to drive to Boston the next day. Andy drives all six hours and we get in at 6:30AM, fall asleep. Wake to waffles and coffee and vegan bacon / sausage. Matt's mom is sweet-hearted. The TV is on the whole time we are there. Matt and his dad shake hands instead of hug when we say goodbye. 

APRIL 24-25, 2011 — BOSTON, MA
I drive from Syracuse to Boston and we end up in traffic all the way into Boston. After two cities I used to live in, now we are in the city Maryn and Matthew used to live in before they, respectively, moved to Chicago and Columbus. Chelsea Dirck is putting on our reading at her apartment, the House of Babes, and we arrive hungry-bellied to a full table of food. We are welcomed by big hearts: a vegan feast and loving friends. Matthew immediately seems like he feels at home, talking to old friends. I still feel car-fucked, claustrophobic and the like and I try to hide for a bit. I chug water, feeling dehydrated. People names: Chelsea, Candice, Liz, Susan, "Susan's Dad," Matty, John, Connor, Jake, and a Dave, I think. Dogs: Scout. Cats: Egon. The living room is red, a large abstract painting hangs on one wall. An upside down cross. Susan's dad plays finger picked ballad-esque tom waits recalling acoustic jams. We flip a coin and Matthew will read first. Brian and the World plays quiet, compact, organized, pop folk songs. He is very tall. I read next, do this singing poem for the first time. I realize our event is more of a private party than anything. Maryn plays last. Afterward, we kind of just sit around, I'm exhausted, and hardly sociable. In the morning, I feel better, interested in life. Drink coffee and edit poems. Pet the dog and cat. Matthew and I decide to get daytime drunk. Walk around Allston. I remember being there approx. 2.5 years prior. Matthew keeps talking about how everything is changed. We go to some place with sunset in the name and get a white beer pitcher. Talk about identity and pop music. I think I see someone I know across the bar. After the bar, we buy local shitty beer from some liquor store and walk back to Chelsea's apartment. Fall asleep with Scout for a little bit. We go get vegan pizza when Chelsea comes back. Maryn and Andy are visiting Maryn's parents. Matthew and I decide to visit some of his friends in Jamaica Plains. Have some trouble with the bus system, eventually get there, go to a bar where you can bring in your own food and your dog. I overhear a buff-looking guy say "Dao Jiming! I love you man! No homo." Matthew's friend Ross comes and drives our drunk selves back to a house. We smoke on the deck and talk about fires and ice skating. Eventually we go back to Allston, fall asleep, and wake to leave for New York, again.

APRIL 26, 2011 — NEW PALTZ, NY
Maryn forgets some beer in the fridge of Chelsea's apartment, and we almost wait for a roommate to come home from work or class to let us back in, then decide, no, we should leave for New Paltz. It is sunny and hot on the drive.  I am sweating a lot, reading Eagleton's How to Read a Poem. We arrive to a group of people sitting outside of a house on Mulberry Street. Leslie is in town and it feels good, again, to see a familiar face. New Paltzians seem of the Kent-Ohio-type: free spirited, slightly socially awkward, stuck in that small town enclave of private discovery. It is a beautiful day and after eating a dish Leslie and Kate cooked for us, we take a walk down by the river, across a bridge. Mountains in the distance. A walk to the beer store and back to the house. We make it back to the house, more people have shown up for the reading. Leslie asks me to walk to another beer store with her. We talk about small towns and cities, how I would probably be getting more hours, a higher paying job, at the school we work at if I stayed, but I'm moving in the Fall. I buy Maryn a Sierra Nevada at the beer store and we head back. Matthew, Maryn, Leslie, and I stand in a small circle about to drink a Mountain Brew beer together, when we decide we should all give a small speech. I talk about how my ancestors guarded valleys, lived in the mountains in Germany. It is a terrible beer. The show begins w/ Kate reading from her perzine No Better Than Apples. She talks like someone I used to know. Her words are carefully chosen, her stories well thought out and engaging. I remember one about meeting a feminist writer, one about the awkwardness of her Dad. Matthew reads all new poems next and then I go. People are watching outside through the windows. A finger-picking local named Tom Christies plays slow (too slow) acoustic jams. The big show is next: Lepideptera Puppet Co. A full-fledged puppet show w/ Kate and friends about a monster that steals pies in a small town. It's over-the-top and fun, w/ live music being played, flashlights and a "light" person. Afterwards, as the title of the play promises (There will be pie), there is a wide array of pies. We mill around until we decide to go for a walk about town. There is the oldest functional street in America. Run into a guy named Allen who is related to the original founders of New Paltz. He's walking around drinking beer. He tells us facts about town. Local fauna. Leslie tells me stories of her life when she lived here, asides of what happened where, how a professor and her walked around this pond. When we are walking around the campus of SUNY, it starts raining a little. Then a lot. Suddenly we are laughing and caught in a torrential downpour, clothes soaked, barely able to see anything, a half hour from the Mulberry house. When we get back, we strip down to our undies and dry off with towels. My shoes are ruined. We have a beer, life is ridiculous. Pretend like we're going to watch a movie. Fall asleep. In the morning, we're slow. Bagels and coffee. It is muggy out from last night's rain, the day's heat. We walk to Inquiring Minds Bookstore, where Kate works, to get Leslie's car keys. I put some of my books in the store and buy a book by Jacques Lacan. Dry some clothes at a laundromat Leslie used to work at. Tofu scramble and hasbrowns at Bistro for $3 before we leave.

APRIL 27, 2011 — PHILADELPHIA, PA
The second half of this tour feels like being in fast forward. Days pass as less, moments get sucked into whirlpools, and next thing you know, you are on your way to the next place. In Philly, we read at an anarchist bookstore called Wooden Shoe Books. We are the only people reading, which makes me nervous, and I don't expect anyone to come. Surprisingly, approx. 10-15 face us as Matthew and I read our poems. The reading is less laid back than every other reading; there's chairs in rows and a question and answer session after we read. A guy named John asks us, more or less, what it is like to live as "punks," in cooperative ways, without much money. He wants some of our "underground adventure" stories. The reading is billed as "Punk as poetry, poetry as punk," so I anticipated this a little bit, but still, I feel a little surprised. I tell him, this is just what I do with my life, it's not anything I feel like is crazy. We sell books to the store and nonchalantly trade contact info. Some of Andy's friends show up and we meet them down at a fountain somewhere. Andy is psyched to be there, apparently it's a famous skate spot. Drive to the house we are staying at, after getting lost quite a bit, and I feel out of my head. The people we are staying with are all 19-21ish and remind me of me being that age.  Mariyah makes me tea and us pasta. Matthew and I and some other people write an exquisite corpse poem. I feel anti-social. In the morning, we go to a cafe where "Left and Leaving" is being played. Andy's trunk won't close, so I buy a bungee cord from some hardware store. Latch it on and hit the road.

APRIL 28, 2011 — PITTSBURGH, PA
We are greeted by a low-key room of people in Pittsburgh. Meet a handful of them, including Daniel, whom I have met before at a bonfire at 15th House in Columbus. The house we are reading at is called Cyberpunk Apocalypse which functions secondarily as a writers' collective that hosts shows, readings, and has a one month writer residency each month. I'm impressed. We head to the house behind the main house, where the writer-residents live, and are offered food and beer. Andy Folk, the current writer-resident, has made seitan "hot-pockets" which are delicious. It's quite the welcoming atmosphere, though maybe not traditionally. People seem bereft of excitement, but not in a disappointed way, more so in a way that signifies this is how they always are. Art Noose, of the zine Ker-bloom!, is hanging out. We go buy beer. In Pittsburgh, you can only buy small quantities of beer in bars, so we end up getting a 24 pack. The reading begins when we get back in the living room. A circle of 15-20 people are listening to us read our poems. Andy reads stories from the zine he is working on about a band called "Whack." After the reading, a bunch of folks go out dumpster diving as it is the end of the semester at the nearby college, and there is sure to be lots thrown away. We stay back, hang out with their black lab named Grandpa.  Then to the "O" for huge orders of fries. Matthew can't eat them, because he has a peanut allergen and they are fried in peanut oil. We get lost trying to find Andy's friend's house. Find it. Sit around and smoke smokes, talk about people we know in common. Back at Cyberpunk Apocalypse, I use the internet, drink beer, and read Rilke before falling asleep. Tomorrow we will be back home. In the morning, I go to the back house and help cut potatoes for breakfast. Others wake and come out and we have waffles with gravy, a dish Art Noose tells us we better like or "we can get gone," (jokingly). When it is just me, Art, and Daniel, we talk about writing, what books we're reading, and what poets are "for," how accessible poetry should be. I feel myself being made into a perception, and vice versa. Memory of this conversation later affecting thoughts about me—who I am, what I believe. It is something I have learned to be calm about—to just be as much in something as I can, with truest words, earnest foot forward. We say goodbye and get lost leaving the maze of Pittsburgh. Close to back home.

APRIL 29-30, 2011 — COLUMBUS, OH & BLOOMINGTON, IN
I stopped writing when we got back to Columbus. I don't know why. Maybe I didn't think I needed to record everything anymore. Why? A feeling of home. The feeling that you know these people, that they know you, and that you all can make the necessary and wonderful discoveries about each other without having to record every single day. Something will last. We trust forgetting when we are home. Trust that the things we will forget and the things we will remember will be necessary things. This trust must be close to some kind of definition of love, affectation. I tear up thinking about it. In the very least, this is how it feels to me.

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