What I Did Instead of AWP

I didn't go to AWP. In fact, I have never gone.

It isn't that I didn't/don't want to, although being the introvert I am, I suspect that even had I gone/if I go, I would have spent/will spend a lot of time feeling overwhelmed.

Still, I'd like a chance to be so overwhelmed someday, when I don't live so far away that cost and travel time would burden my family. Someday.

Here's what I did instead of go to AWP:

1) Got excellent news concerning not one by two of my poetry manuscripts. Will tell more later, when appropriate.

2) Went to book club where we discussed And the Mountains Echoed, which was complex and interesting and yet didn't leave me wanting to read the other two Khaled Hosseini's bestsellers.

3) Got a haircut that I hate and still haven't figured out how to cope with.

4) Had tea with my closest Japanese friend during which time she told me she is moving.

5) Heard from my closest non-Japanese friend that she may also be moving.

6) Got a check for two poems that will soon be appearing in the Vermont College of Fine Arts' journal Hunger Mountain.

7) Took my son to a 4 1/2-hour awards ceremony in which children sat in a different section than their parents, so I was all alone, the only 'foreigner' in a sea of Japanese. I confess that at one point, for about an hour I put my iPod ear bud in one ear and ignored some of the endless drivel of the ceremony. Son received a medal for his academics.

8) Worked hard on three poems for my new project.

9) Baked desserts for my family, after not baking during the two years I was working on my newly-completed masters.

10) Cleaned out my bookshelves and got rid of over 100 books, but it didn't make much of a dent.

11) Wrote syllabi for the new school year starting in April.


Not quite the same as AWP, but no complaints here!