01/22
the size of our lives

all i have to say about the reading is that i felt so loved. not since i did a reading when i was opening for mike's band in highschool with a poem about how much i hated goths, and the whole room, who were all goths, erupted in applause. of course all goths are self-hating goths.

of course, mike and i know how to rock the washington city.

my parents came and my grandmother came and i love them all so much for coming. all my friends came. from brooklyn and philli and prague and especially Washington, even. the night was like a tag-team fourposter event. matt did the lighting all dramatically and cynthia was mixing the music, like no one else can do what she do. credit cynthia for calming me down. with icky pasts in the room and the emotional drainage of a reading encroaching. and cynthia just gave me one of those looks that was like a motown song, when you hear "signed sealed delivered" at the end of a very hard day.

yes, cynthia, you would be the best christmas present of all. and also Jim showed up, my partner/boss at work. we work for illicit clients together. i sent out a poem to him, props if you can guess which one it was.

and, b'ezras hashem, we'll be having another reading soon -- before i go -- so yeah. now i feel like a performer.

reading. reading. the first few pieces were all teenage-sex pieces with curses and cleavage shots and stuff. i kept stopping in the middle to apologize to my grandmother. i discovered -- i used to know, i really forgot -- how good of a performer i am. i was horrified at how catchy and funny michael's pieces were, and that my prose was just long and not funny. i thought i'd lose everyone. but they were laughing, it was almost stand-up-comedy-type stuff. i was feeling very good. i had this total connection going with the audience, i was playing the character of the matthue and they were buying it. three dollars' worth of it apiece, and almost half our stock sold.

which means we still have a bunch left.

c'mon. buy one...

(new book page appearing tomorrowish, with new stuff every day. love matthue)