It just figures that the day after I actually update this site my server crashes. Thanks again, Hostsave. It's worth every penny.

Working in (south) downtown Austin is so much fun. Today, real live people actually walked by our office and waved - Ray Wylie Hubbard among them. At lunch, I drove five minutes to visit a friend at her work and eat lunch. In the afternoon, Brad and Andreia both stopped by to say hello and check out the new space, then I met Dea for coffee around the corner when I got off. Compared to sitting in a dark office in far West Austin staring at a monitor all day, today rocked.

I met Dea for coffee at the nearby hippie haven coffee shop, just in time for an open mic poetry session. Lucky me! This is the same coffee shop that hosts yoga sessions in the morning, a concept I just don't get. I love coffee, and yoga is alright with me. But why do yoga on a cold cement floor in the middle of a busy coffee shop? This is Austin, people. You can't throw a rock without hitting either a yoga studio, or at least a juice bar. Must you do yoga at the coffee shop? Must you do yoga three feet away from me while I wait for my skinny tall cafe au lait?

But I digress.

What's less appealing than meditative stretching and the exchange of cash for caffeinated beverages coexisting? It's open mic poetry at 6 p.m. on a hot, sweaty Tuesday in July complete with bad lighting and a sparse audience. It's trying to read through a collection of drawings and notes given to your sister by the first-graders she student taught last year that say wonderfully cute things like "Miss Andraa tot me splaelling an I luv hur" while someone is howling "And her fingernails splintered as glass on my coffin and I shouted Mother! I am not afraid!" or some crazy thing like that into a microphone ten feet away from me. This was not Def Poetry Jam. This was Amateur Poetry Therapy Hour.

I am not hating on poetry, to be clear. I appreciate poetry. I have written my own versions of poetry, both bad and maybe-not-that-bad-if-you're-not-squeamish. I have my favorites of the greats and not-so-well-knowns. I think it's just the experience of hearing the poetry out loud, re-enacted by the poet, that is just too much for me. Uncomfortable much? Yes, when someone is chanting about rebirth and boredom during my coffee date. Yes. Uncomfortable. I'll admit it.

More power to people who have the guts to put themselves out there like that, though. It's not for the timid and meek.

Snap snap snap snap snap!*

*That's how you clap at open mic poetry night, silly.

Lucy loves you |