So...very surreal night. Went to a benefit for the university literary magazine. A group of professors have an Irish Folk band that opened. Then for an hour or so people read open mic poetry. At one point the MC, another grad student, asked me to read something. I didn't bring anything with me. I cowered behind a friend and pretended like I didn't exist. Everyone clamored for me to read something before the second band began to play. So my friend Kevin ran me home and I picked up a copy of my story, "Lips", which recently appeared in Say...Was That a Kiss? We got back and I read for the first time in front of people I know, and it went really well. Everyone laughed in the right places, and frowned in commiseration in the right places. It was wonderful. I got a huge round of applause and a few kisses, which was apt, since the story was about kissing. I like kissing. I'm so glad Mr. Rowe and Ms. Bond created a venue in which I could express such sentiment in a literary manner.

Then Jackie and I went to hear her brother's band play. I met her father for the first time. It went well. I'm not building much context here, but I don't plan on it either. Make your own. I have superstitions. I'll leave them by the wayside when I don't feel the need for them any longer. The meeting went well. I was scared, because he was her father, but also because he's a minister. I'm afraid of such people in general. But he was charming and down to earth and very real. He didn't seem like any minister I'd encountered before (except maybe my friend Kelly's father). He even shook his ass and twirled his finger in the air as he danced to his son's music. Very cool, if you ask me.

So. Things are good. Something in me says get ready for the sky to fall, because, as a friend of mine says, the sky does fall.

But I'm hoping it doesn't. At least not for a long time. At least not for a while...