Pleased (Or: We Will Be Disorderly)

I probably would have been pleased even if it hadn't been in the fifties all night, warm enough to keep the window open. I would have been pleased even if my hotel room hadn't turned out to have been on the fourth floor, with a balcony, and a good view of the ocean, which was constantly making sound, relaxing sound, but violent too, like whipcracks on skin. I'd been wanting to go to Rehoboth Beach in southern Delaware all fall, and I finally did so as a present to self after finishing up a busy, all-consuming, happy, satisfying term at Rutgers. I was so pleased that I can barely move my aching back and legs this morning. Two long nature trail walks, walks through town, walks along the beach, along the boardwalk, not to mention 35 ten-page term papers on the contemporary American short story, which I read in a cache of coffee places on or off the main drag.

Speaking of contemporary American short stories, please come to hear Lynne Tillman and me read as part of the Experiments and Disorders series at NYC's Dixon Place, this Monday night, December 19, at 7:30 PM. We will be experimental. We will be disorderly.