I am definitely a literary outsider, and as such, I’ve been able to attend AWP Conferences sort of like an anthropologist studying the natives – it was alien territory to me and I had no one to answer to or to try and impress.
Bob was a gigantic bulk of a man, his body like a perfectly proportioned concrete block, and he had one of the largest heads I'd ever seen, but it didn't seem abnormal because of his sheer size.
I was the editor of a weekly newspaper in a community of 50,000 when the governing body of the place was divided into Hatfield and McCoy factions in a zero sum game to take over the place.
I slowly eased myself off the couch and gingerly walked over to the window. Sure enough, there were five or six police cars converging from all directions, and two ambulances parked on the main street in front of the small row of stores.
Time to open the magazine. I'm guessing Blake and Ryan are television celebrities, or maybe singers. I do know I have no idea what constitutes a "dream Southern wedding." I don't even know what constitutes a dream wedding of any kind, anywhere, at any time, for that matter.
When I was in my thirties my father would question my mother, with a combination of bewilderment and criticism, about why I didn't go to Club Med on vacation.
My brother was injured on his part-time job, and as a result, couldn't perform what was required for his permanent job, but it came down to "So what?" and "Tough luck" -- you are not entitled to compensation.
One year, when I was in my twenties, my mother sent me a Mother's Day card with her familiar small but exceedingly legible handwriting inside telling me not to worry about doing anything for her on Mother's Day, it was just another day, and she was a mother everyday, so she didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
My father took me to the tryouts, trying to reassure me and calm me down, even though he had absolutely no interest in baseball. My mother was the avid baseball fan, starting with her love of the Brooklyn Dodgers when my parents first moved to Manhattan from Toronto.
Guy and I were pretty different, and I suspect good manners, natural empathy, and conceptual curiosity, along with the common experience of where we found ourselves at the age of twelve, were reasons we became friends.
