Day Two of not drinking went well. We had a large dinner. I drank two Cokes. The danger of not drinking is drinking two Cokes. I was not the only one not drinking. Some people at the table had been not drinking for years.
I don't think you can do it, my friend said.
You lose bets, I said.
I feel better. My legs still hurt but no longer my arms. At work I stood at the copier and watched the green streak my face, and was reminded of that scene in my favorite movie, Secretary, where Mr. Gray comes up to Leah, making copies, and says, Good letter.
No one came up to me to say that. I have never held a letter in my teeth as I crawled across the carpet, but I would.
I always think I will have good ideas when I have to make copies at work because I am just standing there; my mind is my own, but I never do. I dream good ideas on planes. I half remember them.
I have an essay out in this month's Phoebe on travel and poetry. It's my first published essay not about Buffy. I was thrilled they took it. My picture is not in it. Neither is Richard Silken's. We would have invisible babies. In Austin, I recorded some poems in a lofty corner of the convention center for Blackbird while a man with a microphone kneeled before me. Expect my breathy mispronunciations soon. I have to finish a commissioned essay which is overdue, and another journal just took three essays first written here. I think my career is going okay. It's hard to tell. It's not what I thought it would be, not what I thought I would write, not what I thought you would want to read.
But you want what you want. Tell me what you want and I will give it to you in my teeth.
I remember in the movie she stood at the copier with the lid open and looked into it, letting the drum light her face, and I didn't know why she did that. Then I did.
