Dear Georgia, Bite me.

The sidewalk I shoveled half an hour ago already has at least an inch of snow again. I’m looking forward to trudging down to McGoff’s this evening to limerick it up with any other brave/foolhardy souls. I remember my last class from my poetry professor – he held it at Churchill’s, a bar in downtown Flint, right across from U of M. Only about five of us showed up – mostly those of us who, like me, walked to school. He bought us all a round of drinks, and we talked about our poems for a while and then about whatever it is that poetry leads to while watching the doorman shovel snow off the walk every few minutes. This memory is very color-based – the green carpet against the dark wood of the walls, the gold bar rail and the glowing glass of whiskey in my hand. Everyone seemed to be in a better mood – we sat there, greeted the people who knocked the snow off their shoes and pants to join us, let the snow pile up and seal us off in this warm, smoky room. This was long before everything went to shit – before divorces, before drunken come-ons, before professors retiring in disgrace, before I left the English department to never set foot in that office again.

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Five o'clock update: about another four inches by now. Time to shovel! Also, wondering why I can't get my brain to stop - why, even though I can still remember how Churchill's smells, I can't stop the memory there - why everything inevitably links after it till the (in this case, bitter) end. Is it true that the present taints history? Or is it just me?

Heh. Taint.