It's here! The Virginia Festival of the Book! And along with it -- our first big snow of the year, so everything I planned for today, especially the reading starring the one and only Remica Bingham, is canceled because the university is closed. And here I was had been so hoping to find my way out, thinking--it's not that much snow. But, well, I don't live in Ohio anymore. I don't think this snowfall would ever rate there as more than a briefly noted annoyance.
I will be reading on Friday night at Christ Episcopal Church on Friday night with David Wojahn and Tyehimba Jess, and I am more than a little nervous. Jess, a Pulitzer prize winner, and Wojahn is one of my former professors and a Pulitzer finalist . . . I am glad I am going first so I can enjoy the show. (You can see my interview with David Wojahn is here . I also interviewed Tom Sleigh, who will be reading at the New Dominion Bookshop tomorrow.)
It will be little strange to be reading in that church--the same church where I was married years ago, where the minister counseled Jim and me about the ways marriages fall apart, describing at great length how irritating he found it when his wife squeezed the toothpaste tube from the top instead of the bottom, how she liked a lot of blankets on a bed, even in summer. You'd be surprised how many marriages fall apart from these small details, he advised, fluttering his perfectly manicured fingers. And then, he added, There's the question of dogs. Do you want them? And if so, in the house? And in the bedroom? Clearly, he wasn't a fan of the house dog, much less the bedroom dog.
I think the third question was the most important, but then, we didn't have dogs yet. Now, especially on a day when I am beginning to feel VERY nervous, I think, How could I ever have lived without a dog? My old Boston terrier, she's the perfect blood pressure medication-- as she sleeps and farts in my lap.