I woke this morning at 4am PST, aka my regular morning wakeup time back east, laced up, and ran into the dark. I found a trail off the road my Econo Lodge is on, and ran entirely in blackness, guided only by the feel of the tall grass surrounding the trail. I can think of no better way to spend my first morning in a new town than losing my own form within it, feeling myself through the contours of its skin only by the tap-tap-tapping of my little feet.
And back to the hotel, er, motel, I finished some last-minute revisions for my 9:30 panel discussion with Jericho Parms, Amy Butcher, and Jennifer Bowen Hicks on fashioning an essay collection, took a shower, and exited my Econo Lodge room to this:
After standing there dumbfounded for a couple minutes, I grabbed two hard-boiled eggs, a yogurt, and a coffee from the lobby and headed over to the conference. Jericho and Amy were talking when I arrived so I joined the conversation. Amy had been delayed when her flight from Phoenix was cancelled, but she arrived as we were finishing prep work. Feeling pretty great about where we were, I went to an early morning panel on writing the monstrous that was just so good, especially two days before Halloween.
Our panel went wonderfully1 Great crowd, lots of interaction, and people told me throughout the day how much they got out of it, and how little they were bored. The day after that was a blur of panels, drinks, and Maggie Nelson's keynote, which finished the night for me in the best possible way. Great, great day. Two more to go!