Trying to catch up

We returned from our tour a week ago Tuesday in the evening. We were both exhausted. This is the last time we’ll do such a lengthy tour. The trip would have been difficult on both of us – Woody driving 2400 miles and me doing so many gigs, most of them more than one even—even without what happened the second evening. We left after dawn in driving rain that continued till we got into Pennsylvania. It was quite cool, weather for my pea jacket. We arrived at the Wooster Inn in time to have a very late supper. The inn is quite nice and we were given a bedroom-sitting room suite. The class went well, we had lunch with a fascinating Iranian Jew and supper with faculty. The reading was good. After I had signed books, as I was gathering my stuff ready to go back to the inn, a woman came up to me bearing a sheaf of poems she thrust at me. She said, “I want to be in your June workshop.” I said that it had been filled since midJanuary. I suggested she apply next December for 2017. She became more agitated and said that I must read her poems and I would put her in the workshop. I repeated that it was filled and it would be inappropriate for me to read her poems ahead of the others that would be applying for next year. She became more insistent that I must read her poems, shoving the sheaf of papers in my face. I backed away from her, she followed, and I fell onto the low stage behind me. I landed on my more recently operated on right knee that is always a bit tricky and often sore. I also hit my head on landing. I was dizzy for a few moments but did not get a concussion. However, my right knee swelled up and hurt quite a bit. I was back on a cane for the next three days. It is still not as it was before the fall. She set back my conditioning at least three months. People there said they did not think she was a student and certainly not faculty. The next morning was our easiest drive through attractive rolling countryside to Granville, Ohio. We noticed that the farms in that part of Ohio looked prosperous and that everything about those farms was extremely tidy and well kept. In Dennison we were put in a spacious apartment. The class went well and the reading was okay. Then we were taken for supper at the Granville Inn, How the mighty have fallen. ExSenator Leiberman was arriving just as we were – and carrying his own suitcase. Anyhow, the meal was the best of the trip. Granvile is an intentional town that is immaculate and picturesque but a bit too much so for my taste. Couldn’t find a supermarket anyplace. Woody drove to Oxford the next day to Miami U, a party school. However, the organizers had reached out into the community so I had an audience of almost 2/3s community people – the kind of audience that frankly I prefer. We stayed there in a very pleasant guest house on campus. It was getting warmer. The next day Woody drove us to St. Louis. All the events were on the far west suburbs of the city, and so was our Courtyard Marriott. It was 80 degrees so I had to switch wardrobes and put on the sandals I had thought myself foolish to pack. We had a successful workshop on memoir that as usual we taught together. The Jewish Center in St. Louis is the largest – by far— of any I’ve ever seen. Acres of land, many buildings, swimming pool, huge gym, classes in everything from Hebrew to tai chi. Both the workshop and the reading were sponsored and organized by December magazine. Gianna Jaobson, the editor and publisher or the revived December, was our host and took care of us very well indeed. On Monday we got up @ 5 a.m.to drive to Oberlin where they had decided I should read short stories instead of poetry, which I did. We spent the night in North Olmsted near Cleveland. I was up part of the night with an upset stomach from rather strange falafel sandwiches, the only supper we were given at Oberlin. We rose @ 6 and got going @ 7:10. Of course we hit rush hour traffic in Cleveland but after that, Woody made very good time. We were home by 8 that evening. The cats jumped all over us, ecstatic. Everything is piled up pile upon pile. I wonder if we will ever catch up in the garden, the house, our work. In addition, my email wouldn’t work. C4.net fixed it step by step and apple did something too, but then I had over 16,000 emails clogging up my computer and slowing it down. Every day I erase as many as I can until my fingers are numb. I have erased 12,000 so far. I’m up to December 2014. This I didn’t need. I washed all the screens today and we put them up. The house had gotten very stuffy.