The Arrangements

Friends,

A little blog space must be spent on the sleeping arrangements I endured at AWP. I'll use clever pseudonyms so not to incriminate people...but I shared a room with This Guy, That Guy, Above Guy, and David Randolph Clisbee, Submergible Poet. This Guy and That Guy shared a bed, Above Guy rode the floor, and I shared one with David Randolph Clisbee, Submergible Poet.

Normally, sleeping arrangements aren't that big of a deal, especially in group outings. You have to expect a certain amount of inconveniencing. But, you know, it's still surprising from time to time when it's sprung upon you like, say, an attacking submarine, by your bedmate on the first night and especially even more surprising when someone else is doing the "Australian Kid Expulsion" while looking you in the eyes. Yes, it's all in good fun, but sometimes that results in getting two hours of sleep prior to a full day of conferencing.

What also made the sleeping difficult to gain was that That Guy kept what can be kindly referred to as irregular hours, and when he was sleeping, there was snoring. Oh, That Guy was not alone. See, This Guy snored too, but not so much snored as it was blitzkrieg like bursts of grunts and snorts. There wasn't a rhythm to it, just silence then a KAPOW in undetermined intervals. The Above Guy caught a bad case of Lung Rot, so his snoring sounded more like a winded pug dog. And David Randolph Clisbee, Submergible Poet snored nice and regular, but right in my ear hole...and and there was also involuntary undercover cutlery by David Randolph Clisbee, Submergible Poet that I had to fend off.

For my part, I can't imagine I was a quiet sleeper either, considering I snore when exhausted (or drunk or on my back). Plus, there was a subtantial amount of booze involved (less so for Above Guy, due to the Lung Rot you see), so it's not like they are at full fault here. And, I have been guilty of being the unconscious cuddle bug myself. In Chicago, I chased my poor friend Erik around the bed for a few laps (also I farted so hard I killed a fly...how's that for a weekend?). There was Philly Baby in Atlanta, my darling little spoon. You know, I hope my biographers, when they find this paragraph, don't assume I was having gay affairs, like they have done with Lincoln.

I did manage to get in about 6 hours the second night (I fell asleep before everyone else), and then right back to two hours the penultimate night in NYC because of a "hilarious" bar trip David Randolph Clisbee, Submergible Poet and his accompaniment for that evening just had to tell me all about...and I couldn't get to sleep before David Randolph Clisbee, Submergible Poet, so I had another night of trying to go to Dream's realm in the buzzsaw chamber that was my room at the NYC Hilton.

Thankfully, all sleeping evils have passed and back in Mankato, I've been sleeping fine. However, I have caught what I believe is the start of Above Guy's lung rot because I have been sleeping way too much lately and I feel like a baseball is lodged in my neck. (I suppose it could be a CTD [cuddle transmitted disease] I caught from David Randolph Clisbee, Submergible Poet).

So all in all, bedtime was an adventure and had to be planned carefully. And let this be a lesson to all you people who will attend AWP in the future, especially in a roomful of late-twenty year old bulls. You had to be the first one asleep; drunk enough not to care; and always be vigiliant in protecting your cherry.

Viva el mustache