Things hadn't really been panning out in Boston, and I was ready for my money to go somewhere besides rent and minimum payments on loans/credit cards, so I decided that the door to Boston was shut. So I gave my two weeks' notice to Quantia and Eastern Mountain Sports and finished a project for Slate magazine, sold my apartment, had a farewell campout with all of my friends, packed my car, and...got a job.
I got a job teaching freshman English. At Boston University. Two courses. And BU pays enough for me to not have have any other jobs, plus time to write, plus stay in Boston, plus rub elbows with the best of the best in the poetry world. So technically I'm relocating to Boston. I have to find a new place to live, but I can handle that.
My interview was maybe 15 minutes. Chris Walsh, the associate director of BU's writing program, had heard about me from Bill Pierce (my boss at AGNI magazine last year). Turns out he also knew Alberto de Lacerda (the guy I translated at BU and in Europe last summer) before he died. So when I walked in he handed me a rubric for the syllabus and asked if my perfect situation was one class or two. Then he said, "Well, Bill recommends you, and I guess that Alberto does too, so I'm just going to give you two courses. And if it blows up in our faces then that's ok."
I've sent out application after application for the last year. And now the door has opened. I am hugely blessed.
I literally got the job last minute, and a plane ticket was a ton of money, so I got to drive across the country. A week or two before that, I was in New York City for Rich and Cherise's wedding. So I guess I'll just picture dump a little bit starting in NYC and going west to Idaho.
Reed (taking picture) and I stayed with Nishan (on my back) on the West Side.
We hit up a BBQ, the wedding, an improv comedy club to see the group Grandma's Ashes,
Central Park for a picnic, Times Square, the Met Museum of art, and food places galore.
I got lunch with Dan Kraines, one of my poetry mates from BU.
We went to Vaselka, a Ukranian place in the East Village.
After that we went to Strand book store, where I spent way too much money.
Only had two hours for art, but I did alright:
Monet's "Garden at Sainte-Andresse" - 1867
Van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Cypresses" - 1889
This is the part of central park where we saw the two hottest Swedish chicks ever.
Once back in Boston I went to the temple before heading out.
Spent a few minutes at the Hill Cumorah (outside of Palmyra, NY).
I hiked up the back side and had it all to my self.
It was a beautiful experience.
Moroni monument.
In the middle of Nebraska on my second day, a very large and very metal hubcap came off the truck in front of me. I didn't have any choice but to hit it, and my car dragged it. I pulled off and saw that it had trashed my front left bumper and ripped part of the plastic underside of the wheel well. So I put on my flashers and drove 40mph to Brule, Nebraska.
The guy at Duke's Auto Body told me to go explore the abandoned hotel across the street while they wired the plastic into place so I could make it home.
It was pretty.
There was reading material.
And the cliche rotting-deer-head-with-a-rake-in-its-eye.
The front desk.
The stairs (yes, I wanted to go up them; no, I didn't make it far)
This was the outside.
This was the back room.
Downtown Brule, NE
Town map.
Stop sign AND a stop light.
The North Side.
Post office.
This is what the rest of Nebraska (and the states that touch it) looks like.
In Wyoming's Medicine Bow National Forest (which is gorgeous) there is a rest stop with a Lincoln Memorial. Kind of awesome.
Southern Utah.
I-80 going down into Salt Lake City was greener than I've ever seen.
Utah is beautiful in June. It'll be brown by August, but it's gorgeous now.
Time for a few weeks of home sweet home.
