While I did have quite a fine rant yesterday, I realize I have been rather remiss in chronicling some of the far less infuriating recents events to take place in my small and self-centered universe.

Darren Wershler-Henry was in town from the 4th to the 7th and gave two readings: one Sunday night at the New Gallery and another one in the afternoon on Tuesday at the U. The reading Sunday was good (as was the ginger beef at Ming afterwards), but the reading Tuesday was AWESOME. The crowd was better (amd rowdier) and he opened with a found poem about invisible creatures straight from a D&D bestiary that sent a certain little pod of uber-nerds (yours truly included) into hysterics. I am conviced that all the cool people in the world need to move to Calgary, if only to help me convince everyone that poems with Darth Vader in them are awesome.

After meeting Darren in Toronto, I was very eager to see him and Prof. X in the same room. They are, indeed, lobes of the same brain. It's really neat to watch. They're conversations are like a mental game of professional ping pong, so fast it is sometimes hard to figure out exactly where the thought between them is. They are close in the way Gennie and I are close: Trains of thought -- though really more like monorails or spacecars of thought -- humming along the same lines, each having the nerve to do the same project as the other only different and cooler...and, of course, because our minds work the same way, the other person is the single most hilarious human being ever to walk the earth. Damn you, Darren, for making me miss everyone in Toronto all over again. Also, it was great to re-meet you.

In other literary news, tomorrow is the launch of derek's new book, Fractal Economies. I got a review copy in the mail a little while ago, and have been happily puzzling over it for some time ( I got a full pdf considerably in advance), for, you see, I am one of 4 readers who has to come up with some way to respond to the book. Derek has decided that he can't read it, so we have to figure out a way how. I immediately said I would do it, because I am a performance whore. Then, for many weeks, I worried. It was hard. I bit my nails.

Then I came up with the BEST IDEA EVER.

I hope it comes off as cool as it sounds in my head. I am a bit nervous, because I have no precedent for it and was only able to unearth one very different and distantly related project that intersected with it. I am not even sure what 'it' is -- a performance, maybe, but not completely. We'll see. I hope it goes well. I suspect it is going to be awesome.

In completely unrelated news, my summer is rapidly filling with people. My mom is coming for a week in May, and my brother just bought a one-way ticket -- he'll be arriving at the beginning of June and leaving...eventually. He has some friends here, though I think he'll stay at our place at least part of the time as our apartments is both clean and always well stocked with food. It looks like Em is also going to be coming down sometime in August. It looks like my futon is going to see a lot of company. I am very excited -- I love to entertain, especially when the people being entertained are so blessedly EASY. We had such a blast with my mom the last time she was here, and now we even have a car. This time, she it totally teacing me how to make those lemon tarts.