Living La Vida Laureate

Even in the pool with a bathing cap and glasses, I got congratulated. Some stranger offered to share the lap lane with me and had read the article in the Rio grande Sun. Now we are pool friends, which is good cause I lost two pool friends last month
I had two congrats at the post office. Only one person in Española seemed pissed off at me. Priscilla said, "You live in Santa Fe." It felt as if I had defected to the other side, what ever place that is that we defect to. Maybe to wearing panty hose. Yes, I have defected to office wear and it's not casual Friday.

Living La Vida Loca Laureate is great. I drove to Albuquerque for a front yard reading, which was lovely, people liked my work and I liked their work. I then stayed over with a new best friend, Frances Mccain my only movie actress friend. I read some poems to her house-guests and then went to Church of Beethoven in the morning. Only in Albuquerque is classical music, poetry, two minutes of silence, and coffee the Sunday morning event. I met a friend, Pilo Bueno, from the old days of AIDS prevention and we talked about monogamy. So, it became worth it to drive 90 miles to read for 12 minutes.

Back home, Mike returns, we visit the kids in the yurt, and then today, Leland brings us a sauteed puffball. It is larger than a burger and quite yummy, only we already ate sweet corn from Espanola market, grown by Salvador, fish a la Trader Joe's, and
salad. We were eating with gusto after a nice feminine rain and watching Oprah about food and God. I am intellectually very positive and gusto-ish about puffballs, but I want to sample, not overdo. Maybe I could go on the wild mushroom diet.

Did I tell you life itself is having a gusto moment. I feel as excited as when I was back on the floor at John Hyson School's stage, teaching kids from Chimayo to write poems. It was the best thing ever, thirty years ago, and still is. I am going to go practice shaking a maraca while reciting "Eletelephony." I must to my art.