Monday, June 24, 2002


DATELINE: AUSTIN. The sky is painfully bright and gray, like a high-wattage analogue to Seattle's passive-aggressive cloudiness. Last night the moon hung low and fat over the trees outside the hotel, strung up in the web of high-tension electric wires that framed it for me. I keep riding past the tower where that crazed U of T student took his last shot, doing the radio shows and FOX affiliates, working the crowd. My escort's SUV is so high off the ground that a family of 4 could live beneath it. The language here is laced with dipthongs and uplifts, peppery innuendo and brashness--I never realized that I would find Texans sexy.

I still don't know what I'm going to do at this reading.