While the Smudge Lingers

Seeing a flowering quince in Jackson Ward today can only mean one thing: spring must be coming.

Said the eternal optimist.

Mac was the one who noticed it as we were walking down Marshall Street on our way to the river, but I was the one to point out clumps of daffodils nearby, their buds so yellow they'll be blooming by Valentine's Day, I'll bet.

Tonight, it was a long-simmering desire to hear poetry read to me by strangers, not to mention wanting to "spend" my Christmas present gift certificates, that put me at Chop Suey for a reading and some book shopping.

First up was the soft-voiced Semein Washington who was admonished to speak up after he introduced himself. "I will, I will! I'll use my diaphragm," he promised and upped the volume, which didn't affect his tendency to speak in a monotone.

It's always fascinating to hear people read their own work because despite a presumption that no one can read their own words better, that's not always the case.

A poem about John Coltrane spoke to a 21st century jazz lover with "As your sax hums and haunts from my computer..." while one about Dr. Manhattan included the line, "He locks lips and holds hands with two women while promising both he'll love them forever."

Good luck with that, doc.

His ode to his favorite band in the world, Hella, insisted that "You get me twisted with joy, joy turns my muscles to heat." The uber-fan went on to say, "Your double time beat chops through my bandwidth."

In a poem he dedicated to the friend who was outside parking his car, Washington read, "LSD made it easier to love ourselves" while also noting that, "I feel a togetherness of my brain and thoughts." What thoughts, you wonder? "If love brought us here now or made us stay."

Never having taken LSD, that's not a question I can answer.

Another poem about taking mushrooms recalled that they "healed me of my fears and made me laugh so hard I couldn't open my eyes." I happen to know that you can laugh that hard without taking mushrooms because I do it a lot these days.

After a poem about his grandmother clad in a chrysanthemum-print dress, he closed with the somber "This May Have Nothing to Do With You," a poem about innocent people being killed in Yemen.

Next up was Beasa Dukes, wearing a top hat and displaying far more vocal inflection. Beasa read two parts of one long poem with references to an electrical storm letting "the atmospheric energy kiss my toes," seeing god as a rat or a woman and a cop shooting a child.

This was not poetry for the faint-of-heart.

Beasa closed with, "This is how all things begin, with the blood and the nothing and the end."

As far as I was concerned, at that point there was nothing to do but buy a best-selling biography of Stevie Nicks with my gift certificate and head down Cary Street to Plan 9.

I walked in to find three guys, one an employee, deep in a spirited conversation about musical equipment in the back. I was alone in looking through the bins of records and CDs for something I wanted to spend my gift certificate on, eventually deciding on Australian band Middle Kids' "Lost Friends" album and the new CD from Pedro the Lion, "Phoenix."

Before I left, I got caught up in a conversation with one of the employees I know. His first question was about my thoughts on Northam and the blackface debacle that is dominating the news cycle. That, of course, led to him asking for my thoughts on the Fairfax #MeToo accusations and, before I knew it, we were knee-deep in a discourse on the state of the state.

That's when he reminded me that the last time we'd talked had been at the Village Cafe back in 2014 after a screening of "Dr. Strangelove" at the Grace Street Theater. Chatting after the film ended, we'd both had lots to say about the racist (him) and feminist (me) issues raised by Kubrick's film, so we'd adjourned to the Village.

You know, the good, old Village, where you can count on some rummy at the bar reaching for his backpack, only to have a half-full 40-oz roll out of it, spilling, then clanking to the floor. As befits the Village, nobody batted an eye that night.

What I also recalled about our tete-a-tete, besides the 40-oz incident, was the hella good chocolate milkshake I'd had, while his memory involved asking me my opinion of Hillary and lowering the drinking age.

None of that stuck with me. Interesting, isn't it, how different people store shared memories?

Chocolate and drunks, apparently that's what chops through my bandwidth.

Paying Our Respects

Carytown is in the eye of the beholder.

Now you take someone like me, for instance, someone who's lived in Richmond for 30 years.  Generally speaking, I avoid that stretch of Cary Street because of the hordes of suburbanites and tourists who make a habit of endlessly traipsing up and down both sides of the street.

Except, that is, when there's a reading or I need a book because Chop Suey Books rocks. Except when I need a card and head directly to Mongrel because no store in Richmond compares with their selection of offbeat cards for all occasions. And except for the Byrd Theater because everyone needs a vintage movie palace.

But beyond that, not so much.

But you take someone like author Zach Powers and he sees Carytown as everything that doesn't exist in the far-flung Fairfax suburb he calls home. Tonight he told the crowd that he'd been thrilled to see the shops, restaurants and vibrancy of the area when he pulled up for the reading he was about to give.

And here I was thinking it was just another Monday night park-once-party-twice kind of Richmond evening.

I arrived at Chop Suey early enough to thumb through a new biography of Anne Bancroft to find the section about the making of "The Graduate," which I'd seen just last week.

There were some fascinating tidbits there. Now I know that the scene where Mrs. Robinson takes a drag on her cigarette just before Benjamin kisses her and then exhales mightily afterward came from an old Mike Nichols/Elaine May comedy routine.

Lindsay Chudzik led off reading from one of her short stories about a guy who rehabs houses to resemble TV houses like the ones on "Full House" or "Golden Girls" and the woman who was trying to beat him at his game.

Best line: "It didn't matter if the experience was authentic, as long as people thought it was." If that isn't a succinct summation of the world we live in, I don't know what is.

She then introduced her friend Zach who, after rhapsodizing about finally stopping in Richmond after years of driving past it as well as the allure of Carytown ("I miss this so much"), admitted that he wrote weird stories.

To prove it, he read several of them from his recent book, "Gravity Changes," including two about being in love with inanimate objects: the moon and a light bulb. The latter produced wonderful imagery - "Dry leaves rasped against her ass" - and a tragic ending when the light bulb he married fell down the steps and he was left holding just a shard of her.

As if that weren't enough to convince us of his weirdness, he threw in "Neil Armstrong, Folk Hero" about a 3-year old Neil planting apple seeds on the moon. Because of course he was a huge Neil Armstrong fan.

Once the reading ended, I had almost half an hour until the movie started, so my plan was to go to Mongrel and leisurely shop for some cards I needed. That plan was scuttled when I walked out of the book store and saw a line snaking down Cary Street from the Byrd's box office to Mongrel.

Knowing that the box office wasn't even open for 15 minutes, I thought it wise to join the line. Ten minutes later, it extended to the end of the block and the box office still wasn't open.

The funny part of all this is, I'd had no idea that the movie I was going to see was that big a deal. Or even a small deal. I figured it out based on the growing crowd size and the number of people taking selfies in front of the marquee.

The reason for my ignorance is simple: Hayao Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro" was my first anime film. Ever. And if you want the whole truth, I didn't know it was anime until I got in line and saw the poster.

And the hilarious part of that poster is that it was in Italian. And since raffling off the movie poster is always part of these repertory nights at the Byrd, that means some lucky person named Juan Lopez won an Italian poster of a Japanese movie being shown on Miyazaki Monday.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Once I finally scored a ticket and made it inside, I began running into arty 30-something friends. Given that the film was made in 1988, I'm guessing it was part of their youth.

Inside the theater, manager Todd updated us on the progress of the new seats as I sat in one of the old ones complete with torn, ratty fabric and a spring jabbing me in the leg.

Hallelujah, installation begins tomorrow. That said, I'll believe it when I sit in it.

As for the film, I'm not kidding, I think I was part of the 1% who'd never seen "My Neighbor Totoro" because when he announced that he was showing it in Japanese with subtitles, applause broke out. Apparently true Miyazaki fans want nothing to do with the dubbed version Disney did in 2006.

As an anime virgin, I didn't expect to enjoy the film nearly as much as I did.

From the impressionistic background of the Japanese countryside to the sweet depiction of older and younger sisters to a father who takes everything in stride - that their new house is haunted, that the youngest daughter has seen a magical forest creature, that children let out to play on their own will eventually return - I was completely sucked in by the story.

Any Dad who tells his daughters that laughter keeps the bogeyman away is a very good parent and any parent who asks their child's imaginary woodland creature to watch over her is a great one.

Just as impressive were the ecological undertones about man and nature co-existing peacefully and the very Japanese-ness of the story: the family bathes communally, the children show respect for all adults and devotion to family underpins everything. Nobody whines.

Best of all, the nearly sold out crowd watched the movie in polite silence, allowing those of us first-timers to hear every word of the perfectly charming story without disruption.

Got my anime cherry popped tonight. And to think that it happened on Cary Street...

Nonesuch as She

Saturday is like heaven
An endless free hall pass

It was the rare Saturday where that sentiment rang true for me. All week long, I'd anticipated a day with not a single thing written in my datebook and nary a deadline in sight, both rarities.

My morning walk down to the pipeline walkway was thwarted because of how high and furious the river was, a fact underscored by the muddy edges of Brown's Island as I attempted to reach it. I forged on anyway, found the pipeline underwater and doubled back, passing a guy sitting near the very edge of land for the second time in five minutes.

We not only struck up a conversation - I learned he was a graphic designer - but he also joined me on the canal walk as I headed to the other side of the pipeline. We talked about Richmond's thriving scene and how necessary it is to be out every day in order to find inspiration in the world. The unexpected surprise was that he once lived on the same block of Clay I call home.

Small world.

Once I finally made it on to the pipeline, I wound up in another conversation, this one with a guy fishing for shad near the very end part that was underwater. He admitted the raging river didn't make for the best fishing conditions but it was a satisfying way to spend a Saturday morning.

As we were chatting, a Boy Scout troop passed by, one of the boys so busy shooting video with his phone that he almost lost his footing. Had the troop leader been right there with the boys - he was hanging back on the walkway, looking for all the world like a man terrified to walk on rounded, uneven concrete - he might have addressed the issue.

At Lowe's leisurely shopping for flowers for my garden and balcony, I ran into a favorite photographer who peered at me under my straw hat and tentatively asked, "Karen?"

Over the years, we've run into each other so many places - lectures, music shows, films, book readings - and now with the obvious horticulture connection, she pointed out that we had an awful lot in common not to spend more time together. Sealing the deal, she said she lives on the water in New Kent, so we should spend a day sitting on her dock and deck, admiring nature and talking.

Who's going to say no to that?

Even better, we both live alternate lifestyles, so we're not limited to weekends for socializing or anything for that matter. When she mentioned she often works on weekend days, I told her many's the time I do the same to make deadline. Our Saturdays are not like worker bees' Saturdays.

Except for a change, today was. For both of us.

Despite the sudden onslaught of summer (the Man About Town described today's weather as taking on the "characteristics of a terrarium and we are lizards, splayed upon a rock, still, except for our flickering tongues") and it being the hottest part of the day, I couldn't come home with 40-some new plants and not begin planting.

Damn, but it was hot and sticky getting them into the ground, though.

Once I'd showered off the dirt and debris, I couldn't help myself, scouting for a simple way to pass a little time without making a real commitment.

A poetry reading at Chop Suey was just the ticket: an hour of being read to was not only the ideal way to close out National Poetry Month but also celebrate Independent Bookstore Day.

And, I'm not going to lie, the metal folding chairs felt wonderful against my overheated back.

Allison Seay began by reminding the crowd that events such as this one matter, not just because naysayers have been predicting the death of poetry for years now, but because of the sense of community they inspire.

Her poems were born out of her own mental health issues, which she'd conquered and then used to inspire her poetry ("And it was not yet a metaphor for everything").

From her chapbook, Gina Myers read from "Philadelphia," her 2014 long poem about adjusting to a move to the city of brotherly love, touching on goals ("We will have fun until we won't"), self-acceptance ("I don't have to kiss every guy I spend an evening with, but I can if I want to"), and heartache ("Tonight I'm going to listen to every sad song ever. This will take the rest of my life").

Best conclusion drawn: "Love is the fiercest reason for living."

Reading from her phone - I know this is done now, but it lacks the soul of reading from a book or even a sheet of paper - two groups of poems, some serious, some not, she spoke of the number of planets dwindling and, yes, heavenly Saturdays and hall passes.

Favorite advice (even for those of us who took it nearly a decade ago) offered: "Remove yourself from the slow drain of 9 to 5."

That way, you have time enough for walks and conversations with strangers, planting flowers and poetry.

And, if you're truly lucky, time for the fiercest reason of all.

The Lines Are Open

Move around the dial enough and you'll see and hear all manner of goings-on.

Setting out for my morning constitutional, I got three blocks before spotting a neighbor and one of Sunday's Mozart Festival organizers hanging signs.

Or, more accurately, hanging one measly sign, a process that involved upwards of six plastic zip ties, a long-winded story about City Hall's inefficiency in supplying said signs and his plans to meet the mayor for a drink to suggest improvements to the process.

Resist, man.

When his festival partner-in-crime had recently told him there'd now be a Nate's Bagels pop-up at the festival, he said his first reaction had been, "F*ckin' Karen!" knowing I'd originally suggested the idea and it meant more work for him. The way I see it, someone had to be the one to remind them to get rolling on my Sunday breakfast plans.

Arriving at Second and Grace moments after a car had hit a pedestrian, the woman was still sprawled in the street as the driver tried to move her car and park it to check on her victim. If there's one thing you don't want to see as you start your six-mile walk, it's someone else on foot bested by machinery.

(in Elephant Man-like voice) I am not a walker, I am a person.

By afternoon, I was at Reynolds Gallery to see "Donato: Fresh," a career-spanning look at Jerry Donato's paintings done in such far flung places as Paris and Hatteras, Italy and the Bowery. What I recall about the artist from the times our paths crossed at bars, parties and openings was how Chicago he was (all attitude), how Italian (insouciance oozing out of every pore) and how talented (this show).

In service of my hired mouth, a musician accompanied me for a late lunch listening to early Joni Mitchell and discussing open tuning along the way.

If you've got too many doubts
If there's no good reception for me
Then tune me out
Cause, honey, who needs the static?
It hurts the head

There was never any doubt I'd find my way to some of the 15 group readings comprising Richmond's first literary crawl which, like a Rose crawl (with which I have plenty of practice) has no fixed start or end point. I couldn't get rid of the friend who dropped by after work early enough to make the first reading at Babe's, but I managed the second at Chop Suey, along with 40 or so other bibliophiles browsing the shelves until the reading began.

Brilliant doesn't begin to describe the reading's premise, which used Roky Erikson's 1981 album "The Evil One" as a starting point for a book of short stories, each written using a song from the album as inspiration. In what may be the ultimate mash-up of my interests - be still my heart - this was a literary cover album.

And, as host Andrew pointed out, today was Iggy Pop's birthday. What better day for a literary crawl?

Five of the book's writers read their stories, sometimes over the sound of pouring rain, other times with an accompaniment of kids screaming outside on Cary Street. As you might imagine, the stories were all over the place, from observations that the smell of a woman's body reminds some men of the smell of bread to comparisons between campers kissing and sea lampreys sucking.

From there I crawled to Quirk Hotel for a reading billed as "The Originals," which seemed to mean authors who've been doing this a while reading from new work.

Unfortunately, Quirk had installed the crawl group in the lobby and between loudish music on the speakers and the conversation and laughter of a busy bar and dining room, first reader Dean King had to shout to be heard while holding someone's cell phone flashlight so he could read the too-small font of the chapter he was reading about the "self-defeatingly stubborn" John Muir and his journey.

When he finished, the Man About Town, seated next to me on the loveseat whilst sipping a pink cocktail, whispered, "I want to know where John Muir was going!"

After much (self-defeatingly) loud talking by one of the organizers during Dean's reading, the woman managed to secure a meeting room downstairs for the group to move to and off we traipsed to the relative peace and quiet of the Love and Happiness Room.

There David Robbins read from a new work on Israel, specifically from a poignant passage that took place at the liberation of Buchenwald, which he cleverly dedicated to Sean Spicer. On a somewhat related note, "Burning human flesh is a pretty good appetite suppressant" came from Howard Owen's sixth novel about a night reporter at a Richmond newspaper that was not the RTD, one where local references - the Devil's Triangle, VMFA, Sheppard Street and Patterson - abounded.

Phaedra Hise referred to herself as "the token non-fiction writer" and read a piece about raising pigs at Autumn Olive Farms, one I'd already read in the Post, with one notable exception. Her editor had cut the final sentence and tonight she included it, a satisfying moment for anyone who knows the pain of seeing her words cut.

And as people know, f*cking Karen has so many of them. But remember, when there's no good reception, tune me out.

Honey, no one needs the static who doesn't want it.

This is the Last Time

It was a "Slow Show" kind of an evening that unfolded gradually.

"Racing Like a Pro" because of a last minute phone call from a friend seeking advice and an eleventh hour email from another seeking activity suggestions for him and a 21-year old, I barely made it on time.

Beginning on a "Brainy" note, a "Friend of Mine" met me at Chop Suey Books for Beth Macy's full house reading of "Truevine," about two albino black children stolen - not "Runaway" - from their mother and showcased in Ringling Brothers circus for 14 years until their mother's "Sorrow" led her to rescue them.

It's a wonder the poor things weren't "Afraid of Everyone."

From there, we moved on to a "Secret Meeting" in plain sight at Secco, where the volume was loud, we considered "Terrible Love," and ate well while drinking "All the Wine."

Or at least all the wine two people need while deep in conversation in "City Middle."

It was soon clear that "Baby, We'll Be Fine" eating spaghetti squash pancakes with harissa yogurt, sweet/salty Brussels sprouts with capers and candied pecans, PEI mussels with spicy sausage and a cheese plate of Midnight Moon, Ossau Iraty and prosciutto, matching glass for glass my Camprosso Gavi with "Mr. November's" Lopez de Heredia Temperanillo, although not to the point that we saw "Pink Rabbits."

The hostess was kind enough to compliment my colorful skirt and our server and I discussed the "Graceless" post-election behavior of certain voters. Meanwhile, it wasn't "Hard to Find" reasons to linger discussing the "Gospel" of middle age, personal "Demons" and lessons learned.

Sharing a recent "Apartment Story " from my own life, we could hardly have been "Mistaken for Strangers," although in certain calendars, I show up by initials rather than as "Karen."

While not exactly "Lit Up," we didn't hesitate to pair chocolate mousse with glasses of Cesar Florido Moscatel, pictures of "Heavenfaced" mountains and enough "Conversation 16" to outlast most of the crowd.

Walking out, we saw that karaoke at Metro Grille was just getting cranked up. A smoker on the sidewalk exhorted us to come have a drink, pick a song and belt it out for strangers. I don't need that kind of "Humiliation," friend.

Far better to acknowledge revised standing with full(er) stories, despite living in a "Lemonworld." As to "Patterns of Fairytales," I think you can say that having "Little Faith" has its rewards.

Most importantly of all, no records were harmed ('though several were listened to) in the making of this blog post.

I'll Make Time

As every former Girl Scout knows, make new friends, but keep the old, blah, blah, silver and gold.

The old, a former co-worker and music buddy, had emailed with his standard, "Drinks or lunch soon?" so we'd planned lunch at Peking (I know, I know, who goes to Peking anymore, especially when a so-called Chinese restaurant doesn't provide chopsticks without asking) because it was near his office at the James Center.

Over my Sezchuan chicken and his General Tso's fried chicken, we discussed our shared allegiance in the mayoral race before moving on to the  state of the scene, a favorite topic of ours for a decade now.

Not for the first time, he thanked me for insisting he attend the Silent Music Revival back in 2008 when he hadn't a clue (always happy to be of service) and suggested a game where we chronicle our favorite cultural experiences back in that era when all the underground scenes were just beginning to burble up to a more mainstream audience.

Mermaid Skeletons in the Poe Garden, the first Listening Room at the Micheaux House, the Silent Music Revival with Blue Letter making our ears bleed, the first time we marched together in the Halloween parade.

We got a million of 'em, he and I.

Only problem is, we can play that game all day long and both of us had work to accomplish this afternoon, so I accompanied him as far as the James Center and continued my walk uphill to Jackson Ward.

As for the new (friend, that is), he was technically still wet behind the ears since we'd met exactly a week ago and this was our first outing. The man's only been back in Richmond for two months, so I'd offered to help a brother out by showcasing what I like about Richmond life.

Upon his return from a weekend in Asheville, the Barrister had notified me of his availability, I'd shared what my plans for that evening were and left him to decide if any or all of it was appealing enough to join in.

Whether bravely or foolishly, he'd checked all three boxes.

We met at Chop Suey Books for "One Hour, Four Places," with four writers reading from their work about linen closets, cheating spouses dying, overnights in a museum and bedside manner, although we were also those horrible people in the back row who only stayed for three of the readings.

Once out on the sidewalk, we agreed that Gayla Mills' ode to repeatedly patching the worn out jeans of the 21-year old she fell in love and began making music with rang truest.

As old friends of mine know well, memoir often trumps fiction for my interest.

From there, we did a convoy over to Vagabond for dinner, only to walk in and be informed that it was Restaurant Week and they were full up. On the one hand, I should probably have known what week it was given my occupation but on the other, I tend to block it out intentionally.

Fortunately, the bar was empty and dinner service extended to those stools, so we settled in to do battle with the unexpected constraints of the week, but the good news kept coming when I learned that ordering off the Restaurant Week menu was not required given the - ta da! - "Vagabond Staples" portion of the menu.

That and a glass of La Galope Rose ensured that even if Barr turned out to be dead boring as company, at least the meal wouldn't be (and he didn't). Additional points were earned because he's also firmly in the camp that food is meant to be shared so there can be no duplicate ordering.

Not a problem since I went with the staples and Barr went traditional with the Restaurant Week menu.

My first course was fried cauliflower with a swipe of earthy roasted pumpkin seed Romesco, while his was a smoked brisket taco combining pine nut salsa, pickled jalapeno and queso fresco that refused to stay contained in the tortilla despite our best efforts.

We covered the entire histories of all the people at the table where we'd met, as well as our conflicting plans for Saturday night. Despite his entreaties, Paula Poundstone yields to Julius Caesar for me in this instance.

Next up I tucked into scallops perfectly seared over smoked corn puree (something I'd love to see more of), butternut squash, pico de gallo and, yes, that's right, tortilla chips.

Snack food fine dining, yes, please.

His roasted rockfish brought up the whole roasted rockfish we'd shared with the table last Wednesday, a frequency he commented on, but, pshaw, I'd already had a second rockfish since then, making this my third in a week. Tonight's repeat fish benefited from toothsome collards, sea island red peas, potlikker and butter (although, let's face it, a fillet never measures up to whole fish).

Because that's what friends do - even brand new friends - I was happy to explain potlikker to the grown man next to me who was unfamiliar with the term despite an obvious affinity for the product.

More explaining was in order when he inquired about the photo on my blog  - Jonathan Borofsky's "Walking to the Sky" - which I took in 2008 laying in the grass at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (and good for me since it has since been dismantled and not reinstalled) on a glorious winter day.

And since I can't mention Dallas without sharing how distasteful I repeatedly found the city despite the friend I adore who lived there, he gave me his take on Dallas, which was far more positive than mine.

But even newly-minted friends are bound to have differences of opinion, so I didn't hold it against him.

His third course was a chocolate torte with a Fall-tasting sweet Asian pear compote and goat cheese whipped cream, which he graciously shared with yours truly before we took our drinks and headed downstairs to the Gypsy Tea Room for the main event: music.

Two large groups of noisy talkers were just vacating their tables when we arrived, ordered more wine and claimed prime spaces on the banquette facing the Scott Clark Other Other 4-tet in the moody darkness, which also happens to be one reason I like this space so much.

So. Much. Atmosphere.

Given that it was a first outing for this friendship, we both had plenty of getting-to-know-you questions, such as him inquiring what radio station I listened to. When I said public radio WNRN, he said that told him everything he needed to know since he was also a huge fan of the station.

People continued to trickle in for the next half an hour as the quartet began playing and improvising, meaning I saw a favorite candidate for City Council, one of the musicians who used to live underneath me ("How are the new tenants?" he wondered about his replacements) and the drummer whose park show I'd missed last night.

Across the room, I spotted the jazz critic and several up and coming musicians, little surprise given the quality of musicianship on display tonight: the low key and multi-talented Scott on drums, Cameron Ralston slapping, plucking, bowing and generally owning the bass, Jason Scott killing it on sax and clarinet and Trey Pollard on guitar while making outstanding guitar faces.

I could see that the Barrister was enjoying himself completely. Leaning over between songs, he asked rhetorically, "Shows like this are happening all over town every night, aren't they?"

Sure are and some nights, they're in the same place where potlikker is being ladled up.

If this friendship continues to go well, in ten years I'd like to think he'll be another long-time friend thanking me for suggesting all kinds of places.

My gold and silver motto? Making new friends, keeping the old and laying in the grass when it's called for.

Hear the Whistling

Sometimes we're so flippin' Mayberry you have to just embrace the charm.

Christmas shopping in Carytown Saturday, I'd spotted a find on Chop Suey's dollar book table, but because I was out on my walk at the time, I had zero ducats with me. Only problem is you can't get dollar books with plastic. It's cash money only.

Behind the counter, owner Ward had told me to take the book and pay me the dollar next time I saw him. Unwilling to wait for that eventuality, I head over there on my walk today, strolling through the deserted Fan and marveling at how everything already feels so holiday-like with few cars between the holiday-themed red and green lights and even fewer people on the streets.

But inside Chop Suey, things are lively with late shoppers, so I sidle up to the register and extend a one dollar bill in the general direction of Ward. Without missing a beat, he remembers why I'm there.

Thank you, he tells me enthusiastically before I have time to say the same to him. We exchange sincere wishes for happy holidays.

How many shopkeepers would be so trusting, even on a small purchase? I feel like I've just stopped by Bedford Falls on Christmas Eve. Hot dog!

Richmond may not be a small town, but we've been known to play one awfully convincingly. I'm a sucker for a good charm offensive.

That's Just the Way We Get By

Well, all you winter whiners, I hope you're happy. I'm freezing.

Walking west against the wind to Carytown this morning to do some holiday procurement required significant layering, leather gloves and adherence to the sunny side of the street.

In Mongrel, where they were practically operating on a one-in and one-out basis, I ran into a woman who used to work for me as an editor, a woman I hadn't seen in 15 years. She surprised and delighted me by saying that she's always noticing my byline, but I know that it's only because of her writing background that she does.

Joe Average, I've learned, rarely notices bylines.

Across the street at Chop Suey, I scored a book for a present, then went upstairs to shop at the Bizarre Market where I not only found a gift, but also heard one of the most romantic songs of all time, Talking Heads' "Naive Melody" and was entered into a drawing to win an overnight at Quirk Hotel.

Granted, it's only four blocks from my apartment, so if I win I'll just think of it as a neighborhood sleepover.

Walking home was so much more pleasant with the wind behind me that I detoured to Deep Groove, crowded with people and dogs, to browse the bins for a gift. At the counter, the owner asked me if I'd found what I'd been looking for. No, I hadn't seen what I'd come in for, so I was buying this.

Don't you know he led me over to a back bin, located a used album by the band I'd mentioned and handed it to me after he peeled off the sale price. "I'll throw this one in," he said. "The album cover's in bad shape but the record's in good shape."

Sure, the one I was paying for cost ten times as much as the one he was giving me, but still. I had to ask why the two-fer."That's how we do things around here," he said and smiled.

Holy Cindy Lou Who, how Christmas-spirited can you get?

At home I wrapped some presents using a sheet of wrapping paper that had been included in the DC City Paper I'd picked up when I was in Washington last week. If I'd known, I'd have picked up a couple more.

You could call it gift wrap with an attitude - black background with silver sketches of candy canes, girls with guitars slung over their shoulders, holly leaves, sunglasses, tubes, your typical hipster trappings tied up with ribbons and a gift tag.

And speaking of attitude, I accidentally stumbled across the brouhaha lighting up Facebook about what was going on at Hardywood today with the Kentucky Christmas Morning release, reading how people had stood in line for five hours only for them to run out of the new release because they'd upped the limit from two per person to six.

Those who'd gotten in line early crowed about scoring beer while those who'd felt safe coming later given the higher bottle limit felt screwed. Some people got home to find they'd been given Apple Brandy Gingerbread stout instead of Kentucky Morning and, boy, were they pissed and, because it's the Internet, no one was holding back online.

To be clear, all this anger and judging was about beer. Santa doesn't appreciate name-calling this close to Christmas, kids.

I put off the most odious chore of the day as long as possible, finishing some writing, reading the paper, hemming a skirt on my vintage sewing machine (because it's a rare dress or skirt I buy at the thrift store that doesn't need to be shorter) before I just made myself do it.

Go to the (shudder) mall.

Believe me, I didn't want to, but I had no choice. More than once, I've been that unfortunate soul who has to go to the grocery store the day before a prediction of snow solely because I'm almost completely out of toilet paper or milk, unlike the kooks who are in there stocking up for excitement's sake as if Richmond's going to have a blizzard.

I've been putting off going to Victoria's Secret for new underwear for far too long, so long that now I had no other option but to go shopping on the last Saturday before Christmas. Inside the store, it wasn't pretty. Decorative displays had been replaced by explosions of undergarments on every surface.

Desperate-looking guys begged salesgirls to assist them while women in packs discussed everything from just the right wedding night attire to where the money came from that the younger of two teen-aged sisters was using to buy a thong ("I thought you only had $9? Where did you get enough money for a $12 thong anyway?" big sister demanded to know while Mom rolled her eyes and looked exhausted).

Waiting in line behind six other people, I had no one to blame but myself. Unlike the Hardywood crowd, I'd already accepted whatever unpleasantries resulted from my late arrival. This ain't no beer line.

Productive day. New underwear secured. Everyone has their Christmas priorities.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered

I've got no romantic notions about how wonderful living in a past time period might have been.

Belle Epoque, Roaring '20s, "Mad Men"-era '50s? Thank you, no. I wouldn't have been happy living in any era before the Pill, so it's convenient how my lifetime dovetailed so nicely with that game changer.

But one thing I do regret losing is the letter-writing era.

Make no mistake, when I came up, letter writing was still very much the norm.

I had a French pen pal for three years. The summer between 10th and 11th grades, I corresponded with an admirer named Charlie who wrote me impassioned letters, his handwriting getting bigger and darker to emphasize his compliments and feelings.

My best friend moved after college and we wrote back and forth weekly as she shared the frustrations of a California girl trying to adjust to New England (and marriage). When I first moved to Richmond, I regularly wrote to my Mom and some of my sisters about life after Dupont Circle.

Tellingly, I still have all of their letters.

But if someone wanted to suss out the story of my life through correspondence, they'd only have one side of the story - the letters written to me. I'm just about positive no one saved my letters.

So how could I not be intrigued to hear that Cheryl Jackson Baker, author of "Affectionately Yours: The Civil War Letters of William B. Jackson and His Wife Julia," was reading at Chop Suey tonight?

The Jacksons were her Ohio great-great grandparents and the trove of letters written from 1862 through 1866 had been found in her Dad's Florida closet after he died.

When I walked in, she was asking people in the room what had piqued their interest to attend her talk. Most said it was the Civil War angle or that they were history buffs. For me, it was all about the couple correspondence

Baker began by reading a letter from August 15, 1862 from William, stationed in Alabama, writing about the three mountain women who had visited camp hoping to trade things such as apples and pickled cucumbers for salt and sugar.

His letter said their dresses were fastened with thorns (reason #9257 the past would've held zero appeal for me) and that they inquired if there was any "chaw tobacco." Plugs in their mouths, they claimed it was the best chaw they'd ever had.

She read from a letter a bible quote, pointing out how rare that was. "Being Episcopalians, they didn't quote the bible often. I can say that because I'm an Episcopalian."

The letters she read were wonderful, with intimate details of daily life (Julia took quinine pills when she had headaches), references to home (peach trees) and exultations about the war's progress. Baker was especially pleased to get to read in Richmond a letter about Julia's rejoicing when she heard that Richmond was in the Union's possession (it wasn't true).

Through multiple letters, it became clear that Julia was a bit high maintenance, always nagging William to come home (just drop that silly war business and get back here) and reminding him how difficult her life was now.

If they don't let men come home more often, they'll have to put up insane asylums for the women.

Apparently, Julia also had a flair for the dramatic.

Baker kept things interesting by telling us about Chapter 5, also known as the sex chapter, where she'd assembled the most intimate of Julia and William's letters. Civil War shades of gray, so to speak.

"Just read that chapter!" a woman in the front row cajoled. Seems that William had heard about a way for Julia to use a "proxy" through the mail to have a baby while he was away. Oh, yes, we were definitely all curious about that.

But even without the smutty stuff, the eloquent letters, copies of which we saw in hand-outs, were written in the penmanship of people who practiced. Many words were underlined for emphasis. War and home front updates aside, they were full of affection and love for each other, written down so they could return to reread them whenever they chose to.

That's what we've lost with the passing of letter writing. Oh, sure, I've saved a few romantic e-mails over the years, but it's not the same as handwritten letters. Nothing is.

Parting way with the Episcopalians, my next stop was with the Baptists. As part of their summer "Classics in the Courtyard" series, First Baptist was showing the 1938 classic, "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Besides the obvious appeal of an outdoor movie on a summer night, I'd never seen an Errol Flynn movie.

I was ready to be swashbuckled.

Pulling into the parking lot at First Baptist, I see exactly two cars and a couple, folding chairs on their shoulders, looking disappointed. "It must be canceled," she says. "There's no movie screen, no people, no popcorn!"

Bummer.

On the plus side, I happen to know that there is music at Crossroads Coffee ("Forget the GOP debates. Come experience something positive"), so I turn the car around and head there, arriving during Annabeth McNamara's set of live, magical folk music.

Looking particularly fetching in a tiara, she plays guitar and banjo accompanied by cute couple Renee Byrd on drums and Logan Byrd on upright bass.

At the counter, I quietly order chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce, to which the guy verifies, "You want chocolate with chocolate?" I do. When he delivers it to me, it's with a look of pride. "I put chocolate sauce in the bottom, then the ice cream and chocolate sauce on top." This man could be my soul mate.

Among other things, the band plays through such folk standards as a heartbreak song, a sad song and perhaps most impressively, a song in the same key as "Margaritaville" that answers that song.

When they finish, Annabeth says, "Stick around for Lobo Marino coming up next. I feel like they're creating a community that's even more important than music." I'd attest to the same.

A woman comes in and sits down next to me, turning to ask if I've seen Lobo Marino before. Oh, please. I knew Jameson and Laney before they were Lobo Marino. But I am impressed that she's participated in the annual All Saints Halloween parade, a raucous event I've marched in many times.

She turns out to be an avid cyclist, an artist and an interesting one, having migrated to the city a couple of years ago after exile in the county and jumped into the local scene. We bond over our shared freelance status (she does graphic design), our days spent working alone at home and our mutual need to get out in the world by the end of the workday.

Lobo Marino, meanwhile, are weaving their mystical musical sounds with the garage door rolled up, the rain falling lightly outside and a guy near me standing entranced, eyes closed, hands clasped, swaying to every sound the duo produces. Staff and patrons move around him, so as to not disturb his reverie.

Singing "Holy River," they have the full attention of every person in the room, creating some sort of cosmic connection effortlessly as their voices blend and soar. This, my friends, is how these two are creating a community.

A hundred and fifty years ago, I'd have gone home and written a letter to my beloved, telling him about the conversations with my new friend, the seductive music I heard and how I wish he could have been with me. I might have gotten a little mushy. With any luck, I'd have put it as eloquently as the Alarm.

Our love is the faith that keeps on burning
I love to feel the rain in the summertime
I love to feel the rain on my face

P.S. Come home soon. None of us wants to end up in the insane asylum.

Star Power

If I can't be at the beach on a 93-degree day, I may as well be learning something in air-conditioned comfort.

Chop Suey Books was hosting Emilie Raymond, author of "Stars for Freedom: Hollywood, Black Celebrities and the Civil Rights Movement," for an afternoon reading and aside from my avowed preference for non-fiction, I've always been fascinated with that period in American cultural history.

The room eventually filled up with her friends and others curious about mid-century celebrities using their clout for good, while bridging the period between old Hollywood (the studio system) and new Hollywood (after the Supreme Court's 1947 decision effectively breaking up that system and spawning an era of independent films).

First of all, I was so pitifully uninformed that I'd had no idea that it was a court decision that had changed the system. I'd just assumed it was that the cultural times, they were a-changing.

Turns out it was during this 25-year transition to "message movies" that these public personas intersected with the burgeoning civil rights movement. It was still a big deal in 1956 when celebrities began using their status to help the movement, but it wasn't until 1964 that it was considered fashionable on a larger scale.

And, of course, some people are only going to do it once it's safely fashionable.

She labeled the big six original participants as Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dick Gregory, with a later wave of such people as Brando, Sinatra, Dianne Carroll, Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster and, unlikeliest of all, Charlton Heston.

Yes, apparently before he became an evangelist for the NRA, he championed civil rights. Who knew?

Their role was to donate money, hold benefit shows to make money, bring publicity to the cause and, at its most basic, articulate the civil rights message in a voice the public trusted. A hell of a responsibility, in other words.

Raymond said one of the most surprising things about her interviews with civil rights activists was their statements about how much it meant to them to have the celebrities there and participating in the movement. One even mentioned one of the celebs asking for the activist's autograph. Another mentioned how Brando had grabbed her ass in the elevator, a revelation that surprised no one.

Sammy Davis, Jr. rated as the top fundraiser for the cause ($750,000), although he had such deep-rooted fears about how a black Jew would be treated in the South that he chose not to go.

During the Q & A, the most interesting question came from the lone black audience member. She wondered if Raymond knew why the current crop of black celebs are so hesitant to stand up for the cause today with issues such as #Black Lives Matter. Jay Z and Kanye West took the brunt of the criticism because they have the potential to influence so many but choose not to.

Honestly, don't you think it's as simple as Kanye and Jay Z not being the same caliber of human being as Belafonte and Poitier? It's the 21st century way - why extend yourself when it doesn't directly affect you or your brand?

Maybe that's why this period in history is so fascinating to me. More "we," less "I."

A Bridge to Midnight and Beyond

You may call me many things, but gephyrophobic is not one of them.

Standing on the pipeline today, I saw a red kayak twisted in half on a rock and commented to the guy taking a photo of it, "That didn't end well," to which he responded. "Oh, but it did. We're both still here." Whoa.

Back in J-Ward, I passed a house where a man was leaning on his front porch rail. Waving hello, he called out, "You walk far! I saw you all the way on the other side of the Lee Bridge a couple days ago. Keep it up. You look good!"

I love a good walk across a bridge.

Before crossing another bridge tonight, I went to 821 Cafe for dinner. Sliding on to a stool at the counter, I spotted a sign saying, "Beer to go. Be a good friend. Save a party" (dramatic, but sound advice) and heard a server tell the bartender, "I need three shots of bourbon and a PBR." The table he was waiting on was a two-top. Happy Monday, kids.

The more things change at 821 (all new plastic chairs in orange, green, back and yellow), the more they stay the same vis a vis my beloved black bean nachos, eaten to a raucous soundtrack by the Replacements.

Properly fueled, I drove across the Manchester bridge to get to the Shop at Plant Zero for a community conversation about the proposed BridgePark, a plan to bring people to the river and the river to the city. Obviously, this is not a problem for me since I'm down there walking practically every day, but we know not everyone makes that effort.

After going around the room to introduce ourselves (we were mostly male) and share our favorite part of the James River Park System (the pipeline, duh), the presentation began, one filled with maps and drawings, projections of plans and schemes to create a series of clear, green connections to the riverfront.

This was the first I'd heard about the T Pot project -also known less charmingly as the Brown's Island dam walk - after city planner Tyler Potterfield, a narrow (8-10') walkway over the James to connect to Manchester. While it'll be great to have, it'll be too narrow for anything more than just people walking across it.

Enter Bridge Park, a plan that has yet to be finalized but whose instigators are floating all sorts of ideas for an elevated space that gives people fabulous river views and connects up to the city. They've got all sorts of auxiliary ideas: a green line biking trail to Petersburg, a reflecting pool in Kanawha Plaza that can be drained for concert audiences to sit on, a hanging plaza over Brown's Island. Rain gardens and storm water management. Routes that flow naturally as extensions through the city.

The latest plan involves taking two lanes of the under-utilized Manchester Bridge and converting them to green spaces for bikes and pedestrians, a place that can be used for events, food carts, benches and anything else the populace wants. Maybe an elevator down to the river or a crow's net for bird-watching.

Turns out hundreds of people jammed the center of the bridge on July Fourth to watch fireworks this year. I had no idea. Next year, I'll be one of them, assuming I'm in town.

Clearly, this is a project that will have to be tackled in smaller pieces.

The goal is to create natural pathways (no grade more than 5% for walkability) that encourage people to move through green space rather than roadways. There was even talk of making the current center walkway an express cycling lane once BridgePark provides alternate walking space.

During the discussion afterwards, people wondered about the cost, how long it might take and, of course, whether the populace will stand for losing two lanes of the Manchester Bridge. Here's the cold, hard numbers, though: the Huguenot bridge has two lanes and carries 25,000 cars a day. The Manchester bridge has 11 lanes for only 17,000 cars.

Them's the facts, folks.

After the discussion ended, I chatted with a musician friend, only to learn that he's a civil engineer by day. Outside, I found a group of people continuing the discussion and stopped to join them. Our quintet debated some of the points we'd just heard, citing other cities doing related and successful things.

All of us want to see it happen, yet we all know it'll be a long process and no doubt go through many iterations before a final plan is developed. As we were breaking up, one of the guys asked me about my bridge walking and more tangents followed as we discussed Earth Day festivals, granola types and commitment to a cause.

"Can I buy you a beer at Legend so we can keep this conversation going?" he asked. Much as I was enjoying it, too - he was a kindred soul on a lot of issues - I couldn't because I had plans. It's Harper Lee night.

Chop Suey Bookswas hosting a midnight book release party for Lee's new old book, "Go Set a Watchman," at Lemaire with fun, frivolity and cocktails.

Chop Suey's owner Ward had suggested two brilliant drink names, Tequila Mockingbird and Booze Radley, but Lemaire had ideas of their own with New York to Maycomb, Tired Old Town and, inexplicably, Argyle Vintage Brut.

It's crazy, I was drinking Argyle regularly in Portland, brought some to a party last week and now here it was again. Argyle, you are my destiny.

I found a decent-sized literary crowd mingling about when I got to Lemaire, although not as many familiar faces as I'd expected. The bookseller, natch, the movie maven (we compared notes on "Love and Mercy," got excited about our upcoming film al freco), and later on, my fellow history geek (lamenting over a recent lecture where the author had read, rather than spoken, the entire hour, boring us both to death), an editor and a smiling restaurant owner.

After procuring tequila from one of the overtaxed barkeeps, I decided to bide my time until a bar stool opened up. Conveniently, it was near another book lover, a guy from Ashland who, like me, had reckoned that there was no better way to spend this Monday night than waiting to be handed a book written before "To Kill a Mockingbird."

"Besides, I stay up late and get up late," he tells me. Welcome to the club, kindred soul.

It was his laughter that started the conversation because he'd tweeted about trying Belle Isle Moonshine for the first time a few minutes earlier and in response, someone had sent him a crazy headline about a goat drinking a beer and making some bad choices.

We bonded over our preference for books over electronic reading of books and newspapers (kill me now) and our mutual love of train travel (he can walk to the Ashland station), but it was sharing teenage drinking stories (his involved moonshine surreptitiously poured into a beer, leading to him walking his terrified dog down the median of a four-lane highway) that cemented the bond.

Naturally I shared my old chestnut about a gallon of Gallo wine and a Black Forest cake that, like the goat's sorry tale, also did not end well. "And such quality wine, too," he joked.

Talking about our love of reading and library book sales (Ashland's happens on the Fourth of July, as does the parade which he likes to march in), I floored him when I mentioned the downtown library's annual book giveaway. "I thought I was getting a deal paying a quarter for books! You got me beat." Yea, well, I do that sometimes.

Curious about how I'd found out about tonight's event (pu-leeze!), he'd come across it in Style Weekly's feed, making for a natural segue to what I do. Explaining the life of a freelance writer, he got points for intuitively knowing the challenges as well as the perks.

All of a sudden, people were starting to leave and we realized they had handsome books clutched to their bosoms. Midnight had come and gone without our even noticing it. We decided to be those people who didn't rush out just because they had book in hand.

We rounded out the night talking about the VMFA, east coast versus west coast, and about his swinging annual groundhog day party (he's a native Pennsylvanian) before Ward brought my book over and we said our goodnights.

"It's been fun talking to you. Here's hoping we run into each other again," he said as I shook his hand.

You may call me many things, but shy and retiring are not two of them.

16 Going on 66

It's a tad disturbing the way the mighty Internets claim to be able to "read" you.

Without so much as asking me a single question, I was told the following about myself:
Age based on general knowledge: 66
Age based on taste in music: 16
Age based on preferences: 32

Meaningless as it is, I'm fine with having the knowledge base of someone older than me. I'm hardly surprised my musical taste is considered younger, although I think 16 is a stretch. But where I need clarification is on the preferences issue.

I mean, my preference is to live without air conditioning even when my apartment registers 90 degrees like it does right now. My preference is to lock my car doors from inside rather than using the key fob and causing unnecessary noise pollution when it beeps loudly to indicate that the car is safe. My preference is to choose car routes that take me down streets I enjoy rather than automatically opting for the fastest route.

And this means I come in at age 32?

Okay, then, that means that a 32-year old loves it when her evening begins with a compliment from a stranger.

Walking down Cary Street toward Chop Suey Books just after the pelting rain had let up, a man greets me and observes, "You didn't get caught in the rain because your hair still looks great." Thanks for the kind words, stranger.

I was meeting a favorite couple at Chop Suey to hear Bob Suren read from his book "Crate Digger" about the hunt for punk rock records. Actually, it turned out to be a memoir of growing up in Florida and about all things punk rock, not just digging for vinyl gems.

The friend and her cute husband met me upstairs where we took seats in the back row like the bad kids in school always did. My friend was concerned because the reading started in seven minutes and we were the sole occupants of the room. Her distress was short-lived, though, because before long every seat was taken and people were standing just outside the door to the room.

Bob explained that his odyssey had begun in 1983 when his sister's boyfriend had given him a mix tape called "Family Favorites," assuring him that, "This is better than the Scorpions," then one of Bob's favorite bands. There were no songs or band listings.

The mix tape became the soundtrack to his summer, but in order to identify the artists, he had to ask the one punk kid in his school to identify the bands for him. An obsession was born.

Reading chapters from the book, he shared memories of his first Ramones concert in Miami, an event that so impressed him he said that, "I thought 'Ramones' should become a superlative in every language." The post-concert antics - his drunk sister insisting on taking him and his terrified friends to an all-night go kart track - were even funnier.

We heard about some of the punk bands he'd played in, including one show opening for the Meat Men (and playing after the superbly-named Stevie Stiletto and the Switchblades), where his band decided it'd be a good idea to have a sandwich maker onstage and pass out sandwiches to the audience.

They threw them back at the band. "A piece of bologna landed on the drummer's thigh," may have been one of the funniest lines I've ever heard read. For years, they referred to the summer of '87 as "the Meat Men summer."

There were chapters about making his first record (with the advice, "Punk rock don't need no permission. Just figure out what you want to do and do it.") and in 1991, creating his own record label.

He told us about the triangular-shaped Confusion Records, the first place he took his record when it came out because it was local, but a place aptly named because there was no system for how records were filed (maybe by molecular weight or color of the album cover, he wasn't really sure).

It was interesting, when he talked about the rise of mail order records as a way to get obscure and imported albums - think Pillsbury Hardcore - in the '80s, someone asked whether he knew the bands and albums he was ordering or if he just took a chance on the unknown, which was, of course, exactly what he and his friends had done.

I know the concept is completely foreign to millennials who have never just gambled on unknown music based on a band or album name or especially compelling or gruesome cover art, but anyone over a certain age (ahem) recalls buying something you'd never heard of just because it spoke to you in some intangible way.

You have to admire someone who managed to be "employed" by punk rock for two decades, in one way or another. He was a shining example of doing what you love.

Because my friends had eaten before the reading and I hadn't, we parted company with my friend asking about my plans. "I like to think of you going off to do something fun and exciting," she said. Ah, the pressure, but I do what I can.

Tonight, that meant going to Dinamo for dinner and finding it packed with people, some even waiting on the bench outside. Ah, but therein lies the beauty of being a single because in moments I was escorted to the one and only open bar stool. Score.

The owner suggested San Vincenzo Anselmi for its fuller, citrusy flavor, which I sipped while getting to know my fellow bar mates.

Next to me was a guy who lives in Forest Hill, spends January and February in Florida and, along with his partner, had been the money behind a restaurant that just celebrated its one-year anniversary. His wife was busy talking to three recent transplants, including a couple who'd lived in Portland for ten years.

Hearing that I'd just come back, they wanted my impression since they'd just escaped from what they considered the smugness and precious nature of its populace. They'd already decided our food scene was better.

Since by then I was finishing up a white pizza (coincidentally, a friend who moved to Portland had already told me that no pizza there compares to Richmond's) before moving on to my cold seafood salad of mussels, clams, shrimp and calamari marinated in olives, onion and lemon juice, I had to agree.

When the topic of Halloween came up, the couple - dedicated bar sitters, just like me - knew of no festivities, so I stepped in to enlighten the newcomers on the annual Halloween parade through Oregon Hill and all it entails. Everyone at the bar was stoked about the big bike race and what it means for Richmond. Of course the Folk Fest was touted as a must-do for the newbies while I savored a Nutella and sea salt cookie, a divinely satisfying end to my meal.

The owner, standing behind the bar and joining in our lively conversation whenever she could, smiled widely at one point and said to the six of us, "It's a very good bar tonight."

Could it be she was saying that those whose preferences make them 32 are a key element of a good bar? Pshaw, I'd like to think I meet that criteria no matter what age you call me.

94 and Rising

We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave
The temperature's rising, it isn't surprising
She certainly can can-can

With a forecast of temperatures close to 100 degrees for Monday and Tuesday, I declined an invitation to the country. It was going to be too hot to head inland. Instead, I got up yesterday and started for the river.

A mile in and sweat was running down my back. Two miles in and all I could think about was a drink of water, but with cemeteries to my left and houses to my right, there was no water in sight.

I crossed my fingers that there would be a water fountain at Texas Beach, although I knew it was unlikely.

Walking through the neighborhood a different route, I came across all kinds of charming things to take my mind off my unrelenting thirst. A tidy white church tucked onto a corner, with rows of blooming roses surrounding it. A front yard garden labeled "potager" with a rainbow-colored gate behind it. A yard so full of kitsch that it was difficult to take in the hundreds of items that adorned every inch of space.

And when I got to the parking lot at Texas Beach, I was thrilled to see not one but three water fountains, one for adults, one for kids and one for dogs. Drinking greedily, I yielded the fountain to two overheated runners and headed to a bench to sit down.

On it was a large, unopened bottle of water, condensation indicating it was still somewhat cold water. I picked it up and put it back down. Looking around, I saw no one looking for their water. In that instant, it became mine.

Once hydrated, I walked down the stairs to Texas Beach to get in the river and was completely surprised to see ten Japanese rock pile statues dotting the water. I'd been down there just last Wednesday and noticed that all the pilings from last year were gone. Somebody had been busy in the past few days reconstructing them.

Let the summer begin.

Heading back up to the parking lot to start the hot walk home, I got behind two men on the staircase discussing the Koran and how "they" are just as afraid of us as we are of them. When they paused on a landing to get their breath, one guy waved me by. "I can see you're in tip top shape and we're not, so go ahead," said the one in the VCU shirt.

I don't know about all that, but I passed them anyway, refilled "my" water bottle at the fountain and slogged toward home, grateful that the water gods had looked out for me when I hadn't had the sense to bring my own.

Half a mile from home, I heard my name called and there was a friend offering me a brief home in air conditioned comfort. With over five miles of walking under my sweaty belt, I happily hopped in. Maybe my Mom's right and some days are just too hot to walk.

Awaiting me at home was an invitation to spend the day in air conditioned places of my choosing, an offer too good to refuse.

We began at Saison Market for a cold beverage before moving on to Criterion to see "Love and Mercy," the biopic about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. I've never been much of a Beach Boys fan, but I'm on record as loving a good true story and this one is hard to beat given its sordid elements: abusive father, controlling doctor, mental illness.

Probably most fascinating was the glimpse of Wilson's creative process as he tries to recreate the voices and sounds in his head into a record in the studio. Hearing those familiar songs broken down into the abstract components of his complicated vision was mesmerizing and all but a music lesson for the less musically savvy (read: me).

From there, we headed to the air conditioned comfort of Can Can for happy hour deals, enjoying three kinds of P.E.I. oysters (my favorite for the name alone: Salutation Cove) and a charcuterie plate with Morbier, pork pate and prosciutto-wrapped ripe cantaloupe, washed down with Muscadet.

In the bathroom, a woman was making a face at herself in the mirror, holding up a lock of hair. "Why did I spend half an hour straightening it if it's already curly again?" she asked me. Meanwhile my straight hair was losing what little body I'd forced in with a blow dryer to the heat, I pointed out.

"Your hair looks great," she claimed, but only a curly haired girl would say that. We all want what we don't have and my hair was suffering in the heat as much as hers.

From there, we braved the oven-like heat of Cary Street to walk down a few blocks to Chop Suey Books where the Music Circus was in full swing. I don't even know how many years now I've attended the annual tribute to John Cage, but at least since it was held at the old Chop Suey eight years ago.

Moving from room to room, looking at books along the way, I heard the Man About Town reading from his unfinished novel, saw a sax duo that included JC Kuhl upstairs near cookbooks and lingered to watch drummer extraordinaire Brian Jones playing percussion and song flutes. It was a far smaller Music Circus than any I'd seen before but just as cacophonous, which is exactly the point.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped at Belmont Food Shop for appetizers of crab and avocado (one of my very favorite warm weather combos), lobster salad and, wait for it, lamb belly (obscenely delicious and one of my go-tos at Belmont).

As the crowd dwindled, the bartender got tired of the usual soundtrack ("I've been listening to it for two and a half years") and offered up his phone so I could choose some different music. Everyone knows I love playing DJ.

Hmm, so many options. I choose Strand of Oaks because I'd just seen them and Father John Misty because I'm currently infatuated with that album, eventually going with Ryan Adams because who doesn't like Ryan Adams? My date did and that's all I care about.

I couldn't leave without ordering silk pie, a crumb-encrusted dark chocolate mousse-like round that never disappoints, or a few minutes' conversation with the low key chef about his upcoming beach and fishing trip.

Sure, it would have been so easy to just go home at that point, but how could we when it was heavy metal Monday at GWARbar?

A DJ was set up just behind the stools we sat in and while I didn't recognize a single song as a series of appropriately dressed DJs took turns spinning, it's always great people watching there, whether it's poseurs or metalheads.

Not to mention that their air conditioning was working just fine and spending time in it had been our one and only goal of the day and night. We're simple people, although he was going home to sleep in air conditioned comfort while my overnight involved a ceiling fan and two auxiliary fans pointed directly at me. Bliss.

This morning, I considered routes for my walk, taking into account that it's supposed to be 99 degrees today, so desperately seeking some shade along the way.

Heading downtown, I was immediately struck by how few people were out and about. The Jehovah's Witnesses who usually set up shop near city hall were M.I.A. The lunchtime crowd appeared to have stayed inside. Even the guys who usually hang out in front of the barber shops were absent.

But a few brave souls were out. Walking down Marshall Street, from the apartment house stairs above me, I hear a man say, "There she is! There's summer!"

Looking up at him, I remark that it's not summer till next week. "It's summer today, darlin' and so are you!" he calls with a big smile. I have to assume he's referring to my wide-brimmed hat and limbs glistening with sunscreen.

"Nice sunblock!" a man with a backpack and tall walking stick calls to me from across the street, obviously not referring to my pink shorts.

We're having a heat wave, a tropical heatwave
The way that she moves, that thermometer proves
She certainly can can-can

Oh, and, for the record, under that hat that gets me so much complimentary attention, my hair most definitely does not look great. It's summer.

Remembering What Astonishes

She knew what she wanted and it was poetry and dreampop.

Fortunately for me, Chop Suey was addressing that with a reading featuring three women reading, for an estrogen fest of poetry.

I got there early enough to look for Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd" but, alas, while they had others - "The Return of the Native," "Return of the Greenwood Tree," several copies of "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" - no madding crowd.

Taking a seat in one of the metal chairs set up in the bookstore, I found myself conveniently wedged against the art history section. While I thumbed through a book on Currier and Ives (I really need to know more about these guys), I listened in on a debate about Norfolk versus Richmond living ("Have you been on the trails and the river? Have you?").

Fortunately, my favorite Bangles' song came on ("If She Knew What She Wants") and I was able to lose myself in that and my book.

First up was Sarah McCall, a Norfolk teacher and MFA candidate who began with a poem called "Household Survey" and judging by its references to race, sex, housing and education, I'm guessing she, like me, worked the census at some point. Final line: "Is this it? Where is that?"

She read "Ways of Being Born Twice" ("Time heals nothing") and a long poem about Greenwich Village's Cedar Tavern and the ghosts of people such as Frank O'Hara and Dylan. "Dear Love & Co." (sex was part of the & co.) had the most evocative imagery ("the warm bloom of desire").

Next came Michele Poulos, a far quieter and more timid reader, doing two from her chapbook while her husband watched from the second row. Explaining that she'd just finished five years of work on a film about poet Larry Levis, she read "St. Maximus in the Blue Margin," a poem about a monk.

My favorite of hers was the sexually-charged "Thursdays in Faubourg Marigny," written when she was living in New Orleans before relocating to Richmond after Katrina. "A Wind's Requiem" dealt with a Greek relative's house being burnt down ("If only houses could remember the skies that astonish them") and "X-Ray Visions" about flower X-rays ("Those petals, faint as a song").

Last up was Sommer Browning who read from her book "Backup Singers" ("Life accumulates like a U.S. Steel slag heap") while her young daughter made comments to her.

She mentioned that one poem "plagiarized from most of the people in the room" with its references to friends' life happenings. "Federal Holiday" yielded the exquisite imagery of a "sunset hinged to the sky."

Holding up her latest book, "The Circle Book," she observed dryly, "I drew 90 circles and someone published that shit." Showing us pages within, each page showed an identical circle with a different descriptor: Super ball, bottle cap, pencil point up close, tube sock from above, monocle. Even her two-year old found it funny.

And people think poets are dour. You just never know until you go to a reading.

Once we'd been released from our metal chairs, I strolled down to Secco to meet a man with a bent for comedy and a honey-dripping southern accent who offered to buy me a glass of wine in exchange for hearing his idea for me.

Over glasses of Domaine Cambon Beaujolais Rose, we talked about film and movie theaters, sight lines and audience sizes, recreating "My Dinner with Andre" and what a cultural landmark "Hard Day's Night" was. He's that rare person who understands why I only watch movies in public places on a big screen.

And while I didn't say yes to his offer, I'm certainly thinking it over.

When we parted ways, he was off to Emilio's to see Chez Roue and I to Balliceaux to see Night Idea and Shana Falana. The former I'd seen at Live at Ipanema and the latter was dreampop/shoegaze/right up my alley and from Brooklyn.

To my surprise, the show had started much earlier than I'd expected. Mea culpa. I only caught one song of duo Shana Falana's set but I could tell I would have liked more.

As quartet Night Idea was getting set up, I noticed one of the guitarists slip off his shoes and socks, perhaps the better to manipulate the buttons and knobs on his extensive pedal board with his toes. Night Idea is always touted as math rock, which in this case means a cross between prog rock and post rock with just a smidge of metal in there.

And sometimes I like that, the way a band takes you on a sound journey with no clue as to what's coming next, full of stops and starts and temp changes. Despite or maybe because of, some people really seem to like dancing to it.

A guy in front of me was a Deadhead sort of dancer, plucking at imaginary butterflies, flailing his hands at his side or occasionally looking to be in a full convulsion, you know the type. Just slightly off the irregular beat but he's dancing to an inner rhythm anyway so that's irrelevant. Having a good time, which is all that's important.

Another guy resembled that Peanuts character who, in the big dance scene, just stands in place and shakes his mop of curly hair. That was this guy. Adorable.

I spent time with the bartender who was doing his last shift as a single man before getting married Monday.

With random color and black and white videos playing behind them, they proceeded to get their audience (because it looked like all their friends were there) whipped into a frenzy with rock as complicated as a math problem. My response was understandably more subdued but I was still enjoying the musicianship and the surprises.

During their last song, I spotted a friend and he summed it up. "Such dude rock." Now that he mentioned it, practically everyone in the room was a guy.

That's why I always take care of my poetry fix first. You just never know where you'll end up.

Sugar Shopping Overload

Today I was a cliche. With three days until Christmas Eve, I had no choice.

What that means is that after a bracing walk this morning down to Great Shiplock Park, through an almost entirely deserted downtown, I hunkered down to do Christmas baking.

Five hours of it.

Fortunately for me, I was joined by a favorite couple who assisted me with the mixing, baking, icing and decorating of cookies, set to vintage Christmas music spanning 1959 ("Christmas with Conniff") to 2002 ("Maybe This Christmas"). The festive meter was set to 11.

Biggest surprise? The firefighter in the group was a master cookie decorator. His Christmas tree cookies had snow-laden branches, his snowmen had scarves and belts. It was truly artistic work.

Mine, not so much.

Fourteen dozen cookies later, I couldn't wait to escape the oven and leave the house. Unfortunately for me on a Saturday night, duty called so I wasn't leaving to have fun. It was all about the consumerism.

In case you didn't know, I lack several key feminine qualities and one of them is a love of shopping...except for food and books.

Nevertheless, and putting on my cheeriest holiday face, I headed to Carytown to gather ye presents while ye may. I had no choice.

My first stop was Old World Christmas to choose an ornament amongst a crowd of focused-looking shoppers. Things began to look up when I arrived at the counter because behind it was a favorite actor playing a sales clerk.

After paying and his reference to my blog (you never know who reads you), I said goodbye and he asked incredulously, "Did you walk over from Jackson Ward?" Apparently my walking reputation precedes me.

I stopped in Ten Thousand Villages and bought myself a new wallet, not an intended purchase but one long overdue if you saw the state of my current one. You'd think they'd last longer considering how rarely they hold any actual money.

Mongrel was a zoo, but where else can you find such great cards and wrapping paper? As I browsed and tried to stay out of the madding crowd's way, suddenly the sound of glass shattering stopped everyone cold. After a moment's silence, the hustle and bustle returned as everyone went back to the business of spending.

Coming out of Mongrel, I heard my name called and turned to see two wine rep friends also exiting the madhouse. We chatted about the folly of last minute shopping, agreeing that experiences and time were the best gifts (I'd also add to that list words because I like nothing better than for someone to write to me for a present).

"It's better now because we're going to Don't Look Back," she said, practically beaming. Yes, I agreed enthusiastically, tequila and chicken skin tacos do make everything better.

After a stop at Plan 9, I had finished as much shopping as I was going to do tonight. Back on the sidewalk, I ran into another friend, this one a server and wine goddess with an ear for Italian and a beautiful baby in her arms. I hadn't seen her since before she'd had the wee one, so we exchanged holiday pleasantries before going our separate ways.

My consumer duties finally over, I considered stopping for a cup of Can Can's indulgent hot chocolate but a glance through the window at the boring-looking crowd at the bar told me that I didn't really want to deal with that. Even for a bowl of chocolate

Clearly I'm not cut out to be Suzy Homemaker or Sherry Shopper. Happily, after my hard work today, that's all behind me. Now it's time to enjoy Christmas time in the city.

Poem of Poems

Opportunities to get my poetry fix have been few and far between lately.

In fact, I'd seen a poet friend at a history lecture a couple of weeks ago and we'd commiserated about the paucity of poetry readings lately. As if the poetry gods were listening, just yesterday I'd spotted one happening tonight at Chop Suey and decided then and there that it would be my evening's plan.

"Diversity in Verse" the event was called and I can only attribute the small crowd to the fact that it was happening prime time on Saturday night. Walking by Secco and Curry Craft, it was clear that most people had dinner, not poetry, plans tonight.

Arriving early enough to do some browsing (I still haven't spent my birthday gift certificate), I couldn't decide on what to buy myself before the reading began. So that pleasure still awaits.

Michael Trocchia, a teacher of philosophy at JMU, began the reading in his soft-spoken voice, with hybrid prose poems from his book "The Fatherlands," each of them driven by images and titled with a number, not a name.

These numbered poems produced evocative phrasing such as "Breathing out a dusty piece of existence" from "15" and "Strengthen his tongue against the poverty of his language" from "27." He saw "19" as having the spirit of Fellini -fanciful and earthy - with lines such as, "He was looking for a companion to help him write the poem of poems" and the thought-provoking "To move her thoughts around her face like he did."

I'm still trying to decide it moving her thoughts around her face is romantic or not. Possibly? As he read, he was accompanied by the creaking of floors overhead as customers browsed the upstairs shelves.

He also read from his upcoming collection "Unfounded' with a poem called "Of Shelter and Form" with the line, "One of us hangs on the last words of another." Who among us hasn't hung on another's words?

Following him was Angela Carter, a confessional poet who had nearly called off the publication of her book "Memory Chose a Woman's Body" several times before it finally came out.

She began with a spoken word piece addressed to the stereotypical person who walks out of her poetry readings because the subject of childhood abuse is too difficult. Her motto: silence is not golden.

"Hotel Song" was about the weekends of her youth that she'd stay with her mother in different motels and hotels, recalling a time when she'd left the pool and a man had offered her $250 to come back to his room. She ran back to her own instead. "When I'm breathing, I am prey."

The sarcastically-intentioned "Thanks for Not Understanding" referred to the mirror reflecting "two eyes prematurely dead." Before reading a new poem, "The Difference Between Waking Up and Living," with the line, "Still touching the world with bare fingertips though twice I've been burned," she looked at the small audience and told us to breathe, that it was okay. "Woman Child" was about being a secret keeper.

She also made a pitch to purchase her book after the reading, saying, "Every time you buy my book, I feel validated."

No doubt about it, some of her poetry made the audience uncomfortable, a powerful reminder of the sisterhood of survival.

Last up was Matthew Hamilton who'd taken a unique career path from Benedictine monk to legislative assistant on Capital Hill to Peace Corps volunteer in Armenia and the Philippines to librarian at Benedictine and poet. Needles to say, his subject matter was pretty specific to his range of experiences.

"The Land of Four Rivers" was about his first day landing in Armenia ("Fields of cognac and gold"). Another was about sharing vodka and barbecue with Russians at an impromptu picnic. About the monastic life, he wrote, "They woke up early with the sound of silent bells."

Silent bells?

From a new collection of poems, he read "Snakes Belong in the Wild" about not wanting to kiss a frog and where that can lead. "Transplant Tourism" was about organ harvesting and set in the Philippines after a plane trip where he "drank gin until I no longer remember the past."

In "Mama's Funeral" he recalled her telling him she'd see him on the other side and going outside to "listen to bees' wings drum against the apple blossoms" to feel close to her. "Kentucky Briar April 1975" centered around him being born during the Vietnam war while some boys were coming home dead. Heavy stuff.

They weren't kidding when the called this evening "diversity in verse." It had to be one of the most disparate group of poets I've ever heard read and as we know, I've been to a slew of readings.

But as Walt Whitman said, "To have great poets, there must be great audiences" and if we weren't great, it's only because we're out of practice with so few readings of late.

Ever the optimist, I will always hope for more. Hope for more chances to hang on the last words of another.

More Feeling Than Fact

I made sure that this last day of July was a good one.

Beginning with a walk down to the river and along the pipeline walkway, I made the most of the blue skies and low humidity.

I chose to ignore the guy siting on the sidewalk who commented, "Look at those cheeks!" when I walked by.

This afternoon, a favorite drummer came by to bring me a painting he'd done for me in exchange for some writing I'd done for him.

He described it as an analogy for me: it has a decided colorful streak near the middle but it's not a bright painting. I loved it when he said that there are five other paintings under the one I ended up with.

It now holds a place of honor in my living room.

My evening began at Pasture for the "Case for Hope" drive, a happy hour collection of suitcases and duffel bags for children in foster care.

It's too good a cause not to support and I'd been out of town for the last drive, so I wasn't missing this one.

When I walked in with my three suitcases at 5 sharp, no one was there except Michele, the organizer of the event, and she was being interviewed by ABC.

Despite that, she broke to say hi to me before resuming answering questions.

After adding my bags to the pile, I headed to the bar for a glass of Conde Villar Vinho Verde Rose, spending some time talking to the guy from United Methodist Family Services who, like me, was wearing skinny orange stripes tonight.

What are the chances, we wondered.

Before long friends arrived: the PR whiz, my favorite Hopewell resident, the restaurant owner. I had just enough time to discuss "Cabaret," the music schedule at Strangeways Brewing and how hard it is to get a partner to do what you want before I had to leave.

After donating to a good cause, it was time for me to feed my head and Chop Suey was having a poetry reading.

Browsing the bookshelves before it even got started, I spotted the lovely poet across the room and she made it clear we had things to discuss after her month in France. Before long, she cornered me next to the music books.

Irish men, the Loire valley, camping near Geneva and bicycle tours, that's all I'm going to say about what she shared. Really, who could have a bad time in France for a month?

I especially loved her descriptions of how overwhelming it was to experience so much new and wonderful on a daily basis.

Then we found seats in the hard folding chairs arranged in rows between the shelves and waited for the magic to begin. I'm the first to admit that I love being read to.

Reading first was non-poet Meg Rains (mistakenly introduced as a "poof-reader") reading from a short non-fiction piece called, "The Memory of My Disappearance."

Favorite line: Memory is more feeling than fact.

Joshua Marie Wilkinson got up next and read for far too brief a time.

His last new book of poetry, "Swamp Isthmus" provided some intriguing imagery such as "the moon flinches, flickers" and "poems composed in the battle of night."

Sometimes night is a battle, no?

From "Fortnight's Insignia," he read, "So it's going to be that kind of a century?" and referred to "the storm's indifference to its vehicle," something I can attest to after witnessing my first hurricane earlier this month.

I would have liked to have heard more from this quiet-voiced man.

Last to read was Zachary Schomburg, whose poetry was referred to as "emotionally confusing," by Chop Suey owner Ward, who introduced Schomburg.

Saying he was going to read from his latest, "Book of Joshua," he explained the story began in 1977 and ended in 2044.

He began reading from the 1977 portion and then took audience shout-outs for the remainder.

After reading a section from 1977, someone called out 1982 and he read from that. Then 1993 and eventually 2014 ("Life is a slow farewell") and 2023.

"And then more stuff happens and then he dies," Schomburg said wrapping up quickly.

Next he put music on and read another poem to it ("I want inside you in a good way") and then added in a recording of words being said.

Schomburg continued to read the poem while the recorded voice ("This is Joshua, but not a Joshua you know") read something else and words overlapped. It had become performance art.

When the reading ended, we took a stroll up Cary Street to Pomegranate because while I'd been several times, my companion had never been.

Navigating closed sidewalks, frozen yogurt eaters (including a city councilman) and packs of annoying West End 20-somethings, we made it in time for happy hour.

Taking advantage of the hour with Pinto Gris, we began with blue fish two ways - pickled and hash- with pickled onions and beets with creme fraiche and crostini.

We noticed a table for one upstairs, off the main dining room and backed against a wall on a narrow overlook, a seemingly odd place to dine. It looked like the "time out" table.

You know, in case you misbehaved at the restaurant.

Next up I had buttermilk fried quail confit over obscenely rich butter whipped potatoes with pancetta cream and it occurred to me I hadn't had mashed potatoes probably since Thanksgiving.

Too long.

My date had an enormous and phallic-looking housemade pork sausage over polenta, positively delicious but way more food than I could have eaten, so I made do with one bite.

By the time we left, Carytown was a bit calmer and we window shopped, looking at bikes, lingerie and kitchen utensils along the way.

We finished off the evening with Cantina Puianello Lambrusco and oblique references to when pigs fly.

On a day as good as this, who knows? I'd like to think anything is possible.

Here Comes the Rain Again

May I just say how much I appreciated today's weather?

With the exception of a few minutes in the morning, the sun has been M.I.A. all day long. Between the gray, overcast skies and intermittent showers all day long, it's been, for me at least, an absolutely gorgeous day.

My garden, my potted plants, the trees, everything looks so lush and verdant as if the green pigment in them is on steroids. Even the humid air, so like the beach air I recently left behind, feels like a lovely thing.

But I seem to be in the minority when it comes to a day (or night) like this and when I invited Pru to join me, she begged off, claiming it was raining cats and dogs and lizards.

Umbrella in hand, out I went solo to Chop Suey for a reading.

The book store seemed crowded, but maybe it was just that everyone had umbrellas and books in hand. Not willing to risk it, I found a chair and planted my backside while mingling from a seated position with a painter and then a poet.

I was thanked for attending, to which I remarked that I love having people read what they wrote to me.

Marie Potoczny led off by reading a short piece called "If Not Now, When?" about car sex in a traffic jam. Sample line: "I go at him like he's an Arby's cheddar roast beef sandwich." There was a lot of laughter at the end.

Reading her short story, "The Third Prophesy," Katy Resch wove a story of a guy from a difficult background making his way in the world, not without some issues along the way.

Tonight's main event was Allison Titus (who looks younger every time I see her) reading from her new novel, "The Arsonist's Song Has Nothing to Do with Fire."

Chop Suey's owner Ward introduced her, telling us he'd taken her book to the pool one recent afternoon and didn't get much swimming accomplished because he cracked open the book and was immediately sucked in.

She began by reading the prologue about one of the characters "practicing" dying and then jumped into the middle of the book, which involved a doctor secretly creating wings to be implanted on humans, a pyromaniac who did not want to be labeled an arsonist and a mother who died seven years after her daughter stopped talking to her.

So, you see, it's really no surprise that Ward was engaged in this saga from the first pages.

When I left Chop Suey, it was still raining hard and puddles were getting wider and harder to cross, but I wasn't going to let that matter. Besides, I had on platform shoes.

Over at Saison Market, California winemaker Andrew Jones was pouring his "Field Recordings" wines and Saison's chef was pairing small plates with them.

Don't mind if I do.

His Chenin Blanc was fabulous with the pickled shrimp, as were the fennel-crusted lamb lollipops with the smoky "Neverland," a Cabernet Sauvignon/Petit Verdot blend and I adored the "Fiction" red blend with the southern-fried quail with mole sauce.

That's the wine Andrew said he makes the most of, using leftover bits from all the different vineyards he works with and blending until he gets it to just where he wants it to be.

Don't stop 'till you get it right, brother.

The tasting wasn't overly crowded, but with plenty to eat and drink, no one was in any great hurry to move through, especially once the wine began softening the hard edges of everyone's rainy Thursday and laughter became the dominant sound in the room.

When I left there, it was to a gentle rain, sending me directly to my balcony and four days worth of newspapers to catch up on while the rain dripped on the metal roof next to me.

Did I mention how I love a rainy night?

What We Will

Oh, sure, I can plan, but I can also go along with someone else's agenda.

But when a friend puts the ball in my court with, "What shall we do with ourselves?" I feel it's my duty to concoct an evening worth doing.

Her response? "I just knew I could count on your poetical planning."

I had suggested we begin at Chop Suey for John Sealy's reading from his debut novel, "The Whiskey Baron," which conveniently allowed me to make a pit stop at Mongrel to buy a Mother's Day card for the impending holiday.

Two birds with one stone and all that rot.

Once at Chop Suey, we found seats for a pre-reading catch-up session about possible changes for her at work, how her dogs had chosen to wake her up at 5 a.m. (unbeknownst to her as she started her day assuming it was 6 a.m.) and the difference in cultured and country.

For the record, she's the former, not the latter.

Sealy took the podium looking young, which is fine, but being somewhat of a timid reader, which was less so. Just because you can write well doesn't mean you can read aloud well.

Beginning with page 3 in his novel, he treated us to a few pages of his story about a bootlegger's South Carolina crumbling whiskey empire.

Despite his less than ideal reading aloud skills, he had a way with a phrase, such as, "Time had at least given him the blessing of patience," a phrase that could apply to yours truly.

After reading enough to set up the story for us he drawled, "I think I'm gonna stop there," and opened up the room to questions.

A reader curious about whether he "heard" the characters' voices in his head as he wrote had him explaining, "What I love about fiction is writing in the third person, the ability to hear sounds and slide in and out of the people I create. I love the responsibility of going into someone's head."

I was intrigued when he compared the slow creation of a character to watercolor painting where you begin with vague shadows and gradually build up images as you keep adding to it. Nice metaphor.

He'd set his novel in a fictional South Carolina county based on Chester County, a place he knew well from summers visiting his family's home there.

We learned that part of his motivation for writing came from a concern that experienced history was fading into recorded history as the people who lived it are dying off. "I wanted to capture a period that'll soon be gone as the people who lived it die."

Idiomatic phrases particularly captivated him as he listened to people's stories about life in a mill town and "musical" terms like "bobbin dodger" and "lint head" captured his imagination, being evocative and unusual enough to make it into the book.

When someone commented that they saw elements of literary naturalism in his novel - elements referring back to writers like Theodore Dreiser, Jack London and Stephen Crane- he was impressed because exactly that sort of writing had been his interest in college.

That youthful focus had given way to a more contemporary fear that we have lost the ability to choose our paths. "I'm paranoid we're living in a computer simulation and no longer have free will," he said, sounding quite serious or at the very least, highly concerned.

Now there's a depressing thought.

Well, if tonight was a computer simulation, we were at least going to simulate good eating and drinking, so we strolled up Cary Street, where I came across a musician friend busking, playing mouth harp enthusiastically for anyone who would listen.

Naturally I stopped to chat, having missed his band's show last night, and garnering an invitation to his recently established compound on the east end of town.

I have no doubt it's all very groovy and look forward to going out for a visit.

We continued on to Amour Wine Bistro, my first visit since they reopened after the January fire, and found the bar full of a birthday party waiting for the guest of honor to arrive and be surprised.

While my poetical planning had chosen Amour, I can take no credit for the superb Rose that awaited us, Chateau de Valcombe Rose, the color of a pink diamond and so sippable my friend wished for a case for herself.

Perhaps my needs are simpler, but I'd have settled for a case for the two of us.

Since we were well into dinner time, we ordered housemade country pork and scallion pate (so fabulous it required extra bread and the grilled leeks a delightful bonus), asparagus with a poached egg, Parmesan and shaved radish (tasting as spring-like as the Rose) and warm potato salad with mustard, bacon and red onions (a deeply flavorful take that had my friend in raptures), a solid trio that came off the happy hour menu.

We had a great time with our server, hearing about his impending cohabitation in a 630 square foot apartment (so brave) and trying to discuss our own lives without him overhearing us.

Claiming to hear nothing, he made a reference to our chatter being the equivalent of Charlie Brown's teacher. Wahh, wahh.

I asked my friend about going to see "The Taming of the Shrew" with me, which you'd think was a pretty simple request to make of a theater lover, but which led to a deeply philosophical discussion of her objections to the play on the grounds that offends her '80s-era feminist sensibilities by belittling the Katerina character.

Funny, I don't see it that way, which means it was a lively discussion where we both learned a little about each other's views on the male/female dynamic. And wound up discussing "Much Ado About Nothing" instead.

As it happened, we also got into the art of haikus, but she shut that down by insisting that she preferred limericks. Not so me.

Since this was a girls' night out, we used our free will to go with two desserts, a chocolate caramel sea salt creme brulee paired with grapefruit sorbet and chocolate sorbet so creamy it coated the spoon and didn't want to let go.

The creme brulee and grapefruit pairing was inspired, the refreshing and tart sorbet cutting the richness of the dark chocolate.

With the chocolate sorbet we switched from Rose to Saint Dominique Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, a lightly sweet wine that must have been created to be savored with just such a dessert.

We used the accompanying orange slices to swipe the last of the sorbet from the bowl, enjoying the sweetness of the oranges under chocolate for our last rapturous bites.

Sorry, no computer simulation could recreate that kind of mouthfeel, those beautiful flavors to close out our evening.

Turns out it wasn't only the planning that was poetical.