For those of you who couldn't make it to Grand Lake this year:
WRITER'S NOTES ON THE LIGHTHOUSE WRITERS RETREAT
GRAND LAKE, COLORADO--JULY 6-11, 2008
by J Diego Frey
[caption id="attachment_199" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Grand Lake meese, photo by Deb Olson"]
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OK, first off,
when I arrive
I am feeling
like
"Way, way too many sweatshirts!"
I will be glad to report
however, that
as the week wears on
this problem
seems to more or less
disappear.
In fact,
I will have come to see
the sweatshirts
as a kind of unifying texture.
An unwritten syllabus, if you will.
(NB: Of course this is just my thinking and it doesn't represent the thinking of anyone or anything else.)
____
NOTE: Above item applies as well to underpants.
____
Waffles.
Again, there seems
to be a very intentional
repetition
of a theme here.
Waffles every day.
I begin to question
whether I'm attending
the Lighthouse Retreat
or
the Waffle-House one.
That said
I will allow
as much that
A) each waffle does seem to appear
at exactly the right time
during each day
and B) they are
to my knowledge
the best waffles
eaten by bipeds
since the dawn of the long
and crenelated history of waffles.
(NB: This last point has been fact-checked.)
____
Roger claims I snore
like a bull moose.
(NB: Specious.)
____
Much of the conversation
seems to be dominated
by references to characters
who are not actually here
at the retreat.
I hear references to:
"Carlos"
"Yimpi"
"Gussie"
"The 'Two Jennifers'"
"Scott the Perfect Husband"
"Mike Henry"
“Moose”
"Yellow Babies"
"That One Guy Last Year Who Insisted on Sunbathing Nude on the Point.”
"Children"
"Mike Henry's Previous Girlfriends"
"Olivia"
"Michelle's Previous Boyfriends"
(NB: Often, when I'm appear to be listening to someone I am actually singing the "Meow Mix" theme silently to myself. If you watch closely you can sometimes see my lips move...Thus I may not have heard these names right or whether or not some of them are the same character. (e.g. Nude Sunbathing Man quite likely one in the same as Henry character.))
____
Bill Henderson
has the cutest little curtsy
I've ever been involuntarily exposed to.
____
The dinner music committee
chair Andrea Dupree
cancels the performance contract
for the band Haikuboy Meets Poemboy, citing
"Chris Ransick is no 'Ted Springstone'"
and
"J Diego sucks wind."
Also, "They don't cover Manilow."
[caption id="attachment_198" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="J Diego's artistic rendering (AKA J Diego has too much time)"]
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(NB: Should be noted that a good percentage of harmonica playing involves drawing in air...)
____
NOTE TO SELF: Under no circumstances piss off Teague Bohlen's relatives. Ever.
____
Shari Caudron teaches us how to make fish heavier.
Also. she looks quite sporty
in a dusky-rose henley.
____
NOTE: It seems apparent, in retrospect, that the type of person attracted to this kind of event can be lumped into one of a handful of categories, for instance:
1.not enough sweatshirts
2.enough sweatshirts
3.kinda psychotic but in a "we can play with that" sort of way
4.interested in poetry
5.not just plain scared, but "don't bring it up on a spooky camping trip because I won't be able to sleep" scared of poetry
6.crazy about fiction
7.fictionally crazy
8.completely unimpressed by long, rambling, shape-shifting, dumbass, pointless lyric essays
(NB: Quite possible some people can be lumped into more than one of the above categories.)
