Up in the middle of the night for a couple hours, did nothing useful; back to bed at 6 am, up for real at 10. Weight 216.
Bree just has to put ice on her face and wait to see if the swelling starts to go down if it’s supposed do. I shopped for a few groceries in the morning, left around 11, remembering to take some copies of Allen’s book John Davis had sent. Read Jasen & Jones on train; now into material about W.C. Handy and Andy Razaf I know in outline already. Stopped at 2nd Ave. Bean for ½ hr, cleaned up desktop (too many shards of book draft). Met Allen and his friend/tour manager Cara, a nurse at the Pomona Valley Hospital (where I was born), at Vesalka. Conversation mostly Inland Empire lore; Liz Clayton came by after a while, w/ more books. Walked and chatted w/ her as far as Russ & Daughters.
My phone battery is all but dead; kept an eye out for somewhere to replace it, and will have to deal w/ this in the next few days, but ended up charging it at a public station (new city thing, apparently sponsored by a long-distance company) on 2nd Ave. Called Bree to check in, nothing new except that her dentist said that if she hadn’t had discoloration or breathing problems yet, she probably wouldn’t, so there’s that. Ended up back at Bean, worked for 2 hrs. and change revising the subsection on Will Marion Cook and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Would have been smarter to generate new material.
Met Drew Gardner at Vanessa’s Dumplings. Talked about frustration with our respective endeavors (though it sounds like his tour with Elkhorn was pretty good). Headed over to Bowery Electric, caught last few songs of Glen Morrow’s Cry for Help, watched Pete Galub’s set (first full band show I’ve seen in a couple of years, in excellent form, w/ new bassist and previous one now on 2nd gtr), stayed for about half of Steve Wynn (I was about rocked out by then). 2 beers; chatted w/ Serena Jost, Matt Kalenos, David Heatley, briefly discussed recording plans w/ Pete. Wrote in daybook on the train, about the train; read another chunk of Banias (particularly liked “Morphology,” a Jorie-ish loss-of-self poem, and a line about being dragged through the “shitty toll plaza” of language; last poem in first section strains to bring the individual/collective theme home) and 40 p. of Alex Abramovich, Bullies. I’m drawn in, don’t want to draw a bead on what’s going on too quickly.
Home by 12:30, wrote this up, set out a few things to get moving tomorrow. Lights out just after 1 am.