so I just returned from the Los Feliz Poetry Slam -- Dufflyn asked me to do the "set slam" -- a popular format out here in LA where several poets compete with 10-12 minute poetry sets. She encouraged us to use costumes, props, music, etc., but of course I have no such resources out here so it was a regular old set for me. A little politicked out and certainly not in the mood for a capital-S slam set, I opted for 10 minutes of strange little love poems -- figuring what the hell, all the winner gets is qualification for a semi-finals I won't be here to attend, I might as well do what I'm feeling.

And I won, with this thoroughly enjoyable and low-key set up against Omari's intensity and Eitan's theatricality (including a stripper routine that got him down to red-white-and-blue thong thing. terrifying. I couldn't get up the courage to take a picture.)

A surprise all around. And this guy at the bar afterward tells me, "I don't know much about poetry. But it was like, you used your words differently from those guys. Like there was something else going on." Affirmation! Reassurance! And I wasn't funny at all. Not one line. Yay.

And FYI to all: you know how in New York, if you buy two drinks and tip decently, the bartender will almost always buy your third drink if it's a slow night or slow bar? That doesn't happen in LA. The bartender took my only mostly-empty wine glass and didn't replace it. And I didn't even really want another drink, it was just... odd.

Tomorrow we read the entire 20-minute Declare Yourself show at a theater, for a crowd (assuming people show up.) Here goes nothing, as they say. I don't know what that means, here goes nothing. Whatever. I have strayed so far from the original purpose of this journal, it's almost unbelievable. It's also very cold in LA. That's one thing I didn't mention about the show, it was semi-outdoors and freezing. One heat lamp thing and Rachel and I kept going to stand under it but it was right by the stage so when someone awful went up to slam we had to go stand in the cold back because it was almost as though we too were on stage, and I at least am not that good an actress. I'm told it's not usually this cold here. I am exceedingly chumped by this weather. and unprepared.

someone told me that the wind gets very still right before an earthquake, so when the wind which is right now really crazy stops, I get worried. my skin is also very very dry. something about LA is exceptionally drying. people always have chapstick. I've gone through several bottles of lotion already. madness, all around.

well, this was scintillating. see, this is what happens when it's 3:30 a.m. where anyone who might listen to me babble is. ugh, and my sentence construction skills have gone to hell. double sigh.