Last night I attended the excellent Franklin Park Reading Series and said excuse me to over a hundred people; I stepped back and made way for bar staff and bar-goers a hundred and fifty-eight times; I failed to say hello to the very person I had really wanted to say hello to; I drank broken glass (long story: I actually took the piece out of my mouth from my tongue to show the bartender, who was super sweet about it all); I got rained on and waited forever for the subway and then tried to read a book on the train while the person sitting next to me ate the entire meal she had bought before boarding that train, taking time to dip each french fry into one of the many, many small plastic ramekins that contained a green gelatinous stuff that she said was avacado-mayo, which, she told me, she loved. She had been starving since this morning, she said. She used wobbly black plastic cutlery to cut into a medium-rare burger and dense onions and tomatoes, but only half the bun. Yet, earlier that night, I had heard some of the very best writing read aloud that I’d heard in a while, read by some of the most engaging and talented people I had heard read in a while, and so tonight I am going to do it all over again. Because that’s my choice — and it feels good, that choice. Tonight I will be attending the LIC Reading Series, to see Megan Abbott and Mark Doten and Lisa Marie Basile, and to be charmed by the grand host Catherine LaSota. I will bring an umbrella and I will arrive early and I will look at the rim of my stout’s pint glass before I lower my mouth to sip. https://www.facebook.com/events/1569081553365526/