the bright lights, the people, and the moon and all

Call me a vampire or a werewolf, but I have a thing for the moon. I have been known to interrupt conversation to excitedly point out a particularly beautiful moonlit night. Usually, this is met by a glance that says Yes, the moon, it's up there every night, dumbass. But I never tire of it. The moon is one of those things that come and go forever, and I am a sucker for that phenomenon. Both changeful and constant at the same time.

There were other lights that caught my eye on Saturday, however. On my way to dinner at Maverick's, every cafe, every art gallery, hell, even most of the furniture stores in my neighbhorhood were brimful with hipsters. The Litcrawl was upon me, and I felt simultaneously raw about not being able to attend and genuinely tickled that such an occasion occurred in this city. There were over 150 authors reading on Saturday, most of them along this very street I was walking. The fact that so many people were in attendance just reminded me of the great literary enthusiasm of this city. I went to the very first Litquake- it was held in an auditorium in the public library, where authors read 15 minute-excerpts of their latest work. To see how far it has evolved in three short years gives me the warm fuzzies. It is so easy to be cynical about people's intentions, and roll my eyes at hair-brained schemes, but this city is not afraid to ignore all that buzz and build on something they find valuable. For all my razzing the hipsters, there are a considerable subset that genuinely believe they can make something happen. I find that immensely impressive.

You know you have had a good night when you get clocked in the eye, and can still call the evening enjoyable. Serving as maisnon's wing-girl comes with hazard pay, you know. We went to Levende Lounge, which, for those of you who care, used to be Butterfly. I really do not care about anything about this lounge, except that they need to keep whoever it is that is the mastermind behind their bartending skills. They know how to make a good cocktail there.

That said, let me assure you that I was completely sober when I got b*tchslapped. As maisnon characterized it, I was soon scheduled to become a pumpkin, and we wanted to say a quick hello to Vinod. As we made our way through the crowd, a wildly gesticulating woman smacked me in the eye with the back of her hand. Hard. Like stop in your track to check if your eyeball is still in the socket hard. Nice. Even though the woman did not apologize, her male friend apologized profusely. Once I had collected myself and realized that my eyesight was intact, I dispatched him with a whatever, yo, it's all good.

One other thing that dawned on me on Saturday evening: I need to go shopping. Either that, or I need to stick to hanging out in seedy dives where sweatshirts and jeans are de rigueur attire. I am guessing, however, on the extremely generous side, that there is a 0.5% chance that I actually will go shopping before 2006.

I leave you with one of the two Sandburg moon poems I most love. The other one is well known, but this one gets me every time:

I sang to you and the moon
But only the moon remembers.
I sang
O reckless free-hearted
free-throated rhythms,
Even the moon remembers them
And is kind to me.

Swoontastic, bitches. If you know the other poem, I officially lurve you.