One Week in Iowa

It’s been a week in which I partied like I was 22 all over again, kayaked on a beautiful day in Lake MacBride and was told off by the ‘lake’ police for swimming off the ‘grid’, randomly met a well-known political cartoonist in a bar full of writers and poets late one night, ate more burgers than a healthy person ought to eat in one week, picked fresh apples from the orchard, wrote some, sat through a bunch of mind-numbingly boring ‘orientation’ sessions and two entertaining readings at the warm and cozy Prairie Lights Bookstore, was mistaken for some poet from Chile named Steve, got an Iowa City Hawkeyes t-shirt for five bucks which upon wearing people would randomly yell ‘GO HAWKS!’ at me, had the misfortune of spending my first night with my window almost shattering from the noise coming from the annual freshman party in the park literally meters away from me, wrote some more, and drank, probably, an entire barrel of coffee.

So that’s one week down.

Nine to go.

I think I love this place.