There's a pause most people take that wards off such disasters.

This city is crawling with poets who know me. I haven't written anything worthwhile in months, so I start to feel panicked and acidy when I see old professors or the one curmudgeonly jazz poet who remembers me from my high school competition days and says really encouraging things about how I can totally make it without an MFA. I managed to bump into both varieties yesterday and acid, acid, acid.

I also took the garbage out yesterday and was two seconds too late to stop the back door from swinging closed. I forget for a critical moment that my building has auto-locking outer doors. None of my neighbors was home. All the doorbells seem broken, anyway. I learned I can climb to my back porch by standing on a railing and grabbing another railing and just hoisting. But the door I never lock was locked anyway. I sat up there until I got cold.

Luckily I'd already finalized my plan to meet some friends at the top of State St. for dinner and a Book Festival reading, so I just started walking, phoneless walletless, wearing not quite enough, passing the big "legalize pot" festival and accompanying fire dancers on Library Mall. About 45 minutes, I think. I got to the rendezvous just in time, bummed dinner off one friend and a scarf off the other. Mary was crashing on my couch, and had a car, so we drove back afterward, and knocked on the front door until the downstairs neighbor who I never see wordlessly let me in. I think he hates everyone, and has potential to become the reluctant but heartwarming friendship you see in Sean Connery movies.

I really enjoyed climbing up and down from my porch. I have this fantasy of coming and going that way all the time. Or forcing friends to do so.