I've found Calista Flockhart's dirty little secret: GASTROENTERITIS. With it, you, too, can lose 7 punds in just ONE weekend. No exercise required, other than the muscles used to regurgitate everything from the night before out of your mouth and any leftovers out the other end.

Yeah, I had a wonderful weekend!

Stomach's still roiling from it but I'm feeling much better now. At least I can stand for more than ten minutes at a time, stay awake for more than two hours straight and eat more than bread and water. Of course, that's just in time for a snowstorm in April! I used to love that Prince song, Sometimes It Snows In April, but WTF, don't they realize it's a metaphor?!??!

Backtrack a few days here, to Thursday night, and my meeting with Norman Lear's assistant, Caty Borum. She briefed me on the project - very interesting! - and we talked a lot about both of our backgrounds. She's basically conducting a national search for poets and wanted my input, both locally and nationally. It's an interesting moment when you find out who you actually respect on the national scene at moments like that, when you weigh artistic merit versus personal issues. Giving obvious props to people like Ellik, Ashe, MacMillan and Henry and not so obvious ones to Solis, we batted around names and scenes like a game of word association. Locally, it was a relative no-brainer as we're having our anniversary show tonight and the majority of people I'd recommend are already in it so we're just gonna tape the thing and give old Norman a taste. Side note: we met at Botanica, my first home back in the day, and it was bizarre being in there smoke-free. What would William Shatner think? ;-)

Headed over to Urbana afterwards and Cristin put on a super-sized open mic in order to accomodate the people she'd rounded up for their Lear taping. Amalia Ortiz gave a solid - if surprisingly nervous - feature and Shappy won the slam which puts him in their last semi-final. There was a poem in the first round that equated being a skater with being a racial minority and I so wanted to choke the living shit out of him. I hate when white boys with CHOSEN lifestyles compare their "plights" with that of minorities and women and homosexuals. HATE IT! It's so fucking ignorant and presumptuous and ignorant. Grrrr.

When Mr. Gastro hit the next morning, part of me thought it might have been the Puebla Wrap from the Bowery the night before as I've been warned about eating those things too late in the night. A little bout of food poisoning would have been preferable to the hell I went through. Add to it two sick kids puking and diarrheaing back-to-back and Friday was a day to forget. We're all recovering now and somehow Salomé has managed to completely avoid it which, while a good thing, is completely unusual. It's generally me that fights these things off or at least succumbs last. Instead, I was a useless blob Friday and Saturday. Finally fought back on Sunday and ordered some Papa John's and was able to keep it down with a minimum of fuss. Think I got back three of those lost pounds, too!

So with tonight being the kickoff of our best time of the year, a snowstorm hits! It's coming down pretty heavy and even seems to be sticking so this could be really bad. It's gonna be an amazing show, too, so it would suck if it falls through. Fingers crossed...

PS: Both of my fantasy baseball teams got whooped last week, one losing 5-7, the other, 2-8. The former is the one I care most about, from my SLAM THIS! league. Overall, they did pretty well; Ken Green's Chicago Hopeless just did better. Next up, Mike Henry's Earnest Borg Nine.

PPS: Pick your opponent:

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