One of the people in the MFA program looks like my aunt Sue.  She doesn’t really have the same facial features or the same body, but they kind of have the same haircut.  A lot of times I forget this person’s name.  It would be convenient to call her ‘Aunt Sue’.  I’m not sure why I’m having difficulty remembering her name, but the learning curve feels steep.

In one class we are learning how to teach ourselves various procedures of teaching others how to write a novel.  Supposedly once you teach yourself how to teach others the procedures of writing a novel the actual writing of a novel becomes very simple.  One of the poets made a good point.  They said, “I wrote a novel in second grade.”  One of the fiction writers said, “I wrote my first novel around the same time.”  Another person said, “My dad wrote a novel on my bed sheets and then I wrote one on his business suit.”  I nodded and pretended I ruined all my dad’s best clothes too.

Someone knocked on the door.  They said, “Is this ‘Cultural Manifestations of Endangered Species’?”  Everyone shook their head.  He apologized and shut the door.

After class a bunch of people in the program were at an intersection and no one wanted to cross the street.  One of them started smoking a cigarette and another asked for a cigarette.  I pretended my arms didn’t work and were going to fall off.  I said, “Please put a cigarette in my mouth so I can eat it and my arms will grow back.”  No one gave up their cigarettes.  Mostly they figured it would be better if I didn’t have arms so I wouldn’t be able to write a novel and there would be less competition for the one-hundred thousand dollar publishing contract we’re all after.  Also, they figured I was probably joking.  A little while later my arms began working again.