Tinfoil + Raccoon: Lit Makes Me Dizzy: Codrescu Day 3

Well, it was a slow start for day three of Andrei's visit. Mr. Raccoon got home late from his Monday night Whiskey with Andrei and reported an amazing evening of conversation (a truck driver, two poets, a librarian and a sculptor walk into a bar... ). Andrei asked for the morning to rest and recover, so I got kids off to school, then went for a leisurely sit at Bean Juice where I composed my third and most genius introduction (which remains forever undelivered). Before noon, I went to the hotel to get Andrei for what was to be an afternoon of sightseeing. As there was no hurry, we recapped the previous day, deemed a success by all.

At one point, I stood up and felt a little dizzy. I regularly deal with all this weird inner ear/neck/balance migraine stuff, so it was not terribly alarming, until I realized that it wasn't going to pass, and just kept getting worse. Like, "there's no way I can drive" worse. Like, "oh, crap, I'm going to puke" worse. So, instead of giving Mr. C the de-luxe La Crosse tour, I spent a very miserable, emetic few hours running to the bathroom, trying to remember if I'd ever felt worse in my life, barely able to walk, all the while trying to manage the show I was in charge of. I called my new pal, poet Bill Stobb, who was more than happy to retrieve Andrei, get him to the venue and introduce him. Andrei was not only a charming public guest, but a kindly, concerned nursemaid, making sure I was hydrated and urging me not to fret about anything. He and Bill brought me Dramamine and water before they headed off to the poetry reading. I was finally able to keep down enough Dramamine to make it possible for a friend to get me home.

I had been assuming a bug or food poisoning (thinking about the unrefrigerated peanut sauce I'd had for breakfast), but when Benadryl and Dramamine halted the unpleasantness, I realized I'd just experienced a hideous bout of vertigo. The last time I had such an episode also occurred in the presence of a writer I admired. I was taking a grad level fiction class with Ricardo Cortez Cruz about six years ago. There was a really bad fluorescent light in the classroom that frequently had me leaving with a migraine. But one night, I literally ran out of the room mid-class, and barely made it home before I was hit with extreme nausea, dizziness, etc, that lasted for several hours. I sort of liked tying that episode to my re-emergence as a writer--it seemed very dramatic and poetic, and I think this episode is akin to the first. I should add that before both episodes, I was very very tired and under a great deal of stress. I'm almost thinking there's a House, MD episode in this somewhere. "Woman overwhelmed by literature spends hours barfing."

The poetry reading, it was reported, was the big hit of the visit--lots of attendees, good Q & A, books were sold, Bill's introduction was swell--all proving that I am, in fact, replaceable. My friend Marcee stopped in to check on me, and seeing that I was not dying, insisted that I come to the end-of-program dinner to fete our guest, and to pat ourselves on the back. While not feeling what you'd call good, I did make it to dinner, ultimately thankful for Marcee's bullying. I would have regretted missing that dinner.

Violent vertigo aside, it was three days of awesomeness for all. Several of us made new friends, we're all pleased with the power of partnership, and Andrei wrote this morning to send his love to his new friends and to express his gratitude. "Minus your vertigo, everything was fabulous, and I truly enjoyed being in La Crosse." He even mentioned coming back just to visit. I'm quite proud to have sent the poet away with as many stories as he left us.

Flickr photos
La Crosse Tribune article
Short YouTube video from dinner
Wisconsin Public Radio/Kathleen Dunn show