Now wait just a minute. How did it go in Vegas?

Oh, geez! Right! I forgot to tell you about that, didn't I? Well, I hardly know where to begin. Maybe if you asked me some questions first?

You taught a class, didn't you?

Oh yeah. That was an adventure. I found out on Thursday while sitting in the Atlanta airport that the class I was slated to teach was reading Austen's Persuasion. Maybe I've already mentioned this. So we went out and snagged the book, and I made it my life for the weekend. Most of the weekend: one must make time for barbecue. But I read it through all the way, and it's a good thing I did: I learned on Monday morning that the class wasn't beginning the book but was ending it. This turned out to be a blessing, as I could ask larger questions about themes and techniques and build on what the students hopefully already knew.

So, how did it go?

You know, I'm unsure what sort of confidentiality, if any, I would be prudent to observe and abide by... but let me say that it went very well. I had about ten pages of lecture and discussion questions and made it through about half of them; we filled the 55-minute period handily. Always overprepare. Resident wise man Tony over at Geneva Convention advocates that one "prepare less and teach more", which means that while there's a lot of worth in preparing lectures, that worth is really based in priming the teacher's mind for the kinds of sudden tangents and chance pursuits that an engaged class tends to provide. Prepare, overprepare, but then go where your students and your own inclinations lead you.

OK, but I can't quite see you in this picture.

Small half-circle of students, observing faculty behind them. I'm in a corner of the room, with a white board on one side and a chalkboard on the other. The chalkboard is primed with a chart: is Persuasion subversive or is Persuasion conservative? The white board has a large ring of characters' names. I range between the boards with my a dry erase marker in one hand, and when I call on a student I do so with my right hand, which has the text splayed open in it. A passerby, stopped in the hallway for a minute or two, would hear at least one laugh.

Sounds great.

It was. It re-lit something forceful in me.

How about the rest of the day?

Well, again, everything is still pending, but it was rather pleasant. Sure, I had to be "on" all day, looking for ways to parlay what I was hearing and learning into an explanation of how I'd fit into X situation or solve Y educational need, and that's expectedly nerve-wracking. But the people with whom I spoke were delightful, really, and clearly keen on doing their work well. I'm sold on the place. The rest of the day passed with half-hour or 45-minute conversations with various instructors and administrators. And one killer lunchtime session with the Student Ambassadors.

Killer how?

Killer as in, Wow, these kids are sharp and incredibly invested in their own education. See, this was lunchtime: I was having lunch with about 15 sophomores and juniors. I'd expected the conversation to be intermittent, allowing room for me to, you know, eat. Instead, it was one question after another. If I'd let myself relax at the start of lunch, I quickly got back into "on" mode. I felt the way a batter feels with a pitching machine that's been set on a surprising high setting - which felt even better because I was knocking back these pitches fairly firmly. Questions ran the gamut from the sorts of workloads I'd assign to my hobbies to the subject of my dissertation if I had to write it that second instead of years in the future.

What was the subject?

Post-postmodernism and contemporary poetics, of course.

I'm sure that went over like a lead balloon.

Hardy har-har. You're funny. No, actually it went over well. Because you have to understand that this particular -ism derives from the very media that young persons today traffic in, morning noon and night and after their own fashions. But yes. In fact I began speaking of Campbell McGrath, and as it happened I had his American Noise in my shoulder bag...

"As it happened"...?

I know, it sounds contrived. But really, I didn't plan it. I brought the book as a sort of good-luck charm: so many of his poems take as their theme the notion of striding out west with a sense of bewildered possibility. So I read them two sentences of "Angels and the Bars of Manhattan", and with McGrath you have to realize that two sentences might go on for pages, with all manner of sonic texture and rhetorical flourish... it's a poetry that lends itself well to being read aloud.

How did they like it?

They liked it a great deal.

Pretty thrilling.

I know!

So when will you hear back?

Scuttlebutt says Monday.

What's on the agenda now?

Some more applications, lunch soon, unpacking, perhaps a poem, definitely some time in the weight room, and this new book Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin, which 40 pages in is pretty good.

How's your book coming, anyway?

This interview is OVER. Hahaha, no, it's coming along. But no, seriously. Let's talk about that later.