each one showing me who i am

last night i went to a dinner party of africanists and african intellectuals and it felt good to be the dumbest person there. the good professor made sure we had plenty of beer, wine, hennessy, and egusi. like one of those dinner parties where people make toasts and everyone in the room has a recently published book or wrote the foreward or one of the chapters in some book. falola runs a sort of halfway house for nigerian professors visiting the united states. he's known as "the professor" in the nigerian community here. the guy who didn't know how to use the modern corkscrew said he's a bushman and then he was explaining to duylinh by interlacing his fingers and saying culture historiography intimately intertwined the convention of feasting poetry.

i rolled up to surya's birthday party and no one was there so i broke in and duylinh and i just wait for surya as he comes back from the liquor store, on his couch, i got my feet up. all the chicago people came back and they were so enthusiastic about their new lives as alcoholics who will bring world peace. agnes affected so much change that for the whole party she sat next to me and cautiously sipped echinacea tea. surya's roommate ensures a constant flow of latinas in and out of the house on a given night. i can tell clarali is older now because she buttons her shirt one button lower.