Tonight I went to the catalogue release party for Core Sample, the series of exhibitions of visual art in Portland that was staged last year. The catalogue is published by Clear Cut Press, whose editor Matthew Stadler is one of my favorite novelists, to put it mildly. The shrieking terror I felt at the very idea of speaking to Matthew was matched only by the lurching nausea brought on by the prospect of standing alone in a roomful of strangers. I had no intention of going, but then my friend C called from New York and successfully shamed me into making an effort. The venue was only a few blocks from my house after all. On the walk over there I rehearsed some possible remarks I might make to Matthew, something that would sound off-handed yet piercingly intelligent, thoughtful but not self-conscious, admiring but not gushing, absolutely perfect in tone and memorable in content yet utterly unrehearsed. The minute I walked in I completely forgot what I'd decided to say, naturally, as well as where I lived and who I was. I have never been so grateful to see a bar in my entire life. I drank three gin and tonics in rapid succession and smoked nine cigarettes, then made my approach. He was working the book table. I introduced myself and said something I don't remember but that I'm sure was creepily fawning or fawningly creepy or simply creepily creepy. I became aware of sudden troubling moisture in various bodily zones. I shook his hand approximately seventeen times. I mumbled, I stammered. Honking, hooting, or birdlike warbling might have occurred, you'd have to interrogate nearby witnesses. Bizarre gestures exploded from my body in alarming spasms as if I'd been electrocuted. He blew my mind by saying he remembered me from a Clear Cut reading at Powell's months ago, an event at which I hovered in the back and didn't even speak to him. He asked if I wrote and I said yes and he asked if I have anything online and I gave him the sublethal URL which if there is a god in heaven he will never look at.

Anyway, I shambled away and found the bar again for a post-adrenalin soft landing cocktail, and a man who came up to order a drink began chatting with me and ended up inviting me back to his and his friends' table. That was very nice. I mostly listened to them talk, it was very relaxing. This was an unexpected treat. I considered it some kind of karmic reward for having summoned the courage to talk to Matthew Stadler. The people I talked to were uniformly engaging and friendly and interesting.

This demonstrates that I can be around people and basically hold my own, without the need for post-traumatic convalescence involving an oxygen tent or iron lung. This proves it so thoroughly in fact that I never have to do it again.