Ok so I really really loved Omaha.

I got in Friday morning and the wondrous and generous artist Wanda Ewing picked me up from the airport and spent the whole day showing me the town.

We looked at thought provoking art:


And we went to this amazing huge collectibles place where I bought the best and klassiest cake holder ever even tho I don't bake or eat cake. It was so cold in Omaha I had to borrow a sweater from Wanda, which you'll notice is not unstrawberrylike in and of itself. Coincidence?


There were many nightmare-inducing dolls and mannequins at said collectibles place, as it happens. I think I saw their eyes evilly following me as I elegantly glided past:


Somehow we made it out alive, and were able to admire all the cool old brick warehouses in Omaha with words in white paint on the sides and tiny glittery windows. This one is being converted into a museum (a museum of his OWN WORK) by the big Japenese ceramics artist who lives in Omaha but I forget his name. I am going to start planning the Carolyn Turgeon museum this very night, by the way.


I especially appreciated Omaha's cool old warehouse buildings when scads of nearly naked boys were running past in bright neon lime green shorts for no apparent reason. How can you not love this place?


I also deeply appreciated sights like this one: old fashioned painted words referring to fruits and vegetables, positioned smashingly and quaintly next to lovely flower shops:


Anyway, we had lunch at a restaurant with very exotic fare:


Here is my new best friend Wanda, who has very good taste in rings and also seems to have an angel (or devil?) on her shoulder as she waits for her lamburger. I also ordered a lamburger. Mmmm.


Later, we ended up in the coolest bar ever, where the walls are lined with bottles. How cool is this bar! They also serve food like roasted chicken, and sell things like jams and olives.


I was so overcome with joy and amazement at my new favorite bar that I sat for many long minutes plotting my inevitable move to Nebraska.


In the midst of my Machiavellian scheming, in wandered Timothy Schaffert, authors in tow, clearly shirking his duties as founder and host of the downtown Omaha Litfest in a most objectionable yet impressive manner.


A group of us drank wine and ate cheese and behaved in a generally booze-loving, literary, duty-shirking fashione, which is what all behavior should be like, really.


Then we were off to Naked Lunch at this cool theater that had been playing Double Indemnity the night before, and the movie was followed by a panel on authors in the movies. As discussed earlier, this involved much trauma to the delicate eyeballs (and heart) of yours truly.

The next day, Wanda and I ate at this awesome rundown diner and the whisked ourselves to the festival, where yours (even more) truly spoke so profoundly and alluringly on three separate panels about living on the edge, fairytales, and fashion that I am quite sure that many lives were changed and are changing still as a result.

Oh I forgot to mention that yesterday was SO COLD and wintry that Wanda loaned me not a red sweater, but a full on leopard print CAPE, which I modelled in a very fashionable and nonchalant manner in her driveway:


Exhausted from an afternoon of the highest literary profundity -- not to mention one truly awesome poem by a Portland poetess about sitting on Kyle MacLaclan's face and one truly awesome story by a Brooklyn novelist about the complete fulfillment one experiences when sleeping with two mens at once, oooolalala! -- I went with Ron Hogan, my new best friend Andrea Portes, and my other new best friend Alice Kim to a fancy steak place where we had much red wine and filet and creamed spinach and my god even potatoes au gratin. It WAS the Midwest!



After was a party and some performances. Andrea, Alice and I bonded in a most girllike manner and even at one point all held hands and wished each other spectacular futures. I ended up with Alice at this great, vast warehouse bar place that reminded me of the Someday Lounge in Portland, and we just talked there and then at her amazing house for many hours, about New York and Omaha and soup and baking and writing and everything else girls talk about when they're trying to shape their lives as beautifully as they can. Then I went back to Wanda's, slept for 50 minutes, and went off on an early morning flight back to New York. Wanda actually got up and drove me to the airport at 5am, because that's how awesome things are in my new favorite place and future home Omaha, Nebraska. The end.