Heather Christle

for the first time in my life on Tuesday night. It was the longest game in Braves history and ended with a bad call. I didn’t see that part. We left in the 10th inning. What I noticed was everyone’s shorts and the ice cream I ate.

That might be the largest crowd I have ever been among. I am trying to remember. Protests? They have not been so large. I have never been to a stadium concert before either. I don’t mind if that doesn’t change.

Half of the things we own are in boxes. (That is a specific “we,” Chris & me, though it might be true of a general “we” too.) Away we go! Next week! To Massachusetts! Goodbye Atlanta/Emory/La Fonda.

At the baseball game I was focused. When I am doing something new I concentrate very hard. This makes me look bored or angry. Chris & Blake & I have gone twice now to a stand-up comedy night down the street. I have been trying to figure out how they work, the jokes.

One comic, mid-performance, saw me concentrating and asked me if I was bored. I said no, but of course he had to keep talking, asked me what I did. I did not want to say I was a poet. Imagine the onslaught! So I said I was a teacher. He asked of what. I said English. It petered out from there.

It is not that I mind being laughed at. I think being a poet is funny too. I just do not want to hear the already-said again. Anywhere. At all. Then I do get bored and angry. And even bored with my anger.

Here is what I have learned about comedy from my two nights of experience. White men like to pretend that the world is always shitting on them. & I should sit in the back.

Here is something I keep thinking about. If you want to kill a hedgehog, and the hedgehog has curled itself into an impenetrable ball, you just have to bang on the ground rhythmically with a stick. The hedgehog will open up to the beat. How is this like a poem. I’m just kidding. I am not going to kill you! I am going to love you to death.