I was sitting quietly, sipping a diet coke (sans lime) and getting to the good part of this week’s City Pages — the wild side ads, when i heard,
“Hey Supergenius.”
“Hi!”
“i can’t believe you answered to that,” she said.
“of course i did,” i said. “there can be only one.”

it was Smel, whom it feels like i haven’t seen in months and months, but really i think it’s only been a month. i can’t remember when class ended, but i think it was sometime in august.

“so are people dressing up for this thing?” she asked.
“yes, and they all seem to have files.”
“well,i have a notebook,” she said.
“it’s a workshop,” i said.
“do you wanna skip it?”
“nah,” i said, “we’ll just go check it out.’

so we tromped upstairs to check out this Bush Foundation application workshop was about. i really didn’t have much of an idea, besides that they give money to creatives like us.

once we settled into our seats, Smel started looking through the guidelines and i checked out the other applicant-wannabes.

“hey, there’s dale!” i said pointing towards the door where our once and future writing teacher was signing in.

we both waved and Smel went back to checking out the guidelines and i continued to look for cute boys.

“i don’t think we qualify,” Smel said.
“really?” i asked.
“yeah, you have to have two published stories.”
“hmm.”

then dale sat down.
“what are you guys doing here?” he asked.
“yeah, we don’t qualify,” Smel said.
“but it’s always good to learn new things,” he said, always the educator.

so after meeting dale’s friend whose name i cannot remember, Smel and i decided to bolt and go get a beer.

somehow, i suspect, we spent our time better at grumpy’s than we would have at the application workshop.