Having gone to the cafe and failed to find any inspiration there either, I will resign myself to just babbling a bit.

I'm currently in the process of selecting a Master of Fine Arts program for creative writing. It's really quite a pain in the butt. I have a list of about 30 schools or so to wade through and many of them offer exactly the same positive aspects. My challenge is to discover the hidden aspects of each school. That is a task I can't do sight unseen, so I'm off to fly, or drive about the country and look at places.

I've been to NYC once. My reaction was probably identical to that of hordes of others seeing the city for the first time. It's big--very, very big. A lot of really good schools are there, so I am going back for a visit. The idea of living in a city like that, quite frankly, frightens me. I got to meet Nikki Giovanni once. She told me that if I were going to get an MFA and I wanted to get anything done, to move to Montana, because there is nothing to do, but never move to NY because I'd be too busy to write. I can see why this would work for most people, but considering how much I hate actually being in amongst people, I don't know that it really applies to me. In Montana, I could walk the mountains and be outdoors all the time, running around and seeing the sights. In NYC, I would be one in howevermanypeopleinthecity--a nameless face and a bump on the sidewalk. People jostling about me everytime I stepped out of my door. This would make me loathe to step out of the door, therefore, being virtually home bound, I'm sure I could find time to write a sequel to War and Peace, if I indeed believed that a sequel should be written and if it could be written in poetry.

Be that as it may, I'm still afraid to move there. Perhaps West Virginia would be better.