Felt well enough tonight after a long day working on various projects to hit the Asylum. I was in Providence at the Post Office at 6:05 and was in the Hut by 6:40….not bad, eh?

(By the way, local folks: if you weren’t aware of it, the Providence PO is open 7AM-9PM weekdays, 10AM to 6PM Saturdays and Sundays. Handy for last minute mailings.)

Jon Wolf’s doing an excellent job keeping the joint moving — 24 open mikers without rushing too much in an hour and a half. He’s really coming into his own as a host.

We’re getting some EXCELLENT quality stuff in the open. And only a minority portion of it is “slam stuff” — by which I mean the — well, you know. I don’t even need to describe it.

I think one of the things I love about Worcester is that we’re SO not dependent on the slam around here to keep things moving. We slam only once a month, bring in slam and non-slam features, and still have a packed house, usually SRO, almost every week.

I read “the abandoned orchard” (which I have revised and I think I’ll repost it — it’s the one that references testicular cancer) and “Radioactive Artist”. I do love that poem, no matter how old it is. Sometimes you’ve got to go back to them and learn how to make them breathe again. That way, they don’t grow stale.

After, it was feature time — mskittieface and edzeppelin came in and did a very tight tradeoff set of good work. I’m having a brainfart at the moment or I’d go into more detail on more of their pieces; will say I enjoyed Kat’s pro-choice piece and Eirean’s closer about the power of a given poem.

We then sat and gossiped with thisrabbit about the unsavory habits of certain touring poets (tonight’s features not among the list). I name no names, and you can’t drag it out of me. Take comfort — if you’re reading this (and it’s a public post), you’re probably not on the list.

And so to bed. I’ve got a longish day tomorrow and much to do — still working on the paper and such.

Have fun, or whatever you kids do nowadays.