It had quite the opposite effect.

These days words like "literature", "writer", "publish", "editor", "culture", "journal", "author" provoke mixed feelings. While I was excited about attending LitQuake's Literary Pub Crawl 2008, I went prepared to feel a bit of stress at the least and sinking feelings of inadequacy and irresponsibility at the worst.

Inadequacy not because I want to write fiction or poetry or travelogues - I don't. At all. My concern was more about how I was going to take anything from the event that I could use in my studies. She said that maybe not everything had to relate to my work, maybe I could just go and listen and enjoy and even though I said, "Yeah, maybe." I was trying to figure out how to hear the Latino lit. selections and the erotica selections and testimonio that all appeared to be happening at once as well as hear James read. OK, so I was also worrying about whether there'd be time for a burrito and horchata before any of it.

Our lack of ablility to get our act together (aka: the "Karl and Val Factor") solved all of those problems. We arrived at Valencia St. when the first section was already underway by about 30 minutes, so we decided to get a slice of pizza, then head straight to the Elbo Room and get a seat and drinks and settle in for the Opium and Canteen writers' readings.

Arinell is as close to "New York Style" as it gets around here. Burning the roof of my mouth on the thin foldy-over pizza was so totally worth it! So was having to eat standing up on the sidewalk outside of the joint, setting the bright red, cloying fruit punch we shared on a newspaper dispenser.

Once inside the Elbo Room, we elbowed up the bar and ordered drinks. While waiting for the readings to start, we observed the local indie literati in all its glory, the males with dark straight hair and wearing zip-up jackets with collars and rectangle glasses with dark substantial frames, females with all colors of straight hair wearing skirts that were in defiant mismatch of every other article of clothing on their thin frames. Very very cool. And then, for about an hour I sipped wine and listened to six very talented writers read their wonderful stories. And I took nothing from them for anything I will write. Except maybe for a little courage.

The readings and the wine combined to relax and open my mind. But they were nothing compared to meeting Zach Houston.

Zach types poems onto sticky labels using a tiny blue typewriter. His hand-lettered sign that advertises his Poem Store stopped us in our tracks. Of course I had to have one. He charges whatever his clients wish to pay for a unique poem, written before their eyes. He asks that the recipient provide him with a theme and then his poetic process takes over. As I waited my turn, I figured out my theme and made a mental note to ask him to make my poem diagonal. As he finished up the poem for the girl in front of me, he mentioned to her that he was psychic. When she and her companion left, he asked for my theme. "Emotion," I answered. It wasn't until he was almost finished that I remembered. "Oh no!" He looked up, "What?" Dismayed, I replied, "I meant to ask you to make it diagonal..." Still looking at me, he said, "I know. It will be." When he'd finished, I saw, early in the poem, in its sixth line, typed long before I'd interrupted him, the word - "diagonal".