You are a colon
Posted by Robert Duffer in Experiments in Manhood, Family on 05/21/2012
My six-year-old and I were in a parking lot when he thought he spotted his cousin’s friend. “Isn’t that Colon, or Cowlin or…Colon’s a word, right? I saw Colon.”
“It’s Colton, I think.” I laughed, he wondered, I explained that a colon is a punctuation mark, or it’s an organ in the body that controls your poo.
He stopped, looked up at me. “Wait, like a butthole?”
Answering his questions has never been easy. A practice that used to be exhausting—whywhywhywhywhywhyhywhywhywhywhy—is now dangerous.
“The thing that controls the butthole,” I laughed with him. “Kind of. That’s actually a sphincter, I think.”
“A what?!”
“Nevermind.”
He tried this one out too but was still marveling over colon. As we approached the building he said to himself, “You’re a colon. No, you’re a colon.” Then, “Daddy, can I say you’re a colon?”
I can be, of course, but I said no, you can’t call me a colon, pat, pat. The language filter—or absence thereof—is something I’ve written about before. Penis breath, butthole, puke—some words are eternally funny, like most farts. We never did baby talk with the kids, not because of some exalted pompous parenting ideology but because its annoying. The kid is an advanced reader and he has an advanced vocabulary, and I’m sure part of it is because I talk to him like I talk, so I have to explain things. 
If he hasn’t heard it from us or tv, he’ll hear it from some knucklehead on the playground. At least if he gets it from us, he’ll use it properly, or more accurately, to not use it improperly. There are moments when this approach will cost me, like when we were leaving.
In the parking lot we walked past my dad’s car. Duff, as he is known, is known more as the Great Prankster. Ghoulish masks, surreptitious spiders, large shadows in dark corners waiting to pounce. Nothing delights him more than to scare the shit out of the people he loves, including—nay, especially—his grandkids. Conversely, he’s nearly impossible to prank.
Though the car was centered, his wheels were turned hard in the spot. I ripped off a piece of paper and stuck a nasty note in his windshield. I was cracking up imagining him steaming over who would leave such hostility for such an inoffensive park job.
“What’d you write?” the boy asked, already laughing.
I was still in the moment. “I wrote ‘Nice Parking—“ I recovered, “Butthole.”
“You wrote ‘Nice Parking Butthole?!’”
We laughed all the way to the car, laughed the next day, the boy urging me to call Duff. I did, trying to play it cool, and the Prankster—prick that he is—never took the bait. The thought of it was joy enough, though, and despite another failed prank, the boy has a new phrase for around the house. And isn’t this one of the joys of parenting? Entertainment? Duff would agree.
The next night, after Mom got home, the boy scribbled this note and ran outside to put it on the driver’s seat. I’m saving it for next time I see my brother’s new car.
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Golf is good
Posted by Robert Duffer in Experiments in Manhood on 05/06/2012
First round of the season! My family has had a Sunday 6am tee time for over a decade, which makes for some quality family time. It didn’t go quite as good as the bucket I hit with the kids at the range. I stopped keeping score after the 12th hole, though I couldn’t forget that I lost half as many balls as holes played. There were a few pars, including a par 5, but overall I golfed like someone who hasn’t played since last September. And I didn’t break or kill anything except my confidence. Looking forward to next week.
Birthday math
Posted by Robert Duffer in Experiments in Manhood, Family on 04/19/2012
What, Me Worry?
This was supposed to run Sunday. We were hungover. Kids, too. Not booze. Birthday.
Since Christmas the birthday boy had been counting down. Since February, the birthday planner had been bringing boxes home from work and staying up well past midnight to construct Bowsers and Boos for what would be a real live action video game laid out on the park district gym floor.
My wife throws incredible kid birthday parties. Many people have told her, post party, that she missed her calling. Last year it was superheroes featuring me in tights and a mask as the Riddler. Me, tights, kids shooting me with silly string. For our daughter she built a castle maze in our backyard. The only thing that is outdone by her parties is her ambition. No matter how grand the party it will fail to realize how she envisioned it.
For the Pac-Man Super-Mario Angry-Bird live action party, we agreed to only 15 kids. No way we’d be able to do whatever the hell she was planning with any more kids in two hours. And no way it was going beyond two hours. She invited 25. 26 showed. Birthday math.
Birthday math is the same phenomenon that stretches a birthDAY into a birth week, or, may the birth gods help you, if the party and the day are not in the same week, then it could be birthMONTH. 16, 21, 18, 1, 10 even—I didn’t know turning 6 would be a milestone birthday.
Birthweek started with the boy’s first loose tooth. He was unusually quiet and introspective, his lips sealed and his tongue working his cheeks.
The next day he sidled up to me at my desk, silent, stricken, as if he’d woken up in a foreign land. “Dad,” working his tongue, “I think I swallowed my tooth.”
He’s been saving his money for the Lego Death Star. 400 fucking dollars. He was counting on these teeth. I told him he’d have to poo in a bucket for a week. He thought this unfunny.
I compensated for it that night, with an elaborate note on pink tissue paper and ribbons and fairy assurances.
Then it was his birthDAY, where he got to choose his meals, and open any gifts that had come in the mail. Then came party day.
In the party room at the park district were a dozen tables with slingshots and angry birds and green pigs. In the gym was a real live action Super Mario Brothers course featuring goombas to stomp, coins to collect, pipes to trespass, fireballs to dodge, and a princess to save. Taped to the floor, under the Mario maze, was a half-gym sized Pac-Man course with Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde costumes. There were prizes!
Two months to create, two hours to setup, for a two-hour party. Birthday math. A partial accounting amounted to 3 minivan trips, 26 kids, a dozen adults, 40 homemade angry bird cupcakes, 36 packages of skittles, 30 cds of classic and contemporary video game theme songs, hundreds of chocolate coins, four rolls of painter tape, two dozen boxes turned into portals, one Donkey Kong piñata, 200 balloons, 36 chocolate Mario mustaches, two boxes and one folding table of prizes, and more. All made (except mustaches) by my wife. There was only one underlying motive to her madness, though: you only turn six once.
Adult birthdays aren’t fun; they’re scary. So kid parties offer an opportunity to enjoy fully and only the moment. Does the build up, the prep, the planning, all add up? It’s birthday math, of course it does.
Europe with the Economist: a tale of two brothers
Posted by Robert Duffer in Experiments in Manhood, Family on 04/03/2012
Our quirks were all in the family.
Just got back from a week in Greece and Italy. The whirlwind included Athens and its ruins, both ancient and modern, the Peloponnesian peninsula, a day trip to the motorless island of Hydra, then to Rome and its omnipotent wonders, Vatican City and St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, out to a beach on the Tyrrhenian Sea, then down to Mt. Vesuvius and poor Pompeii. It is only now in the wake of this whirlwind that I’m beginning to appreciate my unlikely traveling partner, an economist who doubles as my brother.
The trip was an incredible longshot. Our spring breaks aligned on the same week, our wives were supportive if not envious, our kids’ beloved Busia (Polish for grandma) took a week off work to tend to them, and the dollars were there in my professional high season. It was such a longshot that the Economist, who would regret not availing himself of an expense-paid work opportunity to his adopted city, didn’t think to ask me until our sister suggested it. He’d been to Italy two years prior with his wife for their anniversary. Our sister had been to Italy two decades prior with our mom as a college graduation gift. Mom promised the trip abroad to each of us upon graduation, but the heavens had other plans. (It’s hard not to speak in such lofty idioms after visiting the ancients and steeping in their mythologies. Blame Zues; everyone else did.) So we were cashing in on a promise owed by the gods, longshot be damned!
It was packaged—to our loved ones and by our loved ones—as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. With everything it took to get there, I didn’t think about my company until another couple in our group remarked how we were a litmus test to see if they could travel with their siblings. Were they expecting reality tv-type drama?
We slept on twin beds that were closer together than in the room we shared as kids. One night I woke up sheetless; another night, as I was shutting off the light, the Economist said, “On your side, asshole.” On the bus, we shared an aisle; on trains, boats, taxis, tables, and sidewalks, we shared the same space. The only time we were situated apart was on the plane. Despite adulthood, this spatial arrangement was more familiar than what we drank and how we spoke.
Immersing ourselves in new languages and customs, we relied on a lifetime of communicating to express what we could not say. When a proud tour guide barbed her monologue with anti-immigrant slurs, we could raise an eyebrow at each other. When a dish of stinky steamy cheese was brought forth, we knew how nasty it was to the person subjected to eat it. Me. And when the Economist ordered lamb, still shuddering from the chicken parts airplane food, I got to savor each fatty brown hunk that was loaded on his plate, and though he only finished three bites, I got to enjoy his entire meal hours later as he searched for antacids, for gum, for grain alcohol, for anything that would lessen the burping of the lamb. When an American acted American, or a string of Athenian cab drivers opted not to drive us because it was inconvenient, or when an Italian had to neck crook her cell phone to use her hands to talk, it only took a glance to share the amusement.
Our quirks, by contrast, were all in the family.
Walking dozens of miles together, our conversation was optional, not obligatory. When one wanted to venture on his own, there was no self-doubt or insecurity. We bellied up, we befriended, we didn’t bicker. The Economist, engaged in the European crisis and insatiable for the local perspective, opted for experience over sleep.
Who better to travel with? It was indeed a unique opportunity.
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Illinois politics: a family divided
Posted by Robert Duffer in Experiments in Manhood, Manhood on 03/20/2012
Though Illinois is dismissed as a Democratic state—or more accurately, a Democratic city that wags the tail of the state—there is a lot at state in today’s election. Specifically, a voter response to the most egregious property tax increases in Cook County history. The system is too quixotic to identify who exactly is responsible—the tax rate is established from budgets submitted by 31 municipalities in the county, so each village board of commissioners is responsible, as is the clerk who collects tax revenue, the assessor who evaluates property value, the county board of review who ensures that the rates are fair, and, since everyone’s got his hand in the cook county cookie tax jar, they’re all snakes in need of a thorough St. Patrick-ing.
This year, the property tax battle hits home even harder. Our humble burg has a referendum on the ballot to modernize four community centers at a cost of $48 million. Specifically, “The referendum funding would spread a $48 million bond issuance over a 25-year period. This would add an estimated $36 per year to the current tax bill of a home with a market value of $300,000.”
This $36 is dividing a family. Of the four of its members embroiled in this debate, only one is not employed by the government (and yes, I include teachers as being governmentally employed): me. The one on my side regarding the referendum, is a perennial fighter against any property tax increase. Keep in mind, we all vote Democratic though we’d never identify as Democrats. We’re split at 2-2, neutralizing each other’s votes. One member of the four, who we will call the arm twister, condescendingly offered to pay my $36 to vote for the referendum. A lump sum payment of $900 ($36×25) was not offered.
I agree that nicer park buildings would be nice. I pay for my kids’ classes housed in the gymnasiums of those buildings, which feature tiles floors and out of bounds that are indicated by cinder block walls. But hell no if I’m going to vote to increase a property tax bill. We’re talking need, and my need is greater; the property tax rate is at its highest in Cook County’s history, and has one of the highest median property tax rates in the United States, according to the watchdog site www.tax-rates.org.
Not only that, I pay more in property tax for a place with the same square footage (though the parcel size is larger) than I did while living in the city. To put it another way, I’m paying 14% more in property taxes for a similarly assessed property. For tiled-floor gyms and aging playgrounds. My response to the referendum is the same as it is to the incumbent state politicians responsible for the dire fiscal state of things in Illinois, which is shouldered by the jackasses like me who chose to live here: eat the dick.
Until I get tax relief, or at least some indication that property owners will stop having to bear the burden of incompetent government, I’m voting NO to the referendum and to this ship of fools that’s gotten us into this shipwreck. Unfortunately, I still don’t know who the captain is. I don’t have much to go on other than the Trib’s endorsements, which include brief justifications and Q & As with the politicians.
Fixing a toilet: it’s easy
Posted by Robert Duffer in Experiments in Manhood, Manhood on 03/11/2012
Even though terms like lock nut, nipple, and ball cock may intimidate you, fixing the fill valve on your toilet is pretty easy. Most problems in the toilet basin—slow fill, constant run, loose flapper—are caused by either a faulty fill valve or flush valve*. If you take off the lid of the basin, the fill valve is the tall pump device that extends through the bottom of the basin to the water supply. The flush valve is the flapper component, or the piece that is connected by a chain to the handle.
The path to success runs through here
Our toilet filled so slowly that it would take 10-15 minutes, a dual problem with the fill valve and the flapper (flush valve), and even then we’d have to jiggle the handle until it broke. With the handle broke, I finally had to open the $15 kit I bought at Ace a year ago. I spent more time thinking about the toilet than it took to fix it; the handle took two minutes, the fill valve less than an hour—despite my incompetence.
Most of the parts in the basin can be twisted off by hand or, if it’s been a while, with pliers. Any kit comes with detailed instructions, all of which are easy enough to follow. There are a couple of points that should be addressed even before opening the kit. First, clean the bathroom. You’ll have to clean it again when you’re done so this might seem redundant, but consider this: toilets are put in a corner just like Baby, and due to the angles, you might find your face the closest it’s been to a toilet bowl since college. A wipe down will not suffice; trust me on this one. There’s some pockets of stink that can make the job take longer and be more disagreeable than it should.
Open the basin, see what you’re dealing with. What exactly is the problem? Flush it, watch it flow and fill. It shouldn’t take more than a minute. Then you can shut the water supply off—yes, it’s the handle in the wall behind the toilet. Turn it right. Flush the toilet—if the water supply is off it won’t refill. Try to get all water out of the basin with a sponge or by leaving the flapper open.
Unscrew the water supply line. By hand. This has been easy enough, yes? Feeling pretty stinking good about yourself at this point? This is where I had the problem. 
To replace the fill valve, you have to unscrew it from the bottom of the basin. The instructions say you can do this by hand. I could not. I wedged my head and shoulders in the corner, waved my plumber’s ass high in the air, and got at that lock nut with four different sets of pliers and a half-dozen wrenches, all of which stripped the plastic so bad that it was impossible to remove. The nut should be turned in the same direction as the nut you turned to take off the water supply line.
There was sweating and cursing, a standard for Duffer home repairs, and the dread that I would have to leave our half bathroom—the kids’ bathroom—in a state of disrepair for who knows how long. Remember, it took me over a year to finally open the kit and gut the toilet. I was hoping to have graduated from the classic Duffer work quotient for home repair: double the time and add a day.
At Ace the next morning, I bought a small, hand-held hacksaw, and sawed the shit out of the ‘threaded shank’, being careful not to jar the porcelain too much because if it cracked then I’d have to buy a new toilet and a plumber. Once that bastard was off I was done in 15 minutes. One other note, don’t throw away the tube that takes the water from the fill valve to the flapper contraption; kits don’t come with it. I would suggest scouring the valve for water deposits.
Then, turn the water supply back on, make sure nothing is leaking, then proudly sit on your throne and feel the power of the flush. Fixing a toilet, like something else you do with a toilet, is easy and incredibly satisfying.
* Other problems with a toilet can include a loose base or cracked porcelain. If the toilet’s cracked, get a new one. If it’s loose on the floor, or leaking, or generally looks like something is spewing from under it then you need a new wax ring, possibly a flange, which is the mount that keeps the toilet on the floor. When the boy was a toddler, he decided to drop a cup down the old wishing well; it got stuck in the neck and after a week of fruitless fishing, I finally called a plumber. It took him 2-3 hours to remove the toilet, replace the seal, refasten the toilet. I recommend a pro; it’s a big pain in the ass, especially given how heavy the toilet is and how messy your bathroom/hallway will become.
Undermining Higher Education: a follow up
Posted by Robert Duffer in Work on 03/01/2012
There has been a considerable response since the announcement that the administration at Columbia College Chicago did not renew the contract of Randy Albers, Chair of the Fiction Writing Department. There are several points to clarify. Additionally, many new facts have come to light since the Provost’s recommendations as part of the Prioritization process, which was released Tuesday, February 28. Clarifications:
The name of Bob Dickeson’s company hired by the college is Academic Strategy Partners, not Academic Impressions, as was reported here.
So far, two deans and the provost have recommended the formation of a new Department of Creative Writing, which would encompass the Fiction Department and the Poetry and Creative Nonfiction programs presently housed in English.
Randy Albers will be retained as full-time faculty in the Fiction Writing Department. There will be a national search for a chair of the new Creative Writing Department. Randy does not expect to be included in the search. A commenter on another site where the original article was posted claims that “The administrator responsible for Randy’s termination said it wouldn’t be “fair” to keep Randy because it would look like Fiction “won” a beef from 25 years ago.” In the 1980s the Fiction program and the English Department were made into two distinct departments over pedagogical differences. Who cares? Precisely. It sounds moronic to base decisions on the future of the college over lore from a bygone era.
Chair of the English Department, Dr. Kenneth Daley, confirmed that his contract was also not renewed.
In her recommendation, Interim Provost Dr. Louise Love wrote: “This department, if approved, will bring together the talents of the writing faculties in English and Fiction to form a unified, student-centered whole….The creation of a new Creative Writing Department may be just the first step in a larger initiative to bring together writing programs across the college.”
In many ways, this makes sense. Most colleges with writing programs have a similar structure. It is news, however, that Columbia wants to be like most colleges. Love also recommends moving the Playwriting program to the Theatre Department, and cutting in half the “resources” devoted to literary journals produced by the Fiction and English Departments.
According to a letter from former Chair Randy Albers, regarding the new department: “This department would, with proper support by the college administration, have the potential for attaining excellence at least comparable to the present Fiction Writing Department.”
The recommendations made in the process of Prioritization are not what will happen, per se, they are recommendations of what the individual provost, dean, or other administrator think should happen and will most likely happen. President Warrick Carter then will offer his suggestions to the board of directors late this spring. The board then decides what is approved. This is expected in the summer. Plan now.
Currently, the Fiction Writing Department is naming an Interim Chair for the 2012-2013 school year, according to a source who will remain anonymous. It is expected, because of this, that the Fiction Department will retain its unique identity for one more year.
On Monday, March 5th, from 9-12 at the Film Row Cinema (1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor), there will be a Provost Listening Forum. At the forum, a designate from each department is allowed to speak to points and counterpoints regarding the prioritization report. This is a listening forum, so there will be no Q & A or no questions fielded from the non-designate audience. A series of similar forums have been held and will continue to be held during the prioritization process.
An outpouring of support in the form of student, faculty, and peer testimonials is posted on the website, albersforchair.org. There is an equivalent page on facebook: “Fiction Writing Students, Faculty and Alums Concerned about Prioritization.”
A student movement against tuition hikes and prioritization called “Occupy Columba College” is hosting a rally on March 1st, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. at 600 S. Michigan.
Undermining Higher Education: a curious case at Columbia College Chicago
Posted by Robert Duffer in Work on 02/27/2012
Chair, Randy Albers
The contract of Randy Albers, the Chair of the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago and one of the key forces behind Chicago’s indelible literary profile, will not be renewed.
We—the 70 adjunct and dozen full-timers employed by the department—were informed Friday night. Via email. Of the hundreds (if not thousands) of announcements and memos I’ve received in my seven years of employment, I can’t recall ever getting one on Friday night.
Eliza Nichols, Dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts, wrote: “Randy’s distinguished record of accomplishments during his many years of service speaks for itself.”
Oh. Then why is he no longer the Chair?
For the past year, Randy and his full-time staff have been saddled with triple duty of teaching, administrative duties, and the buzzsaw of academic buzz words, Prioritization. I’ve never envied the committees, meetings, and bureaucratic initiatives imposed on the full-time faculty, but this Prioritization seemed especially odious. Each Department has to justify every dollar spent and identify how the programs serve the college. The college hired a higher education consultant company run by Bob Dickeson, (I believe it is called) Academic Impressions—the Bain Capital of academia—to trim the fat from the bloated budget. A necessary goal, to be sure, but to hire an outside company to assess the state of the college seems like an admission of incompetence on the part of the administration. This has been reinforced throughout the muddy process.
create...change...but don't tell anyone why
No one knows if our department will still exist. There are mutterings that the Fiction Writing Department will absorb the Poetry and Creative Nonfiction segments of the English Department and be called a Creative Writing Department. This is not a novel idea. Still, no one except perhaps Dickeson, knows how or when or why.
In the late-night letter regarding Randy, there was no mention of the Chair position or a successor. No mention of anything moving forward from Dean Eliza Nichols except for praise of Randy’s 16 years of service.
“Randy has always worked with heart and sincerity and has consistently placed the student at the center of everything the department does. Student centeredness is, indeed, the hallmark of the Fiction Writing department under Randy’s leadership,” Nichols wrote.
Aww. A fine summation, no doubt, but it really lacks the specifics that are so prized by the Prioritization process.
Randy founded the annual literary festival, Story Week Festival of Writers, a promotional boon for the college and the largest and most well-regarded annual literary event in Chicago besides, arguably, the Printers Row Literary Festival. The weeklong series of free readings, panels, and events has featured students, faculty, editors, publishers, agents, and award-winning writers such as “Sherman Alexie, Dorothy Allison, A. Manette Ansay, Edwidge Danticat, Don De Grazia, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Jane Hamilton, Charles Johnson, Joe Meno, Bharati Mukherjee, Richard Price, Hubert Selby, Jr., April Sinclair, Irvine Welsh, John Edgar Wideman, and many, many others.” This March features National Book Award nominee Bonnie Jo Campbell, John Sayles, Dagoberto Glib, Christine Sneed and others. Check it out—it could be the last.
Vital to Chicago’s literary profile, Story Week is also instrumental in Randy’s vision of the community of writing that starts in the classroom and extends beyond borders to that essential conversation between reader and writer.
Randy is also responsible for the current size, retention, and graduation rate of Fiction Writing Department students, the largest in the College of Liberal Arts with an estimated 500. The graduate program, which boasts 60 candidates, recently ranked in Poets & Writers annual Best MFA Programs, most of which are evaluated by fellowships offered, something missing from the MFA Program at Columbia. It got Honorable Mention ranking 54, which is impressive considering the lack of fellowships. Randy has taken a small, quirky writing program and turned into a nationally acclaimed, quirky writing program.
Hair Trigger, the annual student anthology that Randy has fostered, consistently wins first-place Gold Ribbon awards at the Columbia (in New York—no affiliation) Scholastic Press Association, that’s first place out of nearly one thousand submitted journals and magazines. On the other end, the Young Authors program receives over 1000 submissions a year from high school students to its annual competition and has been recognized as the vanguard for teen writing competitions.
Most importantly, and something Nichols acknowledges, is Randy’s steadfast presence and support in the literary and professional endeavors of students and faculty. “Generations of students have gone on to become gifted writers, writing teachers and writing professionals,” Nichols wrote, rather vaguely.
Randy knows what every writer should know and only the best administrators know: people. Randy created an environment that fostered creativity, encouraged critical thought, stressed the value of the individual in voice and in ambition, and championed the literary successes and endeavors of students and faculty alike. Randy lead by empowering every one he encountered, from the wayward teen writer and their skeptical parent to the ambitious grad student and the desperate adjunct.
Personally, I wouldn’t be teaching in the Fiction Department if not for Randy. My second semester as a grad student (I studied economics as an undergrad years before), in a precarious financial state, I was considering dropping the program. At a chance encounter at one of the many events sponsored by the program, Randy introduced himself and asked a very simple question. “How’s the writing?”
What more does a writing student want than to engage in their writing? This personal connection is the essence of the department with Randy as its Chair. In subsequent conversations as a student and in later meetings as an adjunct, the thing that strikes me about Randy is his ability to listen and ask the singular best question. Any educator, any writer, and every administrator would benefit from this model.
Whatever the state of the department, and whatever happens to my job because of Prioritization (it is now obvious that Prioritization is an excuse to pass an agenda that would not have been passed otherwise) I’m lucky to have worked with Randy. And I stress ‘with’ because it never felt like you were working ‘under’ him, which is a rare thing in any business, but especially in the ego-charged business of higher education.
In some ways, we as colleagues and as a student body, are getting Randy back. He’ll be full-time faculty, he’ll be teaching what he knows instead of having to justify himself to an organization blinded by real results. In that sense, he must be relieved.
The logic behind not renewing the contract of a man responsible for raising the profile of the college, attracting a great number of students and professionals to the college, and continually instilling success on every measurable level, is baffling.
It seems fitting, then, that no successor—no Chair—has been named. It was best filled by Randy Albers.
*There are several movements against Prioritization at Columbia:
March 1st is National Day of Student Action at Columbia College Chicago
There is an Occupy Columbia College Facebook page
The NEA, along with the adjuncts’ union at Columbia, P-fac, will be holding a rally for fair contracts and student rights on March 1st, followed by its annual convention from March 2-4.
All of this will be occurring one block away from the AWP’s annual conference at the Hilton.
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The Darndest Things
Posted by Robert Duffer in Experiments in Manhood, Family on 02/23/2012
Created by a five-year old, enjoyed by everyone…
"Dad, I want to show you something."
