Bread Loaf 2010: The First Dance

So I promised a recap of the Bread Load Barn Dance. I'm short on sleep and it's late but I will attempt to satiate your curiosity over this very special event.

As expected, it did begin with about five people dancing while everyone else fueled up with alcohol and watched. Yes, watched. Creepy. Also--just my opinion--but if you can't party without alcohol, then you don't deserve to party at all. It's the same way I feel about taking shots. If you need a chaser to cover up the taste of what you just swallowed, if you aren't going to savor that liquid fire swirling in your chest, then order up a Shirley Temple and hand that shot glass over to me.

I AM SO HARDCORE.

Anyway, after everyone had downed a couple drinks, dancing starting to seem like a much better idea. My workshop instructor Margot Livesey was totally breaking it down--albeit in a sweet, classy way. Also joining in the fun was Linda Gregerson, who read her poems on the first night and simply took my breath away.

To see such accomplished and talented writers dancing right beside everyone else was such a wonderful visual for me. We all dance. We all write. We are all in this together.

Kumbaya.

That sort of thing.

Of course, then one woman--I'm going to assume she writes nonfiction because that group is pretty unpredictable--spun around in her short black dress and apparently wanted me to know that she had matched her underwear to her outfit.

The waitstaff (also writers attending the conference) arrived with a cheer, forced themselves into the center of the floor as though we were merely saving their space for them, and did their best dirty dancing impression.

Huh. Okay.

The smokers clustered on the deck just outside the door to the barn. This is when I was reminded that smoking can be an ingenious social strategy. Perhaps even more so now that smoking is less mainstream. They can sneak off and pretend to be "bad" together.

When the college kids and recent college grads (easy to spot at the dance in horrifyingly skinny jeans and short skirts), started confiding their conference crushes to me, I knew it was time to go.

I probably didn't stay long enough for the really wild stuff. But I didn't catch any great stories today so maybe not.

There's always the farewell dance on Friday. Scandal could be just around the corner!