Time to go, and leave the house keys - and the library card - behind in Iowa City.

Hamburg Inn No. 2

One presidential table, one chicken-fried steak, and one pie shake (which, yes, is a piece of pie [or cake] blended into a milkshake) makes for a good Tuesday evening. 

I’m not walking, I have no finals, and I’m not going to fail either one of my two classes this semester … so, this counts, right?

I saw Nathan Englander read in Iowa City tonight and it was (and he was), I think, everything I - perhaps selfishly - needed it (and him) to be. Warm and generous and filled with this slight nervousness and enormous gratitude to the written word, which should always be the most important thing in a room full of writers.

He flawlessly read his story “The Reader,” and answered questions. And after a “Could I bother you and ask you to sign my book?” he did, with thanks, and sent me off on my way, elated.

“You’re here,” he said this evening, “and you write because, at some point, literature saved your life.”

And it did. And it does, it does, constantly. 

Two years ago, while I was studying political science in Missouri, a professor grabbed me by the wrist and said, “You should think about Iowa.” So, I did. And then I went.

And: Oh, man.

I’m a week away from completing an English degree (which, for the record, is a fabulous and rigorous and practical degree that you can and should pursue if you want to, regardless of what Newsweek or Yahoo! says), and three weeks removed from the next step which, somehow, also involves reading and talking about and working with words.

I don’t know how to say anything coherent about my time here:

During my first semester, I learned how to read like a writer should and, I learned (or, at least, started to learn) how to write like a writer who knows how to read. It’s an essential thing to learn, and you can never finish, and - for me, anyway - it was a challenging and somewhat embarrassing, but always invigorating, process.

When my second semester rolled around, I took my very first nonfiction course and, instead of bending the truth to make it sound and look like fiction, I learned how to bend the actual, hard truth and make it sound believable. And, I was lucky enough to have one of the most astounding people I’ve ever met as my professor. He took us to the bars after class and encouraged that we either a). fall in love with each other or, b). disappointingly, become friends with each other. He refused to take the shit I didn’t know I was handing out, and rarely took the best I had to offer. He demanded whatever came far beyond that. I’d say, “I don’t think I can read in front of people,” and he’d put my name in for readings. In front of classmates and, then, strangers, at coffee shops downtown. Then I’d say, “I don’t know how to write anything that isn’t sad,” and he’d say, “Write something funny anyway,” and then follow it with, “And then, read it in front of forty-or-so strangers downtown, at a coffee shop, at the book festival.” And I did. (There was, too, this exchange: where I said something like, “I don’t think I can move and fact-check and do this,” and he responded with, “Shut up, of course you can.”)

And last semester, I forged what felt like an impossible relationship with an impossible (but kind and generous) human being because I figured out that I was allowed to push back. And, in return, be pushed harder. I still think about where I stand with this professor. I don’t know if he likes me, but I know he respects me: both as a student and writer. I took up as much of his time as I possibly could. “Your writing reminds me of someone’s,” he once said. I looked at him. Who’s? “Mine.”

There was our last meeting, for an essay conference. “I’m tired of this essay,” I said, and he slid it across his desk, discarding it. Fine. A long silence, followed by, “Do you have plans this summer?” Sure: I’ll get a job in retail and kill some time while I figure out what I want to do. “Okay.” Another long silence. “What do you think about working in the publishing industry?” I don’t know, I said. I’ve never thought about it. “Have you ever heard of The Believer?” Yes. (Yes, yes, yes.) “Do you think you could support yourself for a few months, unpaid, in San Francisco?”

I will miss this city: the readings and the walk home and the rundown, flooded-then-empty-then-molded English building, the people, my friends - the stand-up comedian who has become my best friend, the bearded ones, the future teacher, the hilarious and brilliant Tumblr user who I finally met, the dancer - and who I was while I was here.

But I can come back. I can come back, I can come back, I can come back. And I will.

I don’t know, guys. He’s just the best.

So, Brian and I are moving, in May, to San Francisco. 

Because on May 21 - one week after graduation - I start an internship with McSweeney’s. More specifically, with their magazine The Believer, as a fact checker (and as whatever else they need / they tell me to be). 

It is, as of today, an indefinite (and definitely unpaid) opportunity, which revoles around my own definition of truth and its place in creative nonfiction. And that is, as you guys know, what I’ve been obsessed with for the better part of my time in Iowa, so. I’m excited, to put it mildly. 

(Also, nervous. Nervous and nervous and nervous and excited and excited and nervous.)

Iowa sunrise: bookowl & tsflynn / by Three_Springs