Brian D Mains

Well, perhaps I should walk that back, but it sounds so positive and catchy. The realistic descriptor would be much less kind: I pushed a large amount of words onto pages this past weekend.

In no small feat of time or typing I made it to the mid-way point in my National Novel Writing Month commitment on Sunday. 25,000 words, 69 pages. All within two weeks. I started browsing through the beginning of the novel this morning and I actually liked it for its snarky tone. Sixty-nine pages in though it is feeling like work to write now. The prose is less breezy.  I’m not actually sure where the quality stands. I feel like I’m now chasing a word count. I don’t think that is necessarily bad. This is the first time I ever wrote this much on a single idea. And yes, I already have a few ideas to improve it.

Beyond that I spent some quality time at a favorite little coffee shop off of Ludlow Ave. Saturday afternoon and listened to four great bands play for free Saturday night.  The music occasion marked the CD release for the headliner, The Minor Leagues. Now on stage, that is where the creativity truly cut loose.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Bowling Green and Western Kentucky University. Seeing old friends there and the campus was great. The friends and campus both changed, but at the same time were still recognizable. Or perhaps, the people were the same but our circumstances in life are just different. All my friends who attended are married. A couple seemed more laid back than when we worked together on the college newspaper. I was chill and no longer in need of partying like a wild man.

That said, I never thought I would be a person to nostalgically reflect upon days gone by. I never thought I would view this visit as a positive thing because I always thought up and on to better things. I was wrong. I treasure my time at Westerns and the friendships I forged there. I plan* to not allow another ten years lapse before going back.

*Of course the past ten years also taught me that the best laid plans never work out (think marriage, graduate school, and retail sales management).

After a period of isolation I am packing my small green suitcase tonight and taking a road trip.

After work tomorrow, around 3 p.m., I am getting into my car, rolling out of the parking lot, and heading south to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Each year Western Kentucky University’s journalism department hosts a breakfast and homecoming event for program alum. It’s been ten years since I graduated from Western and the first time I’ll be attending this event as an alum instead of a student.

I hadn’t planned on going but a friend on Facebook e-mailed me and asked if I was attending. He’s lived in St. Petersburg for the past decade and was one of those people who saw me make an ass out of myself on many occasions while at Western.

I did see Bowling Green and Western’s campus about a year and a half ago when I attended a conference there. I walked the campus by myself and was surprised by how much of it changed in a decade.

It’s been three years since I saw my friend who contacted me on Facebook, Dan, at another friend’s wedding reception. Seeing Dan and his wife again will be nice. And a couple other people I either emailed or talk to sporadically over the past decade will be there as well. It’ll be interesting hanging out with that group of people in the same place none of us have been together at in 10 years.

It’ll be nice to shake the dust off the suitcase and just drive for a few hours down a route I routinely drove for five years again.

I cannot wait to find out.