writing camp Pt. 1 herding cats, death by veggie burger & some Francine Prose

Saturday July 9th 4:30am alarm goes off car service LEANS on buzzer and I'm already wondering what the f**k I was thinking going to some god d**n "writer's workshop" in portland, oregon. I grab backpack, laptop, and two pieces luggage and drag everything down the five narrow flights of stairs from my hellish little apartment to the street. relatively painless flight on Continental (which is looking more & more like TWA)...Arrived at PDX wayyy to early to check in to REED so I found my luggage, found a chair and checked my email, etc. for a while. Apparently, it's considered "okay" in the PNW to ask to borrow someone's laptop to check one's email...at least I had not one but TWO people come up and ask me this. Um. sorry...NO. Question: why is the walk to the Taxi Stand at PDX so damn far??? Got a nice cab (same price as the shuttle and after getting up at 4:30, no way was I doing public transportation)...Apparently, REED is much further from the airport than the fine folks here told me. Still, got here in one piece but to no signs anywhere telling me where I could check in. Eventually, after dragging my bags over half the campus, I found someone to help me (CJ & Lee from Tinhouse). CJ gave me a key to my "dorm" and lots of other helpful stuff. The buildings are beautiful here, and it's a beautiful GREEN campus. The rooms however, leave much to be desired. Though they're not quite as rundown as the "suite" my Dad & I stayed in at Yale, my single is the size of my bedroom in NYC. I swapped bedding with another empty room - since mine had holes (eek) and proceeded to take a nap. Much later, on to the formal registration where I signed away my first born child to pay the rest of the registration fees, got a free tote bag (who uses tote bags??), and a t-shirt with a great Denis Johnson quote but no copy of Tin House Magazine (? how about skip the tote bag and give us the magazine?)...The workshop started officially at 4pm with a "Welcome" given by Rob Spillman [Ed. of said magazine)...being somewhat beyond jetlagged, all I remembered was that we should not swim in the pond (see photo above) and "what happens at Tin House, stays at Tin House"...Then on to the first meeting of our workshops. This was when we were all told that we needed to know the room numbers given in our info packets and a great deal of concerned shuffling took place...hosting a writer's workshop is somewhat akin to herding cats apparently. Finally, someone had the very genius idea of actually calling out numbers and names of workshop leaders & we all finally knew where we were going. Then we discovered that all the classrooms were locked. And all of us in Offutt's workshop were told that he wasn't here yet...So CJ (again being Mr. Helpful) had us all go outside and he read off a 2 page email with all the "rules" for the workshop. eek. This had many of us in a grand panic as it involved copious amounts of work to be done when we were all just itching to run over to the soon to be starting OPEN BAR...CJ, being just as eager to get there, dismissed the meeting and we all headed to the small by pseudo-Ivy League standards, Union building where most of us proceeded to drink at least one more drink than jetlag advised. After the schmoozefest, at which I made some new friends & discovered that one of my fellow workshop students isn't the Alex Smith I know, but does live a mere 6 blocks away from me, it was time for...Dinner and we were all excited at the thought that we'd be sitting outside at these really COOL tables having whatever was grilling on the massive BBQ grills at the end of the lawn. Well...I wasn't all that excited about the BBQ part but the tables were pretty...Instead, we were all shuttled into the REED Cafeteria. Whoo. The food on offer was either the hot & greasy Burger Bar (where you can get 3 kinds of veggie burgers - somewhat a moot point since they were throwing them on the grill next to the beef & bacon), and a sad looking salad bar. I went for a garden burger (which I'd come to regret later) and variations of greens & some sad looking Tofu. Big signs everywhere told us we were only allowed ONE ENTREE, ONE SALAD, ONE BEVERAGE and FRUIT or ONE DESERT. There was no fruit. There was no Diet Coke. There is in fact, no Diet Coke anywhere on this campus. Next we all headed to part of the reason we came here in the first place - the nightly reading. Saturday's guest was none other than "Household Saints" author Francine Prose. As usual with her work, the piece she read was equal parts insightful, emotionally wrenching and very brutally funny. After Prose's reading, Elissa Schappell (Tin House editor) interviewed her & much hilarity ensued. Prose also made some very insightful comments about fiction writing, the difficulties of translation and why she likes 19th Century Russian Lit so much. I did my best to follow along since by now it was well past my bedtime. The reading/Q&A was followed by a signing and "reception" (more drinks) but I headed back to my cell and did my best to get some sleep.