Listen, no one is saying the kids don't have a point

I go to a poetry reading in town, even though I do not want to do this. I do not want to do much of anything, but I have opted to guilt myself into being sociable and spread my horizons. Come frigid February, I may say I tried.

A poetry reading is something that is social while Amber is not around. It could as well have been anything that was not outright objectionable.

When Amber is likely to come home around 9 or 10, I tend eschew invitations to stay home. Tonight, she is in Maryland at a dental training. There's no sense in not going out.

I don't know much about this poetry reading, except that I've been to a party with the woman who's running it. My social media informs me we have attended at least one other event together, the Vampyre's Ball.

When I arrive, Bard kids fill The Enchanted Cafe, all young and pretty, some whom are seeming working on their computers, most of whom leave once they hear poetry reading is about to start. As they exit, they appear irritated and betrayed that they are being forced from this comfort into the cold night.

Three remain: balletic ingenue in red, a handsome boy with enviably long and roguish hair, and a gender neutral elfkin in spectacles, with short curly blonde hair. The three of them sit around a chess set throughout the reading, half trying to ignore us.

There is supposed to be a headliner, a man called Theory, but he does not show up until an hour after this starts.

I'm the only admission paying attendee. Though I could have kept my $3, it feels silly to not contribute. It seems only fractionally less silly to have a donation basket so paltry. My $3 calls attention to itself the way an empty basket wouldn't.

No one else shows up.

To fill the time, I read a few poems I did not write, and I end up reading my story "Balance Beam" at the behest of the ingenue, who is herself a gymnast. The Bard Kids do not seem impressed.

When I try to banter with them, I see myself for a flash as they might. Not as a charming author or a quirky stranger, but an adult so corny that they have contact embarrassment on my behalf. I am not dressed well to them. I am not at all easy on their eyes. I contain no secrets worth knowing. What can be more humbling than fashionable college students thinking one is so irrelevant that their lack of sniggering is only out of neutral politeness? In my youth, I looked at many adults as they look at me, but I assume those adults deserved it more.

Sharon, the organizer, reads a few things, venturing into her own poetry, ignored by the Bard Kids for being too old. She conducts Bardic circles at Poet's Walk Park. She cuts a striking figure such that one would assume she had stories in droves. She attended -- and possibly organized -- a Vampyre's Ball. She reads tarot cards professionally. Yet, to them, she is dull as dishwater.

By the time the headliner arrives, I have done all I needed to do this night. I came, I read, I was looked at by college freshman as though I were telling faintly racist dad jokes at a barbecue. I have earned the rest of the night to myself.

Soon in Xenology: Writing.

last watched: Schitt's Creek
reading: Ella Enchanted