"No one could go back and change anything—not what you said and wished you had not, not what you did or did not do, not what someone else did that you would have stopped if only you’d known. There was no knowing." Gone So Long, Andre Dubus III

Suddenly, I am bringing this writer to campus next month. I saw him read years ago. I was alone in Boston. I was supposed to be with someone but we never did make it to that city together. I took a pic of myself in the king sized bed. My toes were painted sky blue to match the May sky. Trainwreck was on his honeymoon, thinking of me, getting his photo taken by a bartender. I floated from room to room, listening to academic papers on American literature, wearing a sheer maxi dress and cowboy boots, defiant. I bought Townie and read it sprawled naked across a bed the size of of a ship, vowing not to go back to that damn city by myself ever again and I never did. Now I am nestled in my bed reading Dubus' most recent book, alone, my valentines present to myself. It is a novel with daddy issues at the heart of plot. The circumstances of the writer coming to me in March are completely arbitrary, not related to any of that history, and it is a total accident also that the philosophy books I have been reading and quoting from lately are written by a coworker of his. I will ask him: Hey Andre, fellow daddy issue warrior, is that coworker of yours insufferably happily married or what?!?!