Yesterday I went to a campus information session and tour aimed at prospective Hopkins undergraduates. I was the only person there who wasn’t either 16 or a mom. I then went to the program offices and met G, the graduate coordinator – she had two enormous Nortons for me with a Post-It with my name on it. We talked Poland for a long time – she and her family have background in Austria and the Ukraine.

I looked at one apartment, looked at another apartment, and met up with some people who may have a third apartment. It has now been explained to me that there is a safe and short way to get from campus to Hampden on foot.

Spent the evening watching IRON MAN for the 5th time on a outdoor screen, projected at Broadway Pier, with water all around us. After the Forever Cemetery in LA, I was expecting a really large and unwieldy crowd, but this was so nice. Only 200 people or so.

At the pier, I met up with J, who graduated from Hopkins last year, and his friends C and T, and their dog. J is the first poet from the program I’ve gotten to talk to in person.

We liberated an abandoned sign on the way home, talked poetry and visual arts (C, who works with textile arts, is moving to Chicago in November) and ended the night at the Charles Village Pub- my first time there.

C also shared her favorite Baltimore mugging stories, including being held up by a man with a BB gun in a parking garage. And I saw my first Baltimore rat last night, in a pile of recycling on 31st.