"If you haven't been to Guts & Glory, cancel your spa day and do this instead; it is acupuncture for the soul. On the third Wednesday of every month, an audience bigger than your extended family's Christmas gathering (and far less awkward) snuggles into the back of Powell's Bookstore to hear fearless tales of guts, and possibly glory.."
I have squeezed into this room thrice now. The first time a friendly Powell's employee offered the fun fact that the chair she found for me was repurposed from a chamber pot. The second time there wasn't room to pry open my beer, much less my sealskin parka. Overheated and dehydrated, I laughed until I sweated, except when the room went religiously silent, so still that my trickling perspiration seemed disrespectful. The closest I've ever come to my dream of reaching nirvana in a sweat lodge was listening to Samantha Irby read a list of sixty-something flaws. At one point she seemed abashed and hinted at skipping a few. The room roared its unanimous dissent. Whit Nelson told how he came to love acting via the years of practice he'd had as a straight man. Kelsie Huff turned us all to stone explaining how much her mother's boyshorts mattered.
Really, you shouldn't come, because then I'm even less likely to fit inconspicuously between the wall and the short people. But, really, you should come.
