The governor has two fat, good-tempered, middle-aged springer spaniels, who attended yesterday's Poets' Tea at the Blaine House in Augusta. Meanwhile, across the road at the State House, members of the Tea Party Movement were dressed up in colonial costumes and complaining about taxes. This seemed to make the governor and his wife depressed, but the dogs continued to enjoy themselves.

I would estimate that close to 100 people were in attendance at our tea party, none in colonial costume and many of them complete strangers to me--including the other two readers. I always think of the Maine literary scene as rather small, but apparently I've been misled. I had to read first because Betsy Sholl, our poet laureate, said the only woman on the program should not read last. I think the poem went over pretty well, but I was nervous because I forgot to wear my reading glasses and I kept thinking I would read the blurry lines in the wrong order.

After the reading I drank a cup of tea and talked to a man who said he could teach me "a lot about decrepitude." I told him that my reading-glasses worries were already teaching me at least a little about decrepitude, and so I departed from this affair feeling rather bemused about the peculiarities of small talk.