The Portland airport has free wi-fi. Such a civilized, community-spirited city. I’m posting this on my way to Seattle. The thing I’ve always hated about travel is the unfamiliarity of everything. But when you travel a lot, the unfamiliarity itself becomes familiar, if not routine. Here I am in the Kafkaesque security line just a few minutes ago.
Man! What a day. Up at 6 to fly from SF to Portland. A radio interview at KBOO. A pit stop at my hotel for a shower. A trip to In Other Words, the very pleasant women’s bookstore here. Then to the Powells.com warehouse building, where I had a really fun conversation with Craig Thompson, comix wunderkind, which will be published in the Powell’s newsletter at some point. Then off to Powell’s proper, the downtown bookstore, where there was a frickin’ HU-UUGE crowd to hear me read. What an audience! What a city! But whenever I say that to people from Portland they get all nervous and tell me not to move here because there’s already too many people.
That’s me in the middle of the room, running my powerpoint show. This was a good setup. Standing in the audience, or behind them, works better than standing up front. Because up front I have to look at my laptop. In the back, I’m looking at what the audience is looking at, which feels better.
Now it’s almost midnight. I just had my room service dinner. And I’m starting to crash.
New dates are up for Alison’s Fun Home tour in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago. Also, you can catch an informative interview from The Forum on KQED San Francisco on Realplayer right here. (posted by Katie)