les premiers choses premier

October 24th, 2006

I just arrived in Paris, so what do I do first? Get online.

Okay. NOW I’m gonna go out and walk around.

Institute for Contemporary Arts, London

October 24th, 2006

My event last night at the ICA went really well. It was part of a series called Comica. The room was sold out, and had a great tech setup so everyone could see the drawings clearly. The brilliant and effervescent-to-the-point-of-exploding Lea Delaria interviewed me onstage after I read. This blurry picture captures a bit of her kinetic energy.

Talking with Lea was really fun. I’d been somewhat nervous, not knowing quite what to expect from the woman famous for saying about Hillary Clinton, “Finally, a first lady we can fuck.” She did grill me rather minutely about my masturbation habits, but other than that I think our conversation was very seemly and apropos. One topic she was interested in discussing was my obsessive tendency to record my own life, which reminded me to take a picture of the audience for the blog. So here they are. I think this made them a little nervous. Or maybe they were just appalled at such obstreperously American behavior. That guy in the front row is Paul Gravett, the Comica organizer

I signed books for a long time afterward—the museum bookshop sold out.

Then I hung out in the bar with some friends. Then we all walked back to Bloomsbury where they got on the Tube and I returned to my hotel.

That’s Jane Hoy on the left, and her girlfriend Helen Sandler—Helen’s directing the York Lesbian Arts Festival which is happening this weekend and which I’m very sorry to be missing. To my right is Lenna Cumberbatch, drag king extraordinare and my erstwhile webmeister.

word freak

October 23rd, 2006

Dateline London.
I did a brief booksigning this afternoon at Gay’s the Word. Then made a pilgrimage to Dr. Johnson’s house, the guy who wrote the first major English dictionary. Here’s the famous garret where he did most of the work, with a crew of amanuenses. (look it up.)

They had a closet of Georgian costumes for kids to put on, and there was no one around, so…

Here’s a passage from the dictionary.

And here’s a monument outside to Dr. J’s cat, Hodge, “a very fine cat indeed.” He’s sitting on a dictionary, with oyster shells at his feet. Apparently Dr. J. would personally go out to the fish market and fetch oysters for him, rather than having his servants do it, so that the servants wouldn’t feel resentment toward the cat.

Wrote this Sunday morning but couldn’t get online to post it

October 23rd, 2006

Just arrived in London. First of all, I just want to say how boggled I am by the money everyone has been sending to the site. Thank you all so much. At last count it was about $1500. A most timely and welcome influx. I’ll talk more about the whole payment/donation scenario in a later post, after I’ve given it more thought. It’s complicated, and I have mixed feelings about it.

I had a crazy time getting ready to leave on this trip. Read the rest of this entry »

Katie updates you on the pledge drive

October 19th, 2006

Alison is sitting behind me, trying hard to concentrate on her strips before she cavorts off to Europe. But she keeps standing up and expressing to me how “Awed!” and “Overwhelmed!” she feels as little paypal notifications appear in her email. She would like to extend her tremendous gratitude to all of you for participating in this crazy website, monetarily or not. The total, as of 5:52pm EST, was a mind-blowing 449.95! She stated, “I feel like a Democratic candidate in a contested district!”.

Here’s Alison’s levels of priority. Julia has alighted on the fancy ergonomic chair, while I am sitting on a folding chair. Given my own appreciation of the company of cats, I willingly oblige.

the fundraiser

October 19th, 2006

Man! Since “DTWOF Fan” made that post yesterday about raising $500 before the impending 500th episode, 90 bucks have come in from 5 different people. Okay, first of all, I am not “DTWOF Fan,” though that would have been brilliant. Secondly, I’m really, really touched that people are pitching in like this. Third, I feel kind of sheepish about it, though not so sheepish I won’t take the money. And fourth, $500 happens to be the exact amount of my outstanding debt to my web designer. Is that wild? I just promised him last week that I’d try to pay this off by the end of the month.

On another note, I’m happy to say that my camera, which I left behind on my travels last week, has returned home. After the jump, I’ll post a short photo essay about my brief sojourn in Toronto. Read the rest of this entry »

DTWOF episode 497

October 17th, 2006

Fresh fortnightly.

Read the rest of this entry »

home

October 13th, 2006

I never should have tempted fate by saying Toronto this morning was my worst airport experience to date. It’s midnight, and I just got home from Chicago an hour ago. I spent eight and a half hours in O’Hare. I woke up to leave Toronto at 6:30 this morning. Forget driving–I could have walked from Ontario to Burlington in that time.

The worst thing—apart from having my flight get pushed later and then canceled, and then having the next flight pushed later and later, and the airport wifi being down, and the squatting on the floor next to outlets to charge my phone and laptop, and the endless double takes in the ladies’ room, and the small fortune I spent on disgusting food—the worst thing was that the reason the whole airport was bollixed up was because Bush flew into Chicago today. There was some weather problem too, but I prefer to blame that bastard.

On the upside, I saw tons of lesbians.

So I landed in Burlington and hiked out to my car and started it up, and the guy on the radio was just announcing the next piece. Philip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi. Life out of balance.