Wrote this Sunday morning but couldn’t get online to post it
October 23rd, 2006 | Uncategorized
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.I have a kind of constitutional inability to get things done ahead of time, and am always running around, literally running, well past the last possible minute. I don’t think it’s just bad planning. I’d like to think it’s that I have too much to do. But I’m beginning to suspect it’s that I merely think I have too much to do.
It didn’t help that the night before I had to leave, there was a snowstorm and my power went out just as I was in the middle of scanning episode #498 into my computer. Fortunately, I’d already gotten my laundry done, so I turned my attention to packing by flashlight. But when I got up this morning, still no power. Here I am cooking my cereal and tea on the woodstove—all very quaint, but it put me considerably behind schedule.
And here I am inking episode #499 in the bright snowy light of my living room.
I was trying desperately to get these two episodes finished before I left. I’ve missed three deadlines in the past twelve months, and was determined not to miss another one. (Why, you might ask, did I stop to take pictures of myself if I was in such a time crunch? I don’t know. It’s part of the whole syndrome.)
The power came back on at noon. I needed to leave for the Montreal airport at 2. I should not have been inking my comic strip one hour before departing for Europe. At this point, I was in triage mode. I was clearly not going to get my comic strips sent out. But I should probably take a shower. And I should probably not bother with ironing my shirts. At 2:15, I realized I was going to have to bring my digital tablet along so I could finish my strips on the road. That necessitated a frantic reconfiguration of my luggage.
Then charging out through the snow to warm up the car. Slipping on the porch as I raced back for my stuff. My cat looking daggers at me as I left for the sixth time in five months.
Here I am making corrections to my comic strips at the airport gate.
Is this manicacal pace necessary, I ask myself? Or do I just manufacture it in order to stave off my fear of the abyss?
Oh. Interesting airport bathroom drama. Went into the ladies’ room at Trudeau. Got the usual doubletake from a woman drying her hands, but ignored her and headed for the stalls, outside of which I couldn’t help but notice a man standing. Now I was confused. I swiveled back to the woman, who had just finished telling me, “C’est les dames.” “Uh…I’m a woman,” I said, “but I’m not so sure that he is,” gesturing to the man. “Son femme est malade,” she explained. One of the zillion things on my to-do list before leaving on this trip was to review my pathetic grasp of French. I got a tape from the library and practiced while I was inking, but I’m afraid it’s une cause perdu.
25 Responses to “Wrote this Sunday morning but couldn’t get online to post it”
This sounds so stressful I can hardly bear to read it – welcome to London, Alison, we’re looking forward to seeing you at the ICA tonight.
Welcome to sunny October London. We don’t do snow these days, you have to go 200 miles north for that. The ICA gig is sold out so that’s one less thing to worry about. Maybe the UK publishers are now starting to kick themselves for not organising a month-long European tour (but Julia would never forgive you).
“Son femme est malade ” translation “My girlfriend (or woman) is sick.”
His wife is sick.
WooHooo! Alison in the UK! I shall be at the ICA for 6pm so I can get mky tickets and a seat in the front. I shall be the one asking highly irrelevant and totally inappropriate questions .
Oh you poor thing… you really should have added a shot of something strong to your morning tea to calm you down a bit. So hectic… I get the same way when I have to be somewhere and feel there is to much too do between now and then though. Please be safe on your European sojourn!
Hey, don’t knock staving off fear of the abyss….
I think it’s the things we do for that very reason (good and bad – sometimes very bad) that makes us human and as humans, what makes us individuals and separate from each other. I also think creative people do a bit more staving than others – I think its because creative people allow themselves to feel more fear – and maybe that’s what creativity is….. I’m not sure but I do think this: how awful would it be if you didn’t even notice there was an abyss, what would it be like never to feel that fear? Surely you’d miss out on how great it feels each time you (however temporarily) transcend it?
Am I right in thinking ICA is the only place you are reading in the UK?
Leda
I admire your dedication to the comic arts! But it’s too bad you visited my city and only saw the airport. It would be great if you could come and do a bilingual reading with panels from the English and French editions someday. C’est une manière de pratiquer ton français!
Couln’t agree more with Matt. I am a professional translator and would love to interpret for you if you ever comme to Montreal. http://sophie.voillot.net/
Just a response to the money thing…
I made a donation and was more than delighted to do so. But I don’t like the feeling that you feel like it’s charity. Some time ago you had discussed a fee version of the strip, whereby it would be available hot off the presses for a fee, but eventually available for free to all. Or something like that.
I guess I just wanted to say I think your work is well worth paying for and I’m open to whatever system you might eventually devise. Need my DTWOF fix regularly. 🙂
Hee! All this talk in translating makes me think: I am an ASL interpreter, and i would love the job of being in an oval in the left bottom corner of each panel in each strip. The technology is out there, I’m sure it is!
I heartily concur that donations are not a charity… mine was a mere token of my appreciation for the decades of niftiness you’ve supplied. Wish I could afford more as a wee indicator of the joy/recognition I felt as a teenage queer, that day in 198something upon which I came across a little lavender book called _Dykes To Watch Out For_.
Again, Fervent Thanks.
Alison, don’t be embarrassed by the donations! If there was any justice in the world, you’d be bigger than the guy who draws Garfield. Yes, there is wanting the free flow of ideas but ya gotta eat/pay web bills!
I originally found your work via Unnatural Dykes To Watch Out For in an LGBT bookshop in the UK. I love comic strips and was amazed to find something that in some way reflected my life. I’d come from a right wing family and although I’d abandoned that I had nothing else as the left had become rather odd here in Britain.
I don’t know if it’s right to say that you radicalised or politicised me, but your work was probably most influential in opening my eyes to other possibilities that led to me having some ‘radical’ views of my own.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like this. As another poster put it: it’s not charity – it really is appreciation of some amazing work.
Welcome to Britain by the way! I can’t make the ICA event but I wish I could! I hope it goes really well and you have a great time.
And I thought my life was frantic! Have a great time in London Alison and safe journeys. I sure to miss the snow. What a lovely, cozy scene with you working and the snow outside. Reminds me a little of the silouettes that you love so much………..the window in white and you in the dark. Anyway, have a great trip!
This is like the drunk and the enabler (the one who comes out at 2am to rescue them from their latest binge’s results). Alison, this taking pictures obsession is enabling at least one person’s obsession with visiting this blog. I am sometimes successful for weeks at a time not visiting here very often (I consider twice a week reasonable). Today I have a big day of working on a project and I had to do a bank transfer (online) before that. I thought, well, I’m online, a quick visit can’t hurt. So here I am reading about your syndrome of taking pictures during even the most time-pressed time. I thought I’d follow suit and bother to write my response. Modern people have disfunctions.
(Garfield was, about 15 years ago, my personification of the rampant stupidity/low standards around us. LOL)
With regard to the contributions, I think it rather harkens back to the days of artists being supported by patrons who appreciated and valued their work and efforts. I suspect that many of the donors are honored to feel they have such a personal connection with supporting your endeavors.
Hmm, on second thought, perhaps that is a source of discomfort?
At any rate, what a nice outpouring to witness.
P.S. My pal is going to be at the reading this evening in London.
Some of us looked for the pledge drive, but were insufficiently smart and did not *find* it.
Aaaaand have just seen the Paypal button. Never mind.
It’s a tricky, sneaky little pledge drive.
Mabel: “Alison in the UK!”
Did that trigger the Sex Pistols in anybody else’s musical memory?
Rotten: “RRRIGHT! Now! (laughs) Alison in the UK! She’s coming some time, and maybe..”
um, i would say that considering the pledge drive was wholly started by the blog-visitors, “sneaky” could be an accurate description.
i truly love alison’s work. truly. i am so broke it’s not funny, but that (to me, for me) is not a reason to NOT give a bit here and there. and the paypal button feels so much better & more personal then buying the book in a bookstore, for some reason. like, 100% goes straight to alison, ya know?
i dunno, i visit this blog quite a bit, it makes me happy & it’s free, that’s pretty sweet.
i think an annual give some if you’ve got some pledge drive is a great idea. cuz it’s rough out there for a writer.
I never had to pay a dime to read your strip in the decade plus that I’ve read it. I went to a private school in a small city that was dominated by religious uber-conservatives, and having DTWOF show up online or in an out-of-town magazine once in a while was a mental and emotional retreat. I would clip those missives, not knowing when the next one would show up. When I visited larger cities I would buy the books and then loan them out. I never got a single one of them back. It *is* being a patron, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to give something. If I start to make more than $7/hr I’ll throw down more. It’s a weird, probably often uncomfortable thing, having a visible (and rather vocal) fanbase.
As far as your “syndrome” goes, it seems to be a cross between classic procrastination (I did a short 25-page thesis on procrastination in college which was turned in late) and an effort to exert some direct control over your life. Six trips in five months and I’d be taking pictures just to remember who I was. Some of those coping mechanisms from childhood have a new manifestation on the internet. I’m sure we’re all in agreement that if you can, wrangle some time out to combat jetlag with relaxation and camomile. Or Darjeeling and sightseeing. Whatever sails your schooner.
Wouldn’t the woman at the airport have said “SA femme est malade,” as possessive pronouns agree with the object rather than the subject in French? (anal former French teacher here).
Bonjour! What a super websight! Very refreshing to peruse from where we live in Paris (France). I eat frogs and drink wine. Woold like more informatons on this. Best regards! Mikael.
Superb! (I wrote something else and then I read below that I aint supposed ter. So I deleted it.)