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Hold on to what is good even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do even if it is a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when I have gone away from you.
- Pueblo Blessing

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Tuesday, May. 18, 2004 - 4:13 a.m.

Cost of the War in Iraq
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WARNING!!!! if you know me personally, you may read my diary, but if you do, you take the chance of hearing things you don't want to know, misunderstanding what I've written and being hurt by it. If you are unsure if it is ok to read, save yourself and me the grief and heartache, and ask first!!! Please note that this is a DIARY, ie my subjective feelings, hearsay, suppositions, and outpourings of ranting of the moment. It does not represent objective news, the whole of what I think of a topic or someone, or even a thought-out representation of any of the above. Keep that in mind. Thanks. * Here is a Diary Etiquette Read Me.

A Smashing Weekend in Toronto

Ok, here I am, sleepy me.

Let me tell you that although one "saves time" by travelling during the sleephours on an overnight bus, that doesn't really count to your body as a "good night's sleep"!! hehe.

Well, my Toronto trip was a resounding success. The actual Book Fair was spent chatting up people who had never seen my comic. Now why didn't I think that I shouldn't have the index page be the middle of a buttfucking scene on the days of the book fair?? Nothing gentle about steering someone to a website to check out my comics and come across gloves lube and moaning without even getting the nice buildup in the story. Sigh. One cannot think of everything in advance. I hope I didn't shock too many people! And get too many straight males oogling my stuff expecting it to be the equivalent of xxx spam what with that intro. Sigh.

Well, I left here at 7am, and tried to trick my body into thinking that 7:30 am to 2pm on a greyhound was "sleeping". I was thoroughly dazed by the time I arrived in Toronto, and it was a bogglingly hot day. Sort of overcast but stifling.

And since the friends whom I was staying with have a real 9-5 job now, I ended up dragging all my books, and other baggage with me all day til about 8pm. Can we say underarm sweat stains??

I first sat on a strip of lawn in the middle of downtown and made myself a grated cheddar cheese, tomato, may and alfalfa sprout sandwich with Azim bread. Yes I was a good good girl, and packed a frozen bottle of water with all the ingredients for a good sandwich. Even strips of broccoli and red pepper in a ziploc. So I am proud to say that over the entire weekend I only ate ONE meal in a restaurant, and that was going out with my friends on Friday night. pat pat on my back. I even took bananas and granola bars, so no snacking either, out of pocket.

I stumbled around in the heat until looking for a place to make photocopies of the colored cards I use to advertise my book, with not much success to start with. The first place didn't have card stock. The second place had a machine that was totally uncalibrated for color (primary red came out as orange) and focus (white shoelaces on red shoes totally vanished since the red just fuzzed out on all sides) as well as bogglingly nasty service people who said I was a pain in the ass ... imagine actually wanting NONblurry writing on 20 laser copies at $1.49 apiece.

Forward and onward to the This Aint The Rosedale Library bookstore, where I had a real mood pickmeup in the form of the very friendly and nice Dan who works there. He took 5 copies of my book, as well as copies of two other books I had brought to flog at the fair (done by the guy who got me to go to SF)...While we were hobnobbing, chatting about cartoonists we know and have met (and he was dishing on Andy Warhol!), a woman I've known for years came in and recognized me and bought a copy of my book. I felt great since they'd not had them in the store for 15 minutes and had sold one. That looks very good.

Things continued to go well, as a good samaritan on the street saw me oogling a map, trying to decide whether to descend into the quick subway, or slog along the street in the heat in the hopes of finding a copycenter. He informed me that there was indeed a copycenter IN the subway... which I found and got great speedy and high quality service at. Amazing how the earlier copycenter claimed that I was being totally unreasonable and that the only way to get a good copy was to have brought in the actual computer document (how EVER did people make photocopies BEFORE computer documents??... strange but I thought they had a glass system for a reason)... and this new place could make an excellent copy on the first try. Score!!

Forward and onward, things just got better. The Beguiling took 12, yes 12, copies of my new book, and some copies of the other two. I had brought 25 copies in total, thinking myself ridiculously optimistic... I expected to come home with at least 15 of them... but between the Beguiling and TATRL bookstore, I had only 8 copies left for the bookfair. yay!! And I managed to only spend about $45 there... that is a record low. It helped that the guy who normally eggs me on by giving me great deals was off early that evening.

BTW... if you are ever in Toronto, I wholeheartedly recommend BOTH of those bookstores. Actually Toronto has great bookstores. Glad Day Bookstorehas already ordered copies of my book, and so has The Toronto Women's Bookstore. Montreal hasn't had a women's bookstore since the late 80's and the lgbt bookstore closed two summers ago, as well as the best english language comics and graphic novels/sci fi store. sigh.

So, after all that, I went to my friends, and we went for dogwalkies, then dinner, and I was in bed very early. Like 1am.

On Saturday I was up at 9:30am, incredibly enough!! I had a banana and granola bar again, and made my way on public transit to the Book Fair. It was right outside the subway station, and consisted of three very large open rooms on the main floor of a church.

Once again I had the same issue as in San Fran... how does one bop around meeting other sellers, checking out their wares, when one is tied to one's own table selling and meeting the public?? I checked out a few tables in the first hour before there were many people, and then a couple times I *ran* back to someone's table to see their stuff once they'd introduced themselves to me.

I did see Andy Brown of Conundrum Press here in Montreal, and bought a really dandy zine in the form of a clothing pattern from Derek McCormack, published by Pas de Chance of the brilliant and popular Lost Pet Poster zines, now a book. It is called "Western Suit" from the "Cowpoke Pattern Co", and as well as a zine with a story, there is a real pattern for a cowboy shirt inside. Unfortunately size 16 for men. Big big big.

Well, I hate to say this, but it is 5am, and I have just finished finding the bookstore links. I am going to sign off and write about who else I met and stuff I picked up tomorrow. You will have to be satisfied with this. And the goofy results of the several quizes I found at Chaosdaily's:

You are Slackware Linux. You are the brightest among your peers, but are often mistaken as insane.  Your elegant solutions
to problems often take a little longer, but require much less effort to complete.
Which OS are You?

You are Susan Gezi.Your father was killed by a planned motor accident. He was the former Zimbabwean Minister for Youth
& Gender Equality. You have $22,000,000 to share.  You want to assure me this transaction is 100% risk free.
Which Nigerian spammer are You?

Friday's horoscope:

Here is my horoscope for Friday, May 14:

Instead of dwelling on wrongs, find a way to make it right. Mix and match freely, pulling together elements from many disciplines. Make yourself look really good -- it won't be hard.

And Saturday's:
Here is my horoscope for Saturday, May 15:

You learn something new every day, and it's no burden -- you look forward to it all, even the homework. Concentrate hard and get the most out of what life is teaching you now.

Well, wish me good zzzzzz's. tah!

And I really will try to get caught up on all your diaries. soon. zzzz

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previous meanderings - future past

Goodbye Michael. May your next life be kinder to you. - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Taking Care of Your Cows - Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009
Saint Joseph robs the cradle and eats spaghetti - Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009
sticky notes and broken irises - Friday, Jun. 12, 2009
The FOODCOMMANDER - Monday, Jun. 08, 2009

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