This blog post is coming to you live from an adorable room in the Waterloo Hotel, an old-timey place directly across the street from a sex shop and a ping pong saloon. Literally, I’m looking at the sex shop right now. There it is. The Stag Shop, established 1972. The New Quarterly‘s staff are allowing me to be in the city for a couple of days because I won the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. (DIGRESSION: A person at a reception yesterday told me that Edna Staebler became embroiled in some sort of copyright battle over a cookie recipe and would only agree to make the trip to appear in court if she could find someone to take care of her cat while she was away. So, my kind of human all around. She loved cats, and she fought the truly important fights.) Those who are familiar enough with my writing that they don’t believe it could win something, and/or would like to see my name in a place, can click here. The essay (don’t worry, it’s not really an essay), an interview of sorts, and a blog post that includes some sweeeet photos of my living room (Q: Will there be Larrybombs? A: YES) will be showing up on TNQ‘s site soon.
Last night I did a three-minute reading in an acoustically kickass room at the festival’s opening event. This morning I woke up with what I’m choosing to think of as a celebratory migraine, because in times of extreme and obnoxiously timed pain it’s important to stay positive. In lieu of attending festival things I took a bunch of sumatriptan, drank a cup of coffee, and half-consciously watched episodes of Coronation Street in this adorable room until I was well enough to go out for a larger cup of coffee. This is the kind of life that awaits you if you make it big in the writing world like I have!
Tomorrow the migraine and I are off to Toronto to reunite with some old friends and visit some nerd-friendly attractions and eat as many desserts as I can cram into my face. Will I write anything during my three-day stay? No. But will I get lost 1000 times? You bet I will.
