Reading Recap

Overall, I am very pleased with how my WestFest reading went last Saturday. There was a fair crowd there: a nice mix of friendly and new faces. One of my co-workers was there too, though thankfully I didn't know it until she came up to me afterwards. I think that would have really thrown me off my game. I don't really talk about being a writer at work, and in general, my work self is very much different from my self self. Anyroad, the whole thing came off without a hitch - more importantly to me, my bit sounded at least reasonably polished.

I had dutifully listened to the weather report, and expected it to be a cool 20 degrees when I was reading. So I planned to wear a very stylish light weight jacket with a very plain tank top underneath. Well, it was way more than 20 degrees and not cool at all. Pit sweat does not complement a stylish jacket. So I wore just the tank top. Luckily, Aaron McKenzie Fraser, who is as pale as I am, was on hand to provide the sunscreen.

The tanktop is one that I bought last year before I gained my happy fat. It's a little tight now, and tends to ride up. Halfway through the reading, I glanced down at my notes and saw that my belly was poking out. I tried to tug the tank down surreptitiously, but because I was trying to be quick I did a bad job. So I left it. I figured that what would be worse than having my belly stick out would be to look like I really did not want my belly sticking out.

One of the pieces I read had to do with people having crushes and then not saying anything until after they were over. When my bit was done, I walked off the stage and Lucy van Oldenbarneveld, the "founding host" of WestFestLit, said something along the lines of just having had a conversation along those lines with Matthew Firth. I didn't catch her whole comment, since I was still catching my breath, and I am just not brazen enough to pepper Matthew with probing questions about his former love life. Or lack thereof. I am dying to know the full story, though.

Judging from the number of people that I ran into who said "Hey, how did the reading go? I meant to get there, but. You know..." I got the word out fairly well. I heard that line *a lot* over Saturday afternoon and Sunday. People were always really apologetic, but fuck, I'm just happy they remembered whatever random posting I sent out well enough to be apologetic. I could do worse for sure. In fact, I have done worse.