Canada was fabulous, my friends. Despite getting grief at the border both ways (car searches: not just for stoners any more!), my time in Canada was pure magic. I stayed with my old friend Jolayne (shown here a few years back), who talks just as fast as I do, resulting in lightning speed chattering! Try to keep up and your ears might implode.

Thursday night I went straight from my border search to Teen Angst comedy night in Gastown, where my camera refused to take a single non-blurry photo and I had the pleasure of meeting the founder Sara Bynoe. Sara was way ahead of the game on the whole adolescent stage readings thing, having started Teen Angst in 2000, when Cringe and Mortified and the Salon of Shame were but a twinkle in our eyes.

Friday was the most insane day of press I’ve ever done, but so much fun. The only scary moment was when I sat down 2 minutes before the live telecast of Vancouver’s Breakfast Television, and the host said “So, your wedding was a disaster?” I was like, “Erm, no actually: it was so much fun I wrote a book about it!” She said, “Oh, your second wedding, you mean?” I said “Erm, no actually: I’ve only been married once.”

A quick moment of panic and a glance at her notes revealed that she’d read Jenn Farrell’s article in the Tyee, and thought it was mine. Then the cameras turned on, and we managed to sail through the interview gracefully — the cameramen snickering into their monitors when I mentioned our all-night rave reception wedding.

I had an interview every 2 hours, so I bounced around Vancouver from tv station to radio station to tv station to radio station. I think my favorite interview of the day was with Urban Rush, where I had the delight of spending several hours in the greenroom (I had some lag between interviews) chatting with a makeup artist named Michael who I wanted to fold into my trunk and smuggle across the border with me. (”No, I don’t have anything to declare, officer.”)

Then, just when I was exhausted from talking and couldn’t take it any more, it was time for my reading at Sophia Books. It was a small crowd of the most wonderful people, including the afore-mentioned Jenn, Leigh, as well as the lovely brides of Queer Wedding Story. Interestingly, the only people who come to my readings are folks I’ve reached out to online — no amount of radio or television promoting seems to work. Moral of the story: mainstream media dead? Or just dead to me? Or maybe I’m too weird for primetime? In between my chapters, there was an indie fashion show of gowns … I’d been downing wine at this point and couldn’t stop saying “CAN I TOUCH IT?!” every time I new dress came out. Gorgeousness!

Xta showed up and several of us all hung out at Sophia Books late into the evening, drinking wine and hooping and laughing. It reminded me of the infamous Raverbooks back in the day, where there was no line between what was bookstore and what was social space. (One night in 1998, I went to go pick Andreas up at work and found he and his coworkers rolling between the bookshelves, hugging each other while someone DJed near the register.)

Somehow, despite being up since 6am I managed to stay awake until almost 2.

Saturday, however, I was spent. I woke up from a dream about missing Andreas (aww: we’re both so busy these days. I miss him!), and so I skipped all tentative Saturday plans (shopping, hooping, other gerunds) and drove home to sit quietly and decompress with my man and my dog.

Next up: San Francisco this Friday.