Being an Author is just so darn GLAM - more comedy from the front

So here I am, in deadline hell for ROWENA AND THE DARK LORD, and what I am doing?  Writing a humour column, of course.

Because this job of being an author is just so darn glam.  Here’s more proof.

Yesterday: met for lunch with writing colleague before doing my author signing gig at the Ontario Library Conference in Toronto. 

I was prepared even.  Not wanting a repeat of that infamous day I threw coffee on myself just before having to speak in front of an audience of 600, I had a spare blouse and jacket in the car.  But no spare pants.

You just know what’s coming next. 

No you don’t.

It wasn’t the Korean Bimbambat or whatever the hell that yummy dish is called that did me in.   

Nope.  Cover your eyes NOW if you are a tad squeamish.

Shlepped down the steep steps to the lady’s loo.  Flaming hell.  It’s one of those skinny minny models. 

You know the ones…where the doorway is so small you have to squeeze sideways into the cubicle.

Did it.  Managed to sit.  Then the ‘issue’.  (If you’re a man, stop reading NOW.)  There’s no way in hell I can get my legs wide enough apart to wipe.

So.  Work out with calculus the possibilities.  Time is apassin’.  And I am due at the signing booth in less than half an hour.  I stand up and turn sideways to manage the deed.

Pants drop to the floor.  It’s been snowing for two days. NOT a dry floor.  A very wet one.  And it’s twenty minutes to show-time in the booth.

To the astonished woman who walked into the can when I was bent over with my butt shoved under the hand dryer – MY APOLOGIES.

(Great signing by the way.  Many thanks to Leslie and Amy from Orca Books for the terrific turnout they managed to get for me!  Orca Books ROCK!)

WHY BOOK TOURS ARE SO EXPENSIVE - more comedy from Funny Girl

Book tours are expensive.  You travel around to independent book stores and you sell some books and sign them.  It’s fun.  You meet a lot of great people.  But it’s expensive.  And I’m not talking about the hotel tab and the bar bill. 

I should have just stayed in the bar.  It was leaving the bar that became expensive.

Nice night.  We decided to go for a walk.  It was dark, but I had on my brand new expensive progressive eye-glasses, so not a problem, right?

One second I was walking and talking.  The next, I was flying through the air.

Someone screamed.  

WHOMP.  (That was me, doing a face plant.)

“OHMYGOD! Are you okay?”  said my colleague.

I was clearly not okay.  In fact, I was splat on the sidewalk and could not move.  

“Fine!” I yelled into the flagstone.  “I’m Fine!”

I tried to lift my head.  Ouch.

“That must have hurt,” said someone helpfully.

I write murder mysteries.  It may come in handy.

A crowd had gathered.  Not the sort of crowd that gently lifts you off the ground.  More the sort of crowd that gawks.

“Couldn’t figure out why you were running ahead of us.” My colleague shook his head. 

I wasn’t running.  I was tripping and falling.

“That sidewalk is uneven.  Your foot must have caught on it.”

No shit, Sherlock.

By now I had tested various body parts.  Knees were numb.  Hands, scraped.  Chin, a little sore.  

But here’s the miraculous thing.  I hit in this order: knees, tummy, boobs, palms.  My tummy and boobs cushioned the fall and saved my face. 

Yes, this was going through my mind as I pushed back with my tender palms to balance on my bloody knees.

“Ouch!”  I said.  No, that’s a lie.  I said something else.

I stood up.  It was a miracle.  My knees were a bloody mess, but the dress survived without a scratch.  It was made in China, of course.  Of plastic.

The crowd was dispersing.  But the pain wasn’t over.

Next day, I hobbled to the clinic.  The doctor, who probably isn’t old enough to drive a car yet, shook his head.  “Progressive glasses are the number one reason seniors fall.  They are looking through the reading part of their glasses when they walk, and can’t see the ground properly.”

‘Seniors fall?’  I’m not even eligible for seniors discounts yet!

“Get some distance-only glasses,” he advised.

So I did.  Another 350 bucks later, I have a third pair of glasses to carry around in my purse.

Which means my purse isn’t big enough.

So I need to buy a new purse.

And this is why book tours are so expensive.