On Wednesday--this coming Wednesday--April 18th, I am one of the three guests at Where Have You Been? It's an evening of live interviews, and takes place in Bluestockings bookstore on the Lower East Side.
I need some help here. I am completely distracted by moving, work, and an untimely cold that has felled me post-flying, or maybe post-itbeingcoldhere, and I don't know what to talk about.
Obviously, I'd like to discuss Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik. But what else? Do I want to talk about being hassled in Cairo? Making comic books in Kuwait? How-to for people who think it's expensive to travel? Trucks tipping over and hippos chasing me, and the conductor asking me for sex on the Trans-Siberian Railway? Being shaken down by police in Uzbekistan?
Or is it about humor, not the scary moments? I can't remember the funny moments. I am tired and my brain doesn't want to work on the Rough Guides piece about camel racing that I promised the nice UK editor this week. Nor do I want to move furniture, or proofread comic books. I'd prefer to crawl back onto my Aerobed here on Yancey's Hamilton Park condo and go to sleep.
Um, help?
7 comments:
Maybe you can talk about finding a place to stay in Egypt and the rents there. How much for a one bedroom or something like that. Everyone can relate.
I didn´t know u did the Trans-Siberian Railway, my friend Li and I are talking about doing that next year - I´ll have to go back on your blog to read about that!
If I were u´I think I´d go for the scary parts...
Trans-Sib was pre-blog--on mariesworldtour.com. Some people love it. I thought it was kind of boring. But it's a great way to get to Asia from Europe. Long, boring, and easy.
Unless you make missteps, as I did. Then there can be complications.
I vote that you focus on the odd and warmly-amusing anecdotes: such as holding the woman's clucking chicken on the bus. It may be hard to remember, now that you're back in JC (sick, jetlagged, uneasy about what's next, etc), but you do have an uplifting message to deliver: that people have the same hopes and fears everywhere, that one can communicate (sort of) and share experiences with people of vastly different circumstances and everyone is the better for it... even us armchair Marie-fans, who get our thrills from reading about it ;-)
I got email comments from two others:
1) they will lead the way. I think people want to hear it all - the good, the bad, the ugly, the laughing, the crying, the diarrhea. All of it!
2) agreed with Aunt Peggy.
It is kind of hard to remember when you're back at home. If I didn't keep websites, it would all be a blur. I find that I have to refer back to my own sites, like they are my diaries.
Yeah, I use my blog as a diary too. ("What was that guy's name? Oh, it's in my blog.")
Maybe you can use your experiences to encourage folks to get off the tour bus and interact with the local people. Most people are so afraid of anyone who appears to be different from what they are used to. And fear is the root of so much misunderstanding...
I vote with your aunt and mom. I really like most (maybe all) of what you write, but the things I remember best are the stories that sum up to "people have the same hopes and fears everywhere despite living in vastly different circumstances." Well, and I like the "Marie copes with something weird but not scary" stories, too.
The creepy stories are part of the package, but they make me worry for you. Of course, you could collect creepy stories anywhere...I know from personal experience that the disgusting pedestrian in Cairo has a twin in the NYC subway, for example. But I worry anyway.
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