While you were reading last week’s diary entry, we were driving down from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The effects of the prolonged drought are strikingly horrific; what was green and lush the last time I drove that way is now a barren waste of parched brown grass, and farmers are planting only a fraction of their arable land because there wouldn’t be enough water to irrigate all the crops if they planted all they could.
Of course, Los Angeles looked like Los Angeles always looks; our hotel was near the airport, so getting downtown for my talk at Liberty On the Rocks was not difficult. The turnout was good, and the audience very enthusiastic; it was a mix of LOTR members and readers, and the questions were all good ones. Then on Friday morning I had my makeup done professionally (for the first time in my life!) in preparation for my interview on Reason TV. My interviewer was Dr. Thaddeus Russell, whom regular readers may recognize as the author of A Renegade History of the United States; he first expressed an interest in interviewing me last November, but since I don’t exactly get to LA that often it took a while to set up. It should be edited and posted sometime in the next few weeks, and when it is I’ll embed it in that week’s TW3 column.
My friend went off on a side trip Friday morning (we’re going to meet up again in Las Vegas this weekend), so on Saturday I rented a car and drove down to San Diego. I didn’t have any public gigs there, but I was interviewed for the Edge of Chaos podcast and spent the afternoon and evening with my husband, who’s been working in the area for some time now. Today I’m driving over to Tucson to meet with some sex worker activists there, then on Thursday I’m headed to Las Vegas, where…well, you’ll see next week!
One of the attendees at my LOTR appearance gave me a primer in how to accept payments and donations via bitcoin, so as soon as my application for the processing company is approved you should see a new way to donate appear below the subscription box. And that’s important because, frankly, my expenses have been higher and revenues lower than I had originally hoped, and it looks as though I’ll be doing a lot more sex worker rights activities than book activities. So, I’ve set up a GoFundMe page, which has already attracted almost 20% of my goal since I activated it Friday night; if you can contribute anything please do! Some of you have already been extremely generous even before I set up this page, and I can’t possibly express how grateful I am for each and every one of you.
Here’s my tour schedule, which is still in flux; check back when I’m getting close to you for details of local appearances. If your city isn’t on the list, but it’s within about four hours’ drive of another city which is on the list, just send an email asking me to visit. Your request will have even more impact if you can suggest a specific place I could do a book reading or give a talk, and it’s virtually assured if you can actually make the arrangements yourself (in other words if it’s your store, club or whatever).
