This Ain’t The Rosedale Library

November 13, 2005

I am discovering there is a correlation between how many friends I have coming to a reading and how anxious I am before that reading. With friends in the audience, I feel slightly more pressure to put on a good show because they have taken time out from their inevitably busy lives to see me. Thus, for the Toronto gig with Sarah and Mike and Harmon and Lisa and Kelly and all the As It Happens people and Kari from HB Fenn and … well, I was absolutely stricken with panic. Thankfully, Charlie, one of the pillars of This Ain’t The Rosedale Library (perhaps the best bookstore in Canada), was kind and welcoming and my friends were, were, my friends, meaning incredibly good and supportive people. So all went well.

After the show, we retired at Ted’s Collision on College for a refreshing beverage and I quickly rediscovered the Canadian drinking pace. (In France, people generally order a ‘demi’ of beer, about 250 ml. My friends in Toronto are more comfortable ordering by the pitcher. Messy messy messy but any evening that involves mad table dancing with my cousin Amanda and Dara from Thunder Bay is an unqualified success. As for those memory holes, blame Harmon.