Oy, that Myers guy is babbling in California again. Tonight at 7pm, I’ll be in Main Quad Building 420 (Jordan Hall), room 041, at Stanford. Two more days. I’ll make it.
Many people have asked where I’ll be tomorrow. Again at 7pm, look for me in Weaver 110 on the Sierra College campus.
Don’t look for me on the day after, though. I’ll be slumped in a plane, on my way back to spending a delightful 12 hours or so in Minneapolis.
I seem to be leaving a trail of noisy wreckage behind me as I cruise through California. You can read one account of my talk at Davis in their local paper — I sound very ferocious in the description — and my evening in Chico was recorded. That one was a little different; we just gathered for beer and pizza, and then we sat around and people asked questions, so it was more of a casual Q&A.
I’ll be heading out shortly to talk some more. I think my voice is getting a little huskier after all this…it must hold out for another week and a half!
For everyone writing to me concerned about the status of the stranded Trophy Wife™: she’s fine. She was going to be stuck in a gas station in Hancock, Minnesota for a night, and a local minister stepped up and offered her a place to stay…and when the weather cleared a bit, helped her get back home to Morris. So she has survived the storm, is doing fine, and is even going to work today.
I’ll be speaking tonight at 7 in the Student Union of Sacramento City College.
Holy crap, they’re charging admission. Maybe no one will show up now…unless I add extra value to my performance. Strip tease? Singing the Narwhal song? My imitations of celebrity creationists (warning: they all involve drooling)? Oh, man, where can I get a puppet, some KY, and a rabid wolverine at such short notice?
Krystalline Apostate summarizes the event with the customary misspelling of my name, compliments me on my grip, and includes a picture of me looking hunched over in agony — he must have been crushing my hand is all I can say.
The perils of posting from a cell phone — I actually wrote something here as I was being driven to Chico, and my phone apparently ate it, making it a blank post. Which didn’t stop anyone since it gathered 66 comments.
Anyway, I’m feeling guilty. I was in the pleasant warmth (and moistness) of California, feeling no stress, and my wife called to report that she was stranded. She’d been on her way to work when she was slammed by a blizzard and white-out conditions, conditions which make driving literally impossible, and she’d pulled over into a gas station in a tiny town in rural Minnesota. And had been stuck there for hours, with no end in sight, and so she’d simply been hunkered down in a gas station all day. There is no motel or much of anything in that town, so she’s relying on the kindness of strangers — some charitable family in town might be able to put her up for a night, because she sure isn’t going anywhere.
Or maybe she could handle the late night shift at the gas station? Nah, they probably just close up for the night, especially in a blizzard.
It’s not my fault, but a fellow still has to feel awful about abandoning his wife to the hazards of Minnesota weather. The least I can do is tell all of you that if ever you get to meet the Trophy Wife™ you should offer her some sympathy, since she puts up with even more than you can possibly imagine. The Catholic church might as well start canonization procedures now, because living with me ought to make her a shoo-in for sainthood, despite the trivial fact that she’s not Catholic.
This one seems to be a bit buried, but apparently I’ll be speaking at The Graduate (400 W 1st Street) at 4 pm in Chico. All I know is my ride arrives soon — apparently this is one of the awkward legs of the tour where I’ve imposed a long drive on my hosts.
Here are the details, straight from my hosts.
Zeno has a write-up of the Q&A of my talk at Davis. It’s weird — I should just give up on the formal talk business and just have questions. They’re fun and they’re all over the place, and don’t often have much to do with the content of what I’d said.
And that’s OK.
I am beginning to lose track of where and when I am — I woke up this morning and it took a while to puzzle out exactly why I was in this hotel room. We did have a fun time with the UC Santa Cruz Secular Student Alliance and the Secular Humanists of Santa Cruz County with a packed room and another long night of discussion. Besides, the sun has finally come out, I got to see redwoods and surfers, and it actually looks like California for a change, instead of Seattle.
Today I’m heading off to Cupertino and De Anza College, speaking in De Anza College Forum 1 at 2pm. Note the earlier time; I think we’re hoping to get the crowd just coming off their Sunday church lunch. It may also mean I can get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight, because I’m feeling the lack of sleep piling up in my head.
Last night was another lively and fun meeting, hosted by the only SANE people at Berkeley—as is typical, the questions were the most entertaining part of the event, and they just kept coming. Maybe I should be brave and just skip the whole lecture part and stand up there and let ’em keep me dancing with weird questions, for two or three hours.
Today, though, I’ll probably open my mouth some more first. I’ll be heading up to Santa Cruz, a rare place with a deep appreciation of our molluscan cousins, and will be speaking at 7pm in the Bay Tree Building, Third Floor, Cervantez and Velasquez Room. I hope it’s a big room, crowds have been on the order of 400 or so. Although it has been raining a lot, so maybe fewer Santa Cruz students will show up because they’re all out cuddling the happy, booming population of banana slugs.
I do love me a banana slug, too.
