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Thisbe Nissen: Tour Diary

Preliminaries - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 -
Day 7 - Day 8 - Day 9 - Day 10 - Day 11 -Day 12 - Day 13 - Day 14 - Day 15 -
Day 16 - Day 17 - Day 18 - Day 19 - Day 20 - Day 21 - Day 22 -
Day 23 - Day 24 - Day 25 - Day 26 - Day 27 - Day 28 - Day 29 - Home Diary - July 25 - July 26


Katie and Bimini near Dash Point

Day 18: Seattle

We hang out, go for a walk with the dogs on the beach by Dash Point, then make our way into Seattle for my KUOW interview. The host, Marcie Sillman, is great, and I am feeling really good when I leave. On my way to the door, the man at the front desk calls after me. It appears he's got someone on the phone who knows me. He's writing it down on a post-it as he talks, a name, a phone number, the words "Sierra Instutite." "Is that him?" I ask. "You want to say hello?" he asks back. He has seemed until nw ow as though he is trying to protect me from the potential crazy on the other end of the phone, calling th rasio station to stalk their guest. I take the phone. "Grasshopper!" (He and I did a wilderness trip together a few summers ago. We had trail names. He was Grasshopper. I was Lichen, because I didn't really move for the entire week we were in the backcountry.) Turns out he'd seen a review of the book and called the leader fo that trip we did to try to get in touch a few weeks back, then just happened to be listening to the radio today and heard me... turns out he's writing too, and I don't know how it comes up, but he's going to be at BreadLoaf (writers' conference) too in August. I squeal with delight. I love this part of it, the part when pieces of your life come rushing back at you. We hang up, excited to get back in touch, and to hang out in VT later in the summer.


Chris and Kimberly

Katie, Kimberly and Chris have been listening to the live radio show in the car, and when they come pick me up we go to the hotel where C and I will be tonight and everyone takes a nap but me. Then we go down to Pioneer Square for a really good Itlaian dinner before the reading. We consume more garlic than shuld be legal and I am afraid for what I smell like from the audience of the reading, We get a great crowd (even with David Hadju reading from "Positively 4th St." downstairs) including college friends, camp friends, Iowa frends, even Salon.com fellow Table Talker Ed Page, and a bunch of of people I don't even know. I am kindly introduced by Amanda, (from BEA, the one who I, it turns out, played with in the playground in NY when we were babies). I read chaper 3, and people laugh, for real. Then they ask a million questions, I adore this audience. Everyone waits in line and I get to actually talk with people. I feel really good about everything. Chris and I buy Elliot Bay t-shirts on the way out, then walk home uo the calf-wrenching hills of Seattle. It's such a beautiful night and the sky is a most intense shade of midnight blue with yellow at the edges. I am exhausted as all get-go.