The Monk Manual V .9 (beta)

I’ve been telling you about how Dancer will be coming with me to Texas later this week to be my booth babe at ARS2. While we have done some multi-day traveling together in the past, and we have both been to lots of leather conventions separately, this will be the first time she has gotten on a plane, traveled across the country, lugged show gear and come to an event just to work the booth with me. While I love and adore this woman for offering to do this, I’ll admit that I am a wee bit worried. Spending 16 hours standing in a 10x10 space with another human being for 2 days in a row can be a bit, um, shall we say challenging? Now it is not that I do not think that she is up to the task, quite the opposite really. Rather I don’t think she has ever dealt with me when I am in “show mode” for 3 straight days.

So Nerdy and Tambo, having years of combined experience dealing with me when I am under this kind of stress, have been compiling a “cheat sheet” for Dancer. So far here are some of their words of wisdom for her.

1) Feed the Monk every 4 hours, even if he says that he is not hungry.
2) Find the nearest non-hotel coffee shop and make them your new best friends.
3) Double americano, 1 cream and one sugar (bonus points if it is brown sugar)
4) Unless it is on fire, he is not leaving the booth till the day is over. Don’t bother.
5) Never, ever sing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” in the booth.
6) Chop salad, dressing on the side.
7) The furrowed brow? That won’t relax till you are on the plane home.

All in all, I think she is going to be great. While preparing for shows can be huge and stress filled slogs, the actual events can be a great deal of fun. This is due mostly to the folks who come see us at the booth. We have some great friends and fans in Austin that I am looking forward to seeing again.