Anarchist Writers

So I set off by Greyhound to Buffalo from Syracuse on what should have been a 3 hour journey with two hours to spare before the meeting. An hour out of Syracuse there was a loud bang and the bus came to a rapid halt beside the freeway.

It turned out that a tyre had blown out and we were stuck there for over two hours waiting in the next bus in the schedule to catch us. This took almost everyone on board.

I could have just made it on time but at the Rochester stop the border patrol got on board (they also checked the bus at Syracuse) and got suspicious of some guy at the back of the bus. So we were stuck there another 20 minutes while they ran his ID. It turn out there was no problem but it meant I only got to Buffalo 30 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start and I still had to get to the venue.

So forty five minutes after the start time and only 45 minutes from the end of the period that had been booked I started the talk in the Buffalo Pride Center. I was too flustered to remember to count how many people were there, I'd guess about a dozen and I also forgot to pass the contact sheet around as I've done at every previous meeting.

Afterwards we ended up in a pub called the Founding Fathers which was decked with Paddys day stuff and full of people in green. So at least I got a couple of beers in and I'll have a chance to talk to a lot of the audience last night later today.