Friday 24 May 2013

Kraków Appearance Postponed

The retreat in Kraków for Singles to be held in October has been cancelled. However, I have been invited to speak at the women's retreat in May 2014. Cieszę się, że jadę do Krakowa w maju bo wtedy będę umieć lepiej mówić po polsku.  

Details will be forthcoming. I am sad not to have an excuse (or the money) to go to Poland in October, but I am relieved I will not have to talk about Single life to men and women together. Speaking to a big crowd of Polish women about their personal lives, no problem. I could do it all day long in English and broken Polish and, if desperate, broken French. Speaking to a big crowd of Polish men about their personal lives, problem.

That reminds me of my last Polish appearance, and how I dropped the ball.  A Polish fan dropped by the the Kraków book fair to ask me how she could meet men. Stumped and speechless, I did not say, "What about THESE men?" After all, there were literally thousands of men at the Kraków book fair. Thousands. And she could have even have figured out what the men were interested in by what books they were looking at. Why it has taken me months to come up with that answer is a terrible mystery.

Possibly it is because I would rather have been run over by a car than attempt to talk to men at the Kraków book fair. Speaking Polish to Polish men is just extremely scary for me. I am sure all the ones who go to book fairs are very nice, but they scare me anyway. Young English-speaking ones in their twenties are okay. Most of the time.

9 comments:

Girl from the Fair said...

Hi Seraphic,

funny that you mention the thing. it was me talking to you at the bookfair in Cracow last autumn. It didn't occur to me to start a conversation with those men around us either:-) Well, perhaps because be I'm shy. But I'm a teacher working with foreigners on a daily basis and I'm not lacking in confidence when I talk to my students (no matter how cute they are). That's how I meet those likeable guys who want to get to know me and they usually turn out to be gay...I worked in Italy and speak Italian, from time to time I meet new Italian boys (either gay or in relationships already). I only find it extremely hard to meet my own co-nationals. Back to the point: I wouldn't have dared to speak to those numerous men present at the fair beacuse I noticed that when I walk the street and smile, only women of all ages and older men smile back. Young guys will too often look at you like you are an idiot, a terrorist or an alien...

Seraphic said...

Oh, hooray! Cieszę się, że Pani jeszcze czyta. I think I wrote a post earlier about how I could have given you better advice that day. You see that you are memorable!

There must be a fair number of your co-nationals in Italy. I wonder where they go to watch football, etc.

At the book fair, presumably you could have gone to the music section, for example, and asked some nice man politely if the author had been there yet. (Any author.) Of if he had seen the author. Or if he knew of any authors. Easy me to say, though! Much harder to do.

I will ponder the problem of Polish men looking at you as if you were a terrorist and see if I come up with any answers.

AJ said...

Dorothy ciesze się, że będziesz na Majówce 2014!

Od Majówki 2012 zaczęło się piękne dzieło dzielnych Niewiast, czyli cyklicznych formacyjnych spotkań dla kobiet w Krakowie. Trwamy dzielnie do dzisiaj;)

Może pomyślałabyś o wydaniu kolejnej Twojej książki w Polsce;)
"Anielskie single" już przeczytane;)

Pozdrawiam ciepło z Polski!

Seraphic said...

Dzięki, AJ! Chcę bardzo wrócić do Krakowa. Wiem, że muszę napisać nową ksiażkę dla Ciebie!

AJ said...

Dorothy, a może po prostu przetłumaczyć Twoją książkę "The closet's All Mine"?

Seraphic said...

Ach, AJ! "The Closet's All Mine" jest tylko właśnie amerkański tytuł dla Anielski Single. Mam nową powieść w lipcu, ale to będzie po angielsku.

AJ said...

To może zapytać w HomoDei czy ją wydadzą? Wtedy na maj 2014 byłaby gotowa po polsku?:) Byłoby super!

Seraphic said...

AJ, niestety Homo Dei nie wydają powieści!

Seraphic said...

Ale mam nadzieję, że inny polski wydawca to kupi.