Driving back from Massachusetts.

You have to be some kind of jerk to
do 90 on the Merritt Parkway in the wet.

Unfortunately I am some kind of jerk.

The Smith gig went okay. Just okay. Tell you the truth I was kind of underprepared. The feedback I got was positive but deep down inside I know I could have/should have done a better, more cohesive, less spastic lecture.

Northampton was nice, like a 1.5-day mini vacation. They put me up in a fairly posh hotel with an unimaginative name (The Northampton). Weird thing was my room had two twin beds separated by a five-foot swath of carpet, like in I Love Lucy. Maybe it was the only room they had, or maybe this all-girl’s school was trying to discourage me from bringing a sexually curious co-ed back to the room.

There were two speakers besides me, a fiftyish JA dude from the left coast and an early-20s KA female from Jersey who’s involved in politics. After the lectures they had dinner in a building called Unity Hall. They laid out a bunch of Chinese food in chafing dishes and there were chairs everywhere.

I doled some grub out onto my plate and looked for a place to sit. It was like high school all over again, there were (this time, all-female) clusters and cliques and then there was me. I didn’t know where to sit so I just grabbed a chair by the door and ate looking at my plate.

Thankfully a lesbian I recognized from the afternoon stood near me, and we started talking, then she sat and ate next to me. Actually I’m not sure she was a lesbian (80%) and I’m not sure what that has to do with anything anyway, the point is I wasn’t eating alone.

Afterwards there was a small on-campus party. A DJ was playing (actually pretty decent) hip hop and there were a bunch of cute girls dancing. I stopped by with the KA woman and felt suddenly old. I ended up hanging out for a bit and then repairing to the hotel, where I enjoyed the splendors of cable. God I love hotels.

The people who set up the conference had left me a gift basket in my room. So sweet! It was filled with cookies and crackers and bottled water and stuff. On the bed I ripped it open eagerly and had a low moment: There’s a party filled with cute girls going on right now, and here I am sprawled on my twin bed with crumbs all over my face, mesmerized by World’s Wildest Police Videos. If I had a therapist we would have a lot of things to talk about.