gettin' some (at a conference)

Music: Japancakes: Waking Hours (2004)

I have just finished, after almost two weeks of preparation, writing all the responses, talking points, and papers that am to have ready for the professional conference I am attending next week. I have also finished preparing for our unusual "repetition panel," which shall be very different this year (for starters, we have t-shirts commemorating the fifth anniversary for sale . . . as well as the complete panel itself). Anyhoot, it's like I’m already exhausted and haven't even left for the conference yet. Every year I say I'm not going to do fifty billion things, and end up getting roped into fifty billion things. I'm not sure I will go next year (I really do need a break). Is anyone else in "the field" thinking about skipping San Diego next year?

Now, so that I'm not too misleading with the title of today's entry, what follows is not of the "how-to" variety, but more of the, "how did I get left out?" variety: apparently professional conferences are seen as opportunities to make-out, grind, and otherwise be naughty in bodily ways. I'm not saying that I don't realize this happens: as every randy 20-something grad student could likely attest, the fantasy of meeting some hot stranger at a conference and getting jiggy is widespread. I've seen some unfortunate make-out sessions in crowded conference hotel hallways (hey people, don't do that; it makes you look bad). I've seen some nasty-come ons at the hotel bar, otherwise distinguished scholars, usually men, behaving very badly with unsuspecting, at-first-kind-of-flattered-but-then-horrified young women. Conferences are gaze-crazy zones and you'd have to be a total idiot not to notice the libidinal charge of these carnivals. However regrettably, I'm just sayin' that these conventions were never lovefests for yours truly.

I know, I know. Readers are baffled, mystified . . . dumbfounded! How can it be?

In other words, I have never gotten jiggy at a conference. Does that make me too naive? Ok, well, let me take that back. Once I did as a brand new grad student, but it was a grind with a good friend and was nothing serious or (regrettably) orgasmic. What I'm saying is that (to my knowledge) I have never hit on anyone at a conference, nor have I been hit on. I've never done lines of cocaine or shot horsey up my butt at a conference, either.

Now, I don't hit on folks because I am fiercely loyal as a partner, or if I'm single, simply because I don't want to be perceived as one of these nasty, smarmy conference people who get tipsy so that they can be inappropriate. I guess, then, because of my concern for reputation or whatever, "getting some" has never been on my (conscious) agenda. I'm usually at a conference to be with friends whom I cannot see any other time, or for "business" (which, lets face it, is seeing friends). Yet this inner puritan of mine has apparently caused me to miss out on the hot, exciting, if not altogether seedy underground of the professional conference. Looking at the excited faces of some of my conference going friends, it must be like a scene from the middle of some David Lynch movie, as if you walk into the conference hotel lobby and Madonna's music blasts your entire body with "where's the party? I want to lose controooollllll" except that instead of "party" she's singing "orgy," as black-capped academics caper about telepathically communicating which otherwise respectable academic is the hook up for eight-balls and crank.

Well, I get carried away. I know this stuff goes on, I guess I am (somewhat regrettably) clueless about how it goes down ( who is the conference coke dealer, anyway? ). So, if you're with me at a conference and you see something going down---a drug deal, a hook-up, footsie---point it out to me. I want to learn to spot this secret love action, because . . . because I like to watch.

Anyhoo, so why this topic? Do I have a now not-so-secret agenda this year? No. But I think others wished I did. Last weekend a friend who was in town asked me if I had lined-up anyone to make-out with "at the conference." No, I haven't, thanks. The very next day my mother phoned to ask if I "planned to met any new ladies?" Ah . . no. No plans (although she did prompt me to think if I did hit on anyone, it should be exclusively men---maybe I'd pick up someone and bring him home, just in time for the holidays). And then just two days ago my shrink asked the same question, couched in an more appropriate yet nevertheless disconcerting way about hooking up with "old flames" at the conference. What? Did I not get the memo about my conference going some how?

I remember at a conference many years ago, a trusted mentor, with a straight face and apparently a history of success, said: "you outta get yew sum tonight baby! You have the lead article in QJS!" (QJS is for Quarterly Journal of Speech, a visible rhetoric journal in my field). I thought the statement was ridiculous and said so: "So, instead of hey baby, what's your sign? I should say, hey, didja read the recent issue of QJS?"

Nevertheless, in preparation for this week's conference I welcome your siliceous stories about "Sex in the Conference" (post anonymously, even). Have any stories? Tips?

Finally, I feel a twinge of irresponsibility with this post, so let me say something a bit more sober, especially for any graduate students who are reading and are attending a professional conference for the first time. Most of what I'm talking about here, with intended irony and humor, is between like-minded, like-aged adults. Younger folks especially should be warned that very inappropriate things can and do happen at conferences, especially at the conference bar and often to young women. When Mr. Big Name scholar comes around and has had one too many, do watch yourself, and if his breath is worse than Listerine and his eyes are wandering, scram! Nothing can ruin your good time more than Mr. Big Names behaving badly.

And on that note, I swear that this humble, small-name conference goer pledges to be good (just not too good).