the Watson roundup

Here's Paul and Jim holding the door open for us at dinner on Thursday night (click on the photo to see more from Watson 2006 on flickr). There were only six of us this time, so we really got some quality time together, talking and laughing and sharing funny stories about publication rejections and drinking wine in honor of my birthmonth. Six is a good number for dinner at a conference--not so many that you end up talking only to the two or three people around you and not so few that you end up talking to the only two or three other people there.

I'm so so happy that I got to spend so much quality time with Paul and with Jim and Nancy and Schmoozin and the Wonka. The Wonka and I had an absolute blast driving together and rooming together and shopping at the outlets in Edinburgh, IN together. I bought myself a leather jacket for my birthday.

Our papers were really really good and our panel really did kick a little bit of ass. I'm so glad I wrote this damn thing, despite the pain and suffering of getting it done during the semester I'm teaching 3 courses. I'm definitely gonna try to do something with it beyond the conference.

My favorite moment from the conference: Nels comes up to me after our panel, introduces himself, and says that when he first saw me, his first thought was "I wonder who's taking care of Belly." The joy of blogs is that you get to talk about the dog everyone knows about when you finally meet them in person. Not the best constructed sentence I've ever written, but there it is.

The plenaries: largely disappointing, and I think that's in large part because the conference four years ago had such outstanding plenary speakers that the subsequent ones just can't compare to Lynn Worsham and Jim Zebroski and Harriet Malinowitz and Eileen Schell. Plus it was so damn dark in that damn auditorium that sleep was not far off if the speakers had nothing but a monotone. And the first one had exactly that. Ugh. Sleeeeeepy.

Belly hasn't punished me yet, and I'm mostly caught up with teaching stuff. Knock on Belly's smart bump.