I spent much of last night lying awake, primarily suffering under what I’m pretty sure was a bit of bad salmon.  I wasn’t anywhere near as sick as I could have been, but I did at one point wonder whether TSA would let me board my plane today if the bucket of fluids I was carrying could be demonstrated to have originated within my own person.  That eventuality has blessedly not materialized.

But what all that lying awake tossing and turning and trying to decide whether I’d feel better if I just forced myself to puke did was give me ample time to think about my last brief entry here, and whether it was ill-conceived.  Or whether it was just the PS that made it sound ill-conceived, raising the specter of stalkerdom where it needn’t have been raised.  And whether I should delete the PS, or the whole thing, or just pretend like it never happened, or just simply relax, because all this anxiety was probably bacterial in origin.

This morning, all of this has me thinking about the old post-editing controversy of 2003.  In fact, I thought about this a couple of weeks ago, when I had lunch with my dean; we were discussing my blog (which, yes, he has read), and he asked whether I ever regretted particular posts.  I had to tell him yes, and that what I regretted about them was usually something tonal—too much whinging, for instance, or too much knee-jerk thoughtlessness.  The beauty of the blog, of course, is that the comments allow for a modulation of that tone, a development of a thought, a slight shift of direction.  Because of that I’ve never regretted a post enough to delete it.

Last night, however, or more properly very early this morning, I was seriously considering deleting the last post, mostly because it seemed, in the midst of the abdominal cramps, to make me look like an unremediable idiot.  I’m now not sure it does quite that, but it still makes me a little nauseated, so this post is, in effect, doing the work of modulation.  Also of pushing that last post down off the first screen.

But now I’m wondering:  What are the ramifications of deleting entries?  Under what circumstances does deletion seem appropriate?

Or anyone with Walter Kirn’s mailing address.  I’ve got a book I’d like to send him.

P.S.  Don’t make either of us seem like a stalker; if you know his address, email me.

I’ve written before about how productive I manage to be while I’m on the road, whether it’s a matter of working on planes or in hotels (something I’d swear I’ve blogged, but can’t find an appropriate link for right now). Something about a change of venue, and the enforced disconnection from all the trappings of my regular life, makes me both efficient and focused. And thankfullly, my trip to Montreal has been no exception. In the last two days I have:

– polished that article draft and prepared to send it off on its merry way;

– designed the syllabus for the senior seminar I’m teaching this fall;

– ordered the books for said seminar;

– finished reading and taking notes on a key text for the paper I’m giving at BlogTalk.

And I’ve still got tomorrow’s enormous day of travel ahead of me.

All I have to say, though, is that it’s a good thing I’m productive on the road, because the tenatively scheduled trip to NYC did get confirmed and ticketed, and so I’ve got two days at home before jetting off again. And when I get back to Claremont after that trip, it’ll be the 24th, and we’ll be in the last mad sprint to the start of the fall semester.

So I’m in Montreal for the American Sociological Association meeting, where we’re doing some interviewing. I have to reiterate that there’s something lovely about attending conferences for organizations to which you do not belong, but in this case it’s not the lushness of the environs (though Montreal’s lovely, don’t get me wrong), the lavishness of the meals (though I’ve eaten quite well), or the existence of the swag that makes me happy. What makes me happy here is my total anonymity.

I know precisely three people at this conference, and they’re the colleagues I’ve traveled here with. So as I wander through the conference center, I feel none of the usual pressure to recognize the folks around me—I’m not scanning the crowd for familiar faces, not checking out name tags to see where the superstars are. I’m just here, nobody in particular, who knows no one.

It’s pretty great. I’ve managed to attend a couple of panels, which I’ve enjoyed, though one was a bit overly quantitative for my tastes, and the other could well have been at the other ASA, the one I usually attend. Which made me wonder what made the work done there particularly sociological in nature, but what the heck.

Today, I get to spend some time getting some work done before returning to the unfray. This is my favorite part of conferences: feeling inspired to return to whatever project I’ve got going.

No way I can leave it at that.  Not when there’s so much more to tell.

So I left my house at 5 am yesterday, headed to LAX.  The morning began with two bits of dumb luck:  first, that the trip to Montreal is going to last five days, and thus I couldn’t use my usual roll-aboard suitcase, and so had already planned on checking my bag, and so would get to keep my toiletries; and second, that I drove myself to the airport, and thus got to listen to NPR on the way, and so knew what was going on, and so was prepared for the madness that I found when I got there.

The lines were absolutely unreal.  The line of folks trying to check in outside terminal 1, for instance, stretched all the way back to, and halfway down in front of, terminal 2.  Things were bad over in terminal 6, where Continental is, too.  The first line wasn’t terrible for me, at least, as I got to use the super elite line to check my bag, and thus only waited about ten minutes.  The line for security, however, took forever, and everybody around me was in a foul mood.

I made it upstairs, finally, where I quickly wrote the last post and headed to my gate.  My plane boarded on time, and left only a few minutes late, packed completely full.  And the flight was pretty much uneventful, and I got a ton of work done.

But we didn’t seem to be descending, not in the way I expected, not at the time I expected.  Because heightened security wasn’t enough, apparently, there was also weather near Newark.  In fact, the flight attendant told me, we’d almost gotten diverted to another airport.  As it was, we did land, a mere 32 minutes late.

Of course, I had a 35-minute layover scheduled.

And my flight to Montreal was apparently the only one in the entire airport that hadn’t been delayed.  I found this out when I called the elite help desk after we landed, telling the agent that I had less than five minutes to make my flight, if it was leaving on time.  It was.

And the only other flight that night, the 9 pm, had been cancelled.  So the soonest I could get out of Newark would be 9 am today.

I asked the agent if he could send a message to the gate, telling them that I’d be there in ten minutes.  He said he would, but warned me that they might not hold the plane, no matter what.  I promised to run.

And I did:  with my big pink briefcase over one shoulder and my laptop case over the other, and wearing my boots with the two-inch heels, I ran, from the middle of one concourse, down the connecting corridor, to the far end of the next concourse, and down the escalator to gate 115a.

Where the door was shut, and the agent was gone.

I looked sufficiently bewildered that a woman sitting nearby said “someone will be there in a minute.” “For Montreal?” I asked, pointing at the sign which indicated that the Montreal flight was leaving, like, now.

I ran over to the next gate, and got the agent’s attention, asking about the Montreal flight.  “Oh, that’s gone,” he said.

“Really?” I asked him, my desperation totally evident.  “Because they called to tell them I was coming.  And I ran.  And the last flight tonight is cancelled.” Gasping for air inbetween sentences.

And then a miracle occurred:  he picked up the phone.  Dialed some number.  Asked if Montreal was still there.  “I’ve got a runner,” he said.  And then led me over to the gate, where an agent had just re-opened the door.  He asked if I could still be gotten on the plane, and led me under the rope, down the jetway, and—amazingly—right to the still-open door of my still-waiting plane.

I thanked him profusely then, but want to do so once again:  god bless the gate agent at 114!

I plopped myself down in my seat, called R. to tell him I’d made the connection, if barely, and then proceeded to have the worst asthma attack I’ve ever had.  I don’t have asthma, at least not under normal circumstances.  But I spent the next hour-plus unable to stop coughing, and unable to catch my breath.

Aside from that, though, the flight went smoothly.  I had a little bit of bourbon—to soothe the throat and calm the nerves, you know—and a nice chat with the woman across the aisle.  And then we landed, and waited in the usual long passport control line, and headed into baggage claim.

Where, as you might expect, my suitcase did not greet me.  A very nice guy named George, though, who works for Northwest, was there, and he helped me with the paperwork.

My belongings caught up with me about an hour ago.  I spent all day today conducting interviews in the same jeans and t-shirt that I traveled in yesterday.  Now I can change my clothes, and even use the toiletries that I was able to save from TSA by checking my bag.

I’ll just say that today was not the ideal day to fly out of LAX, and leave it at that.

…and why it matters.  Two unrelated links:

meg on the meaning of the phrase “WT,” and how those who use it might benefit from learning to diagram sentences.

And the Globe and Mail on the $2.13 million comma.  (Via scribblingwoman.)

I’ve been in San Diego with my mother since Friday; she’s here for a conference, and I’m here as her date.  The conference is that of a national organization that links a bunch of state and local organizations that are in the business of dealing with other people’s money, so in attendance are administrators and board members of those organizations, as well as a wide variety of vendors hoping to drum up a bit of business or solidify some existing relationships.  Plus a slew of those folks’ family members who, like me, are along for the ride.

It’s fun being an outsider at a conference like this, particularly as a person who attends a bunch of conferences of her own, if for no other reason than the opportunity to do a bit of compare/contrast.  And boy, are conferences like these different from mine.

First off, they cost more; registration fees seem pretty astronomical, in comparision with most academic conferences, though that degree of astronomicality is significantly less than it used to be, as academic conference registration fees are trending very sharply upward.  They’re doing so, however, without providing any of the bennies of this kind of conference.  Here, one’s registration fee includes meals, at least breakfast and lunch, and very often dinner.  (When there aren’t conference dinners, those vendors often organize dinners for their clients or desired clients-to-be.) The fee also includes a range of events, including various walking tours, zoo and museum trips, and a dinner cruise.  And, at check-in, you’re handed a fairly nice conference shoulder bag with several bits of corporate-logo’d giftage included (this time around, a hard-sided CD case from one vendor, a small personal fan from another, and a couple of other things I can’t remember).  Plus a choice of hat with the national organization’s logo on it.

What I’m trying to imagine is the MLA with swag.  And dinner cruises.  And a very, very kind schedule, in which all sessions fall between 8 am and 1 pm, leaving the afternoon and evening for fun.

And it’s really good advice, too: how to write an academic book that folks might actually want to read.

Though she doesn’t quite say so, many of the points she makes—particularly that, with respect to outside sources, “[e]ither they prove you right or you prove them wrong or they don’t get to be in your book,” and, with respect to audience, that you shouldn’t “write for the four people who know more about your subject than you do. They aren’t going to buy your book. Write for the five thousand people who are smart and curious but don’t know as much about your subject as they should”—are precisely the differences between a dissertation and a book.

The first trick, I think, in revising your dissertation into a book is to take all of that stuff—the outside sources who are there only to prove that you’ve consulted them; the references designed to demonstrate to the four people who are reading your dissertation that you really do know your field—and stick it in the footnotes. It’s not part of the flow of your argument, so into the backmatter it goes.

The second trick, however, is to eliminate the half of your footnotes that really aren’t that important, after all.

Are there other tricks and tips you’d care to share?

1. I was awake from approximately 1.30 am to approximately 5.00 am, for no apparent reason. And when the sun rose, and when the construction guys commenced jackhammering outside my bedroom window, I was awake again. And none too happy about it, I might add.

2. I got July’s electric bill today. June’s electric bill was not terribly shocking, though it was five dollars shy of the highest bill I’ve had since moving into the condo. July’s bill is nearly TRIPLE June’s. It’s enough higher that I’m considering calling somebody out to make sure no one’s siphoning off my meter.

3. I lay down to take a brief nap after lunch, and had to drag myself up after only half an hour of dozing, in order to go to a meeting. ‘Nuff said.

4. I’m now heading to the dentist, where he can take a look in my mouth and come up with a figure with an annoying number of digits, representing the amount he’s going to charge me to repair the crown I cracked on Friday. Which crown I cracked while eating sushi. And I will pay said figure, which will represent a sizeable chunk of my already dwindling savings (see #2 above), at the end of which investment I will not have a vacation in the Bahamas, or a new piece of electronics, but will merely once again have a working fucking crown, just like I did before this one decided to make for the territories, one small chunk at a time.

5. Oh yeah: t-minus 36 hours until R.’s departure. That, too.