Friday, March 15, 2019

Random bullets of being incognito

I'm at a conference where I do not know a single solitary soul and where no one knows me. I'm incognito!
  • This has advantages:
    • First, I don't feel that I have to attend anything at all except my own session, so what I do go to is pure delight. 
    • Second, I'm sick with a cold (feverish, coughing, feeling horrible, not sleeping), which makes me everyone's nightmare conference-goer ("please-don't-sit-near-me, PLEASE-don't-sit-near-me"), so I am staying away from everything possible and sitting far from everyone if I do go to something. 
    • It is purely fine to give yourself permission to stay in the room, sleep, and get better, and no one notices if you're gone. Also: one splurge on room service.
    • Third, since I know no one, I don't have to hunt up people for dinner or, conversely, explain why I am staying in so as not to be Typhoid Mary. 
  • This has disadvantages: 
    • Missing sessions that I'd like to see.
    • Wanting to meet some people whose books I've read but realizing in advance the look of horror that would come over their faces if Typhoid Mary introduced herself. 
I am also extending the "incognito" thing via autoreply, since everyone back at Northern Clime took advantage of spring break to fire off complicated questions and land them on my desk instead of theirs.

I thought of going all Edmund Wilson on them or maybe "nope nope nope don't care right now leave me alone" but settled for a traditional, dignified "reply when I return."

Now I'm the one holed up in a Fortress of Solitude and firing flaming arrows of autoreply.

And I'm incognito.

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