*props eyelids open with matchsticks*

[lobelia321]

Hi, sweeties, I'm back.

Too tired to say anything of note but just that I started out a bit lonely in Atlanta's very weird Marriott Marquis Hotel (where I was staying on the 41st floor: the corridors had the doors and a wall on one side and the abyss on the other, with no glass or anything inbetween. I hugged the wall a lot. But then I began to meet people and also still continued to write my paper in a panic (in longhand!!!!), and by the end of it, I felt fantastic! I met five zillion art historians (there are very, very many art historians in America; it is quite scary); I went to the Oglethorpe University Art Museum (111) and had a free lunch (yes, there is such a thing!!), and I went to a thing called a cyclorama, and just talked to endless and more endless streams of lovely art historians. They all loved my paper! Now I want to maintain the momentum. Today I am just running around, keeping busy, to prevent myself from falling into bed. Later, I'm taking t'sons swimming and will do my 22 lengths! Or such is the plan, anyhow. Heh, I also chatted up a cute art historian who's not even in my field and whose paper I didn't even love all that much but I used the classic academic chat-up line: "Oh, I loved your paper!" He ended up hovering mid-stair for half an hour while I furtively ogled his Borgninian gap-tooth (omg, it's a latent Lijahlust coming through!!!), black, very carefully groomed hair and pink-cheed shy demeanour.

No rest for the wicked. The next conference is six weeks away. Three of the panelists will show up again. Ah, how deliciously incestuous it all is.

I liked Atlanta. At first, looking out of the 41st floor-window, I thought, 'what a dump', but then over the four days it grew on me.

Anyway, got to go and: shower, wank, shine my sink, prepare my cinema lecture for tomorrow, assemble this week's menus, fetch the car from t'h's, go shopping, fetch t'sons, go swimming, make dinner, and so forth. I have already: shined the bathroom sink, gone to the loo, unpacked (11111), had soup kindly left there by t'h, cleaned out the pigs' cage, omg left the pigs in their outdoor hutch and now it's SNOWING!

Eeek, got to go on a pig-rescue mission.

*runs*

Comments

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

The Cyclorama is fabulous, isn't it? And Oglethorpe is the oldest university in America, in case no one told you.

*smiles* I love my city. You should visit Centennial Park if you get the chance. And Underground. They're both pretty close by to the Marquis (which is one of the more unique hotels I've ever stayed at, that's for sure *g*)

Congrats on the paper!! *hugs*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

No, nobody told me that Oglethorpe was the oldest university! There was a plaque somewhere, saying that the architecture dates back to the 1920s..? I saw Underground and Centennial Park on the map but really, I'm glad I even found the scraps of time to do the Oglethorpe and the cyclorama. It took me quite some time to get out there and back; the buses don't run that often on Sundays, I think. And I'd have loved to visit the zoo if I'd had more time! I also liked all those Southern houses with their porches, really graceful.

There were millions of cheerleaders in town on the weekend: what would they have been cheerleading for?

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

No, the university is much older than that. Maybe the wing you were in is 1920s, but it dates back to the late 18th century.

I believe the term you're looking for with the houses is antibellum. Graceful, set back, shaded by trees, wrap-around porches, pillars.

There was probably a cheerleading conference over the weekend. My mom or sister would probably know more. *mwah*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Antebellum: ah, that's so Gone with the Wind! I always thought, though, that antebellum applied to quite posh houses but the ones I saw were relatively modest but still very lovely. But perhaps I was mistaken and it's a total style.

I totally didn't get that about Oglethorpe! *gg* But they gave me the free lunch despite my ignorance so I'll love them 4 evah.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

*unsurprised you were a Triumph and got a hovering fanboy*

Anyway, only the extraordinarily anally retentive finish papers before they go to conferences.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Yes, I must remember that motto about the anally retentive... Hovering fanboy! Haha.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Why aren't you deep in jet-lagged sleep?

I may be still at work because of trying to finish an overdue book essay for which I've run out of 'the dog ate my homework'-type excuses, but surely you merit some duvet time?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I woke up this morning after 7 1/2 hours sleep and felt totally zonked. I kept banging into things and walking the wrong way down corridors. Now it's evening and I'm preternaturally alert!

[lazulus]

Yay for the paper being so well recieved!! Also, yaya for you finally liking hotlanta! I am rather fond of it myself having been there 6 times now. *laughs*

Also, I have done pairing searching on the recs site. So there! Pairings are now under categories!

Things I do for you, eh? xxx

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Wow, pairings searchings, thank you! I printed out Mirabella's opus for the plane and am still ploughing my way through that. I am liking it, not abjectly adoring it but liking it, and every few pages it has a truly delicious scene. It needed editing, though, methinks.

So you call it Hotlanta, eh? We can now swop notes! I went to some really nice restaurants!

[travelingcarrot.livejournal.com]

Congrats on it going well, and pleased you seem to have genuinely enjoyed it too. Here's to last-minute papers, academic incest and chatting up cute men on stairs!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*cracks glass against yours in toast*

Oh, and I had a Mango Margarita in Atlanta. I love US cocktail culture!!!

[travelingcarrot.livejournal.com]

Mangoes... margharitas... mmmmm....

Hope I get the chance to make you one of my frozen cocktails one day. Though I say it myself, I think I got rather good at them during those long hot American summers.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oooh, so besides uncanny familiarity with Chelmsford you have knowledge of stateside as well? I would love a frozen cocktail!! Whatever it is, but it sounds yum.

[travelingcarrot.livejournal.com]

It isn't uncanny or weird really! I grew up in East Anglia, went to university in York, did student year in France, worked in Spain for a year, back to Yorkshire, then back to East Anglia, and in 2000 moved to the USA with husband's job. Left him and the States last autumn, am now back over here. Got it?

And frozen cocktails are where you whizz the ingredients in a blender with ice so they turn into an alcoholic slushie, or even mix them in an ice-cream machine. I do margharitas, daiquiris, anything you like. But not in England in February... *shivers* This time of year I stick to room temperature or above.

[msilverstar]

Yay! A triumph indeed and such a boost to the ego, well-deserved, too! Just makes me grin to read such fantastic news.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you!!!