soapbox

This, of course, is where AAS meetings get interesting.

Andrea and I gathered together a random group of people, including one girl who I’m pretty sure was the tallest woman at the conference. (Note: still not taller than me, although astronomers have a very very strange height distribution. It’s like being in the Netherlands.) Dinner was tasty, but nothing to write much about, just a faux-Irish American place. My general plan was to create some new friends so I’d have someone to talk to at the party rather than being bored and alone.

Then Andrea bailed on me.

And the tall girl asked if they were going to card at the door since she was only 20. (Note: YIKES!)

So, that left two people from UC Davis and one of my friends from NMSU that I was going to meet up with.

Yadda yadda yadda, people going to hotels to change, things taking longer than expected, we get to the party… the drink special is a Galileo and seems to have no redeeming characteristics other than being strong. I decide to start my drinking slightly later. Since we were late, that puts me a good three drinks behind everyone else.

The good stuff starts below.

They’re playing The Cure on one of the dance floors and my old summer student pops out of the crowd near me and mentions that the scene would be just right if he could pull one of my very old facebook pictures out and slap some mascara on it. How little he knows, I liked NIN.

My friend, who we’ll call Shawn, is up to two Galileos and I figure that I should probably join the party, so I head to the bar to get myself a rum and coke and another Galileo for Shawn. (Two notes: cheap Bacardi rum is pretty bad, I need to get better at ordering drinks. Also, Galileos are strong, Shawn could have gotten by on only two.)

When I get back, Shawn is talking to one of her co-workers. While admittedly kind of good looking, he’s a dick. The first sign of this comes when he grabs her ass when he walks by. I should mention the fact that Shawn married my office-mate and they now have two children. The ass grabbing wasn’t really appreciated.

Wander around a bit more, run into Neil deGrasse Tyson, talk to him for a minute, decide that I still don’t like him. Smirk a little when he claims the dance floor is too hot and leaves.

Then I notice “The Guy”. I’d seen him at the conference too and remarked that “he’s working really hard on his look”. Dark pinstripe suit with widely spaced very white pinstripes. The narrowest pant legs that I’ve every seen, even on a European. Shaved head. Round, tinted, tortoise shell glasses. The affiliation on his conference badge had said “freelance writer.”

I unfortunately pointed him out to too many people and one of my fellow stacy post-docs went over to him, said I was looking for some style tips, and talked him into coming over to where I was for a picture. I’ll have to use it as my facebook picture once I get a copy. He suggested that I have the waist of my jacket taken in. (Actually, not bad advice, but something I intentionally didn’t have done so that I could wear sweaters under it when it’s chilly.) Then he gave the nugget of information, his secret… H&M. Of course, really what that means is that if someone slapped him hard on the back, there’s a good chance that his suite would fall apart at the seams and he’d be naked, standing in the middle of a crowd of 700 astronomers.

Shawn is quite drunk at this point and it laughing hysterically. Her co-worker takes this as a sign that she’s flirting with me and starts getting jealous and angry. He texts her to say something like, “I can’t believe you’re flirting with him, I’m so much better. Lets go watch a porno in your hotel room.”

As far as pick-up lines go, that’s not really a winner.

I rotate out of the dance area into the bar proper to cool down a little. I may not like Neil deGrasse Tyson, but he was right about the temperature. Shawn and I run into Alison Crocker (who I had lunch with at some point too) and I introduce everyone. Alison suggests that we go back and dance. Shawn says that maybe I shouldn’t dance with her if she used to be a student.

Alison outvotes us by grabbing my arm and pulling us back into the dance room.

I break free just before we hit the main mass of people. It’s a good thing, Alison is a much more advanced dancer than I am and the end result just wouldn’t be pretty.

Shawn’s phone buzzes, “I wish he knew that it costs me a quarter to get each one of these messages.”

The text of the text, “He’s going to leave you behind. I saw that girl take him to the dance floor. He’s going to go fuck her and leave you behind, I can read body language. Come back to my hotel room with me.”

Wow. Again, not a good way to pick up girls. (And Alison and I had already spent part of lunch talking about relationships and her boyfriend.)

I decide to have some fun though… instead of standing around talking, Shawn leans with her back against the wall and I lean in for a romantic whisper in her ear while the other guy watches. We talk about babies and when they start getting teeth and if there’s anything you can do about all the slobber. Other guy flies into a jealous rage and runs out of the club.

I look at my watch and am surprised to see that it’s 1:30. Watch people for another 15 minutes and they turn the lights on. Suddenly it goes from a hopping party to just 700 nerds in a box.

The walk back to the hotel is slow since I have to steady Shawn every now and then, but I drop her off in her room, head back to my room (where it turns out that David is actually in the room across the hall), and hit the bed at 3:30.

Oh, and one lesson for any non-astronomers who go to a AAS meeting… don’t bother with Thursday. No one shows up, and the ones who do are hung over. The party is always an experience not to miss though.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 5:26 pm and is filed under beer, clothing, from the road, music, things that kick ass. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.