successfully made it through nash. what a fucking week. thrilling to watch myself in action, surrounded by friends and strangers, constantly interacting with people. still not sure how i made it with so little alone time, or without self-destructing and skipping out on everything (i did miss like... four blocks to stay in the hotel room and either sleep or laptop, but still) and i managed to push myself and get drunk with the crew every night without going massively too far (saturday night excepted) or making any big mistakes (returned home w/ body, possessions, finances intact [minus the $750 attendance fee and somehow managing to blow through the $130 i had in my wallet in five days. main costs were alcohol, chipotle burritos, and a belt after mine broke before the sheezer concert]). oh yeah, thursday night there was an all-female weezer cover band who played exclusively from the blue album and pinkerton. that was a fun pit. there were two girls having a little romance moment with each other through the whole show around me, which was adorable, and the whole link crew was in the same general vicinity just going nuts. during the blue album songs i was in pure ecstasy. corey and julia and this girl i had a crush on, a copy editor from waterloo, all crowd surfed, and i coolly outmanoeuvred the urge to drunk text you-know-who. it was a sensation-fuelled week. during the final keynote speech before the gala saturday i tried to count all the people i'd developed mini crushes on over the course of the conference and it was something crazy like 12. after the gala i was drunk and, sitting down at a table near the bar, drinking to get over the pre-award ceremony nervousness and the not-winning-an-award comedown (and post going at it a bit on the dance floor), i kept calling over members of the 12 as they passed by to tell them that they'd won the award for best this or best that. it turned into three legitimately interesting, drunken conversations, with said copy editor (who had a boyfriend) and a senior news writer from ubc (who left when the copy editor came back to talk to me and i was too drunk to talk to both of them at the same time) and there was also the cute guy i told was the best-looking at the conference who, after promptly going, "even better than [name redacted in case he self-googles]?" and i was like "yes" even though it was a close call (but this guy had more flair), turned the conversation into a discourse about bryant "big country" reeves, ex- of the vancouver grizzlies, whose jersey he was wearing under his blazer, which was adorable. then we were all leaving (me sans award but too drunk to brood anymore) and clem stole a pylon from the library and that's as surefire sign of the impending doom of a night as any, i think. when we got back to the hotel he made us all kiss the pylon. then security cleared everyone out of the hallway and it was maybe 20 seconds before i started puking in the bathroom. erin took care of me; stayed with me for probably an hour just talking me through it and distracting me and being my friend and it was really nice to feel cared for in a powerful, platonic way. i guess kind of the way i felt about vivien through the week, leaving early to walk her to her bus stop and stuff like that. then crawled into bed next to hilary (who also puked a lot that night; it was her birthday) and fell asleep. it was weird sleeping in a bed with a girl all week, too, of course; every accidental brush was weirdly thrilling, and every turn from one side to the other felt political. but that was it. which is probably best.