The Liminal Librarian

So I went to Florida for three days to do a couple of workshops at FHSLA and SEFLIN on writing for publication. Apparently, at around the same time, Hell froze over, as Michael Gorman started blogging. I thought that perhaps my inability to make heads or tails of his posts stemmed from trying to read some lengthy arguments on a smallish laptop screen, but apparently not, as they're not any more coherent from home. (Not that the mental Gorman-as-Cartman image helps!) I think that in my absence enough has been said about that, but it does occur to me that some people's fanatical insistence on the importance of gatekeepers and editors might stem from their own clear need for this kind of help.

My first night in Florida was remarkable in two ways: I got whisked off to dinner at a Polynesian restaurant that involved dinner and a show, and the hotel wireless failed to play nicely with my laptop, leading to an unintentional 29 hours of being unplugged, which led to over 100 new messages in my main inbox alone. I think if I did this intentionally for more than a day or so, the anticipated stress of returning to an unmanageable flood would do more harm than any good I'd gain from being unplugged. But I'm OK with this -- in the same way I don't travel without reading material, I also try to avoid traveling without net access, and I'm not so sure that's a negative.

My second day in Florida was again all about the food, involving lunch at Rattlesnake Jake's Tex-Mex -- which, of course, this being Florida, was oddly decorated with various sea creatures. I did get to meet and eat with J. Dale Prince, which partially made up for having to miss his "Geeks Bearing Gifts" workshop that was scheduled directly opposite mine.

On Friday, I got to ride in the classy Flamingovan to the main Broward County Library, which is very large and looks like something a toddler stacked out of blocks, but is quite nice on the inside. And, since again it's about the food, it does have a cafe, which serves a so-so Greek salad, and where I ate with several librarians who kindly gave me a ride back to the airport after lunch.

Now that I'm back, I should have more time to get back to work on the book, the blog, and the long-postponed LISjobs.com web site redesign.

Labels: cartman, fhsla, florida, gorman, seflin