Pop!Tech: Recovery

I'm finally home, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and the three-legged wonder dog snoring beside me. I'm beat. Was up until almost three last night. This morning I went to a post-conference brunch and discovered myself barely able to talk to anyone. There were all these interesting smart Pop!Tech folks around and whenever one came over and sat down near me I just found myself exhausted and wishing I didn't have to talk. No more ideas, please. No more connections, no more discussion or intriguing points or clever insights. No more summaries of the interesting work you've been doing. I just want to eat my coffeecake and look out the window at the yellow leaves falling against the grey sky. As soon as I figured out that I was incapable of making good conversation I left and drove home here, listening to my new CDs. First Howard Fishman played for me, as I drove through Damariscotta and Wiscasset and Bath, and then Jonathan Coulton made me smile the rest of the way home.

There are lots lots lots of ideas I didn't get to write about, lots of people I really liked. The next book I want to read is Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice; and there's a documentary about the Amish called The Devil's Playground that I want to see. I'm tired from four days of rich food and no exercise and too little sleep and too many ideas and fascinating people. I feel like I *should* blog about what I saw and what I learned and what I'm still confused about and who I met and who I really liked and what I found tiresome and disappointing and what I found fresh and wonderful. Maybe later. Instead I'll put in a partial placeholder -- thought Barry Schwartz and Janine Benyus and Frans de Waal and Malcolm Gladwell and Tom Daniel and Thomas Barnett and Ze Frank were wonderful, felt great about the way my role in this year's conference helped me get to know Bob Metcalfe and David Weinberger better, am going to try to continue conversations begun with Peter Durand and Jerry Michalski and Dina Mehta. I hope it won't be another year before I see Jonathan Coulton again, and I hope to make Howard Fishman a friend.

Maybe it's just because I'm drained, but when I think about the conference one of the things I am most proud of was pulling some New Yorkers and an LA hipster out of the after-hours party and walking them down the dark, quiet streets of Camden, crunching through the leaves on the side of the road, and walking them down to sit in the chilly wind on the shore, listening to the water and watching the flash of the red buoy at the mouth of the harbor and smelling the salt. We wished on shooting stars and they went quiet and said, "Thank you so much, I would have hated to miss this."

Comments

[Rachel]

We listened to Jonathan Coulton's EP many times on the way home, too. :-)

[dina]

Sherry ..... it was super meeting you and your dad. we must talk soon ! i will write you separately about some thoughts Stuart and i have of how we could broaden the perspective at Pop!tech. For starters read his post at http://www.henshall.com/blog/archives/001034.html

looking forward to more conversations ...