The Polter-Cow-Asilomar List Recap Post (Radio Edit)

[spectralbovine]

For the fifth year in a row, I traveled to Asilomar for a medical writing conference, but for the second time, I don't really have time to write about it in much detail, which is just as well since hardly anyone reads LJ anymore. But I do have lots of gerunds, and hidden in them is some EXCITING NEWS, but it may be hard to miss. You'll see.

• driving down while listening to Over Sea, Under Stone
• persuading people to be in The Hudson-Patel Musical Comedy Revue Extravaganza (Remix), which I had written in about three hours on Tuesday night by stringing together old songs into a semblance of a cohesive show
• gravitating to the youngest attendees (both women, as usual): Faith (~late thirties), who seemed hesitant but agreed to do props if needed, and Ms. Pond (~mid-twenties, although a later comment, unless I misheard, seemed to imply she was actually a couple years older than me), who was accompanied by her dad
• chatting with Ms. Pond for most of the social about her decision to pursue medical writing and how to get that first job
• being deemed "interesting" by her because I don't cross the Golden Gate Bridge-a reference to the fact that I don't venture out of the urban Bay Area much-but I watch Veronica Mars
• being glad Asilomar finally had wireless
• leading Ms. Pond and her dad to the keynote speaker by using the shortcut I called "the deer path" because I sometimes saw deer while using it
• seeing a deer
• learning quite a bit about the neural basis of creativity and how dopamine levels can affect the ability to think outside the box and have innovative ideas
• waiting impatiently for people besides Jimbo to show up for the first rehearsal
• finally getting enough people for all the parts and struggling through some of the songs
• not caring that I was the only person who appreciated that I had named the host character I was playing Krevlornswath
• shutting down Pish-Dash's suggestion to change "If I was in L.A." in "California Dreaming" to "If I were in L.A" and add a comment about how it was the subjunctive...even though she still did it during the actual performance
• being amused at Faith's increased involvement and investment, becoming musical director and delivering punchlines, despite her initial hesitation
• learning about the affordable technologies being developed for emerging markets, which are much larger and more business-relevant than people think (the percentage of people with mobile phones is higher in India than in the U.S., for instance, and mobile money in Africa accounts for more transactional currency than Western Union)
• skipping out on the ethics session to read Gotham Central
• chastising Ms. Pond for not showing up to rehearsal...even though I hadn't told her when and where it was
• stopping by the evening social for about half an hour but exiting as soon as I could because I felt really young among the fifty-plus crowd (even with Magilla's high school-age daughter there...so I could feel old AND young)
• learning about sleep in health and disease and what a burden the sleep debt really is and what lack of sleep can do to your performance, both subjectively and objectively
• skipping the medical devices session to read Flex Mentallo
• making Angelo's day by giving him a reason to talk about Flex Mentallo for twenty minutes
• somehow working out blocking and choreography and line deliveries (I was particularly pleased that Nice finally read the stage directions about how she was supposed to deliver her jokes) in the second rehearsal
• responding to a comment that Dash-isha had arrived, we should tell her about the show, although she always forgets her lines with "Yes, that is true" (STILL NOT OVER IT)
• being late to introduce the session on regulatory writing...which was fine because the speaker hadn't shown up yet...because her daughter had had an accident and she had to go to the hospital...which it took us half an hour to confirm
• ignoring Dash-isha's calls of "Sunny! Sunny!" because I fucking hate being called that even after I told her not to do it
• using the rest of the afternoon to read Lily and the Golden Lute
• informing Dash-isha that I had not responded to her calls because my name was not Sunny and having the following exchange: "Aren't you Sunny Patel?"/"No, I'm Sunil."/"I...I knew that, didn't I."
• not being surprised that the R.M Award (or the Asilomar Award for Superior Social Facilitation) went to Faith, who was full of verve
• entertaining the crowd with our musical comedy antics, which, as usual, included a chaotic kickline
• enjoying Jimbo's ad-lib about REM sleep and Nice's ad-lib explaining her grammar knock knock joke
• leading the group to the avocations exchange
• hearing people share about their cats, hiking, writing a screenplay, writing a novel, and so on
• sharing my short play Man vs. Beer (the first draft, accidentally), Faith reading Beer with a Russian accent for some reason
• appreciating Nice's comment that she found it fascinating as a non-drinker herself
• being impressed with Faith's kinesthetic descriptions in the memoir excerpt she read
• learning a bit about how ad agencies handle promoting pharmaceuticals
• skipping out on the PubMed session to read Lily and the Golden Lute
• discovering that Man vs. Beer had been accepted into this year's Pint Sized Plays

What? That's great! Congratulations!

Thanks, Gerald!

So what's it about?

It's about a teetotaler trying to take his first drink. Beer tries to push him over the edge and counter all his arguments for why he doesn't drink. And then he has angsty monologues about what it's like to not drink in a society where drinking is normal. I say "he," but I could imagine both characters being either gender.

Your play is going to be in Pint Sized! People actually come see that thing! That'll be cool, huh?

I'm really excited! Come see it in July!

I don't think dragons are allowed in bars.

Curses and double curses.

• telling people that the play I'd presented the night before was going to be performed in July
• being told by Faith to send an e-mail about it, even though she was in Texas and couldn't come
• discovering that one woman whom I hadn't talked to the whole conference actually lived in my neighborhood, just a few blocks away
• stopping by the Gilroy Outlet Stores on the way home and being too cheap to buy twenty-dollar pants