Bah.

I hate conferences, and I wish I didn't have to do them. Since I do have to do them, I wish I would learn to sit quietly through the sessions, keep my head down, my mouth shut and avoid the bar in the evening.

I may have to email apologies to the male, smug, witty, English, Oxbridge-educated doctor who unwittingly found himself the embodiment and the target of my accumulated and transferred 'issues' in the bar. A bit of a lothario, used to charming blond nurses who don't talk back, which unfortunately enraged me. By the next morning, a rep had started a false rumour that I'd shagged him, which I hadn't, thank Christ. Had to knock back a herbert (gormless, married, chinless-wonder doctor type) on the way home, mind you, but that's a familiar occupational hazard.

I've been doing academic conferences long enough to have observed that many female delegates go home early, and I really should learn from their examples. I'll just take that bottle of wine to my room next time and get quietly sedated for sleep with the company of a good book instead of unchosen companions at the bar.

The conference was held in a cloistered college with a pomp and ceremony that never fails to raise the chip on my shoulder. You eat on benches in Hall, it feels like a crusty boys' club and no one thanks the 'manciples' or whatever you call the servants. Heard one of the waiters off the main corridor shouting down his mobile that he hated his shitty job, and at 650/month it wasn't worth it and he couldn't take this crap anymore. Part of my aggression was also I believe regressive, caused by being accommodated in the same type of shitty single student dorm room I had at 17. It took me back, as they say, and not in a good way.