Ah, guys.

I've been doing this "scientist" thing for, what, 22 years now? Jesus. It hasn't really worked out. I am not what anyone would call a 'success'. And yet here I am, still doing it. It's a long story I guess.

Getting on a plane tomorrow to fly to Crete. House of Asterion itself! That's an upside of the job. Going to a place I've never been, something exotic or picturesque, just so I can tell people what I've been doing, within some very narrow constraints, mostly having to do with Money. Spending a pile of money and jet fuel to tell a crowd who doesn't *really* care what I've been doing with someone else's Money.

Science!

Away from kids and family for a week. In some ways it's nice - I am just me for a week, just myself, plain old who-I-am, which I am sometimes anyways - nights like this. It's not *that* special, seriously. I get to be myself all the time. But *all day long*, for days on end? For that, I need "conference". But also I feel the fear. What if the plane crashes? What if the kids miss me? What if they don't? For them, they get to experience me not existing for a few days. There are ways of thinking about it that are terrifying.

I get to be me - they get to experience absence-of-me. Obviously it's not all upsides.

I just added that Maron quote to the Quotes list. It's got to be true this time. Am I prepared? In one sense, no - in the old sense. I haven't practiced. I don't have a set of slides. On the other hand - I am loaded up. I have what I need, don't I? If I can tell them, I will - if I can't, I won't. Let's see how it goes.

None of this really makes sense, does it?