gement | Almost done.

For those of you following along at home, please note that I've back-dated two entries, so if you want to catch up on my thrilling Public Library Association Conference action (it's cooler than it sounds), please click here to catch my last couple entries.

Going to a conference feels like being drunk. I'm drunk on intelligent, like-minded people. I'm drunk on visual input. I'm drunk on my ability to socialize aggressively with people I've never met. And I'm just a bit tipsy on the amount of money I've spent this week, which is frugal by many people's standards, but I did buy gifts for people, and I'm living on savings right now.

But the books were 50% off.

Per my last prediction, by the way, I did manage to carry home about 30 lbs of books again. If there were a bathroom scale here, I would weigh my total haul just to see... It's insane. Truly insane. I purchased most of Friday's collection, though, instead of being handed them free.

I remember seeing this in people's faces when they came home from church youth conferences. They were glowing with purpose, inspiration, community support. That's how I feel right now. I'm glowing. I want to be a librarian when I grow up.

Everyone here likes me and says they're glad to see me joining the profession. I've swapped scads of business cards. I've recommended books to Nancy Pearl (squeeee!). Here's an article on her appearance at the conference, by the way. My brush with fame: I was one of the people in the running for being in that article. The photographer/reporter took my name down and everything.

I am inspired. I can get into UW's Fall 2005 class for the MLIS degree, which gives me 18 months to find a Seattle shelving job, settle in, and get a better handle on what kind of librarian I would enjoy being. That will also be the one year that I require of myself before making major lifestyle decisions; if this is just a crush, in 18 months, I'll be well aware of it.

But it's not a crush. This is love, true vocational love. I'm in love with information and libertine librarians and colleagues who are bibliophiles all the way down the line. I want to spend my life on this, or at least a couple decades of it.

Now I have to traipse back in for the closing ceremonies, and to get my cloak, which I left in coat check last night and then they closed on me. The banquet last night had hysterically well-judged entertainment, a men's soul/show choir quartet. Yes, that's right, the bachelorette party band, four young, muscular and flirtatious men in a 90% female room. The librarian demographics were never clearer to me.