Conference entertainment (take it where you can get it)

I have been conferencing up a storm this weekend, starting with Friday afternoon when I did my first real paper recycling ever, combining two previously presented 20-minute papers into a single 20-minute paper (and I thought that was a good idea why? In the end it was still a lot of work to do all the necessary cutting and still end up with something demi-coherent). The conference is actually local, which is nice, and has some really prominent people in the field, which is also nice. As I look around each day, though, noticeably absent as always are attractive male counterparts for the many attractive female socio and anthy types running around. On Friday afternoon, though, one guy caught my eye in an cutely disheveled, somewhat nerdy, Europeanesque kind of way. Then at the opening reception he turned out to be standing basically next to me, part of a conversation circle that was periodically intersecting with mine. I glanced at his nametag, you know, just to see, and did a big double take. (Possibly cartoony and visible! Though I don't think anyone noticed.) Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the Turkish textbook that has been my daily companion for these last 5 weeks, pointed to one of the author names, and said to him, "Isn't this you?" And in fact it was. I was pretty pleased -- it's not that often that you are oh-so-happily interacting with a book every day and then its author pops up next to you, you know? Sadly, however, I seem to be in the waning part of my fertility cycle (see below), because although he extended an invitation to come visit his Nederlandish University and talk Turcology (including bike riding around the Frisian Islands, home to the language that is genetically closest to English), I don't think he really meant it. If only the conference had been a week ago...