thoughts after nine hours of paper-presentations by professors with wiry mustaches and wiry humours, anticipating an evening of mingling with such.

sometimes i get this sick feeling inside when i think about having to muster the motivation to make conversation with people i don't know.  the dread when it's 5 in the afternoon and you still have an evening full of strangers and strange conversation.  i long for familiarity.  i long for the ease, the satiating comfort of moving with those whose sentiments, habits, motions are familiar to me--the seamless conversation.  i would venture to say that when i try, i can be quite amiable, conversational, enjoyable even, such that no one would be the wiser.  but the problem i encounter, the grand secret, is that it is a near Herculean task to spark that fire, and the entire time i am longing for a quiet sidewalk with shady tree patches and roses and breeze, for a still room with silent chairs and welcoming books.  all inside revolts.  all inside digs in its heels like a donkey, and with as much reluctant dread is dragged to the altar of "pleasant minglings": perpetual "how interesting!"s and "it's a pleasure"s.  in those hellholes, i wriggle and writhe, all the while cased and caged in a smile, as if it were all i were made for, the end of my existence, the fullness of my essence.