Things I Learned At The AAN Conference

- There is a drink that involves dropping a shot of Irish whiskey into a glass of Stella Artois. It's called a Sinner.

- When a girl invites you to go with her and her coworkers to a bar in the Castro, it doesn't necessarily mean anything -- anything good, at least.

- Waking up and groggily wandering to an ATM at three in the morning with no shoes on in order to get money to get a bottle of water from a vending machine after a night of Sierra Nevada and Patron shots will leave you with wet socks and far more cash removed from your checking account than you intended.

- The Japanese like weird-ass bathrooms.

Oh, also, I'm going to digitally record every interview from now on, buy a dictaphone to transcribe them, take notes only on specific details and sensual elements, never ask questions but instead use "gentle commands," and, once I sit down to write, attempt to not be boring.

So overall, I'd have to say that the Sinner is the most significant thing I'll take away from this weekend. (Thanks, James.)

Seriously, though, going to the AAN Regional Staff Training Conference in San Francisco turned out to be one of the more rewarding experiences in this larval stage of my writing career. All the seminars were useful on some level, I met a few decent people and got my biz-card to some of them, spoke to a successful writer -- a treat I find all too rare -- and got to see what happens when a Madonna song comes on in a crowded gay bar. Just being in a room full of people who are in the same position I am is inspiring in itself. I don't know if any of this will transfer into any sort of measurable difference in my life, but I'm definitely feeling more motivated to get better and make something happen for myself ... for the next few days, at least.