I haven't practiced anything except bringing my hand to my mouth and swallowing alcohol since Monday. These conferences are like that... just one big party and you pry your eyelids open all day for the actual technical content. We walk through the hallways, catching a glimpse of someone we might have seen the night before and mutter "Dude, what's up, when did you manage to get here?" The voice sounds like it's gone through a testosterone mutation, the eyes are red, the skin looks as if it has been injected with a strange yellowish tinge and the liver is in overdrive causing internal chaos and I swear, with each inhale, "tonight I'm staying in." Being one of five girls in a crowd of nearly 1000 has its own pitfalls and advantages.

Advantages:

-- When the line for the men's bathroom snaked down the hallway and around the corner, us 4 girls laughed with glee and joked as we walked into a huge bathroom and found ourselves eerily all alone. You bet we laughed out loud at the poor slob guys waiting a half and hour for the toilet.

-- Though techies tend to have underdeveloped social skills, the combination of their fear of the human female and media driven idea of male chivalry means I can often part the red sea of bodies in the hallway, get in the front of the line for coffee (all free, all day by Microsoft by the way) and certainly don't have to wait for a drink at the external parties ever.

The pitfalls:

-- There is no being incognito at any event ever.

-- It's easy to feel guilty after being dared to "mess with" the poor closet programmers and realizing that it was way too easy to pull that off (this involved basically asking them to speak to me... near impossible apparently).

-- Using the words "tool" in combination with "buddying up" (as in "I was trying to buddy up so I could get his tool.") is apparently grounds for misinterpretation and can be used to facilitate a series of embarrassing word play interactions for many days.

The conference itself has been a huge and successful marketing meeting for me. I'm not sure that I have heard or otherwise processed any actual technical information but I've certainly met, chatted with, talked to, interacted with and otherwise meeted and greeted some really great individuals, companies and internal Microsoft employees. Last night was the attendee party which was held at the EMP in Seattle. Microsoft events are always open bar, free food and terrible entertainment. On what ended up being somewhat of a dare which I lost, I participated in the late night "male bonding" party last night. I was completely surprised and somewhat entertained by the event. It was much different than I anticipated it being and much different than has ever been explained to me. I'd go into further details but, unlike myself, others have identities to protect and ATM card receipts to destroy.

I had been hoping to have another practice with David while here. I really enjoy his energy but I also realize I'm here for a reason and I'm trying to remember that it's okay to focus on this event, this networking event, that mostly happens at night for a few days.... if I'm gonna work, it's important to do it at the level I'm doing it at and not get lazy and blow off what makes these connections happen in the first place... the networking. Many people have mentioned to me how "hooked up" I am here on campus and it is actually pretty surprising to me how many people I know and the ins I have. It's taken a lot of work (and some very generous friends) and nurturing those relationships in the way that nurturing happens here is a good thing. My body will be in rebellion on the mat for the next few weeks but Yoga Chikitsa will bring me back... just like it always does.

I get to go home tomorrow, back to reality, back to the day to day life, back to the mat.... back to comfort and security. Back to being mindful, back to intellect, knowledge, freedom from delusion, self-restraint, tranquilty.... fear and fearlessness. I think self restraint may be the most important thing to reign back in... or perhaps it's just delusional thinking that I ever had any.