A. was right (J. says she’s right about 99% of the time): We did get hungry down on the beach. So thank goodness she overcame J.’s resistance and threw a bunch of snacks into the tote along with towels and bottles of water before our ten minute walk down to Cabrillo Beach to join the masses bouncing around in the waves. (J. says it’s a requirement that everyone in the entire state of California take a dip in the ocean today.) I was sticky, still wet, and slowly becoming covered with sand despite my best efforts, but managed to keep my food relatively grit-free while I stared up at the flocks of brown pelicans as they came sweeping over the break and listened to J. tell horse racing stories from forty years of going to the track. I think he’s glad to have a contentedly captive audience.

I picked up a turkey sandwich and chips from a Quizno’s around the corner from the museum (loved Nina Katchadourian’s Accent Elimination) and brought it back to the plaza to eat in the hot sun with my newspaper. K. called to let me know she’d made it to my apartment and was looking at my cats while I ate lunch thousands of miles away in San Diego. After my sandwich, I longed for an ice cream to eat absentmindedly while staring off into the middle distance and waiting for my train, but the absence of lockers at the station meant I had to haul my suitcase along and I’m a little tired of that, so I opted instead for the chillin’ power of a frappucino at the Starbucks just across the street. Can you believe this is my very first frappucino ever in my whole entire life? I can see what all the fuss is about!

After a morning rooted at the edge of the Pacific ocean amid children whose squalls were drowned by the waves and pelicans diving for lunch like so many prehistoric arrows, I took a break to eat lunch by the pool. The menu was in the shape of a palm leaf and all the entrees had names that are hard to say out loud. So I ordered the, ahem, Tijuana Sliders and an Amstel Light (girlish figure, natch) and ate them while talking to J. on the phone and perusing a magazine. One other person at the poolside cantina appeared to be dining alone, so I entertained brief fantasies of being swept away by a much older man to a life of luxurious luxury before coming back to my room for a sunscreen refresher and a return to the water.

I didn’t want to eat a heat-’n'-serve Amtrak sandwich for lunch, so I decided to wait until we pulled into the station. Due to switching problems, that was roughly an hour later than I needed to have lunch. Inches away from eating my hand, I stopped at the first food-serving establishment on my way to the city bus stop–a Wendy’s. I ordered the number five with a Diet Coke. For those of you following along at home, that’s a grilled chicken sandwich with fries and a drink. I swallowed it in about six seconds and hopped on the 901 to Coronado Bay, where I think it is safe to assume I am the only guest at this hotel who arrived by public bus.

I was sitting on the steps opposite the kebab line pouring my voluminous heart out to K. on the phone when G. walked by with no plans for lunch, so we walked down to Tiffy’s, a diner I’ve been eyeing since Friday. I’ve hit all kinds of walls today, including the hotel-food and cheap-meats walls, so I ordered the veggie melt and subbed in an iceberg lettuce salad for the french fries. G. had the veggie burger with cheese. The cheese was not a slice but a melted handful of shreds–nothing is as advertised in sunny Anaheim! I don’t know quite how to convey my exhausted pleasure at having a relatively normal meal with a person I recognize about work, the future, class anxiety, writing, how hard it is to balance the compromises demanded by living in the world, et al, except to say that sometimes I think I am given precisely what I require.

I slid next door after the morning session and was faced not with food, but with silverware. RefWorks Lunch ‘n’ Learn went with buffet style: romaine lettuce leaves (an apparent Anaheim hotel staple), mushroom-tomato-and-asparagus salad, ‘chipotle’ potato salad (my red peppers have more spice, complained B.), and a sandwich bar. I opted out of the sandwich and just put some ham slices on top of the lettuce for an impromptu chef’s salad. A woman behind me was less excited about the format (I like to be served). It did result in a long line of librarians, but once we were told we could take from both sides of the table, things opened up a bit. I also ate a piece of carrot cake and kept eating it long after it started making me sick. My afternoon session turned out to be in the same room–Hyatt Regency Orange County/Anaheim Grand Ballroom B came to feel quite like home.

After filing into one of five academic-librarian-packed Anaheim Marriott ballrooms, I sat down with M. to a salad of two romaine hearts with some kind of shaved hard cheese, a roasted half-tomato with garlic, and a buttered roll. As if that wasn’t enough, our licked-clean salad plates were whisked away and replaced with chicken in a tomato-and-red-onion gravy paired with broccoli rabe and a dollop of mushroom-and-asparagus risotto. M. saved B. a seat, so we got to see the vegetarian option too (it’s almost a ratatouille!). About halfway through the main course, a couple of reps stood up and took turns talking about a few new things I would probably buy if I had any money while we all clattered away with our silver on china. I finished up with cake and coffee, always an elegant way to end a meal. That was absolutely hands-down the best conference hotel meal I have ever eaten, and an appropriate celebration of the best redesigned interface I’ve seen in awhile. Finally! A library resource that actually works like the rest of the web!

So there’s this auto touch screen like you see at the ATM machine, right, and you just choose what you want, including drinks, and the surly nightclub staff-cum-flight attendants bring it right to your seat! Whenever you want it! I chose the Greek Veggie baguette and accompaniments around “noon” when we were roughly over Oklahoma, trying to preserve some semblance of lunch routine. (Which means I pretty much had a turkey sandwich plus chips for breakfast, but who’s counting?) I ate it in about six seconds while watching a re-run of America’s Best Dance Crew on the same touch screen, which also turns into a radio station and an in-flight chat room. ABDC was amazing–I had many feelings watching what those bodies could do. I can’t believe Shane Sparks is a judge, though. I hate his stuff on SYTYCD.

I know I could totally wear my functional Speedo one-piece on the white sandy beaches of southern California, and besides, isn’t a preoccupation with looking cute on the beach completely absurd in the face of the crushing force of global capitalism? Yeah, well, anyway. MBWF took forty minutes out of her remarkably busy day to usher me in and out of the swimwear section of the Cross County Macy’s with Bronx-native efficiency–quick steps and brisk imperatives and absolutely zero nonsense. I ended up with a kicky little number that made me feel like a frothy-yet-sportif cocktail myself, even under the fluorescent lights and dingy makeshift walls of the Cross County Macy’s dressing room. And with only a whiff of Cathy Guisewite. Then we sped back to the library and I scarfed down the remains of last night’s dinner with CK  with the haste necessary to make it to my desk shift on time.

I sat out front the Pub under the clear, hot sun holding down a table and four chairs all on my own–a dicey proposition in the face of hovering groups of summer writers. Still, I braved the eating-alone stigma and ate my tofurkey sandwich and chips and talked on the phone to K. while she ordered breakfast at a drive-up window in her car in New Orleans. Finally, T. showed up–he’s doing AV for the program, and is therefore entitled to access the lunch buffet (lucky duck). He’s also a poet, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear such beautiful language come spilling out of his mouth: Can I get you anything? Do you want some jello or something? And he returned with a plateful of the stuff, and we regarded it, and we ate a lot of it. It was red and shiny and appropriately jiggly, with that creepy smooth mouthfeel that jello has. I insisted it was raspberry while T. and others who had joined us by now seemed to think it was just red. But really, if you sat with it in your mouth and paid very close attention, the raspberry was unmistakable. I feel a little bit sick.