When I got back from the event at the Salk Institute, I staggered into my hotel room and tried to make food materialize from the intensity of my desire for it.  That didn’t work.  Nothing on the room service menu looked appealing, and Seaside Village, a tacky little clot of olde shoppes next to my hotel, had appalling dining choices.  I looked out my window (24th floor, incidentally, lovely view) and saw the Kansas City Barbecue Company across the street (circled in the photo).

My friend Kirk, who grew up and went to college in San Diego, had mentioned this place (he actually wrote a travel guide-worthy set of recommendations and warnings for me when I asked him what to see and do there) as having been featured in Top Gun, which made me recoil.  Top Gun is almost entirely composed of many of the things I loathe about Hollywood movies (not the least of which are Tom Cruise and Meg Ryan), and I had no interest in anything linked to it (Kirk adds, "Speaking of which, I was working at Pier 1 Imports ... during college, and one night as we were closing some people begged us to stay open late so they could buy a bunch of wicker furniture for a scene in a movie they were filming nearby--something called "Top Gun."  We were just pissed at the time that we had to stay open and couldn't go home; now Gretchen [his wife] gets sick of me pointing out wicker furniture whenever Top Gun is on TNT").  But I was hungry.  And tired.  And I lo-o-o-o-ve barbecue.

Well, the barbecue turned out to be inedible (I wound up eating just the bun -- where's Red Hot & Blue when I need it?), but, as you probably know (because you wouldn't be reading this if you don't read my movie reviews), I ended up with a much tastier dish.

Even though I didn't get any sleep that night, I strolled into the convention center at 6:45 the next morning cheerful and alert (it helped that I got a venti latte with an extra shot -- I could literally feel my heart fluttering before I even finished it).  The gloating helped, too -- I couldn't gloat to any of my colleagues because I don't want a reputation and anyway, I don't really like most of them (the person I like the most is my boss, and that's so not the kind of thing you tell your boss), so I had to call Stephen at home and squeal to him.

It took at least two or three hours before I became cranky again, which may not sound like much, but up till then, it took two or three minutes of the convention before I became cranky, so it was major.  Which reminds me, I just read about a new study showing that exposure to male pheromones (in the form of perspiration) brightened women's mood, reduced their tension, and relaxed them.  So I wonder if my insurance company would pay for a plane ticket so I could get a good sweat going on Mr. Coast Guard.

And then the convention officially closed, I got to pack up our display table (by myself, natch), and I was done.  The lack of sleep was hitting me as I stumbled back into my hotel, where in the lobby I ran into a coworker (who I actually like) on her way out.  She asked if I wanted to go get a drink with her, and I said, "No thanks, I literally didn't get any sleep last night, so I'm going to crash."  And, honest to god, this was the exchange that followed:

Her:  Was it 'cause you have trouble sleeping in a strange place?
Me:  No, I was out all night drinking with a couple of sailors. [In some bizarre split-second calculation, I guess I decided I'd rather have my colleagues think of me as a lush than a slut.]
Her (unperturbed): Yeah, I can't fall asleep in a strange place, either.
Me: [puzzled stare]
Her: Oh!  You were serious! [pause] Oh!

À propos of nothing, here's the view out my hotel room window, looking the other way from the shot at the top of this page.  The cluster of faux thatch and red-tile roofs is the wretched Seaside Village, and across the harbor, you can see the military base (I got to watch a big ol' battleship come in and a barge run over a small sailboat).

Oh, and the spit of land at the top, which ends about one-quarter of the way in from the left side?  That's Point Loma and Cabrillo National Monument, which Kirk recommended as a sunset viewing point and my research on tidal pools suggested was a good pool-viewing site, but I never made it out there.

Next: The vacation truly begins
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