There's just nothing like a trip away from home -- even if it's just an overnighter -- to slap you upside the head and put things in perspective.
1) Keynote speakers who were *gasp* MODERATES!! I mean... have you any idea how wonderfully life-affirming it is to realize that no, you in fact are NOT the only person who shares the love of debate and open ideas and thoughts??!
My field (librarianship) is all about making a safe place to house and think about ideas, freely. We have some ultra right-wingers and some ultra left-wingers in the mix, but most of us are pretty firmly planted right in the middle, and equally dismayed about the name-flinging closed-mindedness that's been going on, on both "sides of the aisle" so to speak.It gets to be downright distressing when you speak what used to be considered basic common sense and get labelled as an evil being for it. I now feel renewed, knowing that I'm not crazy! Well, ok, I'm crazy but it's not because of my nice vanilla social viewpoints. (or,. at least there are a whopping big bunch of us on that particular crazy bus).
2) I am NOT FAT!! There is nothing in this world quite as likely to make you feel skinny as a rail, in spite of baby pads that never went away, as going to a library conference. Wow. Most of us in the field are in the 40-55 age range, or older (thank whatever, there is a new wave of younger people coming into the profession...I was beginning to really worry). And all of us have our degrees of salt in the hair, and depending on how sedentary the job and the degree of other physical ailments going on, are ... well... BIG.
To put it bluntly, some of these girls would make two of me.
Librarians, in the money-saving Giant Economy Size. And to be fair, a couple of my favorites in the family-pack category can dance circles around me in the productivity department. I'm not picking on size, just realizing what a DORK I am to be worrying so much about it!
So. Now Uende and Aernath and Ashura and Kittens and Shellie and *breathe Kay* all the other people who have been telling me what a foolish thing it is for me to be down about my extra padding -- you may slap me about sharply. I actually had to go see myself sitting in rooms of my peers to realize how right you are... we're all of various sizes, shapes, degrees of decreptitude and/or beauty, and we're all great in spite of it.
Spank away
(but I do feel much better! I highly recommend a good night's sleep in a quiet room to everyone!)
...it's Saturday night and thinking hurts! ...oy...
) I'm glad you were finally able to focus on the good parts of you, cuz like the rest of us have known all along, (to borrow a Marthaism) it's all good! 
Mwahahahahahaha 
) sometimes looking at the other girls with their bleached hair and smaller bodies can be depressing. Most of the time, though, it's amusing. Most of them have love handles. Love handles which are rather prominently displayed by their choice of dress. 
