I tried three shirts before I decided I had cloaked my midwestern-ness enough to be seen at a hopping AIGA shindig. This feeling of unfamiliar sophistication was little comfort to the fact that I had paid to attend this party, and knew absolutely nothing about where it was. I wonder if other conference attendees received a packet or something, or if we were to receive those when the conference proper begins tomorrow? Dear AIGA: When it comes to schedules and being in the right place at the right time, talk to me like I’m 5.

Regardless of the reason, I was left without information and finally had to take the $10 plunge for hotel internet to find out. Turns out it’s at the Hyatt, where I am staying, so rejoice! I was in luck. I went downstairs to ask how to find this party when I ran smack into Debbie Millman and Marian Bantjes, keeping my streak of a BADCast-guest-only 200X trip intact. The informed me the party was at the the other, more different Hyatt, which was two blocks away, just one block past where I had lunch earlier. We took a cab, which seemed a wondrously Manhattan thing to do.

When we popped out of the cab none other than Pentagram partner and Design Observer founder Michael Bierut was bustling about right next to us. Of course, the two lovely ladies I was with knew him well, and had hugs and kisses while I stood back silently and allowed my head to explode. Because Bierut is like, the shizzle, and you know this.

Shake hand. Say hello. Try not to sound like an idiot. Find appropriate time to tell him the posting of his student portfolio on the DO was killer. Good news, Debbie is doing most of the talking, and the guy actually seems to know who I am. Head asplodes a second time and we go in.

Now, this was a fancy-people party. The name dropping that will now ensue is not meant to make me sound any cooler than I regularly am, but is only meant to illustrate the number of times I needed to have a complete designer nerd-out and, being here solo, was not afforded to. There were free drinks (free right up until I remembered I payed $75 of my own money to be here), appetizers that were to fancy to be considered real food, and lots and lots of people.

Thankfully I knew a few of them, and my friends Steve Hartman, Debbie, Marian, and the Volume guys treated me well. I met Pasch (“oh, of the book written by Pasch?”); Sean Adams and Noreen Morika, Bart Crosby, Michael Vanderbyl, Sam Shelton, Ellen Lupton, I met Steven Heller at the freaking bar, Petrula Vrontikis (wonderful), Joyce Rutter Kaye, who is the editor in chief of Print magazine and is fabulous, Marc English, some cool cats from DC, and many others who my hazy memory is no doubt leaving blank. Later, i wound up in an elevator with half of that list and snapped the only photo of the night as proof that I was miraculously hanging out with the design gods.

Then, many of us, plus some newcomers, went for food and wine. We ate at the restaurant on the ground floor of the Hyatt — a fancy place where the only reason they actually put the prices on the menu seemed to be for taunting me. We stayed there for a good long time, drinking wines and listening to Laurie Rosenwald tell us the 45-minute story of how she was cast as “Woman” on Episode 1, Season 5 of the Sopranos for the line “When you say that, you make me feel… less than.”

Next: The tension mounts to a head as the conference proper gets underway. Will Nate be able to find where he is suppossed to be, and when? How do you make sure you get into each affinity session? Will the giant blue bear finally reveal himself as the detroyers of worlds? Stay tuned…