I'm in Austin, one of the coolest cities on the planet. I really do love it here. I've been here since Wednesday. I think if I could stomach the weirdness of living in Texas, I could live here. Actually, it seems like people pretty much "hang out" here, so maybe I could just hang out for awhile, in the ultimate geographic commitmentphobic move. Two places to stay with no charge are a definite draw.
We had the Blogher meetup last night at Freddie's and it was really fun. I am continually impressed by the women who run Blogher. There is just such...competence, and good energy in the air. I'm excited to work on Blogher Business in a couple of weeks, and getting really pumped for the conference in Chicago in July. That's going to be so good. I just have a really good time with the people in this group. At one point I was sitting there and realized that I was actually relaxed for the first time since I could really remember. I've been waking up sore for weeks, which means I'm even tensed up when I'm sleeping. This is not good. It was somewhat disturbing to note that relaxation was a foreign sensation.
The past couple of days have brought some good resolution to at least one situation that was mildly troubling to me. The last two nights, though, I've had bad dreams, and that's never good. Two nights ago I dreamed that I was sitting in a workshop, and the speaker text messaged me that we needed to whisper. That was embarrassing. And then I had a stupid dream about an old situation that really made me unhappy in my subconcious mind. Thank God yesterday turned out to rock pretty hard...I went to the Progress coffee shop again, which, like the vast majority of Austin has free wireless a scruffily attractive proprietor. And then I actually went across the railroad tracks and took some pictures of some very cool graffiti and a building that's in interesting disrepair.
Today I'm at the Convention Center for the first day of the conference, and it's already pretty good - a little overwhelming at first, but in a good way. The coolest thing so far is that there are alternative newspapers from many cities across the country available in racks all over the building. Also, I'm sitting back in the back of the room, next to a guy who just finished his lunch, and is now knitting socks. Can't make this stuff up, indeed.

Comments