Electrolicious

It just wouldn’t be fun without a few WTF/oops moments, right?

* The Hampton in Austin not only has no wifi, not only has just one plug in each room, not only has a password you have to enter, but then has the audacity to then change the password every couple of days. Why do you need to change the password if people have to be physically connected to your ethernet?
* Monday night I had a fragrance accident and went out over-drenched in Karma. Comments included, “What’s that hippie shit you smell like, girl?” and “You smell nice” (translation: “Holy shit, I can smell you from all the way over here”).
* At one point I got on a wild rant about a douchebag I’d met earlier. For effect, I pulled out said ‘bag’s business card, joking as I did so, “You probably know this guy.” And yes, he was totally a colleague of the nice people to whom I was talking.
* I missed Henry Jenkins‘ keynote because I was eating a lackluster veggie burger.

All in gerunds! (Side note: it still gives me great pleasure to think about how I was laid off from one of my first paid editorial gigs for overuse of gerunds. It’s telling that, at the time, I didn’t even know what a gerund was. HA!)

• Singing one word of karaoke in the RVIP. The one word was Xanadu. Over and over. Plus I think I sang the word “in” a couple times.
• Getting a sunburn while chewing over authenticity, oversharing, politics, rapture, transparency, agents, etc with Baratunde.
• Having the opportunity to share this story at Fray Cafe.
• Enjoying a fabulous dinner with The Hearns at a chain restaurant that shall not be named.
• Hours of late night chatter with Alison in the 2-acre king sized bed we shared
• People watching at Mohawk
• Sleeping 9 hours almost every night. (Sleep deprivation stopped being glamorous for me around 1998.)
• Smelling like dryer sheets with James
• Finally getting to meet a whole ass-load of people who remember reading my website when it looked like this.
• Mis-recognizing Jenville (I knew her face, saw the black bob and thought “Is that Diablo Cody in town for SXSW Film?”)
• Sitting on the floor for 20×2 — which had an enforced two-minute time limit that I really appreciated
• Pulling faces during a photoshoot with Rannie.
• Finally using Twitter the way it was intended.

I took approximately 10 photos, half of which didn’t turn out. I also managed to stay out of many other people’s photos, which makes me feel like I lucked out since everyone joked about “What happens at SXSW stays on Flickr.” Be glad there are no photos of me, bug-eyed and sweating during hour 8 of that late night alcohol/caffeine binge.

I head back home today, and then will be deliciously unplugged tonight with the fabulous wünderspousen.

I’m starting to feel like a sponge that’s been sitting in a sink for a little too long. Wring me out! Wring me out!

Add Electrolicious on Twitter if you want to follow along!

For five years I’ve been trying to convince employers to send me to SXSW Interactive. I’ve been told everything from “Doesn’t relate to your job” to “You haven’t been here long enough for us to send you anywhere” to “We don’t have the money for that kind of thing.” But now! Finally! I have a job that relates, that I’ve been at for a year, with a company that has the budget to send me. I fly to Austin tomorrow. I’ve never been to Texas.

I’m rooming with Alison, and other than storytelling at Fray Cafe 8 on Sunday, I have absolutely no idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing at any time. But maybe I’ll see you there!