I’m absolutely not against blog meetups, but for someone who’s not against them, I have a funny way of showing it. Come this April, I’ll have been in Austin for three years, yet I attended my first blogging event in Austin this past Saturday night.
I remember the first "blogger bash" I attended in New York. I wasn’t up for going alone, so I dragged Gay Max with me. Working for a software company as a programmer, he was a way bigger nerd than I, yet he quickly opted out when we were all forced to switch locations. I believe I ended up at Siberia bar, alone with new friends. Except… I didn’t make new friends. I linked to the new people I’d met, but other than seeing them at other events, they weren’t more than "others." Not in a LOST way, or anything. We just weren’t phone friends, let’s make plans friends, or even, let’s get coffee sometime friends. There was no talk of getting together sometime. Instead, it was a race home to see who posted what about whom, how another person at the same event describes what you just saw, so different, yet the same.
I attended a followup nerdly lover fest to that first New York blogger meetup, bringing Chris with me, where we spoke about how perfect his balls were. He told Krissa that he kept them in a retainer at night. Heather Hunter and I weren’t friends yet, but I have a photograph from that night, where we met. It’s amazing how people who begin as complete strangers in our lives can be the very people we’ll grow old making fun of on a porch somewhere, eating cupcakes and playing Upwords.
Then, I moved to Texas, made pretty much all my friends that I have now through my blog, then was the closing keynote, with Heather Armstrong, at BlogHer last year in SF. I’ll be speaking at South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin this month, on a "From Blog to Book Deal: How-To" panel. And I can only hope that the strangers I meet there might become more. I’m really excited. Not just for the interactive panels but for all the films coming to town. I can almost taste the Milkduds in my popcorn. I’ll be posting the events I’ll be attending on that SXSW link on the upper left corner of this blog.
Topic: From Blog to Book Deal: How-To
Day: Tuesday, March 17
Time: 5:00-6:00
Place: Room 18BCD,
Signing copies of Moose and Straight Up And Dirty earlier that day:
Austin Convention Center (500 E. Cesar Chavez)
Day Stage Cafe
3:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Now then, back to Saturday night and the mommyblogging event. If you’re an Austin mama with a blog, check out LiveMom who put the event together, complete with silent auction to benefit baby Ike, who like my own tadpoles, was born premature, but the parents are struggling with healthcare. It was a lovely evening filled with tiramasu, boxed wine, and mother-in-law stories. I am certain that a few of the strangers I spent time with the other night will become more than that. In honor of The Bachelor, I’ll even say, "We had a connection." So here’s to new friendships and girl plans!
A YEAR AGO: This Label Was Made for Walking
2 YEARS AGO: All I Want to Do is Stop
3 YEARS AGO: The Great Escape
4 YEARS AGO: City Slickers
5 YEARS AGO: Fat Farm
