SXSMe

This is my first year as an Austin resident for SXSW. I could have bought a resident wristband at a deep discount - but I didn't this year.  But this annual event is still changing my life.

Today I stood in a parking lot outside a record store (you heard me. a record store. yes, they still exist. we're keeping them safe here in Austin for the rest of you) and heard - for free - some incredible musicians.  Frightened Rabbit (they're Scottish - of course I love them), Richard Thompson, Billy Bragg - all for free. 

Every meal I ate today was taco-based.

The weather was perfect, even if my pasty-ass self got a serious sunburn today (whatever Walgreens - your SPF 70 sunscreen is a joke).

Everyone who's visiting for the first time seems to be falling quickly and raucously in love with a city that's been my home since August, and ironically it's taking me being in the middle of them to realize what a gift I've been given.

You're right guys - breakfast tacos are incredible. I don't know why no one else thought of them.  And we are the live music capital of the world - I've been hearing great live music coming from literally everywhere the past week. And it makes the air vibrate in a new way, and I wonder how much of this week is infused in the architecture and will emerge to carry us through the triple digit temperatures that are literally only around the corner.  

I feel like I've started to really breathe this place in during these past few days.  Part of this is that I think it just takes me a (possibly unreasonably) long time to really adjust to and settle in somewhere new.  But I think part of it is the infectious energy that's here this week, reminding me what might be possible when a large group of people (a really effing large group) come together to celebrate art they love.  

I get to live here for at least the next two years.  And I suspect it just might be as magical a place as I was led to believe it would be.