SXSW: Field trip!

You know when you were in school and you were always totally jealous of your older friends for getting to go on awesome field trips and you just couldn’t wait to go on them too? Like when you were in first grade and could not wait till third grade when you and all your classmates would pile into charter buses in your matching class t-shirts and drive down to the Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, where you would get really freaked out about the Challenger and then really disappointed that the gift shop only had personalized keychains and solar system mugs for girls named “Rachel” not “Rachael”? Or when you were in eighth grade and you couldn’t wait till you were in ninth grade when your US Government class got to go down to Atlanta to the Martin Luther King museum, where some rowdy kid would inevitably try to wade through the pond surrounding MLK’s tomb and other kids would pick flowers from the landscaping and everyone would get yelled at and you’d eat at McDonald’s on the way home? You know? Just like that? Then you know exactly how I’m feeling about SXSW right now.

Most likely because I got a good amount of sleep last night and my day has consisted mostly of packaging up boxes and battling our copy machine for custody of three notebooks’ worth of musician bios and press clippings, at the moment I am pretty much unequivocally excited about getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning and sacrificing the next five days of my life to the Pursuit Of New And Exciting Music And Also BBQ. I’m feeling hardy, like I could totally tackle a few 20-hour days running on no sleep and more free beer than actual food, and that much unlike the rest of my concert-going life I will triumph over crowded, sweaty, smoky bars and not wuss out after a band and a half. Good thing one or two of my travel companions have visited every single Starbucks in downtown Austin.

I’m also feeling like maybe I will be able to defy the laws of physics, master the art of time travel, etc. and manage to be at several places at once. One of me will hang out at all three days of Flatstock while another of me is at our parties while yet another of me is sleeping and a fourth me is driving out to visit the Alamo (the historical landmark, not the Draft House). And don’t even get me started on the showcases. There would be so many different me’s in so many different bars that it would probably just become conspicuous and awkward. I mean, what do you do when you see yourself on the street? “Hey Rachael, how was Okkervil River with Roky Erickson?” “Well, Rachael, it was just super! Have fun with Kimya Dawson!” Right. That’s just weird.

Wish me luck!