I got special pencils for my birthday!

We flew!

Maggie (the Patron Saint of Life Lists and inspiration for mine) suggested that at South by Southwest we should connect and tick something off our lists together.  Galloping a horse was a multi-day endeavor and hot air ballooning was too complicated, but we found parasailing about an hour outside of Austin on Lake Travis and made reservations.

It’s beautiful.  You should try it, even if you’re a total weenie when it comes to heights, because it is not so much scary as it is gentle and awesome and smooth.  I felt like a kite!

It almost didn’t work out for a ton of reasons, kind of like the universe saying, “No, no, nope.”  Scheduling conflicts, equipment failures, bad weather…  I don’t believe in that The Secret stuff, but it really did feel the like cosmos were trying to keep us from floating over a lake, so I got pissy and dug my heels in, and we made it happen.  Sometimes you have to work for your fun.

En route to Lake Travis we were super excited.

Once on the boat we took a quick ride to the middle of it.  Then we were strapped in, given life vests, and then hooked up to a giant parachute thing.

At this point, I had a nervous butterfly, but just one.

The proprietors of the parasailing outfit (Airscape Parasail) were a nice older couple who brought their grand kids on the boat with us.  Much better than the creepy parasailing guy in Puerto Rico who stared at my boobs way too long before deciding it wasn’t windy enough to go.

After we were strapped in, they instructed us to sit on the back of the boat.  Then they let the rope out slowly, and we began to hover.  I braced myself for a jerk backwards or a dramatic floating away feeling, but it didn’t happen.  Instead it was the boat that seemed to go zipping away without us, and we were left in place, floating in mid-air.

And then we went up and up and up.  Waaaay up!

At some point they dipped us down over the water and then brought us up again.  I was expecting this, but as I watched the water come up closer and closer, it seemed like there was no way to recover from our gentle, inevitable decent into the lake.  About twenty feet over the water, I just made peace with it; I gave in, I sucked in a big breath to hold and watched the gap close.

But then, last second, we were swooped up again.  It was exhilarating.

I think tandem parasailing would be the perfect opportunity to trade government secrets, should you have any to share, and Maggie suggested it would be the place one college roommate would tell the other, “I’ve been in love with you for the past four years.” thus making the whole ride either really awesome or really awkward.  We both thought it would be good for marriage proposals, but only if you were really, really careful with the ring.

I am so glad I got to do this!  Horray for us!

P.S. My husband rocks!  He took all these photos for us.  Thank you Rob!  After we were finished, Maggie used her considerable powers of persuasion to get him to go parasailing, too.  When he got far enough away, he looked like a G.I. Joe.

“To infinity – and beyond!”

Rob is being tough in the middle.

Last night a small group of us were running around doing the “hit as many parties and drink as much free booze as you can” thing, which is half the reason to come to South by Southwest in the first place. We got cozy at the Gowalla party for a while before deciding to head out and catch up with some of our friends.

By this point, it had moved up from a mild drizzle to a solid downpour, and the indoor-outdoor event turned indoor-only as everyone started coming in out of the rain. It was hard for all of them to find a seat, so when we got up to go, a group of people eagerly lurched for our table and dumped fruit juice and vodka all over my right arm in the process. I shook it off and forged ahead.

Outside it was cold and rainy and there weren’t any cabs, but we trudged to another party anyway where we found a really long line to get in. Sighing, we all whipped out our iPhones to find another, less crowded party, and it was then that I reached the point where I was like, No. Just no. And also: no. Done. Going back to the hotel.

Annie had felt the same way; she got dressed and headed down, felt a gust of the cold and rain and turned around. So we met in the lobby, and from there I sent out a text asking folks to come join us for an impromptu party.

Drenched friends started showing up until our little cozy corner of the lobby was filled to bursting with just about everyone that I love that had come to South by Southwest. We laughed and chatted until one in the morning, warm and dry.

It was the best party in Austin.

I wrote a piece on the communal blog 3six5. Check it out!

http://the3six5.posterous.com/march-13-2010-amber-marlow-blatt

SxSW is rocking SO.  EFFING.  HARD. I can’t wait to write a whole post detailing everything.  But for now, just bits.

I’m tired, my feet hurt, and I haven’t had a vegetable in three days, but I love it.

It is my birthday.  I am 28.  That is so cool!  At 16 I set a goal: own a house by 28.  I own two!  I believe this calls for a “Boo-yah!”

I said 27 was the best birthday ever, but I’m going to say 28 is now.  It is because Maggie had breakfast with me, and there were cinnamon buns.  And it’s 1 pm and I’ve gotten hugged and high-fived one gajillion times already in celebration of said birthday.  And I have a pretty new orange sweater.  Does it get better than this?  No.

Last night I met a zillion awesome people, including Karen, she of Chookooloonks fame, who inspired my 1000 Clicks project.  We had dinner together in a group, and I was so thrilled to tell her that I was “stealing” her idea.  We are going to take photos of each other now.

It was Erica’s birthday yesterday, and we had breakfast tacos to celebrate.

Jake and I posed for a photo yesterday.  He is so kind.

It was a hassle getting to Texas yesterday.  Rob didn’t finish all the laundry, so it was a scramble to get it all in the laundromat and clean before we left.  We didn’t have nearly enough time for loving on the dogs before we left (there is never, ever enough time to love on the dogs before we leave.  So many belly rubs and kisses to give!)  We did the last-minute pack of all our toiletries and electronics that can’t be tucked away early.  In the car I realized our flight was at 12:00, not 12:40 like we were planning, and frantically tried to call to get on a later flight while Rob frantically drove and we both frantically yelled at each other.  “Your fault.  No, yours!”

At the airport the closer parking lot was full, so we had to park in the far one and hustle over on the shuttle.  The woman who checked our bags shook her head and wished us luck; our flight had been delayed, but would be boarding in “a minute”.

We are both airport security ninja-rockstars and jammed through the screening process as per u (I always think people must be admiring us as we amble away while the hapless masses are getting stopped for forgotten contraband water bottles and struggling back into their complicated boots); I ran to our gate with my shoes on my hands.  We made it, and we made up by 10,000 feet and spent the flight napping and picking things from the SkyMall.

I lost my sweatshirt at the layover – the only really warm thing I brought.  We blamed each other.  We made up again.  I will find another sweatshirt. It is not worth the fight.

How do you make traveling easier (aside from looking at the right time!)?

This is a screen shot of my recent blog traffic.  It looks like that stupid show is back for another season.  I’m sure it is really, really disappointing to Google “The Amber Show” and come here to find out I’m not two blond, fake-boobied bimbos.  Sorry, yall.  But I do have big boobs!  I just grew them myself.

***

I’m off to SxSW!  Come find me and say hello if you’ll be there.  I’ll be the one CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY!  Woo!

1. At a party with people my age.  Someone asks, “What the heck is a ‘podcast’?”, with air quotes and an eyeroll.

2. At the laundromat, when I was a quarter short.  The resulting scramble to find one lousy quarter was awkward to the point of pain, and ended with me buying a three dollar bottle of diet coke.  There is something about laundromats that sucks all of the grace out of me.

3. Going to a Christian church with a friend and having someone ask, “It’s a great day to be saved and redeemed by Jesus!  You ARE saved and redeemed, right?”

It’s a shame “bust out of a paper wall” was never on my life list.  May I suggest you add it to yours?  It is way fun.

Thanks, Dennis, for the photo.

My weekend was awesome! Dana was here from Canada, I got to see Stu! and a whole bunch of other friends, I hung out with my younger cousins, Grandma and I went shopping and she bought me birthday presents, I got to have brunch at one of my favorite brunch places, and the weather warmed up for the first time in ages which made the entire city a buzz with happiness. The parks were full of people who were soaking up sun like they were at a methadone clinic.

But seriously? One thing topped it all for me: deep fried cupcakes.

Park Slope [my 'nabe in BK] has been itching to get its collective grubby paws on some deep fried Robeicelli’s cupcakes for months. There was Cupcake Gate 2010 – a local shop was going to have them, but then they weren’t available but people thought they would be, and everyone was disappointed and grumpy and there was internet drama. (Boooooo!)

Finally we got some. On Thursday night I actually had a dream of biting into a deep fried tre leches cupcake, and on Friday I ate salad and steamed veggies all day in anticipation.

Normally when you’re that excited about eating something it’s not nearly as wonderful as you’ve dreamed, but in this case, it was better. A deep fried tre leches cupcake is like sex. Or drugs. I got a little high. Chris said to me, “I know. Everything. I know the answer to everything now.” and I nodded because totally got what he meant. That shit was life-changing.

Also, there were really, really hot guys at the event.