Short version, the t-shirts turned out awful and I refused to wear them. They have been relegated to an as-yet-unnamed-future-event; I’ve got one in April and one in May, so I’ll just pick.

In other, better news, I didn’t make it to any panels on Friday. No, really, it was good news

Official SXSW programming started at 2:00. I had lunch plans for 12:30 which I knew would get me there a little late, which would have been fine…

But then, the parking garage I planned on parking in was full and I don’t know down town Austin at all. So, I found a partially empty lot, but the empty part wasn’t numbered and there was no way to know what spot to pay for, so I found free parking under the freeway, which would have been fine…

But then as I was within sight of the convention center I realized that I had left my badge in my car and couldn’t get in without it. So I walked back to my car, thinking all the while that I should have know better than to wear strappy 2 1/2 in. sandals. (I’m still not sure how I thought it was a good idea to only bring heels.) I got the badge and put it in my bag and as I was walking back I realized that I had my bag of fruit from the morning’s trip to Whole Foods in my hand; so I turned around and put it back in my car. Only, when I got back to the convention center I realized that I had put the badge in with the bag of fruit, not my actual bag. So, back to the car I went, which would have been fine…

But my feet were rapidly blistering, so I decided to drive back to the hotel to change shoes and go buy some flats, which would have been fine…

But when I pulled into a parking space at DSW, I couldn’t find my wallet. I’d left it in the hotel room.

Feeling frustrated I drove back to the hotel and checked Twitter, where I saw this tweet from Couch Surfing Ori. Now, had my day gone according to plan, I would have been at the convention center and not willing to leave, but as events conspired (not really) against me, I was not only able, but more than willing to stop and get a can of gas. I had been planning on finding Ori and introducing myself anyway, but this presented a perfect opportunity to do so.

After any of the day’s events, and especially all of them combined, I would have been likely to turn inward. I would probably have gone to some panels, but I doubt I would have initiated conversations with anyone. I probably would have gone back to the hotel and convinced myself that I needed to get some extra rest after such a stressful day. Instead, by responding to someone I hadn’t even heard of two weeks before, I met several new people, became friends with someone I admire, and have a whole new perspective on what I need to do for myself. Now, it’s all about the experience and of course, serendipity.

Tags: couch surfing ori, meeting people, no plans, Outside of my Comfort Zone, serendipity, sxsw

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Comfort Zone Stretches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.