The SXSW festival is an hour from my house but I never go to it because crowds scare the shit out of me and also because it’s super expensive and I don’t have enough xanax and/or facial hair to fit in there, but last week I got invited to some kind of SXSW civility luncheon thingie and I had to go because 1) it was being thrown by some of my best friends and 2) someone invited me to a GODDAM CIVILITY LUNCHEON, y’all. How could I not go?
I usually write down shit as it happens and quickly write a post that day so I don’t forget what my notes meant but then Victor decided to shatter his arm and I got distracted and now I just have a bizarre bunch of notes that are confusing even to me. And now I’m going to share them with you. Because then you’ll know what it’s like in my head and it will make you feel better about yourself by comparison.
Bizarre notes I wrote to myself while getting mildly sloshed at a brunch designed to teach me about “civility & mobile etiquette”:
- Awesome idea for an invention: Tin cup (worn on a piece of twine around your neck). You could use it for olive pits, used-toothpicks and for panhandling. A tin cup on twine is the new waterproof pocket. That would be our slogan.
- I could probably save a lot of time if I just made a t-shirt that says, “I’m sorry for disappointing you”.
- I’m at civility party designed to teach me about not using Twitter in public. I’m the only person tweeting right now. Awesome. *I’m* the asshole at the bar. Except this isn’t even a bar. My god I suck at this.
- I just spent 10 minutes convincing Helen Jane that James Franco’s severed arm probably tastes like buffalo. Made a really convincing argument of it and I’m fairly sure she was impressed. Then some new chick came over and asked what we were talking about and I was all “James Franco’s arm tastes of buffalo”, but I wasn’t sober enough to remember my reasoning so I just left it at that and the new chick looked vaguely frightened and wandered off. This is why context is important.
- This is a civility luncheon about the rudeness of using mobile phones in public and it has a hashtag assigned to it. #deeplyconfused
- Overheard: “Do you ever have to please your man while texting?” And suddenly this shit just got interesting.
- Overheard: “Ringworm is going to happen, but if your baby gets pinworms you just walk away. Start fresh with a new baby, I say.” (Disclaimer: Does it count as “overheard” if you’re overhearing yourself say it to other people? How about if you’re only saying it to see how eavesdroppers will react? I say yes to both.)
- Overheard: “This would make a great heroin spoon. Right? Do they sell these here? Someone find me a waiter.” (Again, see disclaimer above.)
- me at our table: “Ooh! Pistachios!”
- me, seconds later: “Oh. Those are not pistachios. Those are olive pits. No one eat those.”
- me, two drinks later: “Ooh! Pistachios!”
- *repeat*
- Things I learned: SXSW is pretty cool if you don’t actually get anywhere near SXSW. Pistachios aren’t supposed to be damp. I shouldn’t even be allowed to have a phone and/or leave my house.
UPDATED: By popular demand, “Sorry for disappointing you” shirts for socially akward bloggers are now available in men’s, women’s and toddler’s sizes. I’m buying two.