A couple months back a lovely and smart gal I’m friends with on Facebook recommended some books to read, and since I’m now a full-fledged convert to the Public Library, I logged in and added a few of them to my pick list. I recently finished one of the books on the list– Ready Player One. It’s a total geek/nerd fest, chock full of fun sci-fi, future dystopia, adventure, evil villains, and TONS of pop-culture references from the 80s. The first quarter of the book was enjoyable, but once the action started picking up and a romance angle got tossed into the mix, I was hooked!
Once I finished the book I jumped on Facebook and thanked Jeri Lyn for the recommendation and praised the book’s awesomeness. Then another friend on Facebook commented on my update:
“The author is from here in Austin. Should I make it a point to go to one of his many in-store appearances?”
How cool is that? Ernest Cline lives in Austin with John! I told him the book is awesome and he should go and pick up a copy. He did go and pick up a copy… and put up a picture on my wall:
He added a comment to the picture:
“I will keep this here in Austin until your next visit.”
My first thought was HOW FREAKING COOL! My next thought was… how freaking cruel– I’m here in Virginia, he’s in Austin Texas… I’ve never been further west than Tennessee except for a flyover on the way to Cancun for my honeymoon with my ex! How am I supposed to run by Austin to pick up the book?
A couple days later I was driving along and thinking about John, and Austin, and then I remembered– I had another old friend who lived in Texas. I couldn’t remember exactly where, so when I got home I jumped on Facebook and checked.
She lives in Austin. It’s actually a fairly wild coincidence… when I met John he’d moved to Richmond from New Jersey and was my downstairs neighbor for a couple years. We hit it off well and I introduced him to the city I loved and grew up in. At the same time I was also friends with/dating the sweetheart I wrote about here (The balm the healed my heart-sick soul), and I’d gotten to be friends with one of her close friends Tracie. John, Tracie and I probably all partied together more than once.
Eventually John left Richmond and ended up in Texas. Not long after that I was roommates with Tracie for a couple years before she left the state and ended up in Texas. Now they both live in Austin. Austin, which I’ve heard is one of the coolest cities in the United States. I remembered that there’s a huge movie and music festival there, South By Southwest, that I’ve always wanted to go to. John reminded me of the Austin City Limits music festival, which is huge! So huge that all the tickets for the three-day event in October has already sold out now in June.
SXSW, Austin City Limits… either would be an awesome adventure to go on… but the expense of plane tickets, hotel, and the event itself– not to mention time away from working my part-time job– it all just seemed like a nice but unrealistic daydream.
However, now I know I’ve got friends that live there, who I could presumably count on for at least sofa space and use of a shower. Who’d hopefully like to go with me, and show me around Austin. Hotel expenses, eliminated! Also, now that I’ve added a roommate that’s helping ease my financial burden a bit… suddenly Austin doesn’t seem like a pipe dream. With some planning and time to sock away some money…
“I will keep this here in Austin until your next visit.”
Plot hatched. Commence scheming… Fingers crossed, 2013 — Austin here I come?
I’ve always wanted to go to Austin and haven’t made it their yet, either. You will have to let me know about all of the cool places to check out after your trip!
I suspect the blog(s) that come out of the trip will be epic 🙂
Austin is a cool city but you would be hard pressed to find anyone our age that is actually from Austin. Most of us are transplants.
I love living here even after 14 years. And hey, we DO have a guest room. Plane tickets are not so bad (about $250 to $300) when you can time it right. Maybe we can even squeeze some time to head out to the ranch!
Guest room… ranch… count me in!! 🙂
I want to coordinate the visit with either SXSW (March) or ACL (October). Would you be interested in going to either event?
1,472 miles is a punk. You could totally kick the ass of it.
Hahaha, well we shall see 🙂 my wallet might take a beating 😉
It’s a small world after all!
Ready Player One is an awesome book! Loved every bit of it.