Shy Wild

Today is my Mom's birthday. Like most women her age, she's 39. Since I wrote about Dad, I figured I better drop a line about how effing awesome she is as well.

Like most moms, she's mastered the drying-tears, band-aid, chicken soup sort of stuff. She gives good advice and teaches life lessons thoroughly and in the correct order. She makes a mean meatloaf and always has a Kleenex. And so on, infinitely... She has comprehensively owned "Mom" in the traditional sense of the word. (She had a really good teacher.)

"Traditional" she is not, however. Anyone who has met my mom usually walks away delighted and confused. She is simultaneously gentle and outrageous, caring and out of control, shy and wild. She has mended every one of my broken hearts and given me the most debilitating hangovers. She is a tiny, mild person who once threw a chair at a biker bar and likes to burn shit. She is a wonder, a juxtaposition personified. She is an angel and a pirate.

I speak to her almost every day without fail. No one else hears the stripped-down, honest (sometimes scary) inner workings of my mind. No one. But that's because she isn't just my mom, she's my best friend. She gets the 3am call when I'm crying or laughing or both. She answers. My gypsy lifestyle and unconventional habits are not always easy for me but she gives me the strength and confidence to keep doing my thing. As a fellow unconventional, I suppose she's already navigated these waters and to keep doing one's thing is the only useful strategy. I need her like I need oxygen.

I often tell people that once you meet her, I will make better sense. We seem to always love the same things which makes buying her gifts effortless and we both can't have the music too loud. But, thinking deeper about this, I'm not so sure. We're very different actually. She has tact, for example. Luckily, I got her eyes.

Happy birthday, Mum! I hope your day is as rowdy, loud, fun, and special as you are!

Check out those seat covers. Roger That.

ACL is Austin's best binge, in my opinion. This year was highly anticipated and didn't disappoint, though my toxin levels are severely in the red. It was particularly noteworthy because I now live in Zilker Park, about .25 mile from the festivities. My condo was turned into a rowdy, loud squatter camp for boozers, dancers, travelers from afar, and the hungry. It was brilliant!

Communication at the festival is notoriously a problem but it also adds a creative challenge to the mix that can be wildly fun to solve, should you be so inclined. When you're crammed into a downtown city park with 130 bands, 8 different stages, and over 70,000 drunken, chemically-altered concert goers, you can forget about using your cell phone or checking in on Facebook. This year we tried walkie talkies...not because they work better than T-Mobile or help you find your lost friends but because talking on them is hilarious and having one is your hand is cool as shit. Some rules of engagement:

Fab shades

• Say "Roger that" after everything said into a walkie talkie. You can say "Roger that niner over and out cuuuuuusch" as well for added effect. 
• Come up with your own group language so that outsiders don't know what the hell you're talking about. Bonus points if truck drivers can decode your made up language. 
• Make friends with everyone else on your channel and respond to them with far out nonsense that makes them laugh. 
• Don't give both walkie talkies to one person.

Nom Nom Nom

Additional lessons include:

• Don't pee during the month of October. This frees up lots of additional time in front of stages. 
• Make your own ACL Bingo game. Include things like a Texas flag tattoo, a baby in headphones, and someone not wearing pants. Here's mine.
• Drunk people write the funniest stuff if you give them markers and large, washable pallets. 
• If there is any threat of rain, wear white. You will be given a free poncho by a handsome, kind boy and make lots of new friends.
• Avoid the lines at the food trucks and have food delivered to your tarp by those in need of karmic re-up.
• Rusty will find you. Even in a mosh pit. Even in the dark. He is a ninja.
• Sneak in whiskey.  
• See Jack White.
• Drown out the complaints of boring neighbors by turning the music up louder.

With the help of an epic band of gypsies, this was the best ACL (quite possibly the best music festival) yet! Next year, ACL is throwing my birthday party so expect more of the same. Music is fuel (and so is Rumchata)!!

Not the same ACL without him

Almost a year ago, I lost the friend that told me to never take Advil for a hangover, especially during the 72-hour ACL binge. To do so was "sending my liver into a gun fight with a knife." I lost a friend that, even though I knew him only briefly, was one of the most precious of my new Austin friends.

I still think about him every day without fail and wonder what things would have been like had he been around to offer direction. Things, I believe, would have been so very different.

After Travis died, I was never able to console my now ex-boyfriend, Travis' best friend, who was devastated by the loss. In turn, he offered me no comfort either. I was told I was a failure because I could not take the pain away. Bringing him back was the only solution, a task I was indeed quite incapable of performing.

A failure, however, I am not. I try, just like everyone, my hardest. I miss him, just like everyone...with an intensity that is unspeakable, with a sadness in which I dare not even indulge.

If I could have lessened the pain for my man, my friends, Travis' family, the state of Texas, the universe, believe me, I would have. But that isn't how these things work. We all take a piece of the pain and carry it whether we are strong enough for the extra load or not. That is the burden you accept when you love someone like we all loved Travis. Like all things we love, to have them taken is a risk we must be prepared for, a weight we must be ready to bare without warning.

And so I try to carry my grief with gratitude. I don't always do it gracefully. I don't always do it right. But I do it, always. Because like I said a year ago, there is no greater thanks for the sadness I feel because I'm one of the lucky ones that gets to miss him.

I miss you, my dear friend. ACL won't sound the same without you. I wish you could be there to sing along to Avett Brothers with me. But, I have my tarp ready and I've chosen Jack White instead of that old guy. I know you'll be listening. 

Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise by The Avett Brothers

Thank you, beautiful friends

It's official. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. Today is my birthday and I'm overwhelmed by the love sent my way.

Beginning yesterday, because some of my friends live in hemispheres where everything is done a day early, I started getting love notes and it has been heartwarmingly constant since. With a midnight knock on my door for shots and the best shih tzu snuggle alarm clock, my special day has been too good to be true, and it is only lunchtime. My phone has been buzzing every few minutes all night and morning long and I'm quite overwhelmed by my beautiful pack members; old, new, close, and far. Thank you all so, so much. You amaze me to tears. There is nothing more precious to me than friendship.

Mum is arriving in a few hours for a packed weekend of music, fishing, overeating, and (knowing the Queen of Pirates) mischief. It is going to be a weekend (um...maybe more like a month) of memories for sure. I'll post photos of my fishing catch...with the luck I know I have for being friends with all of you, I know I'm going to catch a whopper.