Thursday, 18 March 2004 | Austin/Phone call

SXSWi is repeatedly (and rather accurately) compared to summer camp. You leave town by yourself for a week or so, you sleep near people you probably wouldn't know had you not met them there, many of your activities are pre-planned (in this case, drawn out for you in a slick-looking program), you help generate a bank of inside jokes, and, after you leave, you attempt to keep in touch with other "campers" who shared the experience. Unlike in summer camp, however, attendance and bedtime are not enforced, and you can eat whatever you want (which is essentially the difference between childhood and adulthood anyway, right?).

Now that I'm back, my old schedule and purpose have emerged, and the people who briefly surrounded me have disappeared; they have taken airplanes in different directions like an exploding firework, and, I imagine, have landed back in their regular lives, just as I have. I'm having trouble remembering what consumed my thoughts before I left for Austin, and the recently dialed numbers in my cell phone have distant area codes. Perhaps the most unsettling thing is that I was wearing short sleeves on Tuesday and could feel the warm sun on my skin, and now I'm buried in snow, with more on the way.

...

There's a desperate guy in Brooklyn and he has my phone number. He's called me twice before, leaving messages for a girl with another name, marking each message as urgent. I didn't realize he was desperate, though, until tonight, when he called, asked for Leslie, and called back again thirty seconds later. "Hey. Who is this?" he asked. "Lisa." "Lisa, where you live? Is that rude of me to ask? Where you live? Are you in college? You go to school? Don't you wanna see who you're talking to?"

I politely declined, just before warning him, "Um...I'm going to hang up now."