There is so much to write.

[randomling]

Is this what not being depressed feels like? I have energy, and I'm excited about life, and I feel able to be social. It's kind of awesome.

I arrived in Austin around 9pm local time, planned on popping into the room party for 20 minutes to introduce myself to some of the awesome folks, and ended up staying for three hours. DW has the best people, y'all. (Shut up, I'm getting into the Texas vernacular.)

So we left our heroine at Heathrow airport, eating a delicious breakfast of bacon and eggs. Since then, here's a brief summary of what happened to her:

* Got stared at over breakfast by a guy who clearly was like, "what the fuck are you?" I glared at him until he looked away. I love looking androgynous.
* Had a few nice conversations with the lady next to me on the plane to Dallas. Pretty sure she thought I was a dude the entire time. That was fun.
* Watched the second RDJ Sherlock Holmes on the plane. Still somewhat blown away by his accent which is spot-on, and I giggled in quite a lot of places, but was also mildly irritated by the show's utter failure to even understand 19th-century sensibility as it differed from modern sensibility. The script is very modern, even if you disregard the blatant anachronisms (CPR in 1891? Watson, I know you're brilliant and all, BUT LOL).
* Then I watched the Les Miserables movie. I should have remembered that the stage show always makes me sob in like six different places. Ugly crying on an aeroplane: NOT A GOOD LOOK I don't recommend it.
* There was a storm at Dallas and they closed the airport, so we were in a holding pattern for an hour. Then it took me 2.5 hours to get through immigration and customs and I missed my connection. (Let's not even talk about how much pain I was in after standing in line for 90 minutes.) Rebooked for a flight two hours later, which was fine, and even managed to find a UK-to-US plug adapter at the airport, having forgotten to buy one at Heathrow.
* Sat next to an awesome woman on the plane from Dallas to Austin and we talked about flying, and clouds, and programming, and women in technology, and faking it 'til you make it. (Hi, Amanda!)
* Taking off from Dallas was excellent, because I had a window-seat, and I love being able to look down from the sky and see the ground beneath me, and watch the cars start looking like matchboxes and then like tiny insects, and see sunlight reflecting off the clouds from above. Flying is awesome. (There was a lot more legroom on the flight to Austin, too.)
* I think tiredness caught up with me at Austin 'cause I went right to the bathroom and threw up a lot. Yay?
* Then I went to the information desk to ask where the taxi rank was and discovered that the guy at the desk was not only a fellow Brit, but born two miles from me. We talked about accents and the violence in Woolwich and the EDL and Lord Blackheath. Mustn't forget to pop back and see him on my way home.
* My taxi driver was from Ethiopia and talked to me about English football and football-related violence in Ethiopia.
* Then I got to the hotel, checked into my room (shared with the lovely purplecat - we are a little enclave of British), changed my clothes, and went to a room party for far longer than I intended.
* Also, the breakfast at the hotel is delicious, but I think I need to find something slightly cheaper for tomorrow.
* Now I am sitting in my hotel room, chilling out, listening to music, chatting on IRC, and tooling around on the internet.

I AM HAVING AN EXCELLENT TIME.