Michael Showalter's Plug Awards mixtape sketch gives a priceless breath of fresh air to a lost art. Love him.

With the SXSW Music Festival just days away and the madness of the Texas Two-Step winding down, I find myself feeling introspective and relaxed. It feels good to embrace these aspects of my environment. I'm all for building a sense of community. To me, that's the selling appeal of political involvement. I'm aware that whomever comes out on top is unlikely to solve all our problems or create a platform for world peace, but to generate excitement and ideas within communities renews that basic necessity of bringing people out of their houses and into discussions. It frightens me that people are often complacent with politics based on the common perception of a flawed system. What hope is there for progress without passion and participation. A spark is capable of the strongest fire. Ignite some inspiration.

Speaking of inspiration, I was fortunate to host my friend Christin over the weekend while she stopped in Austin during her four month American journey. Having her here renewed my confidence in my personal, anti-midlife crisis, lifestyle decisions. While I have admittedly thrown in the towel on irrational relocations for the time being, it's comforting and reassuring to converse with another wanderlust about their experiences and the insight they've gained. Furthermore, I was proud to tour her around my new stopping grounds and confident that her time in Austin was well received. Also, her timing was perfect, as I was able to give her my leftover camping equipment/freeze dried foods to help prepare her for any spontaneous camping. I'm always happy to dodge the bullet with the internal battle between my clutter-phobia and wastefulness.

I'm pretty sure this self proclaimed inability to deal with clutter keeps me at a constant, but low level of OCD, especially with event organization. With next week's SXSW festival quickly approaching, I'm a little overwhelmed about my lack of agenda, considering the stark contrast to my planning compulsion last year. I guess I'll be taking the low anxiety approach. I've taken the time to RSVP to everything under the sun, now it's a matter of throwing it on the wall to see what sticks. And I am super excited to be hosting today's USA Today's Pop Candy's coolest girl in Brooklyn's first Austin experience. I'll try to update daily, and I may even pull my shit together to post my tentative/ideal itinerary.