Early tomorrow I’ll get on a plane en route to my fifth social media conference in three years. I haven’t really said much about the trip to people I know in “real life.” No one is paying me to be a social media consultant, and I’m definitely not making any money from this website. So I find myself trying to justify the trips. To myself. No one else has challenged me on it, because frankly I doubt that anyone else is really all that concerned.

Anyway, I can’t tell myself that I’m going so I can amortize the capital or integrate the paradigm matrix or anything like that (mostly because I don’t think those phrases actually mean anything), so I think it’s time I admit to myself and anyone who cares that I go to these things because they’re fun. I’m going so I can hug people I talk to every day on my computer. I’m going so I can learn from people who are making a living from social media. I’m going because this morning I had to bathe a cat who’d been coated in about a quarter of a jar of peanut butter. I’m going because I need some time to gather my thoughts and refill my bowl of words so I can write something other than a menu and a to-do list.

I’m going, and I’ll tell you all about it next week.