Did I promise an entry and forget about you people? On the advice of my attorney (ass-attorney), I cannot blog about the events of Saturday night. (Yeah right!)
First off, I must tell you that after the Friday night we had, I was very tempted to hurl the alarm clock across the room when it went off at 6:00am. I resisted for fear of hitting Meghan or Jenny and getting my ass beaten that early in the morning. I have vague recollections of Jenny asking if I wanted to hop in the shower first or not. I either said, “That is sweet. You go ahead. I’ll just lay here and snooze a bit.” or “Fuck off.”
We made it to the conference in one piece. We began to scan the room for familiar faces again. Tougher to do without the beer bottle to hide behind. So I used coffee. This is when many of the infamous foul-mouthed mommy bloggers found their way to each other and grabbed a table. (We played table hoppers a few times that day, so I cannot remember who sat where at what time so just deal with the inaccuracies that may occur.) I do know at one point I heard a voice call out (when I was yet again refilling my coffee cup) “Coffee Diva bitch!” I would love to say it was anonymous, but I am totally calling Mindy out for that one. And with her was the amazing Mr. X. (And can I just tell you how much I adored these two. I mean, really, I tried to steal Mr. X just so I could laugh all the way home at his comments, but Mindy said something along the lines of “Hands off or I will cut you.” Whatever. I can take her. Though she is very tall and knows the gang symbols way better than I do.)
The morning debate about linking, popularity, Technorati, booger flinging (Or was that just at our table??) was interesting. There were some great opinions voiced. You can read them on a blog that is speaking intellectually about it. I am here to give you the immature version.
When it was time to break off into “Birds of a Feather”, we rebelled against the Mommy Blogger version (wasn’t that what we were doing already?) and went with the “Obscenities in Blogging” session. Second session of the morning and we already had a foul-mouthed blogger image. Why not run with it? There was only one voice of dissension. And of course we showed the respect that any choosing this session would bring. (We actually were very nice in our disagreement. Really!)
I want to give you my take on all of the sessions, but seriously, too many people have done that and done it so well that I would just make an ass of myself trying to recap. You really should go to the BlogHer site and see some of the live bloggers takes on all of the sessions.
I can offer this about the Mommy Blogging session. I think it was a complete success. Not because anything to panel, but because of the attendees. They offered amazing insight, questions and observations. It was a mix of Moms, non-Moms, men, working Moms, stay at home moms, liberal moms, conservative moms, foul mouthed mommy bloggers and clean cut mommy bloggers. These people impressed me so much I wanted to fold them all up in my BlogHer tote bag and take them home with me. (Although considering that I couldn’t even shove my binder in there, it wasn’t going to happen.) I even had a great signal worked out with Mr. X to tell me when the session was nearing an end. So, people who saw him flip me off, that was the signal. He wasn’t being mean. (As if I wouldn’t have jumped the table and taken him down if he was just being mean.) Thanks to everyone who went to that session. You brought it to the forefront of attention and I love that!
There was a closing session. People talked. Amazing things were said. Alice had amazing insight about the marginalized Mommy Bloggers. Terror was discussed. Ohhhhhh , and speaking of terror, the best line (and it better become the tag line on a certain person’s blog when he makes it public) was: ”…and his uterus was found 3 blocks away.” I am not even sure I can explain that. Basically terror topic led to a discussion of headlines in the media which led to that comment. Crass? Of course. But funny.
The cocktail hour. Oh how can I even do it justice? At one point I think I was puckering up to kiss the amazing Alice,but I resisted. I had an amazing time playing the role of the ping pong ball bouncing from person to person to meet, greet and bow at their feet. I even tried to borrow babies for Jen to nurse. We never were able to actually get our hands on that baby, though. (Sorry, Jen!) I was able to grab some talk time with the hysterical and super cool JenB. I even fondled Amanda’s beautiful hair. Because, people, you just couldn’t NOT fondle her hair. I might have scared her a bit. But I redeemed myself when I…oh wait, maybe she is still scared of me. And Mindy? Funny as shit, people. Seriously. There is a side to her that is not on her blog that gave me a new appreciation for her and her life.
Did I mention I got free drink tickets? I know I spoke to more people and met a lot and am trying to remember all of the incredible people by name. That is the thing. I had some very cool conversations with some very cool women, but their names and blogs became a jumble after so many hours (and Coronas). Eventually, they kicked us out of the TechMart. Yes. Kicked Us Out. So what do we do? Take the party to the Westin.
By that time my feet literally were worn raw and I had to change shoes. Being, the good friend that I am, I ditch Jenny and Niall Kennedy in the lobby for “ just a minute” to compare notes while we went upstairs. (Naill, I love ya man! You were such a great sport when the teasing and girl talk flew around you. You’ve got a new fan. Even if I didn’t see my name on the Technorati Top 100 like you promised.**) But once Jelly and I were alone, we actually got into a deep discussion. She helped me see a lot of things more clearly after talking to her. She blew me away with some of the things she had to say. So much so we decided we needed to drink more.
Back to the party outside. Where we met up with Ken, baketown–annony blogger, Meghan, Jenny, Elizabeth, Matt and the camera from hell. No seriously. FROM hell!
I don’t know when the last time was I laughed that hard. And sadly, very little of it would translate into the written word here. Too many instances of Jelly, Jenny or I playing off of each others words to make sense. (Unless we were shouting over the table at Meghan or Elizabeth.) Comments such as “That is NOT my cleavage and that is NOT my cigarette! I heard there are photos. Scary photos. Untrue photos that have been Photoshopped. I swear. Not real. But we had more fun than is allowed. AND I even have a picture of the Diet Coke and WATER than I was drinking, so I cannot even play the “It is not my fault. I was drunk” card. Bummer.
We staggered to our room at the godawful time of nearly passing out. Meghan fell asleep all cute and angelic while Jenny and I discussed the weekend. An early breakdown of what went on. The next thing I know the phone is ringing at 7:30am and I bound out of bed like a freak. (Sleep does not come easy to me some days.) We went to breakfast. Came back and checked out. Said our goodbyes to JenB and Amanda and headed to the airport. Neither Jenny, Meghan and I were ready to say goodbye although we were all ready to be back home. We had finally hit our wall and needed to decompress. After a couple of hours, I had to send the beautiful Meghan back home. At that point, I sat and read magazines (thanks Meghan!) for hours waiting for my flight. HOURS. It was 2:30am before I finally arrived home safe and sound.
Well worth the lack of sleep. Well worth the airfare. Even worth the disaster my house became over the weekend. And trust me, there will be another meet-up before BlogHer ‘06. That I can say for sure!
Bloghercon, BlogHer, dailyblogher
**He didn’t really promise. I think I made that up in a drunken stupor.
—–