I'm home from San Diego and it seems weird that no one is giving me a swag bag full of crap when I walk around the corner. The BlogHer conference is truly one of the weirdest things around. It is full of about 3,500 women who blog about all sorts of craziness. I met pet bloggers and garden bloggers and s.ex bloggers and tech bloggers and on and on. But the weirdest thing is that there are a whole lot of egos at this conference. To me, it is hilarious. I am a total pee on in this world of blogging, but there are people there who actually can pay their mortgages and send their kids to college on the money they make from blogging. And those people gripe and moan all over twitter about how their big giant private parties suck, or so and so didn't recognize me and it feels very high school all over again. BUT- if you just skip over those people, then the whole thing can be utterly wonderful. I learned a lot and met a whole lot of really interesting people. Like who, you may be asking yourself? Well... for one... Bob Harper from the Biggest Loser.
Ahhh, Bob- Bob who I'm pretty sure is not into women but I'd chase after anyway. This is the juncture in the conference where I wanted to ask Bob to take off his shirt and make his boobies dance, but alas, I was all tongue tied and just managed to make a little guttural noise that resembled a giggle and then ran away as soon as the picture was snapped. I may have muttered "thanks" or something like that but then I berated myself for a good hour about how I ate a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast and how Bob probably wouldn't approve. And the dorky cardigan? Damn it. I should have worn something slinkier and more ho bag-ish like stilettos and a shredded shirt with my bra sticking out. Unfortunately for me (and Bob) I left my shredded bra at home. Had I only known...
Then I met Giuliana Rancic from the E! Network. It's no secret that I am a Kardashian junky and since they are on the same network together, I can, with no qualms now say that through one degree of separation that Kim Kardashian and I are now BFF's. I told Guiliana how brave I think that she is for sharing her infertility journey with the world and she was very gracious and sweet and posed for a picture with me. However, there was one small problem. Guiliana is no less that 7 feet tall. She weighs probably 80 pounds soaking wet. In fact, I'm surprised that she can even stand upright because I'm not sure how her little legs hold her up. So- add that, coupled with the fact that I am short and a little pudgy and was sweating profusely and the picture was pure crap. Do you remember those talking trash heaps that were on that old show, Fraggle Rock? I looked like one of those trash heaps. A trash heap with a near nip slip since somehow my dress had gotten all twisted in my effort to shed all my bags to snap the shot. So I am burying that picture because it wrecked my self esteem. Instead, I'll show you my rendering:
I talked to Ricki Lake about doing a show about the women and children in Congo for her new talk show that launches this fall. I think she may consider it! And then I saw the biggest celebrity of all:
Buddy the Dinosaur from Dinosaur Train. Holy Moly- my boys think I am so cool now! But the very best part of the whole weekend was connecting with real people. I got to spend most of the first day with
Kristen Howerton from Rage Against The Minivan. She's an adoptive momma and we'd met several times before but never gotten to really talk. We stood in line together to get into a party so we got to gab about all kind of things. Kristin collects a little entourage wherever she goes because she's kinda famous. So I'm not sure who the girl on the left of this picture is except to say that she was a fan of Kristen's. Seriously- walking around with Kristen is like walking around with Bono. She's like the rock star advocate of the blogging world.
The biggest surprise of the whole conference for me was meeting
Christy. We connected on Twitter before the conference and she invited me to dinner with a big group of girls. Those women were all amazing and we had so much fun sharing meals together all weekend. It made the conference just a bit smaller and more intimate for me. Meeting great people and staying connected is way more fun for me than going to private parties and schmoozing with big corporations. Although, I ain't gonna lie- the swag from this conference is ridiculous and it's fun to come home with all of it and feel just a tiny bit more important that you really are.
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Christy and Me. My pictures from the weekend are of stellar quality, aren't they!?
I love going on adventures like that, but it is oh -so-nice to be home again with family! I think that the littles were happy to see me. They assured me that daddy made them brush their teeth every day and only one of them got a travel checkers piece stuck up their nose, so all in all, it was a success on the home front as well! Maybe that means I need to travel a little more often? Hmmm... Vegas anyone? |
