BlogHer Wrap-Up
I decided on Friday night that there was no way I was making it to 8 a.m. breakfast on Saturday. I needed sleep, first and foremost. After arriving back at the hotel after midnight, it just wasn't going to happen. I grabbed coffee from my room and figured I'd function on caffeine and a granola swag bar that found its way into my bag until lunch.
I spent my morning and afternoon floating in and out of sessions. They told us to "vote with our feet" so I did, often. I was really pumped about the Fitness Blogging session, but after investing 15 minutes, realized that this was a room full of a lot of women who wanted to talk about weight loss and plateaus. There's nothing wrong with that; but it wasn't what I was expecting so out I went.
I found myself in the Tragedy session where two of the speakers were Anissa and Peter Mayhew. Anissa suffered a massive stroke and her husband blogged her progress and the family's heartache in the days that followed. Listening to them speak was inspiring, especially after losing my grandmother to a massive stroke in April.
When it was over, I rushed out to the Humor Writing session. It was funny, but it was so packed and when I saw a message on twitter that the Small Blogs session was incredible, I walked again.
I walked into this room and looked around. This, the last session of the conference, was filled with women I had met and connected with during the conference. People talked about loving their small blogs, and using their blogs as writing exercise, not for ad revenue and shameless self-promotion. It was here that I had the guts to speak up (before the time was out-which had happened to me in another session). (By the way-here's a link to that post I mentioned in there.) I stood up and suggested that instead of all running off after the session was over, why not stay, exchange business/blog cards and get to know each other a little better? We may not have 50,000 followers on Twitter or write a blog that pays our mortgage, but couldn't we all help each other grow and at least expose our writing to other like-minded people?
The response was incredible. Instantly, Tricia turned around and handed me her card. I instantly saw "fighter" and knew we would hit it off. She teaches boxing of all things. With a blog called Left Hook, we were destined to be friends. Even though this looks more like a right back fist, she is legit. She's actually just showing off her new swag bracelet.
Then other women started moving over towards me and handing me their cards as well. This was a friendly group. By the time I left the room, about 20 minutes after the session had ended, I had met at least 15 new people and found some really interesting new blogs to read. Here's my collection of cards from the weekend.
When the final keynote of the day wrapped up, I returned to my room to get ready for the night. Armed with a cell phone full of blogger's phone numbers, I wasn't worried about arriving at parties by myself. As a crasher anyway, who didn't realize the importance of RSVPing or trying to get invites to private parties, I was relieved when Faiqa invited me to a Blogger Meet-up at The Volstead, for all the bloggers without parties to attend. Funny that I had no parties to attend, but still didn't know about the Blogger Meet-up. I sent text messages to all my new friends and they began filing in. It was one of the most relaxed environments all weekend and I had a blast while there.
Here I am with "Mrs. Smith," whom I will always think of as a great little sister. We had an absolute blast together.
It was after The Volstead that we went to Sparklecorn, which sounds cheesy and ridiculous, but it was easily one of the best parties I had ever been to. . .EVAH. This is the cake from said party, made by Charm City Cakes. You know, the Ace of Cakes people on The Food Network. I seriously love them and couldn't wait to try the cake. Each turret, unicorn, etc. was a different flavor. The one I had was banana and it was easily the best cake I have ever had. Mrs. Smith had a peanut butter slice and I was lucky enough to snag a bite of that one as well. It tasted like a Reese's Peanut Butter cup would if it was a cloud. In a word: incredible.
Then, standing right beside that amazing cake, I recognized one of the people I was determined to meet over the weekend. . . Amalah. One of the first blogs I ever read, I felt like I already knew her as I walked up, introduced myself and asked for a picture. The coolest part? She totally knew who I was, probably because as a newbie blogger I had tagged her in a meme just for fun. I never thought she'ddo it, but she did and the mad hits I had that day from Amalah blew this then-newbie blogger out of the water. She was gracious, warm and totally normal. What a relief.
Before heading out, "Green" and I posed for a picture and spent some time discussing our experiences at BlogHer. If you appear on her blog, you appear as a color and she promised me "teal." You guys all know how much I like my shades of blue and green around here.
With Sparklecorn wrapping up, Mrs. Smith and I headed over to CheeseburgHer. A so-called rite of BlogHer passage, I wasn't surprised to see so many people walking around with McDonald's bags on their heads. I had seen the pictures from last year. And then I saw Goon Squad Sarah! Buddies in my blogger fantasy football league for years, it was so nice to finally meet her.
After getting my fill of snack wraps and burgers, we decided enough was enough. All in all, I had a great time at BlogHer. There were some awkward moments; but overall, I made some great new friends, and found inspiration and writing advice that I needed. . .
If only I had met Lisa Stone (whose blog has clearly been neglected because she's been all busy running some site called BlogHer or something). . .
And there she was, in the gray dress right behind Mrs. Smith. If only I had known this before I downloaded my pictures after arriving at home. "Hi Lisa, wish we had met."
Finally, because you can't talk about BlogHer without talking about the swag, I'll show you this, a partial picture of all the swag because I had already loaded all the edible stuff into my pantry closet. I didn't attend the private parties with vacuum cleaners. I didn't have any clothing companies throwing free clothing at me. But I did make some nice connections with sponsors, and get some cool new stuff, my favorite being the Tempur-Pedic travel pillow that made my bumpy bus ride home a little more tolerable.
I learned many things at BlogHer this past weekend. First, I love this blog and I should be more proud of it and promote my writing and my work more often instead of worrying that people will be offended by something I might write one day. Second, some bloggers can be downright odd. I should have expected this, but I guess not everyone has a healthy balance between their online lives and the ones they tend to write about. And finally, there are some amazing people out there; and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to attend a function where I could meet so many of them.
I would like to thank my neighbor Amy, for letting me borrow some beautiful jewelry pieces for the trip. Thank you Amy!
Rockettes, Broadway Songs and Invisibility Cloaks
After taking a three-hour bus ride that included about 4,763 unpredictable lurches, bumps, drops and turns, and then a 15 minute cab ride that was more of the same, I arrived at the New York Hilton for BlogHer on Thursday feeling nauseated to the extreme and with a migraine that was threatening to take my right eye hostage indefinitely. My expectations about what my arrival would be like were perhaps, I'll admit, a bit unrealistic.
I expected that there would be a welcoming committee, who might even break out into song like, "Welcome Black Belt Mama, we see you're looking green. . . but now that you are here with us, we just can't help but beam. . . " (2400 awesome blogger ladies all bat their lashes, grin ear to ear, and start throwing up kicks, Rockette style).
It wasn't at all like that.
It was more like this: get into an extremely long check-in line with Mr. BBM who continues to encourage me to be all social and go start meeting people when all I want to do is hide, and/or yell out that I need someone to come hold me. For a 24 hour period, Mr. BBM and I completely traded personalities. He became the social butterfly, while I wished that I had packed an invisibility cloak instead of 10 pairs of shoes.
Despite seeing a familiar face in the lobby and even exchanging a few words and a hug, this inner voice was screaming at me, "Don't be a leech! Don't attach yourself to the first familiar face you see. No one wants you around. Go hide in your room."
So I did for a little while and then I dragged Mr. BBM along with me to the hotel bar so we could grab a soda and a free popsicle. I figured that people would approach us and introduce themselves. I thought I'd be able to say, "Hey aren't you so and so?" and instant connections would be made, but that didn't happen either. It was intimidating and awkward and the more people who showed up, the more socially broken I became.
I began rationalizing. "You know, I really paid for the sessions, not the parties. If I have no night life BlogHer experiences, I'll be fine."
Happily back in my comfort zone thanks to that line of thinking, Mr. BBM and I went out to dinner at this great little italian place called Il Gattopardo. I had lasagna with these amazing little meatballs in it. We shared a bottle of wine that was pure perfection. We even tried this melt-in-your-mouth lemon and limoncello semifreddo for dessert. Neither of us had any idea exactly what we had ordered, but I assured Mr. BBM that Giada said those words regularly and it was going to be good. I was right. Thank you Giada.
We walked back to the hotel and it was the first night of parties. Despite not having RSVP'd, the party opened up and I went in while Mr. BBM went up to the room. Walking into that ballroom alone was pretty nerve-wracking. I wandered around the room looking for a familiar face. Some turned away from their discussion groups for a second and glanced at me, but all of them turned back to their conversations. My one familiar face had to leave, and I mentally smacked myself around for being so shy when that is totally not my nature. It's very intimidating to try to walk up to a group of people who are already deep in discussion and introduce yourself though. What if they simply don't want to talk to you?
So I continued to wander by myself for a while. Then I found someone who looked as scared and intimidated as I felt and we talked for a bit. She introduced me to one of her friends and then before I knew it, they were gone and I was alone again.
I made a mental deal with myself. "You have to drink one drink and then you can go be sad and pathetic in your room." I walked to the bar with purpose, ordered a rum and diet coke and rationalized that I could absolutely chug that sucker if I got really uncomfortable. I ordered my drink and then realized that Mr. BBM had pulled all the cash out of my wallet earlier in the day. I felt around in my purse for a tip and the bartender said, "No, no, no tip is necessary. I just need your ticket."
I showed him my name badge and he said, "No, I need your drink ticket."
"Oh, I don't have one," I told him. I considered slamming that drink down as fast as possible, sorority style, and running, now hot from embarrassment and totally overwhelmed with not-fitting-in-at-all-ness. But I knew that if he chased me, he'd catch me. Just three weeks post surgery, I still couldn't alternate stairs. Who was I kidding?
The bartender gestured to a cash register a few feet away and told me to go buy one. I told the cashier I needed one drink ticket and handed her my credit card. "Only cash," she said. "My God," I thought, "what else can go wrong? Maybe someone will come up and kick me in the knee now too."
"Well, then I'm going to have to go to my room first," I said, knowing full well, I was NOT going to be coming back down for that drink. I laughed a nervous laugh and lied to the bartender that I would be back and walked out of that ballroom with my head held high. On my walk out the door, I rationalized that it wasn't really safe to come back and drink a beverage I had left unattended for any period of time. This wasn't about embarrassment; it was about responsibility to myself and my own personal safety. Yeah, that's it!
When I walked into the hotel room a few minutes later, Mr. BBM was shocked to see me. I relayed my experience, despite the fact that he had already read it all over my face, and he assured me that Friday would be better (insert foreshadowing here). I nodded and said nothing because I was already on the verge of tears. I curled up in bed, and came to the conclusion that I really would have been better off if I had packed that invisibility cloak.
Day two had to get better. . .
BlogHer10 BBM Orientation
I was a nervous wreck about going to BlogHer this weekend. Then I started getting comments and emails and tweets from people I haven't met yet who are also going. It has helped to ease my mind immensely. But there are always a couple things that still make me nervous, especially when you consider who I am and what I write about.
First, I teach English and Communications classes as an adjunct. Frequently, when someone first meets you and finds out you have a degree in English, they will pull a random three-word quote out of the air from some obscure piece of literature and start quizzing you, Jeopardy style, on exactly who said that when and to whom. Let me save you the trouble. . . I'll likely not know it. You see, I have quotation anxiety. When I was going to school at Pitt, I took a class called "Bible as Literature." We had two tests the entire semester and read the entire bible during the course of one long and painful semester. The midterm was brutal and I didn't do well at all, despite the fact that I had studied endlessly. The final wasn't much better. In fact, every random biblical quote that my professor had pulled from the Bible, I got wrong. You were supposed to say who said it or what it was referring to and place the book in the bible. When I got my final back, I was horrified. Never had I seen such a large amount of merciless red ink. I knew I had failed and worse yet, had probably failed the course too. And then I flipped to the back page. My professor wrote me a personal note. It said something to the effect of: "You got every quotation wrong. However, it is blatantly obvious that you studied very hard for this exam. So, how about a C-." I was never so happy.
Of course, if you come up to me and ask me random "Twilight" trivia, I will probably know it. Ask my neighbor. I won her a bottle of wine and myself a magazine subscription. I'm not exactly proud of this, but it's a fact. It is what it is. And just so we're clear, I'm Team Edward.
Second, as a martial artist, you are frequently subjected to the English teacher line of questioning, but instead make it about self defense. For example, a random person will walk up to you and say, "So you're a martial artist, huh?" and then proceed to throw a slow mock-punch at you (if they're kind-sometimes they come at you much more quickly) and see what you do. But being a martial artist isn't about being the party trick girl. It's about self defense. So, at BlogHer, you shouldn't expect me to start throwing people around to demonstrate my knowledge. And please, no random punches.
Third, people should know that while I'm pretty good at remembering a face, I can't remember names well at all. I will probably spend much of the two day conference staring at your name tag from afar even if we've already talked for like two hours. I'm not trying to ogle you; I'm just trying to figure out who you are already. And if you happen to resemble someone I already know, I will probably call you the name of the person I know. Just ask my former student Diana. . . I mean, Erin.
Finally, you should also know that if I'm standing and talking to you, I might start to look uncomfortable. It's not you; it's my knee and I may just need to sit down. The leg is not 100% and I will frequently be choosing to sit over standing( and unfortunately over dancing despite the fact that I'm practically a dancing queen). If I happen to sit on the floor and you see me there for a while, it may be because I'm having trouble getting up. If my leg is feeling particularly cranky, I'm kind of like that "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady from years gone by. So, help a girl out; we'll be instant friends.
I am starting to get really excited about meeting so many cool people and learning so many new things. In just two days, this Black Belt Mama will be NYC-bound. I can't wait!
For Those Who Will Meet Me Soon Enough
Filed under: ACL Hell, BlogHer 2010, Mental Strain for Mama
For the first time ever, I am attending BlogHer in New York City this coming weekend. I bought my ticket as soon as they went on sale and we booked our hotel room quickly too. I was super excited about going, and then life got in the way and I put it on the back burner. My Grammom got sick and passed away. Then this knee business started again. . .
Mr. BBM kept asking me before my surgery on July 20th, if I was excited to go. "No," I told him. I simply couldn't think about or concentrate on anything other than getting through my surgery and recovery. To be honest, I'm nowhere near finished worrying about the recovery part yet. Walking after being in an immobilizer for so many days isn't exactly a piece of cake right now. I'm hoping the only forms of transportation in the hotel and around BlogHer are elevators and escalators. Because otherwise. . . well, you don't want to be behind me going up or down the stairs right now, especially if you're in a hurry. Imagine your 1-year old when they're learning to navigate the stairs. That's me. I also kind of limp and walk funny right now. You would too if you had a hole in your bone.
By the time the conference rolls around this week, I'll be able to stop wrapping my leg up in gauze, but the steri-strips will probably still be there. They're nasty. There's dried blood and pen marks underneath them. It's not exactly the first impression I want to make. I thought about wrapping my obi around my incision. I mean, I am "Black Belt Mama" and all, but somehow I'm thinking that obi's are meant for the dojo, not for blogging conferences. I'm also thinking that keeping it wrapped in gauze to hide the steri-strip excitement is a major fashion faux-pas, and who wants to wear pants in August?
People who might meet me this weekend should also know this. On Friday night, I sat outside for hours and have like five mosquito bites right by my left temple. It's so flattering, and the stupid bug couldn't have sucked the right side of my face where my hair covers. No, definitely go for the side where I always push my hair back behind my ear. Because of the way my body reacts to mosquitos, I'll probably be scabbed and diseased looking by Thursday, so people who are about to meet me are in for some serious fun.
Oh, and thanks to some weekend virus that came to haunt me, I've lost five pounds. Most people would be happy about this, but I believe that the entirety of those five pounds came straight from my atrophied hamstring and quad muscles. In other words, I'm not even symetrical.
In addition and thanks to my whole "have to get through surgery" attitude, I didn't realize that when you attend the conference, that doesn't mean you're signed up for the parties. I am waitlisted on all of them, and at this point, I'm not exactly hopeful that I'll be breaking into any of them. I told Mr. BBM, who is tagging along with me to explore the city while I attend the conference, that we may be having some quiet nights alone while there.
Then again, maybe I'll throw a private "Black Belt Blogger" party. If you can't attend the parties, make your own right? I just need to get out of this mental funk and enter the conference with an open mind. Those who know me in real life probably have a hard time believing I'd have anxiety about entering a conference of 2400 people without really knowing anyone there. But I'll admit, I'm a little bit intimidated.
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