I'm home but still staggering with re-entry. Look! Shiny!
Me and my manager, Julie Ross Godar -- we are the Editors of BlogHer!
Annual Bossy pic.
It's me and Erin Kotecki Vest! She made it!
Then these guys showed up, and we left on vacation on Sunday morning, and I haven't looked at the Internet since then. I hope to catch up soon -- hope everyone had a great week.
Fascinated a little by this.
She's okay -- just a little cold.
Awesome dueling My Little Pony unicorns at Sparklecorn 2011.
It was a fun party.
This super-cool art is almost hidden on the way to a parking lot. I can't wait to show the little angel.
The Twizzler artist caught in action. There's also a statue of liberty and a space needle. I asked her how she got this job and she was all, "I have no idea."
The two tattooed men in the pool were not enthused when twenty women took over the jacuzzi area. I was trying to figure out a way to photograph them nicely when Morgan Shanahan offered to pose. Thanks, Morgan.
After a long day of networking and behind-the-scenes BlogHer duties, I wasn't sure I would make it to the People's Party. Until I heard there were puppies.
Had breakfast this morning with Nerdy Apple Bottom. Our view, we agreed, did not suck.
I'm sitting here typing in my Grateful Dead t-shirt and glasses. I should be in the shower. I need to leave for the airport soon.
But the strangest thing happened yesterday. Two phone conversations I had in the past six months turned into something. Not by me -- I just happened to be the person listening raptly on the other end to the aspirations, to the story -- but still. It is so cool to see plans unwind as they do.
So! First, see my friend and colleague Kim Pearson's mind-boggling post about how ankylosing spondylitis has changed her worldview and then back again. I honestly did not think she would ever write this post, and it is so inspiring and so humbling. I'm so glad she did. Also, I love seeing her doing the electric slide.
Second! I've gotten to know Kamy Wicoff over at She Writes over the past few years. I'm so impressed with what she's doing and what she's done, and this latest contest for fiction writers is such an incredible opportunity.
And now, um, SHOWER.
I've noticed in the past few years that my BlogHer conferences tend to have me scheduled within an inch of my life. I confess I did this to myself even before I became a BlogHer employee*, but last year -- my first conference actually working for BlogHer -- oh, Lord, it was even worse. (And I mean BETTER when I say worse, but the scheduling was worse.)
Was this last year? Or two years ago? I don't even know.
Yesterday I laughed until I cried when I realized I tried to schedule taping a two-minute video interview on top of my appointment to give a pint of blood. Can you imagine? Actually, I can imagine, and someone will do it and put it on YouTube by noon on Saturday.
SUSPECT HIM.
So this year, I decided to pour some ethanol on the flames of already the craziest weekend of 2011. I'm bringing not only Beloved but also the little angel. We're taking our family vacation in California starting Sunday, so what the hell? Why not have them show up right in the middle of 3,000 bloggers? Yo, ho ho!
'Cuz I always miss these.
Though the little angel begged to go to Sparklecorn wearing the high-heeled wedge sandals the neighbor gave her that I refuse to let her out of the house wearing, though she whined and complained that she wanted to eat CheeseburgHers at midnight, though she insisted she absolutely needed to inhale her way through the free samples of the expo, I did not buy her a ticket. She and her father will be mailing home my swag visiting the seals and the tide pools and frolicking about San Diego while I work hard meet everyone update the website speak on a panel about owning your beauty go to parties see old friends -- but the one thing I won't be doing this year is missing my family. We'll see how that works. Because every year, that's the only bad thing about BlogHer -- by the third day I'm literally aching for my other two people.
So if you are at BlogHer and you see this wee one wandering about the lobby, give her a shock and tell her you know her mommy.
Stay classy, San Diego.
* I have never regretted running myself ragged at BlogHer. It got me a job, a book, and numerous other writing gigs and contacts. It's totally worth it to treat this conference as the business opportunity of your life.
"You know," he said, "if you put up your finger, sometimes they'll land on you. That way they have a place to rest all the way out here."
We bobbed in our life jackets in the middle of the lake, the boat floating nearby. A dragonfly hovered around the little angel's head as she stared at it, fascinated, then looked to the horizon near where the baby eagles made their nest as if measuring the distance in dragonfly wingbeats. She held her finger up a little higher.
"I think I just saw lightning," his wife said. "We'd better go in."
The clouds held pink as the sun sank to the horizon. We swam toward the boat, slowly, regretfully.
As she paddled, the little angel held one pointer finger up to the sky. Just in case.
Do you love character-driven novels? I loved the older heroine in The Beach Trees and how her story influenced the main storyline from a character development point of view. My review is up at BlogHer Book Club today.
