When I got down to the BlogHer DC registration desk Kris asked me how I was feeling. She asked if I was hungover.
*???*
I told her I was fine. (Which I am.)
Then a couple minutes later I saw Jodi and she asked me how I was feeling.
At this point I am wondering what I missed. I am fine. Sure I had a couple of drinks with a couple of bloggers last night but I wasn’t even really drunk at the end of the night.
Then somebody else asked if I was okay - then another person asked.
I couldn’t figure out why people were talking about.
Then somebody said they saw the picture of me on Twitter.
Tomorrow at 2:45 Cindy Samuels and I will be presenting on/leading a discussion about Blogging Basics and Managing Information Overload: How to find your blogging community.
Come out and ask good questions that make me sound intelligent, or at least say hi at the cocktail party.
It is so easy to feel good at BlogHer. You see people who you admire and who admire you back. You get to hang out with internet rock stars. People want to take pictures with you. You get interviewed and put on television.
A conference like that can be such a high.
But then you come home and you are just a regular person again.
Or worse.
The other day I was on the phone with one of my internet bosses and talking about promoting one of our posts. She said she was going to Twitter it again and I said “Yeah, just re-tweet it and more people will see it and blah blah blah blah“.
Because I talk like that.
Anyway, when I got off the phone my husband was just staring at me.
He was staring at me with his arms crossed.
Me: What?
Him: Re-Tweet?
Me: Yeah, you know. When you put something up on Twitter again.
Him: You are such a fucking dork.
And you know what? He is kind of right. Sure I felt cool around 1000 other women bloggers but in the grand scheme of things I am still sort of an internet dork. It is just like when I got into the Madrigal Group in college. It was awesome but I was still a choir geek.
Oh well, I may not be getting any calls from any trend setting magazines asking me what I’m wearing or what new music I like but I am having a damn good time doing this.
This happens to me every year after BlogHer. I’ve got nothing. It isn’t that I’m burnt out… it is just that I already said all of the things that I have to say. I just said them to you guys in person.
Plus I can’t seem to readjust to Eastern Standard Time.
I suppose I should do my Road Trip/BlogHer recap but I am still unable to organize my thoughts properly. I guess after 14 states in six days, trying to hang out with 1000 of my closest internet friends and then eating a $500 meal at The French Laundry I don’t feel too bad about not being able to focus.
Let me just give you a few highlights of my BlogHer experience.
- I broke my camera on the first night in San Francisco. That’s right. You heard me. I dropped it on the floor at the SV Moms Group party. The next morning at breakfast I tweeted my dismay. Not having a camera at BlogHer is like not having beer at a football game. Unacceptable. About five minutes later the lovely Moosh in Indy walked up to me and said “I have an extra camera if you want to borrow it.” So thanks Casey and thanks twitter. Seriously, who is that nice?
- Sitting in the “Naked Blogging” panel discussion I accidentally tripped a guy (trying to get out of his way) and then Angela (trying to help him not fall) grabbed his upper thigh. I hope we didn’t scare him off from attending future BlogHer sessions. I swear we didn’t plan it ahead of time.
- As I was missing my MamaPop deadline - well, as I would have been missing my MamaPop deadline had I been in my normal time zone - I ran into one of my bosses in the airport. It turned out that Amy and I were on the same flight. So, as embarrassing as it is to actually be face to face with the person you are currently supposed to be writing a post for, all is forgiven when you are on the same delayed flight.
- If you are in the BlogHer internet cafe and working on your post for BlogHer there is no need for a thesaurus. You can just yell out “I need another word for exaggeration” and the four closest people all have really good answers.
So what have I learned? My BlogHer friends are just as cool in real life as they are online and seriously - try not to miss deadlines when you are in the same building as your editor.
In case you haven’t been reading my road trip blog or if you are new here I arrived in San Francisco yesterday for the annual BlogHer conference.
I am having a wonderful time and all that but I really want to tell you a quick story.
One of the many blogs that I write for is DC Metro Moms Blog. Last night I went to a party for all of the SV Moms Group blogs.
As soon as I walked in I saw a woman that looked a lot like somebody I knew in college. I thought “Hey, that lady looks like Alexis”. Then somebody called her Alexis.
I went up and re-introduced myself. I hadn’t seen Alexis in 13 years. We were in a sorority together in college.
I am in San Francisco. I live outside of Washington DC. I went to college in Orlando. She lives in L.A. What are the odds that we would ever run across each other again?
It really is a small world.
* Yes, I know we are doing it backwards. It has been a long time since college and I am way to lazy to try to find a program that will reverse the picture.
That’s right. You heard me. Me and three other suckers from the Silicon Valley Mom’s Blogs (DC Metro Moms Blog, Chicago Moms Blog and the soon to be launched Rocky Mountain Moms Blog) will be driving to San Francisco.
I know it sounds crazy. Yes, I know it is 2823 miles from Washington DC to San Francisco, but we are getting a Hybrid Chevy Tahoe to drive and I don’t have to pay for the gas.
I hope you will check out our website. Devra and I will be leaving here on Saturday. We drive to Chicago to pick up Meagan, then to Omaha, then we will pick up Aviva in Colorado. The next day we will stop in Salt Lake City, Utah and the day after that Reno, Nevada. On Thursday we will stop off in Silicon Valley to pick up Jill and then we will show up at the hotel for BlogHer.
I realize that a road trip of four Moms going to a blogging convention may earn me a nomination into the nerd hall of fame, but I expect it to be a great time.
I know I should have posted this a couple of days ago, but I was too busy reading what everybody else was saying about BlogHer.
Just like last year, I already miss people, my Google reader is about to explode with all of my new subscriptions and my liver hurts.
I miss being Sarah.
I love it that when I go to BlogHer I am not Mommy. I am not daughter or the twin mom or the wife. I am Sarah, and people like me for being Sarah and that feels really good. When Rebecca Woolf came up and introduced herself to me (as in “Hi, Sarah, I’m Rebecca” like she knew who I was) I almost passed out.
I won’t bore you with all the details, and if I linked to everyone who made me giddy we would be here all day. I’d just like to say that this year almost everyone made me feel welcome and it was much less like high school than last year. AND the panels were interesting this year. I highly recommend you go next year.
I will try to get around to telling you more about my trip to Chicago (aka the obligatory BlogHer recap post) but in the meantime this picture goes out to all of you bloggers that chose going to see The Police at Fenway instead of going to BlogHer.
(If you can’t read it, Mrs. Chicky and I are holding a sign that says “Way Better than Sting”. And while it may not be true, it sure is funny.)
Even though I still have great animosity towards Mary and I am still peeved about the cancelled flight and non-apologetic tone of the people at the gate when they did cancel my flight, American Airlines does have some kind and responsible employees.
I got a call yesterday from the pilot that flew me from D.C. to St. Louis. (I assuming he is a pilot. He referred to himself as “The Captain”. I guess he could just be a flight attendant with a really funny nickname that speaks about himself in third person.)
The Captain said that he found my drivers license on the plane.
I wish I had written down his name. I would tell you how wonderful he was.
He is sending me my drivers license.
Customer service is not dead. I mean - it is in the customer service industry, but some professionals still care.
(ps - I am sitting next to Bossy as I write this, and you are not. Well, unless you are Jessica and then you are too, but the rest of you aren’t.)
