Detox
I honestly don't know what to say right now. "Overstimulation" is the secret word, so everybody SCREAM REAL LOUD but do it quietly so I can focus on my breathing. Here is a collaborative installation piece representing my brain on BlogHer:
Girlwind hotel bathroom
Originally uploaded by .Ariel.
(Hmm...large space there...)
I'm home now, watching baseball with the cat, admiring the bracelet I was gifted for doing the AlphaMom interview, enjoying not having someone watching over my shoulder as I type, and trying not to think about the Baby Jessica Incident, which kept giving me sneak-attack giggle fits late into the night.
Even though I'm experiencing some major social burnout right now, I had a great time. I had the best roomies ever, and the few bloggers I knew before this weekend were even more awesome in person than they are online (I'm looking at you, Jennifer). I wish you all could have been there.
The experience was a homecoming, a new adventure, and a grand alienation, all at the same time. On the one hand, it was fantastic to meet in person people I already consider friends, and I got all warm and fuzzy when I stopped yakking long enough to be aware of how comfortably and naturally the conversation flowed. On the other hand, it was also great to hook up with people I'd never heard of and yet was able to talk to with ease because who in the blogosphere doesn't have something to say about privacy issues and trolls and parents finding your online journal and what is an "authentic" voice and who we read even though they make us pull our hair and yell at the screen? On the other other hand, though, it's challenging to meet people whose lives you've been following for months or years only to realize that they're not who you thought they were. And who's to say which persona is the more accurate--the online one or the conference panelist one or the drunken-by-the-pool at 2 a.m. one? As for me, I'll let you know when you can click over to AlphaMom and see me in my Slightly Creepy Spaz in Front of the Camera Persona. Ugh. It was one of those times where I have everything all thought out but then I forget it all when I need to deliver the goods and instead spew forth either vapid and simplistic platitudes or complex entanglements of deep nonsense only to lie awake all that night thinking "I should have said this. I can't believe I said that." But as I told the smooth and gracious and flawless-looking-after-two-straight-days-of-craziness LeahPeah, it was about the experience more than about getting my mug on camera, so if all my tape ends up in the bin, that's fine by me.
And speaking of the experience...I went to get my makeup done at 4:30 on Saturday, but when I got there, I was told that I'd have to wait because a last-minute special guest needed to get her makeup done first. So Andrea, Alice, and I wait around in the non-air-conditioned hallway until, behold, the heavens parted. Enter Arianna Huffington.
Beat.
She swept in, shook hands, told Alice she loved reading Finslippy, got her makeup taken care of, and then rushed off to deliver the closing keynote address. Alice and I stayed behind to get our pretty faces on after her, so people, my ass is only one makeup-stool degree away from Finslippy and two degrees away from Arianna Huffington, and I wonder if the makeup artist washed foundation brushes between canvasses, because if not, there might be some famous DNA on me right now.
It's exhausting even thinking about it. It was wonderful, it was hectic, it was surreal. This morning at nine, Helen Jane and I rode down the elevator with Dooce and pulled out of the parking lot behind Arianna Huffington's town car, and when stuff like that happens to just li'l old me, there really isn't much more to say.
Oh, except there's something special for Simon: My ass? Is zero degrees from Jennster; see the evidence here.
*Writing about this blogging conference is probably the most self-censorship I've experienced in my three years writing online. I also took way fewer photos than I would have if it had been any other kind of event. I found myself more than once thinking, "Oh, this is great blog fodder; my readers will love this" only to realize that everyone there could read the site address hanging from my neck and therefore nothing I wrote could remain "private." And the worst part is that all the good gossip is only good gossip to people who read blogs, so it's not like I could relieve the urge by telling my coworkers, "Oh, you won't believe what Mary said about Brooke!" And yes, I've dropped a lot of names here, and yes, I ended up hanging around some of the Big Names just by their proximity to the few people I knew at the conference, and yes, that situation probably has a lot to do with why I didn't take more pictures. Somehow, when taking pictures of regular people like you and me, everything is friendly and cool, but taking pictures of The Famous Ones reeks strongly of celebrity worship, even when there is no actual worshipping going on. Or just very little worshipping. Tiny pockets of worshippletts. But damn I wish I had taken more pictures because I had a few really cool shots set up in my head, like when I watched Sweetney's interview: Tracey and Leah in wicker chairs under the big, bright umbrella lights, the videographer and his equipment in the foreground, and Leah's face three inches tall in the camera display screen. Ah, BlogHer06: It was the best of times, it was the most frustrating of times.
What a weekend! Much to process but it sure sounds like it was an overall positive experience. :)
I want the gossip.
I want the gossip tooooo. But truthfully, I'm getting on the phone with a bloggah friend later on this evening to fully debrief her on who was there and what exactly happened that she CANNOT BLOG ABOUT. And next year, if you go, I will sit in the corner with you and drink martinis and make fun of whoever we damn well please and take pictures and, I don't know, live blog the madness to each other.
And you know, that whole "authentic" voice thing really cracks me up. Truthfully, I don't understand or even fathom how you could be any different online than you are in real life, unless you pretend to be MUCH cooler and hipper and, I don't know, AWARE, than you actually are in real life. But the thing is, I can't even pretend to be cool or hip or remotely aware online, or in real life. So I guess it has to be exactly the way it is for me.
Seriously, I am interested in who wasn't that way. I wouldn't ever say anything (though you have no reason to trust me other than I also have veryvery good gossip that I've been carrying for MONTHS and haven't told anyone, so um, my word is good?)
And the gossip's not just bad; some of it is good too! I would just feel icky "reporting" on anybody, making myself some sort of informal authority on some bloggers' "real" personalities, when it's highly likely that the way some people acted this weekend may not have been as representative of their normal selves as their blogs are. Here's one little tidbit of gossip: Maggie Mason is awesome. Personable, stylish, confident, funny, a cracking businesswoman, and with a darling little pregnant belly. So if you want to spread BlogHer gossip, spread that.
Here's some scoop: your bathroom was even more of a mess than mine, and that's saying something, like, DUDE.
(Although my laptop also ended up in there. What's up with THAT?)
Oh, dude. I totally understand. Truthfully, I only got good gossip, which is awesome. My favorite tidbits? Dooce was a total doll in real life, Amalah was stylish, adorable and sweet and LeahPeah is knock-out stunning with skin like butter.
This is the first I've heard anything of Maggie Mason. I'm spreading it.
I felt the same way. I lugged my camera around with me everywhere but came home with four blurry photos of the entire weekend.
And all of the interesting/weirdo stories I have to share I just can't, they might read it.
It was nice to meet you (albeit briefly) at the cocktail party (table with JenB).
Is Baby Jessica thirsty? ;)
Lovely meeting (and rooming!) with you this weekend. You're now a permanent fixture on my RSS list. Hurrah!
SMOOCHES you hot biotch!!!!! it was great to meet you!!!!
I've been trying to think how to sum up my experience at BlogHer this weekend, but I'm sort of paralyzed with writer's block at the moment... for the very reasons you mention. I've been thinking that I'd make a little chart of the good things and, well, the things that make me feel slightly icky about the weekend, and then figure out from that what I really want to say (and what I'd rather keep to myself). Tricky, isn't it? One good thing: I really enjoyed meeting and chatting with you. I can already tell I'll keep reading.
here's some gossip: i didn't have a lick of makeup applied before the interview, cuz the really cool make-up guy i'd heard so much about left before i even got there. SO FUCKING CHEATED, MAN! WAAAH!
so everyone please prepare yourselves to be DAZZLED by my enormous pores and greasy forehead, writ large(r) on the postmodern canvas of television. HUZZAH!