Getting back to real life this week has been crazy hectic. Here’s my BlogHer recap as quickly as possible (which is still probably way too long). Expect sentence fragments & a ton of links ahead!
* Flew in on Thursday. Minor flight issues (re-routed to JFK instead of LGA), but otherwise fine. Registered, settled into the hotel, met my roomies (I already knew Angie, but this was my first time meeting Patrick and Mandi), couldn’t get the wi-fi to work, and met my Boyfriend of the Weekend, Armand – aka the Hilton’s IT guy. (He was awesome. And cute. And he flirted with me, which, like, never happens. I mean, come on, I’m a chubby mom in my mid-30’s. I’ll take what I can get.)
* Got dressed up for Thursday night parties: first the People’s Party (highlight: I met The Bloggess!), then the Schick Intuition party (and I know, it feels weird to say I’m going to a party sponsored by a ladies’ razor, but really? That party was freaking awesome. Open bar!).
Danielle! (Who I’d never met before, but she’s awesome! And very pretty!)
* Left the party and sat in Jen and Brittany’s hotel room and ate greasy pizza at midnight and gossiped about all kinds of random stuff with Heather, Heather’s cousin Leah (Leah, do you have a blog?), Ali, Mishi, Danielle, and… um… at least 1 more person who I’ve totally forgotten. (I’m not trying to be rude, I’d just had like 4 drinks that night, so things are a bit… blurry.) That might’ve been one of the highlights of my weekend, I love those ladies.
* Got up way too early on Friday, and Angie and I went to Dawn and Lotus‘s room to wake them up. I saw Dawn’s boobs. (Side note: WOW.) We all split up since I was in DIRE need of breakfast and Diet Coke.
* Went to lunch at Carnegie Deli with Angie, Aunt Becky (who is awesome and hilarious; she threatened me with physical violence within like 5 minutes of meeting me, so she’s totally my kind of people), and the one and only Anissa freaking Mayhew, which was amazing. There were also husbands there, and a couple of people who met with us later, but OMG the links are getting obnoxious, aren’t they?
* Had a free reflexology foot massage. Another highlight of the trip, for sure. That felt amazing.
* Community keynote speech. Awesome. Left my iPhone on the table. Not awesome. Realized it when I got upstairs to our room, then ran back down to retrieve it. I ran into Armand, my Hilton IT Department Boyfriend, and he said he’d help me find it. I almost kissed him. (I didn’t.) (Oh, also? Found out that because Patrick and I had been alone in the room when Armand came to set up our wi-fi, and we were both talking about our spouse and kids, who obviously were not the same people, he thought that Patrick and I were having an affair. Even though I’d just met Patrick, like, 15 minutes earlier. I found this highly amusing.) Ran back to the ballroom where the keynote speech had been, but my phone was gone. Found some friends, asked them to tweet about it, and Armand very sweetly walked me ALL OVER the damn Hilton looking for it. I filed a report with security, he took me way back in the kitchen to make sure it hadn’t gotten scooped up with the dishes & linens, etc. It was really so nice of him, since it was way above & beyond his regular job duties. I even tweeted the Hilton that they need to give him a raise.
* My iPhone never turned up. Broke my damn heart.
* More parties on Friday night. More booze too. Wish I knew that the photobooth pics were going to end up online, because I would’ve taken more. (Although that one with Miss Grace is awesome.) Snuggled with miss Annabel Spohr, made my ovaries ache.
Tried to go to sleep that night but stayed up talking about hair metal with Patrick. We share a common love for c0ck r0ck. (Angie slept through that conversation, but we kept poor Mandi awake with all our talk of Warrant, Bon Jovi, etc.)
* Saturday, went to a couple of sessions. One of them was the session on writing through grief and loss with Cecily, Loralee, Kim, Anissa & Peter. It was a really touching session, and everyone around me was crying, but I was doing a really good job of holding it together. Until I got an email from my sister, which said, “I want you to enjoy your weekend in NYC, so go to the Apple Store and buy yourself a new iPhone, and I’ll pay for it.” THAT, my friends, is the moment that I burst into tears. (It wasn’t just the phone, it was a combination of everything, I think.)
* Saturday afternoon, went to lunch at Serendipity with a bunch of people (seriously, enough with the linkage already), then walked over to the Apple Store to get my new phone. Walked back to the hotel, synced my iPhone with my laptop, and I think that probably everyone within a 5-mile radius heard my screams of joy when all my data was restored. (Sorry about that.)
* Saturday night, more parties and more booze.
It was awesome and so fun, and I’ve totally lost my voice from talking over the loud music. (In fact, that was my only teeny-tiny complaint about the parties – the music was TOO LOUD. Which I think shows that I am officially old.)
* Sunday morning: cab ride to LaGuardia with Lotus and Jen.
We look good for how tired we were.
* Got through security and found Casey.
Who also looks good for how tired she was.
* Flight home was uneventful. Saw Catie and Dave waiting by the escalators at baggage claim for me, Catie started jumping up and down when she saw me. I picked her up, and for the first time in ages, I didn’t care that all 37 pounds of her hurts my arms. I just couldn’t get my face out of her neck. I missed the feel and smell of her. Who knew you could miss someone so much after just three days?
I think she was pretty happy to see me, too.