My BlogHer 06 Test Run

This time next week I’ll be doing a final check that I’ve packed everything and getting ready for my 1pm flight to San Jose. I don’t know what makes me more queasy – the thought of getting on a plane (terrified of flying) or the thought of being surrounded by the top women in blogging – my role models.

Last night I got to have a practice run of how it will go, only on a smaller scale. I found out that Kristi from Life with Aveline has a monthly meet-up with a group of women she went to college with. Turns out, many of them read my blog! I was invited to this month’s meet up, and even though I was a little scared of outing myself and looking like a big dork, I accepted.

It’s a little strange showing up to the restaurant and telling the hostess, “Yes, I’m here to meet up with a group of women I’ve never met in person. Can you tell me where they are?”

But I soon found the group: Kristi, Laura from Cheerios and Chickens, Laura’s friend Bonnie and her guest Tammie, and then my two blog stalkers Emily and Chris. (I say stalkers because they’re regular readers but don’t have their own blogs and never comment. Maybe this will make them come out of lurkdom.)

The result? I had a great time! It was a little unnerving at first to be the stranger among a group of women who have known each other for years, but soon we were chatting away about topics from our three blogs, discussing other blogs we read, and sharing fun stories of our lives and those we know.

Stranger than anything were the coincidences we discovered. Laura did her student teaching just up the road from where I live. Emily used to work right across the street from where I used to work, and Chris is also a university student advisor, just at a different university. It was eerie.

I hope I wasn’t too different from what they expected. I’ll admit I suffered from my common nervous habit of not being able to shut the hell up. Remember how I’m an introvert unless put in a situation that requires me to open up? I kept talking and talking and talking. I had ordered a drink, hoping the alcohol would mellow me out, but no, I just kept talking. Maybe that means I’m getting my alcohol tolerance back, which could be good for BlogHer. (Or maybe the Rusty Bucket just makes weak drinks?)

Despite my motormouth, I did manage to learn a lot about each of them as well, and I felt like they were old friends. We all have children close in ages. Chris has a brilliant little boy, who is already pooping in the potty at 15 months old! (Cordy prefers to put her toys in her potty.) Laura is the superwoman raising toddler twins with the awesome new teaching job, and Emily has one of the cutest little girls I’ve ever seen (the fuzzy head is to die for). Emily looked amazingly good for having had sinus surgery a week ago. I had sinus surgery once, and I certainly wasn’t out for dinner and drinks with friends a week later.

Kristi is currently 32 weeks pregnant with a little girl who was breech at her last doctor’s visit. As the mother of a breech girl, I gave her belly a strong talking to, ordering her to be good to her mother and turn head down. Hopefully she won’t be stubborn like Cordelia. If she is, well, I’m sorry Kristi – buy lots of earplugs for the rest of the family.

It was a fabulous get together, and I left feeling relaxed and renewed. Hopefully I’ll be invited back, because I really enjoyed meeting all of them. Besides, I’m the only one who knows where the all-male strip club is in town.