kdiddy.org

Struggles that I Overcame:

I only had two beers at the MamaPop party the night before, but when we got back to the hotel, I was struck by how badly I missed the husband and the baby. I turned into a total sap and started getting weepy because I had arranged to stay until Tuesday to see some of the city and was totally regretting it. So in the morning, I had post-beer, post-karaoke, post-cry headache. But nothing will keep me from a breakfast buffet, so I staggered out of the room leaving my snoozing roommates to sleep for me.

Sessions that I Attended:

Since I was in need of a lot of coffee, I ended up staying for the morning keynote that included a panel with the International Activist Blogger Scholarship recipients. Four women, Esra’a Al Shafei of mideastyouth.com, Dushiyanthini Pillai of humanityashore.org, Marie Trigona of mujereslibres.blogspot.com, and Freshta Basij-Rasikh of Afghan Women’s Writing Project spoke about their experiences as bloggers. These young women put their lives in grave danger with every keystroke as they document injustices in their countries. It was tempting to listen to their stories and feel sheepish about my blog, which I repeatedly described to people as “just about my life.” (Like, “Oh, don’t read it. It’s terribly dull.” I clearly haven’t mastered this pitching thing yet.) But I didn’t. I can’t rush over to Afghanistan and change things there, but I can listen and try to understand where they’re coming from. And I can appreciate the communication tools that I have at my disposal that allow me to write and relate.

I attended the Women and Sports session that Sarah helped to lead. It’s too bad that Rob Dibble didn’t say that nonsense about women at sporting events until a few days later, because it was almost exactly what we discussed for a portion of the session.

Since I just have my son, I don’t have too many tales about encouraging young girls to participate in sports. But since I didn’t eject myself from the sisterhood the second we saw a tiny weenis on the ultrasound screen, it’s definitely something that I would like to see more of.

The only other session that I went to was the Humor Writing which…meh. And unfortunately not that funny. But I think I was getting tired and hungry at that point.

Before Humor Writing, Amber and Danielle and I took a spin around the expo hall, which is just this huge orgy of marketing. It never fails to both awe me and weird me out. Sometimes there’s cool stuff there, though. Like sausage dipped in pancakes and this guy:

That was my only celebrity sighting.

I also checked out a few of the suites, namely the Firefox suite where I fudged my way through a survey about add-ons and got a teeny-tiny tshirt.

Parties that I Attended:

Saturday night was MamaPop’s Sparklecorn party which was just huge and crazy and sweaty and fun. Also, there was cake.

It was from Charm City Cakes and I’ve always been skeptical of them. I suspected that they were mostly hype and the cake wasn’t that good.

My friends, the cake was so good. SOOOO GOOOOD. It had several different flavors: blueberry muffin, bananas foster, and peanut butter and jelly. I tried the bananas foster and the peanut butter and jelly and they were both extremely delicious. Charm City Cakes: I am now a believer.

Ryan was on hand with his camera skills and documented the party in both stills and video. Like last year, I didn’t make the final cut, but maybe that’s because I look like this at parties:

Sweaty, drinky, scowly, with my arms sticking out. Photo by Amy.

Injuries Sustained:

One gigantic blister on my left foot. And one of my stockings didn’t even survive being put on, but I forged ahead with a huge run, looking somewhat deranged.

This is how parties end sometimes. Shoes, hair accessory, and tattered hosiery discarded, feet damp from doing the Hustle in a puddle of vodka.

People on Whom I Mouth-Breathed:

The husband rolled his eyes when he saw me packing my running gear. “You know you’re not going to go running while you’re there.” Ordinarily, this would be the case. But Saturday, before the party, I went for a quick jog through Central Park with Jess. It was really nice to jog with someone. One thing that is hurting my motivation for running right now is, I guess, getting bored and just wanting it to be over. Running with someone is different. We chatted (breathlessly) and took in the sights of the park. It was really cool. I wish I could do it all the time.

Because I’ve been stretching this recap out for so long, my memory of who I met when is pretty feeble. So I’m going to do a quick run-down of the business cards of the people I haven’t yet mentioned: Bookish Penguin, Delightfully Sweet, Life After Bagels, Sarah Granger, Multi Tasking Mama, Carrie Actually, Knotty Yarn, Dimple and a Smirk, Smarty Pants Mama, Average Jane, Stephanie Himel-Nelson from Blue Star Families, JavaMom, and Diana Lee.

I’d say I accomplished my goal of meeting blogging types that I didn’t already know. It was pretty cool, actually, just introducing myself to strangers that I knew I had at least one thing in common with, chatting with them for a few minutes, finding out a little bit about them before the busy days swept us apart. It’s not something that I would normally do, but what’s life without new experiences?

Pictures that I Took:

In the interest of wrapping this thing up, two whole weeks after the fact, I’m going to punk out and put my flickr slideshow here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 at 11:43 am and is filed under blogs, dumb shit that i do, internets, life n'at, pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.