So! I am back from the Bay Area and I have actually unpacked before the girls move out and head off to college.

For some reason I am not feeling quite as inspired as I did last year. Perhaps it’s because it all seemed a little less novel this year. Or maybe because this year, I am more resigned to the fact that my “free time” for writing with preschooler twins around is a complete joke. Maybe I’m starting to burn out on this whole web 2.0 thing, period. Dunno. But it was fun; I had a good time.

Like last year, I arrived a little late and missed the opening session. I had to force myself to crawl out of bed that morning around 7:15 or something like that, because I hadn’t fall asleep until 2am. I was a little wound up, you might say. When Lunesta failed me I took a trip down Xanax lane, and that shit takes a long time to wear off.

I can’t quite remember what I did for breakfast. I know I skipped going to a bagel shop, because that was one of the things that made me really late last year. I think I tried to nibble some fruit that looked safe when I arrived. Fear of food remained a permanent source of nagging stress throughout the weekend. It would almost be easier if I had the version of IC that dictates you simply stay away from things like tomatoes, bananas, soy, etc. Strangely, I can eat all of those things. No, my albatross is preservatives, and the obvious problem with those is you can’t see them. When I eat out I never know if I am going to get hit with a night from hell because unlike avoiding tomato sauce (hello, is that hard to see?), I usually have no idea what’s in the stuff on my plate and just have to hope for the best. Which is why I almost needed another suitcase for all the pills I had to bring. They are my only hope when food betrays me.

At some point someone handed me a nice cold bottle of water that has, as Ms. Kennedy observed, a name like a contraceptive. Can you imagine telling your husband to go get you some at the store? “Honey, can you get me some o’ that Contrex stuff while you’re out?” And then he comes home with a tube of spermacide and some yeast infection stuff, and he says “Uh, I couldn’t quite find that stuff you asked about, but this seemed close.” Ironically, this was not a far cry from what it tasted like either. One sip and I was flipping the bottle around, scanning for the ingredients list. (I have become a box and bottle-flipping pro, like my mother. Grab, flip. Grab, flip. Grab, flippity-flip. Everything that comes into my hands at the store is immediately flipped and scanned for offending ingredients). To my horror I saw that one of the primary ingredients was potassium. This is, like, one of the worst possible things I can ingest and I’m glad I noticed before I downed the whole thing. Which I probably would not have, to be honest–it didn’t taste all that great. Another girl titled a photo of the stuff in her Flickr stream as “Nasty Ass Water.”

Ok, enough of my stupid medical frustrations, sorry.

As for the geek stuff, I went to the following sessions: “Pimp Your Blog,” Heather Champ’s photography session, the Mommyblogging session, the Tagging session and the Autonomy session with Heather Armstrong.

I learned a good deal about making your blog accessible in the Pimping session, but otherwise they’re weren’t too many sites I hadn’t already heard of. Like Magnolia, SimplePie, del.icio.us, etc.

Oh yeah, my BlogHer tags on del.icio.us are here.

The mommybloggers session didn’t seem to quite catch on fire like it did last year, but it was interesting nonetheless. One woman said she simply won’t curse in her blog titles because it attracts the wrong visitors. Um yeah…I still wonder if I should have used this title. Jory also pointed out that if you’re trying to get picked up by the mainstream media, newswires will never link to you if your post has cussing in it. Fuck it! Look, I can’t cuss in front of the kids, so this is what I have left. I’m pretty sure FoxNews couldn’t care less what I have say anyway. I believe this came up because last year it was proudly announced that mommybloggers cuss more than anybody. Ya think?

The tagging session was interesting too–sites like Plum, Furl, and Technorati were reviewed. The wiki is here. There was much discussion and praise of tags, and I asked the panel leader if there was a potential for abuse, i.e., deliberately mis-tagging things for traffic. She said indeed it was, but not very much so far: “The noise isn’t too loud yet.” Call me a cynic, but that sounds like what everybody said before blog spam exploded.

I especially enjoyed the photography session with Heather Champ. For some reason she cuts an imposing figure, at least to me, and yet when she spoke she was quite friendly and humble. How ironic that she wrote she was terrified of us, and here I was terrified of HER. (What’s even weirder is I had an eeerily parallel expereince in 7th grade, one that has troubled my relationships with other women since then as well). Anyway she let us in on a secret: renting lenses. For that tip alone I was glad I attended.

The most thrilling session though, for me at least, was the one with Heather Armstrong (aka Dooce) speaking. She’s quite the wit in speaking just as she is in her writing. Supporting your entire family on blogging is extremely difficult, which I kind of figured…as she said, “There are nights I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.” After the session was over I managed to peel off the shy wallflower persona just long enough to say hello. To my surprise, she not only remembered who I was but said she loved my photos. I almost died RIGHT THERE. I don’t think my heart rate went back to normal for hours.

Also, her talk reminded me that I really need to stop putting my bras in the dryer.

At some point I slipped Ms. Finslippy some tea. We had traded email about pissy bladders for a while, and though it sounds like she has a different problem than I do, I wanted to give her my new favorite decaf tea in the whole world: Trader Joe’s Honeybush Tea (sounds kinky, doesn’t it?). It’s hard to find tasty decaf, and ohmygod is it good. Unfortunately, I fear I may have given the impression that I was handing her some kind of medicinal tea. No! I am not trying to meddle! It is just delicious, that’s all.

I went to a couple of the pool parties. Not much I could eat (meat-a-go-go) and cocktails were out. One woman asked me what my blog was about, and after I said a “little bit of everything,” proceeded to try to peg it down to a neat little package, which is difficult. Can I be honest here? I fucking hate that question. Read it, and then YOU figure out what it’s about. I hated this question when I was publishing zines too. I was always placed in the Medley section of Factsheet 5, and that was fine with me. What I hate is the idea that you’re supposed to be ONE thing: a mommyblogger, a techie blogger, a political blogger, etc., etc. I would bore myself to tears writing about just one thing all the time. ANYWAY, seeing all the drinks in hand finally got to me and so I reluctantly jumped in line before it got too long. I ordered a straight vodka. (Weirdly enough hard liquor is actually okay–it’s the stuff I used to enjoy, like Cosmopolitans and Daquaris that are IC no-nos. So if I ever decide to become an alcoholic someday, it won’t be that hard). “Uh…on the rocks?” the bartender said. (Holy shit, this girl is hardcore). “Ok.” “A twist?” “No.” (Citrus is off the list too). So I sat around a little while being a hardcore blogger drunk with my little cup of fire that masqueraded as water.

One tidbit I overheard made the pool party all worth it: “All these glamour girls are a bit much for me. It’s like I’m back in high school.”

Then I skulked off to my room to really get ripped and do some Photoshop work.

At some point I went swimming. I was one of only a handful of women that were brave enough (or stupid enough, your call) to don a bathing suit. Liz Henry went swimming but she was shoved in and wearing a ball gown at the time. This was the woman I managed to embarrass myself with by holding up my network cable after a session–just having realized I stupidly brought a crossover cable–and began explaining what crossover cable was (to explain, you know, how stupid I was). “I know,” said she, mid-sentence. I guess I forgot where I was: Geek Central. Anyhow that explained why the connectivity was, uh, less than optimal whenever I plugged in.

After the conference was over I made a brief stop at Fry’s Electronics. To my amusement it was almost walking distance from the conference. If I had had $1500 to drop on a MacBook I probably would have, because the closing session was awash in a sea of white, glowing little bitten-apple symbols and felt like I was somehow polluting the group vibe with my Vaio. The funny thing is, had the conference happened a few weeks earlier, I would have been bringing a typewriter (no, not really) because Bruce’s laptop died (fan over the CPU died and the thing got fried) and that was supposed to be my conference machine. My mother saved me–she gave me a laptop that she was just about to throw in the trash (no I’m not kidding) simply because it had a bad hard drive. I fixed it and I was good to go. But no glowing apple. I will never get a seat at the A-list table.

Then I headed north to my hotel room in Castro Valley. The husband had demanded that if I was going to stay north a third night, that I stay somewhere really cheap. That was the Valley Inn. Here’s what $55 in the Bay Area gets you: no coffeemaker, no tissues, no clock, no bathmat and the rattiest, most pathetic excuses for towels you have ever seen. I could see what their strategy was and I guess it works–basically, make sure everything is even lower quality than what redneck Walmart-addicted losers can afford and maybe it won’t get stolen. This thievery issue probably explains why they made me leave a deposit at the front. “I just want to sleep,” I said, laughing weakly. The office lady looked like she’d heard that before and said nothing. And there were other memorable little details, like words etched in the mirror that appeared to say “HELL IS PEARS” (are you kidding, I love pears!), and springs that kept popping in the middle of the night making me think a cat was jumping on the bed.

The next day I was determined to unplug and go see some nature. And with Ms. Dooce’s grand compliment floating around in my head, hopefully get some worthy pictures while I was at it. I headed north for the Muir Woods in Marin County. As expected, the place was beautiful…and hella crowded. All the tourists had their cameras out, and ok, I am no Ansel Adams, but it was very amusing to see all the tourists taking photos of ancient redwoods with flash. And the date stamp left on, probably. There were people making bunny ears behind each other, old ladies complaining about dropping their lipstick on the trail, parents telling their kids to be quiet. One dad is particular told his kid to ’shut up and be quiet, the trees are listening.’ I wanted to give him my last $5 for saying that but I needed it for the bridge back. Another guy, seeing me frame a shot upwards, came right up in front of me, planted his feet and aimed for the very same spot. Very original, dude.

But oh, the woods were wonderful. It’s been too long since I’ve been around trees that big and that ancient. I love trees. Trees are my friends. When I think about people messing with old growth redwoods it makes me VERY angry. Places like this are sacred and deserve our respect.

And that, my friends, was my annual break from domestic insanity.

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Tags: blogher, blogher06