i obsess.

pity partying: the inexpensive way to get down.

This is exactly what's wrong with me, all outlined in the following entry; I take offense at people having left me out when mentioning their BlogHer experiences in posts, and then I go and leave people out.  In a post.  About my BlogHer experience.

No one should ever read my blog.  Ever.

Ever.

Carry on, though, reading my blog, but know I am full to bursting of the hippo-crazy.  Full. to. bursting.  Carry on like you didn't already know it.  Which you did.  But whatever.  Tear it up, bitch.

*****************

I'd prefer that my writing of this particular post come out compelling *and* articulate; however, I'm fairly certain, based on past experiences, that it will only seem random and messy and incoherent.

But fuck it.

*deep inhalation*

I don't know why I went to the conference this year.  I only know that I wanted to see and get to know Gwen, and also to see Lotta and Suebob and Jenn and Jaelithe and Kristie and Aimee and Kyla and Jenny and Steph and Kristin and Joanne and Stefania and Jess and Julie and Kerrianne and Tanis and Katie and Erin and Flutter and Maria and Nina and Jen and Kiki and Sarah and Bobita and Feral Mom and Kristen and Liz and Donna and Julie and Cyn and Glennia and the rest of the MOMocrats, and lots of others besides.  (I'm forgetting some people; I've already edited and added some in who I forgot initially, but if you're not in here and you're all, BITCH, WHY AM I NOT IN YOUR LIST OF PEEPS WHEN YOU'RE ALL FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF AND NOW YOU WENT AND MADE ME CRY, BITCH -- double bitching feels very right here -- I'm sorry, but please just know that I will either remember later and add you, or I'll never remember because my brain is mush on a good day, and today, the surviving-BlogHer-letdown day, it's rotten to its weak, fetid core.  But I love you nonetheless.  Just email and see if I don't.  But try to not aim too many overripe tomatoes directly at my noggin.  I really don't deserve it.  I honestly love you.  Genuinely.  Truly.  Completely.

Sigh.)

I didn't go with any intentions of being anything important.  I didn't go with any intention of passing cards around (because even though I made a few, they remained unfinished and made me embarrassed of yet again starting a project, only to not complete it), of savvily networking, of interacting with the correct, the powerful, the career-making.

I went to see my friends.  I went to dance and sing and party and be myself.

Being myself is being neurotic.  I'm an anxiety-ridden, adhd mess.  I talk too much, too fast, I say inappropriate things, I cannot focus on what others say, I lose my concentration when I'm trying most to apply it, I am a social freak.

But I DON'T NOT TRY.  I fucking show up, I showed up this year, even given all of that mess of bullshit.  I went to the conference knowing full well how batshit-insane I can come off to people who don't know me, or who only know me from the online scene.  I've offended, albeit accidentally, enough people in my life to be aware of the way I resonate with others, especially in group settings (which magnifies my crap social behavior to an incredible intensity). 

I probably did that this year, too.  I know it happened last year.  I'm certain I left many, many people shaking their heads and wondering how in hell I get by on a regular basis (and to those of you who are still wondering, I say this: it's fucking harder than it looks, and it looks really fucking hard). 

Now I'm confused.  I can't remember where I began.  I'll try to find my way back.

Oh.  Right.  I've been visiting the blogs of a lot of these people with whom I felt I connected to this weekend, people I didn't necessarily know prior to the weekend (or did know, from blogging), but people I had at least a short while to chat with.  People I tried to talk to, even though I may have apparently only taken a shit on the conversation, despite my very best intentions.  (Oops.  Almost typed "breast intentions."  That would be -- not where I was going with this.)

I'm sad.  Sad to see that these people mention so many others with whom they connected,
but not me. 

but NOT BECAUSE I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT BEING PERCEIVED AS A BIG BLOGGER.  whatever the fuck that means.  big blogger status appears difficult, and i've already got my plate, no, fuck it, my table, no, my house laden with difficult.  i need no more difficult.  i just feel like maybe people thought i was being a snob, people i thought were my friends, because i didn't hang around long enough to have a good talk, but the truth is that i dash away sometimes when it's all getting to be too much and i'm starting to freak out, no matter how badly i want to keep talking to someone.  and i cover for myself really well because i would be horrified for someone to recognize that insecurity the moment it occurs, so i bail before recognition happens.  and it must have happened.  a lot.

i'm not an asshole.

I really thought this year would be better, in terms of my anxiety and my ability to focus b/c the anxiety would be lessened (I was on a daily dose of klonopin for the anxiety and a regular regimen of booze for the, uh, anxiety), but I was wrong.  I was obviously not someone anyone really managed to remember, aside from my roommates, and a handful of other people, and it hurts.

I tried so hard to be present.  Focused.  With you.

I tried so hard.

in the face of overwhelm, start a new style blog.

You're welcome to step inside.  Nora thought of the super-kick-ass name, btw.  Nora rules.

It's still sort of beta, but I plan to add to it regularly.  And am hopeful that Nora will join me, on occasion, in posting some of her own takes on recycled style.

Also, because this post seems really fucking short, a shot of me with the luscious Redneck Mommy and the (now-infamous) Bloggess.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

traditions of hangoverness.

Me and mah freend, Cyn.  LOVE THIS GIRL.

Twiggies come in multiples.  (Nora, Gwen, Julie.  STOP BEING SO FUCKING FABULOUS, BITCHES.)

Suebob, you're so dreamy.  And that's our new friend, head-on-a-stick.  (I'm certain this person exists, and is nice, so no dissin'.  All love.  And feel free to come forward and alert us to your existence.)  (Also, who said I was allowed to go out in public with that chin?)

Sarcastically cute.  Especially with head-on-a-stick.

Her boobs make my booblets appear nonexistent.  (Well, and also, just, they are -- kind of nonexistent.) 

I'm hungover and shouldn't be typing.  The shakiness is difficult to overcome.  I'll live.  Somehow.

More updateys later, lovers.  (If the shaking doesn't cause me to inadvertently step into the void situated b/w the hotel's elevator and its doors.  Whee!)

 

which step is this? the first? the eighth?

Is confessing to guilt even on the list of fixing the problem?  AA style, that is?

Anyway, I confess.  To being a clothes hag.  Madly, in-depth, truly. 

I'll start, like I always do, somewhere in the middle.  Ish.

I remember having a very tough time with my fashion leg-humping in the nineties, when I'd only just begun reveling in dressing provocatively (while working my shifts as a member of the burlesque community; listen, some days a girl doesn't really enjoy referring to herself as an ex-stripper, even if it *is* true); this, after I'd gone through an extremely lengthy phase of dressing in baggy everything, thanks to my HARDCORE (YO) passion for snowboarding.  Having embraced the entire lifestyle.  Like I do.

But it never infiltrated my appearance, this provocativeness, during my non-burlesque hours.  I mean, it didn't.  I was loathe to wear a girlish, mainstream-y, floral ANYTHING during that period.  It felt SO FUCKING WRONG.  Like nasty sweater teeth.  Or -- makeup with workout gear.  Yuck.  The more time I spent in a two-inch skirt, six-inch heels and a push-up bra, the less time I wanted to garb myself in anything remotely feminine.  Well, anything remotely feminine derived from the current fashions.  I was absolutely okay with wearing old slips, dyed random colors, from the fifties and sixties, the ones with adjustable straps, that reminded me of my church-going undergarments from grammar school days.  Only I was wearing them as the top layer, with my totally on-purpose fucked-up platinum coiffe that I'd cut, or rather, hacked, myself, in deliberately uneven piecey style, with fishnets, white ones, or maybe purple, and a punk-rock choker and a lunchbox with Snoopy on it as my handbag.  And a grandma sweater, coated in rhinestones or clusters of faux-pearls, in some random, mismatched color.  And my gigantor, heavy-as-shit leopard coat that I would insist on wearing in the middle of goddam summer.  And stacked-heel mary janes.  With the wee, cut-out heart on the toe.

(Oh, my god.  Someone remind me to never, never, ever post photos from that period.  You can all thank that person, and not me, for not causing mass blindness, for I am certain to forget I ever recognized the travesty of my pin-up-girl-gone-LITERALLY-crazy era.)

(In other words, I totally just LIED, but blatantly, about the provocative having not squirreled its way into my outside-of-work fashion choices; I *totally* started dressing like a girl.  Just - not the way everyone else did.  Not - overtly.  Not where everything matched, and I don't mean color or pattern; no, I'm referring to the eras.  Nothing I put on was ever the same age as anything else in that particular grouping.  If the shoes were new, then the skirt was fifty years old and maybe a brand-name, like this lovely, black boiled-wool Neiman Marcus swing-skirt I once owned, from the "new look" Christian Dior period.  And the blouse was a seventies metallic stretchy v-neck slice of horror.  With questionable white-powdered streaks on one sleeve.  I'm KIDding.  Sorta.  But you get the drift.  It was all very random and, now that I think about it, kind of idiotic and simultaneously ridiculously snobbish, because I looked down on the simple, the helpless, the matchy-matched, the all-new-and-shiny-bright, the I'm-so-pretty.  I somehow felt I was above it all.

...

I wasn't.  *gaassssp*)

I persevered through my later phases in avoiding the girlish, traditional look.  The mainstream-y one.  (In my mind, linked permanently to girls who cavort at the Playboy mansion; the "pretty" girls; the sell-outs.  I have issues with "pretty."  I know.  You're shocked and clawing for air.)  It's just - there's something so tawdry about big tits, pink lipstick, blonde hair, long, perfect nails, and something floral.  It's -- too -- obvious?  Yes.  Obvious.

I prefer a subtle, randomly collated style maneuver.  I like the idea of a quantum-physics approach to dressing; something old, something a little broken, something totally fucking shiny, something really solid and well-structured.  With a hint of modernity, and -- dare I say, bordering on *shivers subtly* pretty? -- thrown in, for surprise's sake.

Next week, I plan to wear mostly vintage to the functions in SF.  Also, to the sessions I attend at the conference.  Also, around the hotel, and shopping, and sightseeing.  I'm getting DRESSED next week. 

'Cause I can.  (Mainly as a direct result of the fact that there will be no one to douse me "on accident" with nectarine chunks, or one-third of a glass of cherry juice, or a handful of muddy sand.  None of those things, whether you believe this or not, excel when united in the realm of ancient textiles OR antique accessories of any kind.  All the more sadly do I acknowledge this.)

*weeps into studded hankie, then stops and tucks studded hankie away because, !!, SF!, and, DRESSING.  oh, sweet jesus, you have seen fit to smile on this clothes-loving dame today, haven't you, lord*

*tries to remember to stop sounding so damn religious, lately*

*realizes it's funny and decides to own it*

*becomes suddenly terrified of coming off like old-as-hills church-lady*

*passes out from burgeoning old-lady (aka pink, aka rose, for you wine-snoblets) wine hangover*

blogger prom blues.

It's just kind of hard to get worked up about the conference, even given the awesome people I'll get to foist my embarrassing selves self on, because of the people who *won't* be there.

Cristina won't be there.  She has a "wedding" to go to that weekend.  She's supposedly in said wedding, or some fancy waxen-spun tale of that nature. 

Sure, C.  Sure. 

Neither will Mel, even tho I've spent hours via ma bell bullying her coaxing her gently and sweetly into un-hermiting for a few days' time, and promising spiked turkish delight and other equally sumptuous niceties in order to get her to be my prom date.  But no go.  She's too busy being into Portland and refusing to leave her even for a second.  But it's kewl.  I guess.

*sniff*

Jozet won't be there.  *senses searing, anguished pain in chest, realizes it's too soon to talk about how sad-making this is*

Ruth won't be there.  The best blogger-prom '07 roomie ever.  Oh, you may believe, you may even be convinced, that you had the best roomie.  But you would be wrong.  Because Ruth was the roomie, THE numbero-uno roomie, to be had.  And I got her.  And I frightened her.  And it was wonderful and perfect.   And I'm fairly certain I haven't violated the restraining order, seeing as how you live about three thousand miles beyond what I'm required to adhere to in distance-maintenance.  So, phew.  Love you, Ruth.  Call me?

Mary won't be there.  Gwen and I will be sure to make her ears burn regularly with our musings over her ingenious keystrokes, though, so at least there's that, M.  (*sigh*)

Anne won't be there, though she insists she doesn't care.  I'll bet she was just as cool at school, too.  I'll bet she rocked her feathered hair and her back-pocket comb and made all the girls jealous and all the boys swoon with her smooth-ass swagger.

Stacy won't be there, and GODDAMMIT, STACY, I swear you better go next year or -- *ends threat meekly* -- I'll be really bummed.  I'm looking at you equally testily, Mignon.  (yes.  you're both shivering and quaking.)

G won't be there, tho as of this writing, said information is unconfirmed.  I just figure, she's kinda busy with the paint chips and subsequent paint-toxins high.  Enjoy the ride, G.  Enjoy it.  For I shall miss thee as ardently as last year, even if we *don't* talk much anymore.

 

Mrs. Chicken.  I can only wish you comfort and rest in the last days of your pregnancy, though I would much prefer you were a few months postpartum and able to join us.

Binky, I just wish you were gonna be there.  It's not fair.  It's not fair that you're not coming.  Okay, now I'm just being selfish and pouty.  I'm sorry.  I know you're busy.  I just - I said that already.  Anyway.  Sigh.

*Updated to include Emily, because for some reason I had assumed she was coming.  Since, you know, I spaced that she LIVES IN ENGLAND.  Sigh.  My stupid is personal and it hurts.  p.s. Emily, I will miss your presence dreadfully.  I really DID think you'd be there.  Ai.  The idiocy.  Owwie.  *sees stars of stupid dancing across stupid eyes*

*Further updated to include Andrea, because, AGAIN, I was making this stupidly wildly incorrectly idiotic assumption that she'd be there.  Sans any reasoning.  Just - wishful thinking, I guess.  I r dum.  Such has been evidenced too often to count.  Let's not.  Rather, let's just be collectively sad that the brilliant author of Little Bald Doctors will be too busy digging around amongst steel thingies (?) on a business trip in MO-land to grace us with her genius presence. 

Oh, Andrea.  You will be missed.  So very missed.

*Doy.

Also, Julia and Mama Tulip and Sandra.  Goddammit.  You three - well, Julia, I missed you painfully there last year, and Mama T, I wouldn't have let you outta my sight last year *or* this year, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise (for you, not me) that you won't have to be subjected to my constant stares this time around, either, and Sandra?   Well, shit.  Who will I lust after if you're not around to make ga-ga wolf eyes at, with your golden, glowing, prom-queen bodacious (yeah!) beauty?

Oh, and Nancy!, Nancy.  You were there last year, and I didn't take nearly enough advantage of that fact.  I'll miss you dreadfully.

There are so many who will be there who I will piss myself to be near, but there are so many who will not.

Feeling all half-and-half.

*goes to the fridge, glares moodily at its contents, drinks straight from the milk carton*

the no-one-cares post, edition 308.

I hate blogging.  I love the community, but I hate the blogging part.

I'm psyched about SF, but I'm completely terrified that, even though everyone has basically already witnessed me handing myself my own ass via the dancing solo mio at the first social function of last year's conference, at a bar where there was no dance floor, and yes, I'm aware that "basically" is crap and constitutes English-abuse, I will manage to somehow further disappoint everyone and only be able to grunt monosyllabically this time around, and everyone will say, wow.  She can't write AND she's a fucking boor/bore/halitosis-riddled drunken hot tranny mess w/excruciatingly overblown sense of fashion that has no basis in reality whatsoever (take yr pick).

What I *really* want to know is, when do we get to all just begin communicating telephathically and BASTA with this writing-it-all-down shit?

*taps nails, twists hair around boring (aka left) hand's index finger*

blog poo.

Why do I blog?  I don't know.  Today, I'm wishing I could break it off.  Again.  Not doing it, not even pretending I'm gonna, just wanting to.

Why do you?  Blog, I mean?

Why don't you quit?  Why don't we all quit?

*Bleah*

we interrupt debbie's work schedule to bring you this sorta-not-all-that-big announcement:

Yes.  I am, alarming as it sounds, setting aside my very heavy workload to finally unburden myself about the blogging conference I attended in Chicago a few weeks ago.

I'll try to nutshell it, because I really do have an enormous workload, and if I start rambling, it WILL NEVER END.  As you are probably aware.

I didn't go there with any true intent to market my blog or the fadiddle joint, despite the overt lies told to my husband to the contrary, in order to be given the license to go.  I only went for the friends.  The ones I wanted to make.  No, I had no particular person in mind (although I knew I'd be spending at least a little quality time with mah grl Neen, which I did, and it was good and now I miss her); I mean, yeah, sure, I was hoping beyond hope that the certain people who I felt I had chemistry with in the online sense (i.e., probably not so much-ish, because, hello, internet, same place where people constantly misinterpret tone in emails and end friendships over a misplaced interjection or comma or whatever) that I would click with IRL.  But mostly, I was just hoping I might randomly bump against someone who I would get along with and it would be immediate and delightful and grandiose and just like when I used to find similar kindred spirits in school days and other random places like strip clubs and glee clubs.  (Clubs are, apparently, a cornucopia wherein I happen to delve in order to provide myself with the best-friend-ilk.  I don't know why I should find this surprising, given that my two current oldest and bestestest friends arrived in my life via those specific spots.   I'm digressing.  Yes.  Wow - you must be shocked).

I wanted to make new friends, is what I'm trying to say, because I've been lonely like a single-celled amoeba for awhile, now, and I guess - hell, I suppose it's what's motivated me to keep up with the blogging even at its lowest ebb.  Friends.  I haven't very many on the local scene these days, thanks to schedules and lifestyle issues and socio-economic imbalances and all the other bullshit that seems to interrupt a perfectly nice buddy-buddy system when one flounders into adulthood (iow, the real kind, the kind with kids and a mortgage, not the kind where one is free to sleep on other peoples' couches and smoke pot on a Tuesday afternoon and watch films all morning in bed.  Iow, the sad-and-lonely kind, when one has a chance to stop and recognize that, between all the busy stuff, and that's not to say one's husband and children aren't lovely and loving and friendly and mind-bendingly absorbing; they're just not always, well, friend fodder.  Pour-your-soul-out friend fodder.  Etc).  SO.  Yes.  Friends.  I went to BlogHer for friends-making.  For make have good times.  I kiss you.

I did it, too.  I bumped into some people and -- as luck would have it, and this time the luck was the good kind, my roommate was one of those people.  (Or, conversely, she acted up a storm in the way of pandering to my insanity so as to escape from my verbal clutches sans too much damage, and was also extremely over-tolerant of my morning blather nonsense.  Of which there is much, and also extremely random and neverending, and it also happens at night, and over coffee that turns into a discussion about things like women possessing this kind of woman-genius that needs to be utilized, it's related to having a uterus and I'm not gonna bend if I get accused of being anti-feminist for saying that, in fact I happen to believe that it's what makes me a stronger feminist, so FUCK YEAH, anyway.  See?  My long-windedness could kick your long-windedness's ass.)

(If you're even still reading.  I hope you're not.  It's getting painful and kind of embarrassing.)

Um.

I also found myself spending a lot of time with Kristie, a lovely woman whose spirit is genuine and whose sense of humor is like a kite made of glitter and feather boas.  That or I'm confusing her with those pictures they took at that one booth.  Where we were FORCED to wear strange get-ups and braid our hair and pretend we (or probably just me, because why wouldn't I try to foist my questionable singing abilities on an unsuspecting-yet-fairly-trustworthy audience even with the total lack of a karaoke machine within miles of my mouth) were Brumhilda of the North, brought down to sing (pretty fucking awful, really, in retrospect) opera to the frizzy-coiffed masses in Chicago.

 

FORCED.

And I felt so drawn to so many other women, too, and there was just so little time to hang out with them.  I got some good moments with the luverly and divine Izzy, and my heroic girl Jenny is just as much my friend sitting next to me on a hotel room bed, drinking convenience-store wine, amongst a bunch of other awesome women, going from hilarious to earth-shattering to heartrending in our meandering conversation, as she is online.  Dawn and Feral Mom - if I'd only had more time.  And if you hadn't already been claimed by other people who already had your attention.  (Which may have been your way of saying, "back off, lildb."  But it's cool.  I'm a little oblivious to these sorts of signals.  No hard feelings.  I mean, I realize now, sober as I am, that humping your leg was probably not the *best* way to begin our acquaintance.  It's just that, well, at the time - I was wearing those heels, and -- oh, whatever.)  Nancy - I'm sorry if I accosted you on the dance floor that first night, but you see, it wasn't my fault.  It was the gin.  Bad gin.  Shame on you.  Yes.  But.  At least the gin didn't interfere with my appreciation of lovely, sweet Nancy.  So, gin, I'll give you a pass this time.  Luckily, I managed to avoid being blinded by the sunlit beauty of Jen, plus I didn't even accidently wake her up when I insisted to Nina that we catch her in the act of PRETENDING to be asleep, thanks again, gin, and the lovely Kristen, who I met thanks to Nina, revealed the all-important secret of where they were keeping the jelly-bellies.  Also, I fell all over myself, complete with gin-laden hangover the first day of the conference, to get some photos of these AMAZING shoes worn by this super-gorgeous hottie that I had no shame approaching in order to plead with her to allow me to photograph the shoes-of-hotness-beyond-compare, set off oh-so-perfectly by her fab orange toe polish, and, yes, I even lay on my belly on questionable conference-building carpet to get the photos, and THEN I discovered she was one of my single biggest blogger heroes ever. 

Yay.  *wrings hands silently*

At least she didn't summon the conference police to haul me away, which she probably could've done, seeing as how she was WORKING for Blogher during the gig and must've had the appropriate clout to have me evicted from, if not the city of Chicago, at least the pier's proximity.  But she didn't.  Instead she kindly pretended to remember me from this one time when she said nice things about me, because she's nice as hell, with the BEST FUCKING SHOES EVER, although Susan from Friday Playdate certainly gave her a run for her money with HER fabulous footwear that made me fall all over myself AGAIN, because I have a problem.  Okay, maybe more than one problem.  But that's obviously one of the problems, my inability to prevent myself from ill-advisedly approaching people I think are ridiculously cool and drooling directly on their awesome kicks.  It's kind of really terribly embarrassing.  Which sort of sums up my life in general.  Uh-huh.

(It's pretty sad that, even given my Austin-Powers-esque behavior in photographing Kristin's shoes, I still ended up with a not-nearly-good-enough picture.  I apologize, Kristin.  Neither you nor your shoes can be held responsible for my reprehensibly-lacking-in-quality photo-machinery.  Extremely big sigh.  But - see that color?  GOD, that's good.  Esp. with the contrasting polish.  And that wedge - hot damn.  Veddy nice shoes.  Mama like muy mucho.)

But Kristen-the-terrifically-awesomely-gorgeous, even only a few months post-partum, was quasi-painfully nice, I mean, girl is PLEASANT, and I was left scratching my head as to how she does it all, while parenting two little ones and running the entire blogosphere with one hand snuggling her little man's sweet body and the other one handing out condom-pops with enviable aplomb, managing to be foxy, business-like AND scorchingly funny.  One. Fell. Swoop.  *whispers mantra to self to not be jealous of Kristen's amazingness, realizes it's moot*

And Julie?  How did I not congratulate you on being pregnant?  I wasted precious minutes yammering on about how groovy and zen your blog is and this while trying to not have problems peeing because we were all using the bathroom simultaneously (my pee sphincter tends to crawl into my neck when I have to use the bathroom with people I admire, it's sorta unpredictable like that, also, I must mention that Jenny was in there with us, do you understand the PRESSURE my poor pee sphincter was under?  I have to cut it some slack.  That was some mighty pressure-y pressure, being asked to pee in the same room as The Bloggess AND MotherGooseMouse, yes, exactly).  Also, I think I may have just broken some kind of record for liberal use of the word "pee" within one not-excessive paragraph (which might also be a record of sorts, at least for me).

Oh, and Sandra and Jana and Katie and Metro and Kittenpie - the lot of you delicious, devil-may-care band of sexxxy Canucks - just not enough time.  Even if you did take compromising video footage of my possibly-out-of-control obsession with dressing up.  In this instance, as an eighties hairband groupie.  As to my traveling to a conference not related in any way to the costume of any particular person/period/type, let alone an eighties hairband groupie, while carrying pieces in my travel wardrobe that would be fitting for such, I take no responsibility whatsoever.  It was my unconscious who packed my stuff.  Bad unconscious.  Shame on you.  You and gin are not allowed to go out alone together for at least one week.  You heard me, you two.  Stop giggling and cavorting in the back.  Everyone!  Pay attention!  This is an important post!  I need all of your assistance!

Mehhh.  This is so not gonna work.

Fine.  No one is willing to help me write this thing?  Alright then.  I'm gonna slap it up on my blog and THEN we'll see whether you might have wanted to chime in rather than doodle on the side of my cornea, embarrassment.

Yeah.  NOW who's embarr -- uh.

Woops.

Uh.

 

*ahem*

Hey, nose?  When I went to cut you off, that was kind of -- an accident.  I was kidding.  But then, see, the, uh, the knife slipped, yes, it slipped, uh-huh, and -- dammit.  Anyway, now face is all, well, face is kinda p.o.d.  You can see how this is (slight pause) -- um, sure.  I, uh, do you think we could -- no?  You need some time to think?  Huh.  Well, okay.  We're ready to talk when you are.  We'll be here.  Right next to the phone.  Whenever you're up to it.

*stares dejectedly at shoes as wound where nose used to be eases a steady drip-drip-drip of red droplets onto their canvas surface*

could someone point me in the direction of the nearest methodone clinic, please/thankyou?

My heart hurts.  It went too fast.  It was too blurry, too lightening-quick.  I met so many freaking gorgeous, brilliant, amazing women and that's only *including* Amy Sedaris who complimented me on my shirt because she's MY best friend, Jenny, even though I'll let you believe she's yours for various reasons that I refuse to disclose because I just don't feel like it, okay?, and then when Ruth and I were scurrying for the train and she grabbed my shoulder and said, "DEBBIE!! -- I! forgot! my! suitcase!," my heart imploded and I looked into her eyes and tried to say everything that I wanted to using my intensively-developed kinesthetic skills, things I ought to have said prior to that moment but these lips of mine wouldn't form the words, stubborn old lips, and

sad.

Because Ruth is like the most amazing everyone I've ever met poured into one female deity's body.  With the best hair E.V.E.R.

And she's a good sport.  And not just a-cause she plays tennis, neither.  She's just so fabulous it pains me, PAINS ME, to remember how far away she lives from my neck of the country.

And I'm not gonna talk right now about everyone else I fell head over heels in love with while I was in Chicago for the last few days, because this post can't get that big, because I will be here for an hour, and I have to do a zrillion things before we leave the day after tomorrow for central Cali, like work and make money and pay bills and buy food and prepare food and run errands and work out final details on the house we may or may not be completing the purchase of and build a feeding tube for our dog from the sink/dog food container out of household items I may or may not already be in possession of, and

yes, people, everyone has confirmed it and confirmed it again.  I'm really just like this in person,

ONLY LOUDER.  Like, eighty times louder, or thereabouts.

Also, the W in Chicago?  Has comfy beds, and the coffee that should've been provided in my room?  Wasn't there.  Instead, I crawled painfully down on my achy joints and discovered that the coffee in the (generally accepted as routine at all the hotels I've ever heard of, ever) complimentary coffee service area was NOT ONLY NOT FREE, BUT $4.13.  Yeah.  I paid $4.13 + tip (because I was too grumpy to wait for the change, lest I should toss said liquid in the fucker's face who actually charged me for the butt-wad-flavored black nasty spew in a cup) and walked away, only to find that the cup lid couldn't stick to the cup, and it spilled all over me.  Did I mention that, after the concierge wandered my way eventually to hand me a teaspoon-sized napkin to remove the damage to my singed fingers, knees and feet, I tried STUPIDLY to drink more coffee, only to have the lid come off again, only this time next to my mouth?  Yes.  More coffee.  Spilled again, only this time on my chin, and this time I gave up and put the fucking thing down somewhere and walked away from it.  Because I get it, okay, W?  I get the joke.  You're funny.  I think you should totally start doing stand-up.  But give me the address of the club you perform at, so I can come and THROW SOME FUCKING HOT, ASS-LIQUID-THAT-DOUBLES-AS-JAVA ALL OVER YOUR NEW OUTFIT THAT YOU BOUGHT SPECIALLY FOR THE OCCASION, 'k?  K.

p.s. I swore on my child's eyes to Ruth that I would post about my vitriol over this dumb experience, even though I wore everyone within a fifty-mile radius out about the story after it happened.  I'm fun and wacky like that.

So, yeah.

contrary to popular opinion, hangovers are teh suck-ass.

Owwie.

My head feels icky.

Dumb Debbie.

Who said the cage could burst open and let the batty part of me out?  Huh?  Did I say that?

And now I'm all confused and can't remember where I'm supposed to go or do and I need some water and don't particularly feel like dropping 8 bones on the nicely huge bottle situated next to my hotel room bed.  Iow, I oughtta get out and buy some, or maybe I ought to have done so last evening, prior to the uncaging.  (Seriously.  I danced for a long time in a bar where there no other people dancing.  That has to be a good hint as to my lampshade capabilities.)

Everyone is, these amazing blogger people here, as gorgeous as they sound in my head when I read their words.  I mean, wow.  And I think I may have officially scared the divinely lovely Mrs. Chicky with my lengthy diatribe on nothing in particular, glittering in its extreme dullness.  And oh, super-adorable Motherbumper?  I hope I didn't terrify you into running away from the bar.  Although I'm pretty sure I did.  And Rebecca?  Really is a stone-cold hottie.  They all are.  Wow.  I don't wanna go to the conference today.  I have that bad, awful hungover eyeballs thing and -- also there's that tongue-tied business that goes on when it feels like the alcohol has stripped you of pieces of brain just when you need 'em the most.

But I guess I'd better get a move-on if I'm not gonna mold away quietly in my room for the rest of my stay here.

Which = uh-oh.  Decision time.  Crap.

p.s.  For the record, I hate turbulence.  It is not my friend.

come as you are.

Too much red wine tonight.  Only it was a very nice red, and I liked it, and I didn't want to stop drinking it.  So I have to keep backspacing right now.  Because it was good.  And my eyes are itchy and sore and I should be asleep but I'm sewing out just a sampling of those stupid shirts I was gonna make a zillion of and bring with me.  Ha.  Like I ever do anything I say I'm gonna.

That house, the one we thought we were so all about, it's probably not right.  It's kind of a lemon.  I'm so sad.  I'm trying very hard not to be.  It's difficult.  I -- we have to move from here, we have 3 1/2 weeks to leave.  Shit?

And today is my son's birthday.  Today.  Two years ago.  I was mesmerized by his softness.  His tiny (but still very enormous for someone so small!) hands.  The terrifying feeling that he would never learn how to breastfeed.  Rocking him in the hospital glider in the soft, black nighttime; husband snoring on the uncomfortable bench/bed/thingy.  Love and fear mixed like a cocktail, heady, intoxicating, lightening-like.

I am trying to pretend I'm ready to bathe in a thousand conversations tomorrow.  This conference - what was I FUCKING THINKING?!??  oy.  How will I ever manage it?

I was gonna pack this and that fabulous thing and I was gonna coat myself liberally in self-tanner and polish my toenails and get my hair done and then I thought, huh.  Would that be me?  Would it be my own self, my insides that I'm often/always spilling here, that I'm bringing with me to the place where I'll encounter everyone I read, everyone who reads me like a book?

No.  I'm coming just as I am.

Deal with it, betches.

(Also, I ran out of time to do the self-tanner and the toenail polish.  So I may just be making excuses.  Like I'll ever tell.)

get to know me! buy a shirt!

Before I had the opportunity to attend the blogher conference, I was nothing, nowhere, nobody.

Now, I'm all scheduled up to fly east to Chicago on Thursday, and I also have these shirts to sell.  And I'll probably end up on tv, and best friends with Amy Sedaris, because, hey.  Why not?

Get to know me!

(I'm tired.  It's all I've got.  Buy a shirt, okay?  Bless you, dear children.)

(I'll have five mediums/five larges in black on hand, as well as five M/five L in a chocolate version, with red/orange/brown thread for contrast.  To die for, huh?  huh?)

(uh.)

girl, compacted.

I am horribly nervous about meeting so many of you gorgeous internut friends all at once.  Probably one of the main reasons I haven't posted anything for awhile, even though that main reason is certainly bolstered by lots of many other main reasons, like that we're still in the midst of buying/selling real estate, and that J is turning two, i.e., he's turning into a maniac, also, he's now "sleeping," ahem, in a toddler bed, goddddddddddd, apparently the nighttime is most fascinating to pad around in toddler feet and whisper to things, arghhhhhhhh.  Also, there's the trip we're going on after I get back from Chicago 'cause Caleb's in a wedding for one of his good college friends, and I'll get to meet my lovely, breathtakingly awesome friend vis-a-vis FINALLY, even though I feel like I know her better than some of my IRL friends and definitely think she's funnier than almost everyone I know put together -- that is, if she isn't giving birth during my visit, and even so, I'm still gonna try to make her meet me.  So what if I have to interrupt breathing techniques?  I'm sure she can make time for me between contractions.

Btw, have you guys ever seen the Go-go-Babyz contraption that you stick to your carseat and it converts the carseat into a stroller?  It's genius and every time we go through the airport with J rolling along behind us, blissfully at ease as we sweat our schleppy selves across the miles of psychedelic airport carpeting, people stop us, usually multiples of them, to request where we found such a gem of a tool.  I highly recommend.  Nobody's paying me to or anything, but seriously, it's a lifesaver if you have a toddler and have to haul the kid's heavy-ass carseat around when you fly.  It makes me slightly easier about the wedding nocal visit when I remember that we are in possession of such a fine, fine thingy.

So.  I'm gonna be selling some t-shirts (for the ladeez, not the kids) at blogher; they're semi-conference-specific, and if you'd like to pre-order one, I'll be happy to reserve it.  I only have room for 20 because I'm simultaneously transporting the ones I made for Kristen, and that's a lotta shirts, people.  Anyway, I'm gonna post a photo of the design (there's a front element as well as one on the back) later today and you can lmk via email (lildbsnack at yahoo dot com) if you'd like me to reserve one for you.  After that, I hafta take orders, and I'll be happy to mail them to you post-conference.

Did I mention that my palms turn into roman baths when I get nervous?  And that the thought of the upcoming weekend of monstrous blog-love bonanza is making me get every surface I touch all icky and stuff?  Yay.  Clammy palms = unfabulous.  Remember that when you go to shake my hand, and instead, maybe opt for just smiling and winking.  Or a side-hug.  I'm a professional side-hugger.  Or if you have a pair of big, brassy ovaries, I dare you to confront me with a full-frontal hug.  I may pat your back more than is necessary, because it's my knee-jerk response when I'm internally nose-diving, and that may be bad because we're back to the clammy-palm ickiness being potentially absorbed by your shoulder blades; so here's a suggestion:  if you wanna give me a hug, wear something highly absorbent.  I would go with either a nice terry cloth, or maybe go for the big guns and sew yourself an impromptu jacket made entirely of feminine pads.  You're sure to avoid any random encounters with CPS (clammy palm syndrome), and you may even garner some mentions as that one with the totally chic pad-jacket.

On second thought, I don't think you're ready for this wet-handed jelly.  My hands are too sweatylicious for you, babes.

*wipes off keyboard with industrial-sized towel*

i'll take Meme for 200.

Nina came up with this one and I think it's genius, 'specially when I have little spare time and am simultaneously facing not much creativity in the brain-stacks.  She shared things about herself that people oughtta be prepared for when meeting her in Chicago in a few weeks.  I think I'll do the same.  You can totally pick up here, Ruth, and also Jenny, and also Jen, and Mrs. Chicky, too, and Motherbumper, pretty please.  And don't diss me on this, ladies, or I'll be so royally pissed that I may not share my favorite lip gloss with you almost ever, for almost the whole weekend.  So, there.  Nyahhhh.

Um. 

Heh.

I'll come up with something.  My brain isn't producing much more than soft static, but it's gotta have DREGS in there, fer crying out loud.  After all, I only just informed Nora this morning via Ma Bell that "when I make the keychain version of [her], it'll be positive euphemisms all the time."  The brain that coughed up that furball should have a few more of those stashed somewheres.

So.

*drums fingers*

Oh!  Got one!  Alright - I'm a total dingbat when I'm nervous - I can't focus for shitttt.  I'll get three words into a sentence and look shamefaced, and the blood will drain away and I'll stammer and hum and wonder whether a complete sentence will exit my mouth again, ever, and you'll think - gosh.  She seems so proliferate online.  Huh.  (And then I'll start again and it'll nevereverever stop and you'll be like, oh, riiiiight.  She IS that proliferate.  Plus twenty times more annoying!)

And - um.

?

Oh!  I also say randomly insulting things due to nervous rambling, but rather than realize that I'm being rude and STOPPING IT, I go into rudeness-hyperdrive and the flux capacitor invades my rudeness and I'm light-years ahead, ruding it up, and the other person is standing there gaping at my rude fucking mouth, and I CANT. MAKE. IT. STOP.  It's lovely.  I'm a total joy to speak with for the first time.

On the other hand, I'm randomly quippy and funny in a new setting.  Nerves make me wryly observant.  So long as I don't get on a rude tangent.  Otherwise, it's rude city.  And not the cool ska kind, either.

Uh?  I'm kinda just as tall as I would seem, I think?  Nina?  Feel free to chime in on this one.

And my hair takes up more space than it oughtta.  I probably should consider renting it its own trundle bed.  And maybe buying it a drink once in a while. 

Um, and I tend to flaunt my freakish physical characteristics when I'm embarrassed about how I can't SEEM TO CONTROL THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE, so I turn to my oddly well-formed muscles and demonstrate pump-you-up poses so as to detract from my mouth.  It doesn't play out well from there.  As you can probably imagine.

If I drink too much I'll try to pretend I haven't and I may get real braggy-pants at a certain juncture or other.  I can usually keep it together enough to get my sad-clown-girl-self outta the joint before it descends too far into the abyss of mouth-hell.  Again I refer to Nina to act as witness regarding this and other nonsense a la Deb.

Oh!  But I have been informed by Nora that I'm good at compliments.  So I may pay you some nice ones if you can withstand the bombardment by me of the other annoying verbal missiles.

Welcome to the Molotov cocktail that is me.  With a sugar rim.

Your turn, sisters du sledge.  Give it.

(And if you're going and you wanna participate in this meme say so in the comments and I'll add you to my aforementioned taggees.  It's all embarrassing and crazy from here anyway - do you really even WANT to participate?  'Course you do.)

p.s. Nora, I promise on my child's eyes that I'll meme it up with your baton-pass next.  Swear.  The G-rated kind.