Haiku Friday 1: The BlogHer Wrap-up Edition

BlogHer now over--
vocal chords have recovered--
what about liver?

BlogHer09 Report #4 The Laundry List, now with stolen pictures!

I'm doing laundry.

Big surprise when you've been out of the house for four days, right?

And it's not that Mr. Buxom wasn't fabulous, because he was.

Not only did he help with Poppy Buxom's Awesum Cocktail Party on Saturday night, hauling booze and ice and food trays all over creation and staying up til the ass-crack of dawn surrounded by lovely young women,* he also spent four days watching the kids, installing a closet organizer in his study, cleaning up the storage room in the basement, and buying and putting together one of those tall storage etagères for seasonal decorations and miscellaneous crappe.

He also introduced Young Master Buxom to the Kill Bill movies.**

Meanwhile, I was downtown hanging out with blackbird, Susie Sunshine, Martha MacGyver, and LemonySarah.

After the forces had gathered in my apartment, the BlogHer Contributing Editors headed to the Sheraton for the BeautyHacks/BlogHer cocktail party. This gave me the chance to meet some of my BlogHer colleagues (and let me tell you, it gives me a thrill to call them that): HeatherB, Metalia, Mocha Momma, Liz Henry, and Liz Gumbinner.

I also discovered that Sarah of Sarah and the Goon Squad is a fellow mezzo-soprano. If you heard a couple of bloggers pretending to be Carmen and Cherubino, that was us. I'm kidding! I wasn't that drunk. Yet.

Susie Sunshine, Goon Squad Sarah, and me before I finished my first drink.
Photo stolen from BlogHer's photo gallery

I was introduced to Neilochka by blackbird because he asked. What a gentleman! He didn't even remark on how buxom I appeared. Not more than once or twice, anyway.

Was stopped by Mir, who is adorable whether she's wearing her hair curly or straight, so there.

I squeee'd at Y of Joy Unexpected and Cheeky Lotus and drunkenly invited them to my cocktail party. In fact, for me, the first night of BlogHer was really a squee/business card/drunken inviting marathon of sorts, so if you found me a little bit off-putting, I apologize. I really only get this stupid at BlogHer. I mean, yes, I do like my cocktails, but I'm not usually riding up and down hotel escalators yelling "I AM SO DRUNK!!!11eleven!1!"

And that wasn't me who streaked the lobby. Hand to God.

Met MudslideMama and she is completely adorable and makes me want to move to California. (This is advance notice for her to move to Oregon to avoid meeting me again.)

Later that night--and the conference hadn't even officially started yet--we went to the People's Party. There I accosted Jennette Fulda of Half of Me, who is just as cute and funny as she appears in her blog. Then I bopped around and sang along with Chris Mann ... and did I let a little thing like not knowing the song stop me? Of course not. Because my fifth drink had informed me of one crucially important fact: singing in key is for pussies.

Someone told me that The Bloggess was holding court in the bathroom, so I went in to meet her. She was wearing her long red wig, for those of you who are keeping score. But neither The Bloggess or I remember much about it because we were both drunk. At least I was.

After a healthy breakfast consisting of a handful of Excedrin, coffee, and a Egg McSheraton, I reunited with the extremely hilarious Jasmine Davila. Jasmine is a friend from usenet days, and I was glad to see her again, because after only a decade or so of living in the same city and never seeing each other, I thought it was time. Not that we're misanthropic geeks or anything like that.

Throughout the day I took every chance to renew my acquaintance with some of the incredible women I was lucky enough to meet at Blissdom: Alli Worthington, Mary Anne of Stiletto Mom, Amy of OutdoorDogs, Rachel of Southern Fairy Tale, Annisa Mayhew, Kelby Carr, Catherine of Her Bad Mother, Sugar Jones, Casey (moosh in Indy) and Tanis a/k/a Redneck Mommy. (See, the advantage of going to a small conference like BlissDom is that you meet so many amazing bloggers and they all become your new best friends so you can totally assault them when you see them at big conference like BlogHer. Just so you know.)

Met TW and then didn't recognize her when she strolled past working a very retro red and white dress. Because I am just that much of a dork.

Around lunch time blackbird and I went to the Swap Meet and met Kristen of Mommy Needs a Cocktail, her four-month old son, and her inventory of amazingly clever t-shirts. Did I tell you I got her to make special Mamarazzi t-shirts for my Awesum Cocktail Party? Well, I did.

I'm not just a pal of Kristen's; I'm a client.

And of course, Kristen was hosting the Mommy Needs a Cocktail Party on Friday night. We started the evening there and made free with the chocolate fountains, tiaras, and booze. It didn't take us long to hook up with Jen Lancaster as well as some of Jen's posse: Kristabella, MaNiC Mommy, and tutugirl. I also met and hung out with middle-aged-woman and the Hotfessional. And Velma!

Me, Susie Sunshine, and Wendy. You're no one until blackbird has chopped the top of your head off.

Next door at the Mamapop party I hurled myself in a pathetic fangirl fashion at Schmutzie, The Palinode, and of course, Sweetney, who had to deal with drunk Poppy not once but twice. Lucky her. (I also disco-danced with blackbird. Apparently we're on video, so somebody somewhere has a big future in blackmailing.)

Another picture stolen from blackbird. Notice how I limit myself to a black and red color scheme? Like a POPPY. Also, see my clutch? bird gave it to me. And she bought it on Etsy--which is coolness cubed.

Saturday morning called for another Excedrin breakfast, and then I sat and thought hard about the panels. The ones I really, really wanted to go to were on Saturday. The Vaginally-Challenged panel. The Humor Panel. The Blogging as Storytelling Panel. The MamaPop panel. But I was hosting a cocktail party on Saturday night, and I know myself. If I had gone to the panels I'd try to listen, but my brain would be yammering HAVE YOU ORDERED ENOUGH ICE and MAYBE THERE WON'T BE ENOUGH FOOD and WHEN WILL THE T-SHIRTS SHOW UP so I figured I'd better skip them all.

Let the following row of dots represent my attempts to chill out and take a disco nap on Saturday:

...

So we head straight to my Saturday night party, where many of the above-linked people were in attendance. And the really cool thing is that people brought friends, so I had the chance to meet people in an atmosphere where I could actually hear what they had to say. Like Vodkamom, and Cinnamon, and Alli's adorable assistant Cassie. And Alli's super-talented, adorable, charming pal Chris Mann. And a bunch of people from one of the panels called something like "Hey, I'm More Than My Disease, For Christ's Sake," like ChronicBabe and Rachel and MajorBedhead. Many of them were dia-babe-alicious, so when I gave them their bags of custom Mamarazzi M&Ms, I made sure they were the bags that were really hard to open. I like to think of it as my contribution to their future well-being.

Picture totally stolen from Kerri Sparling of sixuntilme. I think of it as a digital swag bag.

We had what I think I can describe without hyperbole (but with plenty of cliché) as a magical evening up on the rooftop deck of my building. Some of us even got to watch the Venetian Night fireworks. And all of us got to drink and lounge around on chaise longues and eat turkey roll-ups and hang with each other.

And then the party guests went home and I put my blood alcohol level and my vocal chords to bed.

I love BlogHer. I wish you could have all been there.

It's so not about the swag.

* Maybe this part of things wasn't all that hard on him.
** OK, maybe I could have done without that part.

BlogHer09 Report #3 Celebrity Sighting Edition

• Mir from Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda made a special effort to come up and say hello. I was so amazed that I ran up to Susie Sunshine to tell her about it and discovered her talking away to Y of Joy Unexpected, whereupon I started squeeing so loudly that I ruptured every eardrum in a five mile radius.

• I was waiting to get another glass of wine (my fourth) and Sweetney walked up behind me and bumped me with her bag. She turned around to apologize and I shouted "I'm blogging this!" At which point she very kindly laughed at my supposed witticism and then had the good sense to stay far, far away from my sloppy drunk ass.

• The Bloggess really does hang out in bathrooms. Isn't it wonderful when famous people act the way you expect them to?

• Although sometimes they don't. I don't think Neilotchka has propositioned anyone. Yet.

In other news, it turns out a real life friend of mine, Annabelle Volgman, M.D., will be in one of the exhibitor booths to teach us about women and cardiac health. I don't think she knows that I blog. Universes are about to collide! I feel like I'm going to meet Mr. Spock or something. So the the question I have for you all this: do you think it's going to be the Leonard Nimoy Spock or the Zachary Quinto/Sylar from Heroes Spock?

• I think the latter, because I think I saw Zachary/Sylar pretending to be Chris Mann last night at Alli Worthington and Co.'s People's Party.

BlogHer09 Report #2

• I don't know how you people eat Egg McMuffins every day. I had one of those non-egg-McMuffin "breakfast sandwiches" from the hotel buffet, and I don't think I'll need to eat until BlogHer10.

• Which, by the way, will be in New York City. Start spreading the news.

• The wireless service at the hotel is pretty wonky. I can't think of a better way to piss off and frustrate 1,500 bloggers, but then again, when the wireless is working, everyone twitters so much that all the bandwidth is eaten up, so whatever.

BlogHer09 Report #1

1. No matter what blackbird says, I was not that drunk. It is perfectly normal to discuss the pros and cons of circumcision. At the top of your voice. At 1:00 a.m.

2. They've been announcing sponsors/freebies for about an hour. But where are the vibrators?

3. I think we killed twitter.

Count down to BlogHer: the cardiac arrest edition

It's not what you think. I'm not sitting here sweating bullets over what I'm going to wear and how I'm going to look.

Yo, mommybloggers, pick up the clue phone, it's for you: Poppy Buxom is thirty pounds heavier and 20 years older than you expect. Also, she dresses like shit. If our BlogHer fashion sense is being graded, I just bumped you a couple of notches up the bell curve. YOU'RE WELCOME.

So it's not clothes. This is what's getting my granny panties in a wad:

1. I'm getting a new sliding shower door installed in the hall bathroom. When? Tomorrow, first thing in the a.m. Why? Because Mr. Buxom accidentally broke one of the two halves. When? In 2007. So why has it taken me two years to get it fixed, and why is it happening at the ulta-last minute?

Because I'm an asshole, that's why. (What can I say; my kids take baths, not showers.)

2. The bartender for my super-exclusive BlogHer cocktail party (Hey! You're invited!) called me tonight to confirm. For Friday night. But! The party is on Saturday.

3. So far, I've forgotten to order food for the party. Whoops! The good news is I already ordered and paid for the booze. Which is being delivered tomorrow, probably while I'm dealing with the shower door guy.

4. I can't find the key that gets me to and from the basement in my building, which where the laundry room is located. So I'm digging through everything I own looking for the keys so everyone doesn't have to sleep, through lack of clean sheets, in my kids' ancient Buzz Lightyear sleeping bags.

5. Did I mention that I have four guests staying with me? Blackbird, Martha MacGyver, SarahO, and Susie Sunshine will be camping out chez Buxom.

6. Yes, I bought ear plugs.

The good news is we have lots of toilet paper. Also, I managed to post my BeautyHacks post, which means tomorrow, at the BlogHer CE party, I'm going to swan around feeling incredibly fashionable and smug. Even though everyone else will be wearing a darling little cocktail dress, and I'll be wearing a Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag.

More free BlogHer advice!

Because I know you can't get enough of it.

But listen, ladies. I need to keep it short. I have to write a BlogHer BeautyHacks post tonight.

Now, you'd think my BlogHer BeautyHacks boss would realize, hey, maybe I should get somebody else to publish a post the day before BlogHer! Maybe I shouldn't ask Poppy, since she has only 48 hours to lose 30 pounds, buy all new clothes, grow out her nails, get her hair blown out, her eyebrows waxed, her finger- and toenails polished and her forehead Botoxed. After all, she needs to transform herself into someone much cooler, thinner, younger, and more wrinkle-free before Thursday night's pre-BlogHer Contributing Editor party. And she is a little pressed for time.

But Susan obviously realized that I am not the roommate who amassed a huge collection of collectible clowns and then tried to commit suicide. No, I am the responsible roommate who went to work and accomplished all sorts of squid-like computer-y things. And let me reiterate; this was IN THE EIGHTIES. For anyone who was sending and receiving email as early as 1984, writing a BeautyHacks post should be a piece of cake.

And it is. But it doesn't leave me with a lot of time to post about BlogHer. So quick! Here's my advice:

1. Do not worry about which panel to go to. Put off deciding all that stuff until after you arrive.

Right now, your main job is to overcompensate for your shortcomings. Say you're like me: easily overwhelmed in crowds, easily bossed around, and pretty much clueless. For me, the solution is to 1) find someone bossy and 2) follow her around.

I tend to glom onto Susie Sunshine and blackbird, both of whom are way more knowledgeable about who is whom, who's getting how many hits, who is using which ad network, who just signed a book contract, and all the rest of that shit.

(Except let me just say that two years ago, neither one of them knew who the Pioneer Woman was. OK, I didn't either. But I'm not pretending to know what's going on. Sheesh!)

2. Spend as much time as possible in the bathroom. You meet the coolest people there. I didn't meet The Bloggess in the bathroom in 2007 because I don't think she'd been invented yet, but I did meet Suzanne of Campaign for Unshaved Snatch and Bossy of I am Bossy. I didn't meet the Sarcastic Journalist in the bathroom, but she gave me a tampon, which is almost the same thing.

3. When you're not in the bathroom, be drinking. When you're not drinking, be handing out business cards. If you still don't have business cards, improvise. Take a Sharpie and write your twitter handle on people's hands. Like this:

@poppybuxom

People will love this. Especially if you use indelible ink.

Seriously! It will be so fun, so fresh, so informal!

You'll probably end up the next dooce.