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Six Degrees of BlogHer-ing

One part inspiration, one part admiration, one part "huh?", and one part high school anxiety flashback. That sums it up for me.

I'll be honest. I was looking forward to the conference and also secretly dreading it. I'm a socially anxious person who tries desperately to hide behind expressive enthusiasm. (Lots of "HELLO!" and so forth.) This often results in awkward moments and blunders and miscommunication. Which in turn creates this chain reaction in my head of "stupid! stupid! stupid!" and the desire to bang my head against a wall. So, conference + me = psychological train wreck, usually. Plus, cool tech women! Who dress stylishly! Who I think I might like if I met them in person!

And here I am, without a table saw to hide behind.

It helped that Chris and Susan took pity and came out shopping with me on Thursday. I don't normally shop for clothes. I shop for router bits. (This might seem extremely obvious to anyone who got a good look at me at the conference. Also, I normally look like I've gotten dressed in the dark.) But the two of them were so gracious and witty and fun and intelligent that I had a great time even though no power tools were involved.

I was half expecting the conference itself to be very squee and zomg. Okay, more than half. And I was dreading that part. But I met the most down-to-earth, sane, savvy people. No, seriously. There were some wicked smaht and successful women (and men) there. And they were FUN in a sincere, non-cheesy way.

There were also some surreal moments. Like sitting down and having this great conversation at lunch with a woman who I later realize is Aliza Sherman. I missed her introduction at the session beforehand, so I had no clue. And she's down to earth, as well as a late-in-life mom like I am. Which I would have never guessed because she was rocking these pigtails that made her look adorable and twenty-five years old. So, this other delightful woman joins us and we start dishing about eBusiness. Turns out she is Tery Spataro of Daily Eats. I am so grateful that she doesn't know how poor my culinary skills are, she may never have given me the time of day.

I was in a session on the second day and the woman in front of me was packing up her laptop. She glanced at my name tag and said, "Oh, I read your blog." Turns out it was Lisa Williams from Cadence 90 whose blog I have been reading since I began blogging. I finally got the opportunity to tell her how much I admire her writing, especially the pieces that she has written about her dad. Hopefully, I was able to do this in a non-dorky way. She is so talented. Right now she also has a new project called Placeblogger which is very intriguing. If you are interested in the intersection of geographical space and indie journalism and building community, check it out.

I also got to chat with Jenny the Bloggess who I had never read before. Which is a shame, because someone this funny really should have been on my radar prior to now.

Shout out to FoodMomiac, who I have met before (twice!) and who I admire for being someone who is so put together AND who can feed her children real food, not just the frozen kind like some of us (ahem) do.

Chicago + NU peeps Jack and Kori were there. Way to represent! Jesse from Swatchbox was there. (Jesse, where is your blog already?)

I now wish that Heather from the Collaborative on Health and the Environment lived in Chicago because I want her coolness to rub off on me. And to the eco-tripping bloggers from Toronto who I chatted with in the line for the ladies room...you are an inspiration. Really. Jasmine, you're lovely and I know that we will meet again soon.

I know that I'm forgetting someone. If you are that person, please forgive me. I'm rushing now since Grace will be up from her nap soon and a trip to Clark & Devon Hardware is looming in my future. I'll stop here with the gushing as soon as I say this:

Who knew that writing about one's life on the internet could be such a powerful force for change? Could connect me to so many others who I am thrilled to meet? Blogging. I used to laugh when I would refer to myself as a blogger. But I'm not laughing anymore.

That was all very squee, wasn't it? I think it was. Crap.

Posted by jeanne on July 30, 2007 at 5:23 PM (5)

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