ROBOT SMALL

Yesterday I crashed Blogher. This is a conference of women bloggers, a lot of them ones that write blogs about their kids... JUST LIKE ME!!! These must be my people, right? I decided to head over there. The morning of the day that I decided to go, I checked their website and they had stopped selling tickets weeks ago. Thankfully I live in the Bay Area, so I took BART over and just walked right in! After I had been sitting in one of the classes (were they classes or more of teach-ins? Bitch sessions? Bitch sessions usually don't have journalists from the NYT at them...) I realized I didn't have a ID thing around my neck, and maybe I should go try to buy a ticket, but I really wanted to stay!! So I didn't. And no one seemed to notice, and no one was checking at the door.

I don't know if I am awkward socially. I tend to be more of the hanging-back type rather than the go-meet-someone type. But I like to think that is more of a choice rather than I CAN'T GO TALK TO THAT PERSON! Also, being at a blogging conference is weird, because the people that I recognized, I couldn't really go talk to, because what would I say? "Hi! I like your blog and I know everything about you!" "Uh... ok?" "Uh, bye!"

The conversations that I did have were kind of one-sided, as I played down my blog, muttering, "It's just a... little blog... that just my mom and my sister read... you know... about my kid..." And then the other person would say something like, "You know Dooce makes $30,000 a month off her blog!" or "I just saw Jon Armstrong downstairs in the lobby!" Huh?

However, I was struck by the communal aspect of it, everyone seemed so happy to be around their blogger tribe, and there were so many different types of women (and men) of all different ages, shapes and colors. Although most of them were white chicks, let's be honest.

I think I would have had a much better time if I had registered... I felt weird about taking the free (for me) lunch, so I bought a sandwich instead. I finally made it into the cocktail party, by just saying, "I left my badge in the hotel room!", but once I was in, you needed lil tickets for drinks, so it was obvious it was time to go.

I think that my blog (the one you are reading) suffers from censorship, because there are parts of my life that I don't want out there on the internet. And also, I don't want Ivo to grow up and be ashamed or embarrassed by anything written on this blog. So basically all the gritty detail of reality is left out and you see a shined up image. These bloggers were shameless, putting every personal detail of their lives out there. I say, more power to them, but this blog is not like that!

All in all, frankly, going to Blogher made me want to read blogs a lot less. I still like The Sartorialist though.