Did you ever “sort of” know someone and wish you could be friends?  I ran into a lady today and she invited me to lunch on Friday, and I’m so excited, my earlobes itch.  How junior high is that?  Well, I’m here to tell you something you already knew:  in many ways, we never outgrow junior high.

The world is full of lovely people, and I truly believe that if we open our eyes and ears and hearts to others, they will respond.  Well, most of them, anyway.  There are some people you can’t kill with a meat axe.

Tomorrow is my last day to sleep until just before my husband gets home from work to sleep in, and I intend to take full advantage of it. My teaching schedule is full, full, full, and this is a wonderful thing indeed. Normal people – whatever THAT is – get up in the morning, and soon I will be getting up at 6:30 and doing a lot of whining about it even while I’m grateful.  I’ll be teaching most of every day, and nights until 9:00.  I like to be busy; it keeps me off the streets.  Our creditors are also glad.

You and I both know that someone will phone me early in the morning.    Twas ever thus.

Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Celebration.

Invested in new washcloths today.  I lead a thrilling life.

I need to get out the Sevin.  My poor tomatoes and rosebushes look like green lace.  Stupid bugs.  Why can’t they eat the weeds?

I’ve got the blog conference withdrawal blues.  Ain’t nothing gonna make me content except another conference.  It’s an addiction; I must be humored in every way.

And now, I’m off to do important things.  You know, like harvest some more cotton and stuff.  Oh, and laundry.  And ice cream.  It’s sugar-free, so it doesn’t count, right?

I’m hooked now on writing conferences.  Social media get-togethers have become my crack cocaine.  No longer do I have to cook my meth in my neighbor’s front yard, over an open flame in full view of passing state cops – hey, it IS Indiana, remember, and near the river to boot – for now I can get my high by mingling with and listening to smart people talk about blogging, writing, social media, and all things such as them there.  Not to mention honing my mad grammar skillz which have gone to poop pot in just these past few days of what might euphemistically be called “My Vacation.”

WordCamp got me hooked.  BlogHer made it worse.  Science in the Rockies helped me realize just how important social media connections can be; besides which, it was an absolute BLAST, and the most educational of all educational conferences I’ve ever attended. (Hurry and sign up for 2010!!)    BlogIndiana will give me a much-needed fix. (It’s not too late to sign up!)   And in October,  I’ll be getting my blogging high on in Las Vegas at Blog World Expo, the Big One.

Someone recently asked me WHY I was so keen to go to the Expo. I highly respect this person and have for quite a while, so even though I answered her directly, I’ll answer her here as well, and not merely by saying “please see above.”  Although I guess I just said that.   I will then add that even though the social media thang is a few years old, it’s still pretty much brand-new, and those of us who are addicted are hooked pretty hard.  Around these parts, at least, it’s impossible to find others with whom I can squee and ooooh and exchange points of view about social media and blogging and making all kinds of connections for my clients and doing the business thing with it and using it for things other than the “My babies are so beautiful this morning and I just HAD to tell everybody here” or “I’m having scrambled eggs this morning; what are you having” kind of communication, although such Twitters are interesting and informative to be sure.  There is also so much more to it than having a My Space and selecting the appropriately goth/sparkly/NASCAR/DisneyPrincess/Hogwarts/polka-dotted background and making the dizzying decision as to who will be your TOP FRIENDS this week.

Side note:  If you have a business and have no online presence, you’re losing out on a lot of connection  opportunities.  Get with it, old-timer.  Put down your slide rule, slip that cover over your typewriter, get a phone that isn’t fastened to the wall, replace your Windows 95, and hire somebody who knows how to make your existence known without shelling out tons of money.  Some money, thankyouverymuch, but not tons.  Seriously, you’ll save tons and get megatons back.  Hello, my email is on the sidebar.

Do you like baseball?  Then you’ll LOVE Ultimate Baseball: The Game.  Seriously.

But I digress.

School has already started for many of you. . . . nah, that’s another post in and of itself.  “Never mind.”

Writing conferences.  Come on, meet me there!  You’ll also meet JustHeather, and maybe she’ll take a picture of YOU with a pickle hanging out of your mouth!  If you’re lucky, that is.

Don’t be afraid.  I’m harmless.  I’m nice, really I am, apart from my terrible taste in pie, and. . . no, wait, that’s from Love Actually.

I am nice, though.  Harmless, nice, eager to learn everything I possibly can about social media, business, giving YOUR enterprise an online presence to be valued and envied, blogging, and looking forward to next week for many, many reasons.

One of those reasons is the people.  It would be really awesome if a lot of YOU were there.

Hey, Tumorless Sister, two words:  Project Runway.  Honest.

It’s almost 4 a.m. and I just got home.  Amtrak, you rock!  And, you’re cheap!  It was a winning combination I’ve never been able to resist.

Already I miss Fausta and Shannon; heck, I miss KARL!    Lindsey, I’m so glad I was able to deliver Hoss’s message; he made me promise, although I would have told you anyway because it – and he – were just so blazingly sweet, as are you.  Yvonne, you really ARE as beautiful as all the men in my family tell me constantly.  Sigh.

Adrienne, two words about our game of pool:   NEENER NEENER!  (Thanks, I LOVED IT! )

Busymom, this has got to stop.  Why don’t you just come to visit me in Indiana?  We’ve got years of hugs and conversation to catch up on.

Table For Five, I love you.  Period.

It was wonderful beyond description to see my Spangler Science peeps at BlogHer this year.  When you call to order stuff, please tell Julie, Alyssa, and Susan to come again next time!  And to get tiaras! They have to have tiaras.  We all need a tiara in our lives.

Em, I understand now why Fausta loves you!  I do, too.

I met and talked with the BlogHer scholarship winners, and they are all fantastic!

Oh, and Grace. . . my darling, wonderful Grace.  How can I tell you what you mean to me?  I can’t.  There are no words good enough for you.

Not to go into detail or anything, but it had been a long time since I was at a party cool enough to be busted by security.

Question:  Do I sound enough like an 8th grader?  No?  I shall try harder then.

Next year, BlogHer will be in. . . . .drum roll. . . . .NEW YORK!  I’ve never been to New York, but after next year’s BlogHer I will never be able to say that again.

As for the bunch I sort of let my hair down with. . . . um, what happens at BlogHer stays at BlogHer, right?  RIGHT?  Oh, please say I’m right.  Besides, I took a few notes about y’all, too.  And wasn’t it FUN!!!!!!!  I’d wanted to meet you for soooo long, and it was worth the wait because you all rocked. As for men with shaved backs, I like them.  Shaved, not waxed.  But I digress, for nobody wants to hear about that conversation, for it was just too dirty personal.  Right, Leslie?  Miss Nancy?  Fausta?  I’ve been boring all my life.

I go to BlogHer every chance I get for several reasons, and they are all good reasons:  BlogHer helps me hone my skills, and not just technically.  BlogHer unites – and reunites – me with friends I read regularly and love dearly and see at no other time or place.  BlogHer introduces me to new friends and new blogs to read.  BlogHer allows me to travel to new places.  BlogHer expands my heart and soul and mind in too many ways to mention.  BlogHer helps me remember that women can do anything men can do.  As my wonderful tango-ing friend Fausta can attest, women can do that  backwards and in high heels, like Ginger Rogers!  Heck, we can even pee standing up if we want to, and if the toilet is nasty, we want to. And, BlogHer tells me which big businesses are listening to me.

BlogHer gives businesses the chance to woo and win me with PROOF THAT THEY CARE ABOUT WOMEN.    A business that understands social media is a savvy business that will build a solid community of loyal customers.  Remember, the best advertisement is word of mouth, and a business that understands that the Blogosphere is the absolute BIGGEST word-of-mouth advertisement for its products/services will reap the benefits of such intelligent discovery.  Awesome samples never hurt, either.  I’m far more inclined to purchase something if I’ve been given a viable sample first.  Woo hoo, samples!  SWAG!  Oh, and there was all that free food everywhere.  Cute waiters with trays of skewered chicken and h’orderves, and people constantly asking me if I would like a glass of wine – duh – and bowls of nuts and m&m’s. . . and I think my months and months of dieting were put to the test and I failed it.  But it was all out of town so nothing counts, right?  Well, that’s how I rationalize it anyway.

I had my picture taken with the Michelin man for comparison purposes.

How much swag this year?  I couldn’t pack it and carry it, even on a train.  I had to box it up and let FedEx – which set up a kiosk at the conference because it KNOWS how to get our business – take care of it for me.

How many boxes of swag?

Four.  Four boxes of scintillating loot that I can’t wait to paw through.

Thank you, BlogHer.  I love you, and not just because you’re all purty.

P.S.  Shannon, I love you so much it makes my heart vibrate.  You know, like my phone in that special pocket.  Heh.

P.P.S.  I’m a nice lady with a dainty, lacy, moral turn of mind, but, dear ME, did you ever see a weiner that looked more like a WEINER in your LIFE?  I swear, I was laughing so hard during lunch on Sunday I could hardly, um, swallow.

Plus, it was almost a foot long.  But then, aren’t they all?

Elisa, Jory, and Lisa:  You did a breathtakingly fantastic job once again.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

(The crappy WiFi in the hotel was NOT your fault.)

Next stop:  BlogIndiana.  (You don’t have to live in Indiana to go!)   After that, the big one:  Blog World Expo!  Come on, BlogHers, sign up!

This will be my third BlogHer, and I feel as excited about it and possessive of it as if I actually had something to do with it!

I know I’ll be meeting a lot of new people and I’ll adore them.  I know I’ll be seeing a lot of people I already know, and I already adore them.  I suppose that in a group this ginormous, composed mostly – yes, men go to BlogHer!  (Hi, Karl) – of women, there are bound to be a few bitches unfriendly ones, but I haven’t encountered any of THOSE yet. So far, everybody connected with or going to BlogHer has been fantastic, and I’m not exaggerating in the least.

Some women are wasting a lot of time obsessing worrying about what to wear to BlogHer. They’re worrying about shoes, and hair, and they’re running around spending a lot of money buying new clothes. Do they really think we’re a bunch of judgmental Runway people at BlogHer? Oh, sure, there are a lot of young things with fashion on their minds, but really, BlogHer is for women who blog, and women who blog come in a LOT of different shapes, sizes, personalities, and inclinations. They’re ALL equally cool, so plan to venture out from the herd and meet all kinds of people! Wear comfy shoes and your jeans.  And a shirt, duh.  Bring a sweater; those conference venues are always cold.

Me, personally. . . my inclination is to go to BlogHer and have fun, learn things, hug a lot of people, participate in everything, see people I don’t see anywhere else, run around the sessions with a microphone and look important, laugh a lot, let my hair down, and get drunk, say dreadful things that will frighten and enlighten the masses, and be the ME that stays hidden all the rest of the year take a lot of pictures. A LOT of pictures!!!!!!

Is “hilariate” a word? No? Well, it is now. I want to hilariate people at BlogHer.

Hilariate: to make people smile. Laugh, even. To be funny enough to be remembered afterwards, and not in a condescending way.

Yes, that’s it. I want to hilariate people at BlogHer.

Seriously, though, BlogHers: find me. Let’s trade cards. I’m nice, really I am, in spite of my inability to suffer fools gladly. There won’t be any fools at BlogHer. Just blogging women, and blogging women are a force to be taken seriously.

See y’all in a couple of days. It’ll be better than Christmas, really it will. Santa never brought you the ginormous stack of swag you’ll be getting, and your holiday reunion never had so many awesomely great people attending.

You’ll find out. Sunday night, you’ll all be telling the world you never had such a grand time in your entire life. Yes, counting THOSE times.

P.S.  I’m taking the train.  The plane was three hundred bucks and Amtrak was 24 dollars.  I was never a pro coupon shopper or anything, but I think that’s a bit of a difference.

Before I really calmed all the way down from last year’s BlogHer, it’s almost time for this year’s BlogHer.  My adrenaline level is pumping harder and higher by the moment, and the thought of seeing all those AWESOME PEOPLE again makes me smile even when there’s not much here to smile about, what with cleaning out my mother-in-law’s house, grading midterm exams, and trying not to scratch all the massive chigger bites I got from picking blackberries today.

Think, though, of all the coolness factors:  I’ll see people I already love, I’ll meet people I know I’ll love, I’ll learn things, I’ll laugh a lot, I won’t get much sleep because I’ll be busy meeting people, my chigger bites will be gone by then, and I have blackbeerries.

Mmmm, blackberries.  The best ones still have a reddish tinge.  My husband likes them best when they’re soft and very ripe, but I, ever the sour lemon-sucking woman that I am, like my blackberries reddish, not completely black.  Ideally, I’ll pop a red one and a ripe in in my mouth at once.

Nothing better.

Well, duh, obviously there ARE some things that are better, but this isn’t that kind of blog.  (Ask me in person.)

I’ll be taking the train to BlogHer this year.  I priced an airline ticket, but the ticket was astronomical to the point of absurdity.  The train, on the other hand, was way less than a hundred bucks, round trip.  For TWO people.  (not times two people:  FOR two people)  (prepositions are important!)  My daughter is riding to Chicago with me; she’ll go visit friends in Chicago while I go visit friends at BlogHer. Yay, Amtrak!

I look forward to seeing y’all up there in Chicago weekend after next.  Please find me and hug me.  I’m needy that way.

I’ll be the large chick – the one that looks a lot like your mother -  running around with the microphone.

Ooh-de-lally, can’t wait.

“had apple for lunch”    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa, can’t stand it.  AWESOME!

Oh, the weed eater didn’t slash me this time – it seems there’s this little thing called a “guard” that you’re supposed to include when you put the thing together, who knew? -  but I do have me a real talent for finding and liquifying large batches of poison ivy, splattering the essence all over myself and pretty much guaranteeing disfigurement for PEOPLE to see.  I generally do this right before something wonderful, wherein I really, really want to make a good impression on people I totally adore even before I meet them, and even more so after I do.  What I inevitably do is make people scratch their own heads and wonder where in the world I could have gotten St. Vitus Dance in this day and age.

I’m so excited about Science in the Rockies and BlogHer and seeing the Grogans that I can’t even sleep at night.  Airplanes, trains, and right in my own home!  I love people!  I love learning things!  I love everything right now, honestly.

Except my weedeater.                                                                                                                                                  

See you soon.  I’ll be the big blonde chick standing in the corner trying not to scratch.

1.  It didn’t rain today, and all the plants, animals, and people are in shock.  I mean to say, we don’t know what to do with ourselves.  We’re peeking out of the ark and seeing sunlight.  I guess one of us should send a dove out to scope for land.

2.  All the plants in the WalMart nursery are marked down to quarters and fitty-cent pieces, so I bought a few Gerbera daisies, black-eyed Susans,  and coleus to fill in the dead spots where what I planted before was washed away or dissolved like the Wicked Witch of the West.

3.  4-gig flash drives are on sale at Big Lots for ten bucks.  I thought that was a pretty good deal.  I’m a sucker for a good electronics bargain.

4.  I wish I could get my hair cut before BlogHer.  I also wish I could lose a hundred pounds before BlogHer, but neither one is going to happen.  Not unless I figure out how to win the lottery and conquer the space/time continuum in the next few days.  Don’t hold your breath.

5.  I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow at 2:30, and I have a creepy feeling that he’s going to take one look at my bloodwork and say the words “daily injection,” whereupon I will not freak out, exactly, but I might have to go to the gym and run on the treadmill until it makes like a cartoon treadmill and falls apart, revealing all kinds of gears and sproingy springs and whirly things underneath, all run by a frantically sprinting hamster in one of those little Ferris wheel-like cage-wheels.  I guess some might call that freaking out, but I don’t.  When I freak out, you’ll know it.

6.  I’m sure I don’t know why I haven’t lost any more weight lately.  My recent late-night ham sandwich swimming in Miracle Whip obsession can’t have anything to do with it.

7.  I have a lovely stone planter full of blooming rosebushes, but nobody can see it because while I mowed around it just the other day, nobody here has trimmed around it yet this summer and the grass  is over two feet tall, totally obliterating both the roses and anybody’s chance of seeing them until something is done.  Again, don’t hold your breath.  It’s a kind of test I’m giving.

8.  We had Grecco’s pizza for supper.  It had been a while, and it was really good.  Porking down in the restaurant did not, however, prevent me from my current ham sandwich swimming in Miracle Whip fetish a few minutes ago.

9.  Just can’t seem to lose any more weight.  It’s a mystery.  I must have hit a plateau; I’ve read about them and my situation matches.

10.  Fat chicks are really, really good at rationalizing their own stupid behaviors.

My son’s fair skin made summer band camp eventually impossible.  He sweated through even the heartiest sunscreen and there wasn’t always time to reapply.

He hated band camp, so I guess it all evens out.  I wasn’t a Mommy who usually let her children quit something once they’d signed up and people were counting on them, but I did let him quit band camp before he got so crispy he might as well have slathered barbecue sauce on himself instead of Bullfrog.

Except for my daughter, who always has a lovely tan in the summer, none of us has much pigment; we’re all pale and pasty, and when we go out into the sun, we turn into Grillface.  (language warning)

In case you’re wondering, this is NOT a paid post. I done it outta sheer love for all involved.

I don’t mind reading paid posts, as long as I’m told it was done for money right up front.  Otherwise, I feel deceived.

Also?  I’m counting down ’till BlogHer.  Can’t WAIT.

Note to self:  must    buy     decent      shoes

First of all, I enjoyed being pregnant. Heck, I LOVED it! When else can a woman just sit and read, and know she’s accomplishing something wonderful at the same time? I felt wonderful, pregnant. I felt exhilarated, when I wasn’t tired, and I felt justified in EATING, and I didn’t have to constantly suck in my gut – because my gut was not merely a gut; it was a PERSON – I got gusts and boost of incredible energy during which I would clean and dust and wash and tidy until the cows came home. I was even happier during my second pregnancy, because I knew for a fact by then that all the little twinges, etc, were completely natural and only to be expected, and I feared nothing. NOTHING. I didn’t read a single pregnancy book during my second pregnancy; not because I felt there was nothing more to be learned, but more because I felt that a lot of what is in such books is there to frighten naive women into buying unnecessary things, or to frighten women, period,  when there is really nothing to be frighted OF. None of these opinions apply, mind you, to women who are having genuinely serious problem pregnancies.

Bear in mind, also, that it’s been a long time since I’ve been pregnant, and while the many means of GETTING pregnant have not changed (smirk), the options for delivery have become many, and I can’t help but think that some of them are downright silly. Not as silly as many of the restrictions and rules that used to apply, but still, well, silly. I mean, for my first delivery, I wasn’t even allowed to get up and use the bathroom! I made damn sure it was written down in red ink in my records, for my second. It would be a mighty stupid woman who would give birth in a toilet and not realize it, although I also realize that the world is full of women who are, yes, just that stupid. I, however, was NOT one of THEM, and I wanted to use the toilet when I wanted to use the toilet, and that second time, I wandered all over the place in the few tiny little minutes allotted to that particular delivery.

<–That’s my son. He’s 27 years old, but whenever I think of him, this is one of the images my mind instantly focuses on. He was born with a full head of bright red hair; his hair was so bright, I could hear people in the hospital nursery hallway commenting about it. “Didja see that one kid with the red hair?” “Will you look at the redhead over there?” I lay in my bed and smiled. Not only had I seen the redheaded baby, I was going to take him home with me and keep him forever.

I’d had Zappa in only twenty minutes;  I woke up in labor, my water broke as I walked the few feet to the bathroom, and we were in the car and bookin’ to town.  We almost got stopped by a train, but a little push on the gas pedal took care of that.  We pulled up in front of my mother’s house, threw Belle out the window into Mom’s waiting arms, and dashed off to the hospital.  Hub dropped me off at the emergency room door and I had the baby while my husband was parking the car. When he came running back inside, he found me and the doctor standing in the hallway admiring the baby through the window. Total time:  20 minutes.  I highly recommend this method.

This was before the days when new mothers had got to spend every waking moment with their new baby. Sometimes I think it was better that way; it was like having training wheels for a day or two before we were expected to ride that new adult-sized bike all by ourselves, with the occasional “Look Ma, no hands” stints that we all love so much as parents. Our babies were brought to us every couple of hours, and were then taken back to the nursery so we could get some genuine rest. Did we “bond?” Of course we did. We just didn’t need to “bond” in front of everybody, and a woman would have to be nuts not to take advantage of the naptime. OUR naptime, that is. Once we had the baby home, we weren’t going to be doing much of ANY kind of sleeping for a long, long, long, long, long time. As in. . . YEARS.

Having babies isn’t what I’d call a “comfy, pain-free hobby,” but it’s also not the horror a lot of older women paint it to be, and usually in front of a young pregnant woman. (Why do they DO THAT? How insensitive!) I had no trouble spittin’ them out – did I mention the 20 minutes? – and while I know most women aren’t that lucky, I do wonder at the low tolerance for pain some people demonstrate in public.

My hospital roommate for Zappa’s birth was a woman I still refer to as “The Big Sissy.” She wept and screamed and required the company of her husband, her mother, her sisters, her bestest friends, and countless numbers of churchy acquaintances throughout her entire labor. This meant, back then, that while SHE had company, I couldn’t. Them was da rules. And when they finally did take her away to another room to have her baby – thank Heaven – she practically had a camera crew in there with her to record her every scream, groan, spasm, fart, poop, and vaginal tear for all posterity. After her baby finally came, she then needed her husband to stay with her every second to COMFORT her and be WITH her, and her mother to remind her that she’d been through a terrible experience and needed rest and a lot of babying herself, which meant I couldn’t have MY baby in the room with me.

I hated that Big Sissy then and I hate her now, 27 years later.

I made do, though. I spent most of my time in the hallway looking at his beauty: my son, the redheaded one in the corner crib, the pretty one, the baby who made all the other newborns look like either Winston Churchill or the wrong end of a cow.

The Big Sissy’s baby, for example, looked like the love child of Mr. Potato Head and Linda Tripp. In fact, The Big Sissy looked a lot like Linda Tripp. I hated her. I also hated her horrible mother and her ugly husband and the parade of dowdy women who were kneeling all over the floor giving God advice about how He should look after The Big Sissy and her baby.  Wahh wahh wahh, pray pray, sob sob, boo hoo, oh, craponthemall.

Where was their consideration for The Big Sissy’s roommate? There wasn’t any.  Women such as these color my perception of Christians still today.  (I AM one; I’m just not like these pathetic specimens.)  (I hope I die before I become like them.)  (I suppose it’s not nice to judge them, but I do it mostly from the joy it gives me.)  (It’s kind of like pointing to hardened criminals on the post office wall and being glad you’re not there, and knowing full well you never will be.)

Hub could not get off work to take us home from the hospital;  this did NOT make me cry nor did it traumatize either of us in any way. Stuff happens, and we deal with it. Sheesh.

My mother picked us up and even stopped at the grocery store on the way home so I could run in and buy some things.  People in the store looked at my hospital bracelet and my only slightly flatter stomach and almost backed away in horror.  Why was I OUT?  I should be in BED!  RESTING!  I felt like some kind of freak for being fine and hearty.

I shrugged and went home to my two-children family:  we felt so lucky!  So blessed!  That is because, we were.  (Check out the patches on the sofa!  Those were to keep the snakes from popping up through the worn places.)

With Belle, two years earlier, I’d been so afraid of this pain I’d heard about from so many “helpful” women and read about in so many “helpful” books that I agreed to a spinal; this, of course, since I have never been a person who took orders well, knocked me flat on my back for about a week, which meant that other people gave my baby her first bath, her first burpie, her first. . . well, lots of things. I listened too much and I read too much and I believed everything and everyone, and when the advice was contradictory, I sometimes did BOTH. I was afraid of everything. Most of all, I was afraid of myself; what if I, in my ignorance, somehow did something wrong and the baby would cry? Or. . . die? Seriously, I was that stupid.  Her labor only lasted just under five hours, but in five hours, a naive young thing can fall for a lot of hooey.  Tomorrow is Belle’s birthday, in fact.  Happy Birthday, my Princess.  Look, everyone, at how beautiful she is!  How beautiful she’s always been!

The second time, I was smarter. Also, there wasn’t time for anything anyway, so I just had the baby and made fun of The Big Sissy and dealt with life as it came my way. It was a far superior way than the first.

So, what’s the moral of this story? Do I have to have one? I’ll drag a few in by the hind legs and say that it might be “Embrace life – don’t hide from it. FEEL things. Laugh at yourself and others; to hell with self esteem. Pity the Big Sissies, but don’t make excuses for them, and for God’s sake don’t be one of them. Be aware of people and don’t let any whiny selfishness intrude upon the rights of someone else. Be an adult. Buck up and show some spunk. Don’t let others make an invalid of you. Get up. Let others watch the baby once in a while so you can get some sleep. Motherhood is full of pain; get used to it and don’t whine and cry your way through it. Motherhood is full of joy; focus on that part. And did I mention “grow up?”

It is a terrible thing not to become a woman when one ceases to be a girl.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

The directions said that we could write a poem if we wished, and that’s what I wished.

Be merciful.  Much appreciated.

BlogHer 09

It was many and many a month ago, in a kingdom not far from mine,

That a conference there lived, that you may know, as the fabulous BlogHer 09.

And this blogger she lived with no other thought

Than to go, which would be oh, so fine!

I have a blog, and they all have blogs,

In this kingdom not far from mine,

And we blogged with a love that was more than love,

I and my BlogHer 09;

With a love that the Twitters and Lijits and such

All supported both theirs and mine.

And this was the reason that, not long ago,

In this kingdom not far from mine,

A thought blew out of my head, inspiring

My beautiful BlogHer 09;

So that I opted to enter this match

And try hard to think of a line

That would be better far than all of the rest

Mine would win, and not one of thine.

Other bloggers, as happy as angels in Heaven

Were happy and made a beeline

Yes! All of them hurried (as all bloggers know,

In this kingdom not far from mine)

To meet me and Tweet me and say howdy-do,

Which is something just short of a sign!

For our love it is stronger by far than the love

Of those who blog nothing, and whine,

Or those for whom Kutcher’s divine,

And bloggers all know that that we’ll meet very soon

Via roadtrip, train, car and airline.

Naught can ever dissever our souls from the soul

Of the fabulous BlogHer 09.

For we Google all day and we think how to pay

For the beautiful BlogHer 09,

And we enter contests in great hopes one will rest

Any problems with BlogHer 09.

And so, all year long, granny panties or thong,

It’s our darling, our darling, our post and our song

In the kingdom not too far from me,

In the Tower, In Real Life, with me.

(. . . with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe)