bethysmalls

DEEEEEEP BREATH….

Mother of PEARL that was awesome! I knew it would be awesome, but it was AWE. SOME. I, like many newbies, was shaking in my shoes over “What if everyone there already knows 5 people and no one needs to make anymore friends and I end up crying the whole time because I’m a lonely loser who nobody likes???!!!” Everyone else on the internet has been reassuring us newbs for the past year it feels like. “Don’t worry! It’ll be great! Everyone is nervous!” They were all 100% correct, of course. Let me fill you in on all the great things that happened to me:

In the Hotel bar, while waiting for my badge to get reprinted, I spotted Joe Sestak (!?) and he gave me his card. It was a completely weird experience but good practice for the 3 days to come when I’d be spotting lots of people I recognize who would likely have no idea who I am. After that, I met Kelli from Rancid Raves and Celeste from Average Jane in the reprint line. I felt as though I recognized both of them, most likely from twitter and they were very nice and chatty while we waited. So the 1st hour and I already had 3 introductions under my belt.

A bag of swag, a trip to Brooklyn and back and a wardrobe change later I was headed to the People’s Party. This is a party held the night before BlogHer officially kicks off so that everyone can mingle and meet up and find their people, so to speak. After I’d received my drink tickets, I turned around and Jenny the bloggess was standing right next to me! I introduced myself, we hugged, joked a bit and walked in together. I left her almost immediately after reaching the inside of the party as I was still really nervous and had run out of things to say then bee-lined to the bar. I was feeling super awkward despite the fact that I’d just had a very successful(not mortifying) encounter with one of my Blog Heroes and decided that holding a drink in my hands could only help my situation. After acquiring my Jack & Ginger (which would turn out to be MY official drink of BlogHer10) a girl tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you know anyone here?” She asked me with her eyes wide open to match my own. “Nope!” I replied and decided we’d be each other’s First Friend. Our home base for the weekend. A person who would have our backs and assure that neither one of us would be the lonely loser. She handed me a business card and a kazoo. I gave her my card and we set off into the not-so-scary-anymore party. Elly is awesome. She is tall, gorgeous, hilarious, just crazy enough and she was my home girl last weekend.

At one point, Elly had to excuse herself and I ended up back at the food table, aimlessly examining the bruschetta when someone else spoke to me. “Are you just wandering around, too?” “Yes!” and another home girl was acquired! Mara, a body image blogger from Cape Cod who is also gorgeous, has very luxurious hair and brought a Starbucks to the party (kick-ass), became the second person in 10 minutes to ‘save’ me. After that, Mara Elly and I had a group. It was such a relief! Just having those two ladies there was enough to make the rest of the night weekend a piece of cake. Anytime I got a little unsure of myself, one of those ladies would turn up. Magic they are.

Now that I was part of a posse and could take on the world, I met some really terrific people. Fun Fact: over 50% of them were from Toronto! (Just sayin, Hoagey! They have health care, paid leave and lots of awesome bloggy types! We can forgive them for the Blue Jays, right??). TO’s Haley and Karen stand out as being particularly awesome to me, not just that night but the whole weekend. I came away with so much more than I ever could have expected and I can’t wait to build relationships with these and so many other women.

I promise to share more stories soon. I introduced myself to every one of the people that were on my, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if I met…” list. I discovered people to put on edition 2.0 of that list. I met some people who would be on that list if I hadn’t already met them! And I don’t want to take away from any of it. So until then, fair cyber-people.

******

I’m slowly adding to my blog roll, ya’ll. I have a stack of business cards, a knack for procrastination and a 19 month old son who doubles as a wrecking ball. Please forgive me if this takes longer than the average human gestation for me to complete.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.