It’s just Like High School
Ok, well maybe not. My high school days were full of pretending I was hot shit and full of spunk and life. I also wore a uniform, attended Catholic school with the appropiate level of hate, pretended very hard that I was the angst ridden average teen — when in fact, I WAS an angst ridden average teen in the body and soul of a 30 year old with goals for my life. All of that to say, it is no wonder that I keep in touch with exactly 0 of my high school classmates.
So, how does this relate to today? Well, BlogHer feels exactly the way I thought my high school reunion would feel, only I know no one here. There’s a lot of squealing and hugging and “OMG, I read your blog!” (Sidenote — you know how I love the sidenote: I’m sitting in the main room with breakfast and watching women bloggers wander in — never in my whole life have I seen this many laptops in one room. I’ve worked at a major tech company where we were all issued laptops for work and we never have this many in one room. And the weird thing is, very few of these women are quiet — they are typing, gabbing, and the low rubble of women is nearly electric.)
There are nearly 400 people here today and more tomorrow (read: over 700) and this is a little overwhelming. Everyone here blogs. Everyone reads blogs. There is an amazing chance that the people sitting at my very table will be blogging about me, good or bad. I feel a little on stage, a little pressure to be funny — but in that good way that I do get off on. Though I freely admit, exhausting.
But the other thing that is making feel like high school is that, just like when I was in high school, I feel like I’m on the outside looking in. i wonder if everyone feels this way or if it is just a lucky few that no matter what friends we have, how close our relationships are, we never feel like we fully belong to the group think. I have discovered that there is this whole part of the blogging world I know nothing about. There are “superstars” I’ve never heard of before — so I’m totally not starstruck (except for Mir — who I have to tell you is completely a normal, sane, and delightful human) — maybe that’s a good thing — unlike high school, I have no idea who the cool kids are and thus I feel more relaxed about meeting people.
And onto the main event. While I may or may not have made a complete fool of myself — I may have made a comment about her sex life; had a brief discussion about used diapers (to which I was a complete dork and one woman I was speaking to said something like — “I USED cloth diapers.” I crawled under a table and died a little.) But Mir was sweet, and chatted with me like I actually knew her and I love her a little more. And she has great shoes! But because she told me so — I need to say she isn’t famous, she is familar — but to me, she is an amazing woman and someone I’m thrilled to have met and someone I’ll dream of calling friend. (and this morning, she hugged me — and that was a hug I can totally deal with.
