Thoughts From BlogHer

Aah, BlogHer. New York City. Five days of doing whatever I wanted, really.

I went in with very small goals.

• Go for a jog in Central Park. CHECK!
• Have a Frrrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity 3. CHECK!
• Hit a good number of sessions. CHECK!
• Go to all the official parties, at least for a little while. BlogHer has worked extremely hard and the sponsors are so generous with their time and investment. It would be insulting not to go. Also, I don’t want to traipse all over town just to go to another party. Anyway… CHECK!
• Rest when I feel like it and not allow myself to be overwhelmed. CHECK!
• Buy this ring at Tiffany. CHECK!

We hooked up with Sandy and Kim. We drank cake vodka. We drank out of Red BlogHer Cups. We went to the Trailer Park Lounge. We drank PBR.

I went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Thursday morning, I went for a jog in Central Park. My sweet Twitter friend Kelly agreed to go… bright and early! We had a great time. We ended up jogging about 8 minutes of our 40 minute trek. We logged a whopping 2.39 miles and also got lots of talking done! It was too hard to jog AND talk, so we walked most of the way.

It was glorious. A gorgeous bluebird sky framed the tall buildings and green trees of the park. The sunlight was streaming through the trees and glistening off the dew that was still fresh on the grass. There were hundreds of walkers, joggers, bikers, paper-readers… it was a little oasis of activity and quiet in the huge, loud city.

Thank you, Kelly, for helping me achieve my goal!

When I got back to the hotel, I found Crystal in my bed! She flew in overnight and got in after I left to jog. We went to meet Lauren for breakfast down in SoHo. We navigated the subway without incident. The rest of the morning was spent relaxing and hanging out in the lounge at the Hilton.

The afternoon included a trip to Serendipity 3 and Tiffany.

There was lots of hugging, squealing, walking, thinking, swag-gathering, and standing in line once the conference started on Friday. I was so thrilled to meet so many people I’d been wanting to see in person. I didn’t see them all, but in a group of 5000 people, that’s rather difficult.

Here I am with Crystal in the big pic, (starting bottom left) Adam, Jenna, Crystal, Crystal, Lauren, Tanis, Kim, Crystal, and Erin.

The sessions that Crystal and I went to were great. The expo halls were great.

The Martha Stewart and Katie Couric keynotes were absolutely amazing. Both women are so strong, witty, confident, and brilliant. I’m in awe of them. They both seem to be at points in their lives where they are embracing themselves, and all that goes along with being “them.” They’re comfortable in their skin and are authentic both physically and character-wise.

There were parties and glitter and lines for vibrators and yogurt. So much yogurt!

There were tears and laughter and brilliant advice all around.

All in all, BlogHer was a wonderful experience. I love the friends I have made through writing and social media. I mean, where else can you get a Sharpie tattoo by the brilliant Robin Plemmons (click that link, y’all) that says this:

I’ll write more about Voices of the Year and being able to read my VOTY post in front of a room of a few hundred people tomorrow.

And then, of course, the post about The Rockettes experience will come. I haven’t gotten my brain in order enough to put my emotions into words.

Stay tuned for those!