SCOOP of the Century (or at least for this weekend)

Well placed sources tell me the fabulous women behind TRUE MOM CONFESSIONS will be giving away a CONE during this weekend’s BlogHer conference in Chicago.

hg_sextoys_cone210.jpgThere is more, and HOLY (that’s a hint) HELL do I wish I could tell you, but you’ll have to come to Chicago to find out.

Some things as I pack for Chicago-

-my son has decided now would be a great time to have a string of allergic reactions that send us to the ER in Santa Monica. We don’t know what it is and yes, he swells and throat starts to close. So scary I can’t even blog about it yet, but rest assured we’re on top of it.

-BlogHer in Second Life still has space, register or face my wrath.

-I’m going early to the conference to make sure stuff is ready-I leave in about 32 hours. HOLY SHIT.

BlogMe Baby- ’07

This is how I felt at BlogHer last year:

Ok, ok…who is that? Do I know her blog? Crap, she looks totally familiar. I should go say hi. Wait, maybe I don’t know her. Do I know her? Ok, I’m just going to go and read her name tag. Damn, I can’t see it. But she looks kinda like that one blogger, but maybe not…hmmm
-90% of the time I worked my way over to that blogger and eventually introduced myself. In an effort to make it easier for YOU to walk up to ME, once again we’re doing BLOGME.
So me in 10 seconds. WOW. Ok.My husband says, “Smart, Driven…” and then he made a nasty gesture that implied I did something else well.

My son says, “um…you cook me good food.”

My daughter says, “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”

I say just come find me and DO NOT worry about approaching me. I’m telling you. DON’T. SO. NOT. WORTH. Anxiety.

Odds are I’ll have my head buried in my laptop checking on the SL conference or I’ll be drunk, and I’ll make it IMPOSSIBLE for you to ignore me.

So here is what I look like, and these are from last year at BlogHer when I was um…NOT very sober, so this is a good representation on how to spot me…(Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah is on the left..odds are you’ll find me near her)

alright, so I stole this photo from sarah. come get me

That’s Kelly, aka Mocha Momma-you’ll find me near her too.

yes, another stolen sarah photo

You’ll also find me at the bar by Karen and Kaiser. YES ladies, Kaiser is going to be in Chicago. God help us all.

The Queen has left San Jose

There is a stretch of Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and San Jose that will be scarred forever as a result of the Queen of Spain’s trek to Blogher ’06.It started with multiple stops, one on a dirt road in front of a tractor dealership, in a desperate and very tense attempt to stop the siren wails of one darling daughter. It ended with the Queen, topless, contorting herself in front of a car seat, jamming a tit into a baby’s mouth while the Kaiser drove 80 miles an hour.

And all of this was well before I drunkenly bitched at Dooce.

Make no mistake. Blogher 2006 was the year of the Mommyblog.

The Mom Army* had numbers this year and that really, really pissed off some women. All the panels talked to us. All the sponsors and corporate reps were courting us. The daycare was busy and the breastfeeding room quiet and thoughtful.

And while I stumbled to figure out “why all the hate?� I realized it’s all cyclical. Just because we were the media darlings this year, doesn’t mean women political bloggers or community assistance bloggers won’t hog the limelight next year.

You may not have liked that we were getting attention for posts on diapers and our ovaries, but keep in mind you don’t get anymore woman than mother. They go hand in hand. So make room for us and quit your bitching. You’ll get your turn. And if you don’t, just ride our coattails.

Speaking of bitching. Yes. It’s true. I marched up to Heather Armstrong and wanted to know why there seemed to be a disconnect between the first wave of mommybloggers and the second wave. I was not eloquent. I was not without slur. And being the Queen that I am, I went on and on and made no sense, all while spilling my free zinfandel on the shoes of those with mouth agape around me.

I think I redeemed myself, or at least clarified myself, at the following day’s Mommyblogger session.

Intentional or unintentional, we have formed a very close, strong community through mommyblogging. And I now rely on that community.

Everyday I share my virtual cup of sugar with my mom neighbors. Every day I feel less alone. Everyday I laugh my ass off at our silliness and joke about blow jobs and antidepressants and yes, pasties (Her Bad Mother, I’m looking at you)
As we gain in popularity, I really don’t want to lose that. I really feel that’s what makes us…well, us.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a fucking clue what to do about it. For those of you looking to expand (myself included) do you have a plan?

And before I get too serious, yes…there was debauchery and drunkenness and even a criminal element (blame Mocha, I had NOTHING to do with it). But I’ll save that for later. I gotta leave you hangin’. Because, you see…I missed most of EVERYTHING because Count Waffles and Nana got sick on Saturday.

Self fulfilling prophecy, I guess. The Kaiser partied downstairs while I wiped snot and administered children’s Tylenol. 24-hour Mom.

Part two, later. Including my hand holding with Arianna Huffington and my new girl crushes on Lisa Stone, Mir, and Grace Davis.

*IzzyMom is the clever one who made up Mom Army. I’m so not that clever.

BlogMe: Pieces of Fizzle

BlogMe She’s better than Angelina Jolie.

Eyes

Why?? Because she’s adopting from Ethiopia AND blogging it. She’s Fizzle. And you are about to learn more about her than you’ve ever wanted to know.

I had my first Fizzle encounter when she kindly left me a few comments here and there. Then I noticed she also liked Mocha. So I KNEW we’d hit it off.

Now that I’m reading her very funny and very well written (and she even uses naughty words) blog How The Urbanites Adopt, I think I just might be in love. And want to adopt right along with her. Because if the Kaiser needs anything in his life right now, it’s me getting to know a woman adopting a child from another country. My husband is doomed, and this would be a whole lot easier if he would just admit it.

But back to Fizzle. She’s cooler than you are. She watches more K-Fed than anyone should. And she’s obviously one hell of a person. She thinks she can take me in a race…but I have a secret-(my big toe is totally just a ugly as hers, which means I can run too) But I’ve also seen her arms, and, um…dude, she could probably kick my ass. Or bench me. One of the two.
As part of the uberfabulous BlogMe, here is Fizzle’s all important interview:

What can I learn about you in under 5 minutes? When did you start blogging and why?

I am a tri-geek (part of the network), who’s a sweatpant fashionista and in love with two ingenious and yet mentally challenged dogs. I drink more than a triathlete’s supposed to, cuss too much and am in the process of adopting our first babe from Ethiopia, albeit procrastinating on the paperwork.

I began blogging when training for an Olympic-distance triathlon and raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. My husband dared me to keep a blog so family and friends could keep up with my progress. Who am I to turn down a dare? I kept the comments off before I gained the courage to hear what my readers had to say.

Arms of Steel

During this time, we’d decided to adopt, and as I read other writers, I felt like I might have a unique voice to add to the mix. Thus, I became the incognito Fizzle and began to chronicle life as me.

Why did you choose to share that piece of yourself in a photograph?

I chose three separate pieces of me. Eyes, arms and toes. None of which I’m overly in love with, but they tend to be revealing.

I chose the eyes because I’m a surreal observer. Surreal. That’s the word I used, I stick by it.

Give me two minutes observing a group and I can figure out whose sleeping with who, whether you like your wife, which couple hosts the swinging cocaine parties and what woman will steal my man when I’m wide-eyed at the chips and salsa table.

Those biceps were selected for the sheer amount of change that’s gone on to achieve them. Those babies are not only the result of a year’s physical work toward a half-Ironman, but they symbolize the change I went through to think of myself as an athlete, the mental changes I had to undertake to be a part of groups seeking similar goals and doing something not only for myself, but becoming a leader for others. It’s been an amazing journey, difficult and hard, but with much gain and for a strength that has nothing to do with benchpressing.

Now the toes. Cobra toes, as they’ve been labeled. Back in the day, when I lived in Mexico, my best friend was the king of yo’ momma jokes. A group of college students sat around our kitchen table in Guadalajara, drinking Patron and Fresca, and he would make my big toe a special guest.

“Your toe’s so big, you get a pedicure at Earl Schieb�.

The TOE

My retorts of, “yo’ momma’s so cheap, she got married for the rice� weren’t nearly as popular.

The alienness of my toes was attention grabbing. The toes are my ugliness, and I love it. They add at least a size and a half to my shoe size, are capable of thumb wrestling and stretch out too far in sandals, but I wriggle that big, fat-ass toe in pride.

How do you feel about meeting bloggers in real life? Are you nervous?

I’m honored to be in the circle of these blogging greats. They’re creative, intelligent, honest, driven and entertaining. Especially The Queen of Spain. I come from a far more humble and muted online existence and am curious about meeting these ladies who I read with regularity. Do they really talk about sex and vaginas all the time? Do they come carrying diapers full of their children’s poop? Will they relate to a non-mommy athletic alcoholic?

I’m not sure I’m in their league, but the great equalizer is a bottle of wine, a race on my Cannondale — perhaps not an equalizer (you blog better, but catch me now, biyatches) –and a warm, fun-loving personality.

I think I can hold my own.

So soon we’re going to meet each other at BlogHer.

Important question. How do you party?

I’m down to get my groove on. I’ve got my dance shoes lined up. With room for my big toe, of course.

Are you and your blogging persona the same person?

To a certain degree, yes. I can write more honestly about my perceptions of life at How the Urbanites Adopt than I can express in real life. My family has no idea I keep a blog. This leaves me free to talk about them openly.

And yet, there’s the freedom from proof (or, clear throat, rearranging the details) on a blog that allows my inner exaggerator to let down her hair and dance barefoot all over the truth. Plus, I’m actually very private. I can’t imagine sharing with the blogosphere that I live in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Oh, did I let that cat out of the bag?

So now that you’ve learned all about Fizzle, go see what Troll Baby has to say about ME!!!

And to keep the BlogME madness going, I’m tagging Shash, Finslippy, Dooce, Sweetney, and Fussy. Because I’m a biyatch like that-just like Fizzle likes me.