My Favorite Parts of BlogHer Were Katie and the Vibrator

No one’s sick and tired of hearing about the weird blogging conference I went to in NYC and have been talking about obsessively on all forms of social media for like a month, right? All of you non-blogging readers (do you like how I just pretended I have legions of fans? I learned about that from The Secret. It’ll totally come true in like 10 minutes) can’t wait to hear all about the minute, navel-gazing details of a conference composed of 5,000 (mostly) women all talking non-stop about blogs and bloggity blogosphere nonsense for 3 full days, huh? (My husband just read that sentence and then had to take a Xanax and sit in a dark quiet room for 3 hours.)

I knew it. So I’ve got one more BlogHer post for you, just because I know you’re fascinated and you totally want to be a blogger someday when you grow up.

Of note regarding my BlogHer 2012 NYC trip:

The three big keynote speakers were: President Obama, Martha Stewart and Katie Couric. The President spoke via live video feed, but the other two were there in the flesh. I know, right? Kind of a big deal.

Obama was exciting because he is the president and all, but honestly he had little of interest to say. It kind of went like this: Welcome women bloggers… I really feel like women are important. And their issues. You know, like, equal pay and stuff. I totally passed a law about that, remember? My wife is a woman. And she has a blog, I’ve heard… so… also my daughters are the adolescent form of women and they will eventually be women. And they might someday have blogs. Because blogs and women blogging about issues that are important to women are… important. Please vote for me.

Martha, on the other hand, was pretty interesting, although very ‘typical Martha’. She referred to about eight different things as Good Things throughout the interview, including ‘making a living’ and ‘having grandchildren’. At the end she was asked, ‘Is there anything you’re not good at?’ and responded, “Well… I’m sure there are things I haven’t tried yet,” with a raised eyebrow that very clearly said, Bitch, Please, do you know who I am?

Katie, however, was FANTASTIC. I haven’t ever been a morning talkshow fan (my mother just felt me type that and gasped audibly in horror of such a possibility), so I didn’t go into the session with any real feelings one way or the other about her. She seems smiley and cute and sometimes I get her and Kelly Ripa confused. Also with Mary Lou Retton. They’re sort of all the same person, right? But then she started talking and pretty soon I was nodding and grinning and formulating a plan to stalk her and force her to become my best friend forever and ever. We were totally bonding during that talk, Katie and I. Except that she was the only one talking. But I could feel that she could feel my agreement and that we could practically be sisters because she’s just so likable and fun and says the right things that everyone is thinking and I just kind of want to be her. (Dear Katie’s bodyguard, don’t call the police. I’m mostly harmless.)

The point is, she’s great and so relatable as a working mother. Plus she mentioned the issue of ‘over-parenting’ and how there’s a certain portion of our society that’s ending up with adult offspring who can’t do anything for themselves because their parents have always done everything for them. I completely agree this is a huge problem and it’s totally why I taught my kids how to get Mommy a glass of wine and then go upstairs to fold the laundry while I watch Teen Mom. It’s for their own good and the good of our country as a whole.

I <3 Katie, is what I’m trying to say.

Thursday night, in the depths my depression over the lost luggage and the disastrous trip to H&M, my mom and I went by the conference hall Expo Night to get our official ‘swag bags’ and drink tickets and pick up the business cards I ordered and had delivered directly to the conference.

I’m just going to admit it right here; I was being a crabby, dramatic bitch. I’m generally a pretty positive, glass-half-full kind of gal, but at a certain point my reservoir of positivity runs dry and I’m left no more than utterly despondent. Also, my sense of self-worth is fairly strongly tied to my outfit, for which I blame my mother (and she, in turn, blames her mother).

My mom and I walked into the expo and I’m pretty sure my lower lip was visibly protruding. My mother had taken to ordering me to suck it up and enjoy myself (which is a super successful way to cheer someone up, if you haven’t tried it). I was responding only in grunts, sighs and eye-rolls. We picked up our bags and turned the corner to head out into another room when the woman at the door (a short, black, middle aged woman in a partial cow costume; I think she was helping to rep the Milk table) stopped us and said, very earnestly, “Did you get your free vibrators? Because you really can’t leave without one of those.”

Well, and darn it, NO, I hadn’t gotten my free vibrator and be damned if I wasn’t going to get something good out of that cranky night! So we turned back around and found the Trojan booth, which was, indeed, distributing free vibrators for taking a short survey on an iPad.

Of course, manning the booth were three highly attractive young men. And although I try really hard to be super evolved and mature about stuff (stop snickering!), I’m kind of terrible at it. So I spent an incredibly long, awkward, three minutes trying not to nervously break eye contact with a super hot guy while he (also visibly struggling to not be completely humiliated by the situation) described the difference between my two free vibrator options and then made small talk with me while one of his colleagues searched for my choice. It went as well as you can imagine. And I totally didn’t giggle like a 12 year old while watching my mother fill out her survey and talk to her own hot guy. Promise.

But let me tell you; it snapped me out of my funk instantaneously. Free vibrators and uncontrolled mirth will apparently do that for you.

When we got back to our hotel room my mother had the audacity to Facebook the incident. I put up with it because she only has like 5 friends, but good lord, Mother, the internet doesn’t need to know everything. She’s so embarrassing, Internet.