Happy last few hours of Blog Day!

It’s been an interesting year in my little corner of the blogosphere. After about a year and half gathering dust, I started writing again last winter. I moved to Wordpress in March. I ditched the stapler and changed my name. I put my first name on my posts, revealed my city of residence and posted a picture of myself for the first time. I made friends and met some of them.

And I started opening up.

If you want to bleed out your eyes and read my backposts, you’ll notice that I rarely wrote back then about what hurt, about what was going on inside my head or in my shriveled, evil little heart. I didn’t write about relationships. I didn’t write much.

Now I do, and the words make me braver. Coming out of the mess leading to the E breakup, I learned that writing a post about what was happening forced me to put things in perspective and keep from blowing things out of proportion in order to tell a story in a way that will make sense to you. And if I can make my life make sense to you, I can make more sense of it to myself.

That sounds very cheesy.

Two bloggers I know disappeared in the last few months because the men they were in relationships with found their blogs and confessions. The girls deleted everything. One of them resurfaced on Blogger a little while ago. I’m nervous sometimes about the fact that I do write about my relationships, and that my writing portrays me as I am: over-emotional, snarky, and sometimes just bitchy. It’s what I think, though. It’s what I feel. It’s personal. Sometimes people tell me that they think I’m brave for sharing so much of what’s inside me with the world, and that does give me a warm fuzzy because in all honesty, it’s so hard to do sometimes. And I take a chance putting it out there, I know that… but I’ve decided that at least for awhile, it’s a chance worth taking because this is what I need to make my life make sense in my head. Not a day goes by that I don’t have some sort of tiny, niggling thought that someone who I don’t want to find this blog will find it. If Copper reads my last post – hell, if my MOTHER reads that last post, shit will go down. If Tim reads this? Yeeks. I will run away with my laptop and they’ll never find me.

But I’m taking a chance. And today I’d like to applaud a few more people who take chances.

Sean is back! “More Blitherings” is Sean’s follow-up blog to “I am an idiot. These are my blitherings.” which went away last winter. He’s just starting up again and only has a few posts, but guys – watch that space. He’s honest and thoughtful when not being a total goofball – and he’s in the Army, which, as you may know, accords him a certain amount of yumminess in my eyes.

Sandy writes “Only Slightly Neurotic” and I need to have a cupcake with her sometime. I like reading her blog because it’s about as random as mine – love and thoughts and openness in one post, and the next one is about haircuts and what shirt to wear. Loves.

Robin’s “A Little Bird Told Me” is a blog that makes me stop and think sometimes. She posts pictures and poetry and the things that inspire her to, in her own words, fill the well. And she wants to know what makes you fill yours. I usually have to pause and ponder before commenting, and I like that.

When E of “Like Spinning Plates” first commented on my blog, I freaked for about 2 seconds when I thought she was actually E, as in the E ex-boyfriend that I wrote about. After that minor heart attack, I started checking out her blog. She has recently returned to the world of employment! Heh. Welcome back to hell. I’m very much looking forward to reading how that goes.

I just started reading “The Rest is Still Unwritten” after stumbling on this fellow as he mentioned an old post of his on 20sb. I almost cried when I read it. Read it. And cry. Then read the rest and laugh.

I don’t know how to say “prize” in Spanish, sorry.

I’d like to thank Jenn of You Are Flawed If You Are Not Free, for showing me some blogger love. I just submitted my last assignment for this wretched online course, checked the Bloglines, and there it was! I needed a little Brillante today. Super F-word yeah!

So now it’s my turn… you know how I lurve judging people, so without further ado, the award goes to:

Dolce, for making me think marriage might not be a hellhole after all. Where do I go to find a PH clone?

Joy at Big Time Fancy, for giving boys code names and keeping me in good company by talking about way too many of them way too much.

Lindz at Couture Me if You Can, for always having a post that mentions some part of the anatomy normally covered by swimwear.

Supergirl, who gave me my first blog award ever and never fails to amuse, even if she’s talking about Nebraska. Your mom revoked the wedding. That’s awesome.

Jenn, because I can tell her SECRETS about CRUSHES!

And Paige, an incredibly Brillante writer who has probably received this award a dozen times and is too modest to put it on her page.

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And the unrelated things:

Yes, school is done for me just as it is starting for many of you. My genius plan has been cast aside due to the fact that I just don’t like this field of work. And who wants a degree in Project Management when she doesn’t want to be a project manager anymore? Not I, friends. The job hunt has begun.

Does anyone know what happened to A Girl Interrupted and Penelope? Penelope’s blog is gone completely and Girl Interrupted hasn’t updated in a month and hasn’t returned email.

This is the interim blog design. I have no idea why I put the red couch picture on the old one, but I couldn’t stand it one day and just had to do something. Since the name of the blog is changing, I went ahead and made that little picture up there and turned everything blue. Delicious Design Studio is going to make it soooo much better soon, but in the meantime… I just don’t know WHY I put that couch up there… blech. Gone.

How do blog awards get started, anyway? Do people just make them up and send them around? Like, could I make one that looks like a suitcase and call it a… I don’t know, some pun on baggage… and just hand it out?

Captain and I have texted a bit and we are going to get together next time he is in town – whenever that happens to be. Hm. Yeah.

One of the top searches that led people to my blog today was “find a hot boyfriend.” How the heck do the search engines think I can help with THAT?

Conference, schmonference. The only thing of note during conference time on Friday was that it was freaking FREEZING in there. During the morning inbrief, a nice man saw me shivering and let me borrow his blazer. I got a cup of coffee just to warm my hands, and I didn’t take a sip. I was wearing a button-down shirt and a linen skirt, not a bikini. But brr!

So I did what any reasonable girl on Michigan Avenue would do. I skipped out of the fifteen-minute break/networking session and trotted across the street to the North Face store in the Hancock Building. I bought this:

It looked nice over my white button-down, although with the patch on the sleeve and the skirt I was wearing, I felt a bit like I was ditching class from my private school. Maybe I should have gotten this one instead.

It might have been even more appropriate. That and ski pants.

But I escaped without losing any digits to frostbite, and headed out into the fierce Chicago sunshine to go get ready to meet more of the blog posse.

I will pause here for a moment and explain the title of this post. I have a coworker who refers to my blogger pals as my “imaginary friends” since all I do is type and Twitter to you guys and have never met any of you face to face before this trip. NS, look! You’re finally being mentioned in a post! EAT THAT!

“Jess said she’d be wearing a blue shirt,” I said. “I think I know what she looks like, but not the others.”

“Yeah I saw the pictures she posted from BlogHer,” Jenn added as we scanned the plaza. “But why was she wearing a cheeseburger bag on her head?”

Even without her distinctive headwear, we found Jess. Three more lovely lady bloggers joined us – it should have been four, but noooo, Jamie just HAD to go to Lollapalooza and send eleventy-three Tweets that had us all checking our phones and envying her. I was the newbie in the group and I hadn’t read everyone and everyone hadn’t read me, but it took about three and a half minutes for me to feel like I was catching up with old friends that I hadn’t seen in awhile, rather than meeting new people that I’d be afraid wouldn’t like me.

This does go back to my theory of the Six Degrees of Blogroll. In the same way that we’ve always chosen our friends, we choose what we read. As we’ve all grown and gotten out of high school and college cliques, sororities, and organized extracurriculars, the friend-market becomes almost as tricky as the mate-market. I have no idea how to “make friends” with a girl, really. My only new female friends post-college have been from work. You can’t just go pick up friends at a bar.

But when you read a blog and you recognize some sort of friend material in that blogger, you read again. And then you click on that person’s blogroll and find someone who the blogger you like likes, because that person exudes the friend vibe to the blogger you like, and it’s the same vibe you get from that first one. So you read another blog. And click another link, and read another blog, and realize that one or two of them have been reading you and added you to a blogroll. The Six Degrees of Blogroll becomes a circle of friends who have met and friends to be made, and when you meet, you hug.

Among the six of us we didn’t finish one deep-dish at Giordano’s, and we took our takeaway bags down the street to a pub called Elephant & Castle* for a few beverages. Conversation ranged from jobs and politics to relationships and the relative size of one’s ass. At one point late in the evening it was down to three of us and a tableful of empty glasses, earnestly discussing the problems of age-centered blog ad networks, the hostile takeover by the mommy-bloggers, and certain people having crushes on other certain people. It was bliss.

So in conclusion, without sounding like a lesbian, may I ask: WHERE ARE ALL THE SINGLE GIRLS IN ST. LOUIS?!?!

And Chicago? Labor Day, bitches. I will see you then.

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*Giordano’s also does not serve Bud Select.

**Which also does not serve Bud Select.

Day Two, Lessons Learned:

• There are TWO Hiltons on Michigan Avenue.
• Remember to pack your crazy meds before you leave the hotel in the morning.
• Conferences are good because everyone is checking email on their phones, and therefore do not notice that you are Twittering or on AOL.
• Toyota won’t talk to you.

Day Two technically started at 4 am when I remembered that hideous conversation I blogged yesterday. I washed down two Excedrin with a swig of lukewarm Diet Pepsi and slept fitfully for two and a half more hours.

I was actually quite excited to get up and going on Thursday morning. It was my first conference ever, and I put on my lovely black Audrey Hepburn Breakfast-at-Tiffany’s dress with a soft little cardi and round-toe kitten heels. I was professional and fabulous.

Until I got to the lobby and realized my poster was upstairs in my room.

And had the cab take me to the wrong Hilton, sixteen blocks from where I needed to be.

And found out that the foundation that bestowed my conference grant had not paid the invoice for my registration fee.

And discovered I had no business cards in my work bag.

And realized that I was so distracted by my Hepburn fabulousness that I forgot to pack my anti-epiliptics in my little pill box before I left the hotel.

And noted that the complimentary breakfast buffet (at the correct Hilton) included neither sugar nor soda.

I made a mad dash down to the lobby and grabbed a Diet Pepsi and two Krispy Kremes from the coffee bar. Thus fortified, I went back upstairs, claimed a seat in the main conference room, and went out into the lounge to put up my poster: “Using Lean 6-3 to Work Smarter: Massive Transfusion Protocol” (you’re on the edge of your seat, I know). Mine was the biggest and shiniest poster in the room, and with a sinking feeling in my stomach I realized that meant it would probably attract the most attention.

The nervous stomach feeling was compounded by the jitters I get when I don’t have my medicine on time. The donuts and soda helped a bit, but I was sending rapid Twitters and texts to friends. I think my thumbs were shaking. Alone representing Dunder-Mifflin Hospital at the conference, I had to be the one speaking to the people who came to see my poster, and the list of attendees began to terrify me. Executives from Toyota – they invented the Lean processes I wrote about on my poster. Big names from Ford, Ritz-Carlton. Top brass from ThedaCare, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Mt. Sinai Hospital. The President Emeritus of the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The president of the Baldridge Association.

Crap.

The tension eased as the day progressed (thank you all for the reassuring Tweets and texts!) and I actually had a small moment of brilliance when one of the Toyota execs started asking about how we were using Lean to improve clinical outcomes, not just operational processes. That was ALL ME. He came and looked at my poster during the break and I talked about the revolutionary new ways we were using Lean processes to improve patient outcomes (in this case, providing product to alleviate massive hemorrhages where people need their whole blood volume replaced in about 5 minutes, yummy stuff). He nodded and mumbled with a very thick Japanese accent, something that sounded like “very good” (I’m optimistic), then took out his little digital camera and started clicking away at every section of my poster.

I guess that was good. Toyota invented this stuff, and since he didn’t interrogate me or rip my poster up, I’m okay with that.

I won’t bore you with any more conference details aside from the fact that the chicken served at lunch gave me a most uncomfortable stomach, and I left before the last session of the day.

It was beautiful outside, warm but not disgustingly so, and I opted to skip the taxi and walk back to my hotel via the Magnificent Mile. I paused in front of Tiffany’s in my Audrey dress and wished I had another donut. I crossed the bridge and looked at the cars on the lower road and said in my best Elwood voice: “Yep, this is definitely Lower Wacker Drive!” My kitten heels were aching along with my stomach by the time I made it back to my hotel, but no matter. I gulped my medicine down greedily and set about preparing to meet a blog friend for the first time.

That’s right, I had never met a reader before.

Jenn happened to be in town before leaving for Spain, and we’d made plans to meet up for dinner. I’d never met the chick before and when we saw each other we hugged like friends. Reading each other’s personal blogs meant we weren’t strangers – hell, I was just glad she wasn’t some psycho stalker who hacked the real Jenn’s email and was all set up to kill me and toss me in the river. Call it a pleasant surprise. We walked in no particular direction, looking for food and winding up at the House of Blues (which, for the record, does not have Bud Select either), chatting so long before even looking at the menus that I think the waiter got a bit tired of checking on us.

She and I knew the surface of a lot of each other’s stories already and laughed and screeched “Oh my God!” every time more details spilled out. We talked about boys like girls at a sleepover, about exes and crushes and the ones who were mistakes.

“I just pretended to pass out,” I said.

“What?”

“I think he wanted to – you know – and I didn’t, so I pretended that I’d just had too much to drink and passed out.”

“That’s a good way to get out of it.”

I’m glad SOMEBODY approves of me.

And so I made a friend who exists in the real world, without posts and tweets and texts. We were getting geared up for the Chicago Blogger Meet-Up the following night, where we’d both be meeting more people we’d never seen outside our monitors.

Day Two wrapped up in much the same fashion as Day One, in a happy tipsy haze, minus the middle-of-the-night what-have-I-done freakout. (This time it was more of a Jenn-is-great-but-the-rest-of-these-people-COULD-be-psychos freakout.) But really, psychos or not, the blogger ladies give me something to look forward to during the next day of the conference. They promised me pizza.

Two guys behind me in line at the bakery this morning were talking about their exploits at Lollapalooza last night,. I think they were already or still drunk. I like this city.

I’ve just finished cleaning up my hotel room and am killing the little bit of time I have before I need to go catch the commuter train out to the burbs to see my brother and sister-in-law and my baby niece Amelia. It doesn’t seem like I’ve only been in the Chicago for about two and a half days. There was the conference, of course, taking up the bulk of my daytime hours and confining me to beige conference rooms that could have been in any hotel anywhere. Outside the Hilton, the city really did make me catch my breath sometimes.

Technically, I live in a city. I lived downtown in Saint Louis for a year, on the twelfth floor of an apartment building half a block off the street where the urban revitalization project was just beginning to attract the hipsters and the yuppies were eyeballing the condo developments and the recent new branch of Good Works contemporary furniture right off the main drag. The streest were quiet during the day.

I think I was a little ahead of the game; after I decided I wanted to pay less money for more space and moved to the south part of the city, the boom happened. Washington Avenue is synonymous with trendy nightlife; the side streets teem with condos in converted warehouses. All the things that weren’t close by when I was there – a grocery store, a selection of independent coffee shops and bakeries, eclectic boutiques, a pharmacy – fill the ground-floor windows. The block-to-block patchiness has mostly disappeared in that section of town. My old apartment building is now closed for construction, and banners announce a new condominium community coming in 2009.

And yet what I was raised to call a city is nothing like this city. I’m twenty-seven years old, I’ve traveled, I’ve been in big cities here and abroad, and yesterday I hailed a cab for the first time. It was an unbelievably heady feeling. I walked about a mile and a half on Michigan Avenue the other day, not to shop, but to get from my conference back to my hotel. Streets are rarely a pedestrian thoroughfare in Saint Louis. If all we need to do is get from Point A to Point B, we drive. I live about one mile from my favorite Mexican restaurant and from my neighborhood Walgreens, and I’ve never walked to either one. I don’t think I’d ever do it alone. My neighborhood is not bad, but no one else is walking and safety in numbers is not a cliche.

Last night I went to a Chicago blogger meetup, and we ate at a restaurant and walked a few blocks to a bar afterward. At 11:30, we went our separate ways, to trains and apartments and in my case, a hotel. I was surrounded by respectable-looking people on the sidewalks everywhere I went. You can walk in The Loop in Chicago at night.

The fact that I am amazed by these things that are likely taken for granted by people in big cities everywhere is not because I grew up in a small town. I think it’s because I live in a city that is not a city. Cities on television and in the movies show people out walking all the time. Everyone walks to work, to the shops, to wherever they need to go. Scary things only happen on dark side streets, and people who do not come from cities expect this and clutch their fanny packs as soon as the sun goes down. People who come from a city like Saint Louis do the same. We’re not used to the idea of walking the city at night. And while I’m sure that’s probably the safest policy in most cities, fanny packs excluded and Chicago included, the fact that Wabash between Lake and Randolph was comfortably lit and peopled with respectable pedestrians close to midnight didn’t even give me pause until I got back to my hotel and realized that I was in The City On TV.

I’ve also just realized that this is the first time I’ve visited a city on my own for purposes other than tourism. I had places to go and set times to be there. I had to go to work. I had friends to meet, to do the sorts of social things that you do where you live, not where you travel. Maybe that makes me see this city differently than I ever saw London or Houston or Denver… or even Chicago on previous trips. It’s friendlier, more livable, more comfortable and more in keeping with the idea of what it should be like to exist in a city that IS a city. It makes me not want to go home just yet.

But if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch a train to Arlington Heights. If the baby doesn’t drool on my keyboard, I’ll come back and tell you the funny stories instead of boring you with my metropolitan musings. There are boys involved, and no matter what city I’m in, I like those too.