All the lunch-table chatter about 20SB reminded me last night – I graduated from high school in 1999. I should have had a reunion by now.

WTF?! Who didn’t invite me to my own freaking  high school reunion?

I scrounged around Facebook this morning and realized that plans had never materialized for the reunion, so the class president is going to make us oh-so-cutting-edge and have an 11 year reunion for us sometime in 2010. We are SO the wave of the future.

Then, inevitably, I got back to thinking about lunch tables.

Ten and a half years ago, I was going to a pretty good-sized high school. There were about 450 people in my graduating class, and seriously – you never ate alone unless you chose to. Everyone had a lunch table. There were groups in that school, TONS of groups because there were so many of us. Everyone couldn’t be everywhere and do everything, so our natural alignments were driven by our priorities.

I was kind of middle-of-the-road, socially. I was in band and theater and so that’s where I had most of my friends. The “popular” girls were nice to me in class but we didn’t hang out or anything. They were the ones on homecoming court, student council, cheerleading, dance team, all that. But you know – those things were their priorities. I wanted to play piano. They wanted to flip about and scream really loudly at sporting events. I wanted to write a play. They wanted to play on the state-champion softball team.

A lot of those girls were truly nice people, and they didn’t dislike me – we just had our sights set on different things. I had my friends and they had theirs. Theirs ended up on homecoming court because their priority was to get them there. My friends were elected theater club and band officers and made choices on plays and performances.

I used to really want to be the tiger mascot that hopped around with the cheerleaders. I could have done it. I was energetic and you didn’t have to do a backflip in the silly costume. I was afraid that trying out would mean I wanted to be like them – and I didn’t, I really just thought it would be fun. I was at all the games with the band anyway, so why not? But I didn’t get it – not because I lost in tryouts, but because I didn’t try out at all. I didn’t make it enough of a priority to get over my fear of rejection.

I said as much to one of the nice cheerleaders who had honors English with me senior year and she said “Oh, you should have done it! You’d have been great! The girl they picked wasn’t that good, you should have at least tried out.”

Um. Oops. *mwaah mwaah mwaaaaaaah….*

It didn’t break my heart to think I had missed out on being friends with the popular girls, but it was a lesson in getting off my ass and at least trying a little harder for things I say I want.

I never sat at their lunch table. I sat with my music and theater friends. And together with a number of the cheerleaders, the dancers, and the sports stars, I got into National Honor Society, scooped up scholarships, graduated in the top 10% of my class, and went on with life somewhere else.

With 9,000 people in a community like 20SB, we can’t all be friends with everybody. We just don’t have the time. But the ones who are most visible in the community, our dancers and cheerleaders and sports stars, may shine the brightest because their priorities are those of the 20SB community. Online presence. Great communication. Reaching out and building bonds. Striving to be better writers, vloggers, techies.

When these things become your priorities in life, you can make your way to the top in a community like this.

Me? I’m not at the top. If I realigned my priorities I probably could be. I used to put more time into my blog, I used to be more visible and active in the blogging community both online and off. But as I’ve evaluated my life, I have determined that maybe I needed to step away from the glowing screen a little more. It works for me this way. This is my balance. I have blog friends who I adore, blogs by writers I don’t know but I still read, and a little bitty stake in a 20SB and Guidespot. I could do more. And I will, if I can make it fit in the balance I need in my life.

One of the popular cheerleaders quit the squad her senior year. She could have gotten a cheer scholarship. “It wasn’t for me,” she shrugged, and went on to run track instead.

Evaluate yourself. Think about why you write what you write, and where blogging fits in the priorities in your life. Are you committed to becoming a better writer? Are you committed to spending a lot of time developing communities and planning activities with people you may have never met? If you’re not – IT’S OKAY. For some people, that kind of life works and works awesomely. For you it may not. And if that means you don’t get an award, just realize – THAT’S OKAY TOO.

Are you committed to these things, committed to getting to the top and yet still feeling overlooked? This can take awhile. You don’t learn backflips and roundoffs with a full twist overnight. You must keep on.

You still have your lunch table. People still like you for who you are. And if they vote in someone else for homecoming queen, that doesn’t mean they like you any less. It’s just that they thought that in terms of real-time committment to excellence in the blogging world, they thought that someone else deserved it more.

My class homecoming queen was smart, pretty, fun, sweet, an athlete, a class council member, and active in her church. She was a busy girl who was committed to being awesome and to my knowledge never said a mean -spirited thing to anyone who hadn’t tried to grab her boobs or ass in the hall. Because she was involved in everything, everyone knew her and everyone was aware of all of her good qualities.

When you are visible, you are nominated. When you are visible and you demonstrate awesome, you win. Period. Everyone voted for Kristen, she won, and she deserved it.

Pour yourself a glass of flat champagne, put on your bent party hat, and think about this before you get mad or defensive about an award, a nomination or a lack thereof.

A lot of lovely bloggers have re-posted this for Brandy over the last few days. I’ve kept it till now so it’ll get into your reader for yet another day. She’s a wonderful blogger and one of my long-time favorites, but more than that, Brandy is a wonderful human being. And she needs something from the blogosphere right now.

It’s not an ASPCA commercial, don’t worry. It won’t cost you $19 per month to help this girl in the simplest of ways. She and her boyfriend and their families are just asking your prayers, good vibes, and strength right now during a really difficult time.

Just take a quick look at her post and have a little think about it, then point your love toward Canada.

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My name is brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

The holidays have hit us hard. He’s recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He’s the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I’m overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.

As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren’t sure what’s happening. He’ll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what’s going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as ‘brandy’s hot awesome dude’). If you don’t pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.

I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven’t seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven’t already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.

• I had a great time. Exhausting, but great.
• I’m sorry someone’s baby got elbowed by a swag-grabber, but I got shoved by an unattended toddler and no one made a fuss about his swag-grabbing mom that wasn’t paying attention to him. Call me callous, but it cuts both ways, ladies.
• The swag was good because it’s USEFUL. Was it excessive? Beats me, I’ve never been to BlogHer (or any big conference) before. At healthcare events I just got a bunch of useless pens and notepads. Are these companies buying my love? Perhaps – but they’ve bought my business with stickers (Picnik, I heart you already) and samples (those Gatorade powder packets for your waterbottle? Adore! Already bought some.). Oh well. As a LobbyCon-er, I didn’t get to go to the breakout sessions so I had some time to kill to chat with vendors at the Expo.
• I met many lovely ladies at the conference and at the parties, some of whom I have read, some of whom I’d not read and not heard of, some of whom have probably (read: likely) never heard of me. But if I met you at BlogHer, I think you’re great. I didn’t meet a single person there who I wouldn’t like to have a drink with again.

That last point – is that what everyone is referring to about cliques forming in the blogging community?

It’s been brought up in many posts – indeed, on BlogHer’s own website – I’m trying to sort that out in my head and not having much luck, so I do want to solicit opinions here. I think that anytime you put half a dozen girls down in a room, you’re going to start forming groups. Not maliciously, but everyone knows we gravitate to certain people for one reason or another. And when there are thousands? There you go. I met people and stayed in a smallish group because I was having a good time with those girls and quite frankly, I’m a little intimidated about approaching new people without old friends around. And now we all have some shared experiences and some inside jokes that we will spout about on our blogs because it makes us happy to remember them. And it makes us happy to make plans to meet up with friends again because we have bonded.

Does that make me clique-ish?

I like to meet and include new people and be included in others’ lives. I don’t think many of the people I know are deliberate about excluding people from their activities – but it HAPPENS, and often without intent. Everybody can’t be everywhere at once, so we can’t all share the same experiences and the same jokes where you-had-to-be-there. So why are people up in arms about people being happy about their new friends and writing about it on their blogs or Twitter?

Am I naive in thinking that no one really means for this community to shut people out?

Am I off-kilter for thinking that sometimes we are the ones who make ourselves feel excluded, not the other way around?

I don’t love the fact that I didn’t get to go to Vegas, or the fact that no one said “Hey, come to Vegas with us!” for that matter. Does that mean my blog friends don’t like me? Hardly. It is what it is, I guess. And people had a great time, awesome for them, and I can be happy that people I like had fun.

An analogy:

When a cell grows big enough, it splits and forms specialized cells. That’s the way life forms evolve and become advanced. And all of the specialized cells can work together to make a functioning life form that can have an impact on the world. When different types of cells attack one another, the result can be a cancer that destroys everything those cells built.

Are we the ones keeping our community from making the impact we want it to make?

What do you think?

I must look like the angry, pregnant wife standing over here in this babydoll dress that makes me look second-trimester fat and a pair of ratty Playboy flip-flops, intermittently scowling at him and rolling my eyes.

I’d just walked in five minutes ago and I was already ready to go home and go to bed again. When she saw me across the room, Erica the bartender waved and reached under the bar for a bottle of Bud Select, my usual here. I was too late to stop her before she popped the cap.

“Oops,” she said. “I thought you…”

“Nope. I came to get THAT,” I say, pointing down the bar to where Tim is seated with two girls I don’t recognize.

Erica frowned. “He said Mike was going to take him home.”

“Mike left.”

She looked around. “Oh.” She pushed the open beer across the bar to me. “Take it, on me.”

I don’t drink it but instead head in Tim’s direction. He looks up and sees me before I can speak, and one of the girls glares at me when she sees his eyes light up.

“Hey babe!” he says, a little too loudly. “Thanksh for coming!”

“Are you ready?” I ask. No preliminaries. It’s one o’clock in the morning, I’m wearing a dress I found on the floor and put on in the dark, and I want to go home.

“Lemme finish this beer.” He waves an almost-full bottle at me.

I sigh and pull up a barstool. Tim wraps his arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re here. You’re the best.” He turns to the girl I don’t know. “This girl is great,” he says to her, shaking me by the shoulders and smiling his dopey-drunk smile. “She’s such a great friend.” Then he looks back at me, turns my face toward his with a hand on my chin and looks right in my eyes. “I owe you. Big time.”

“Yes,” I say, pulling away.This is how he looks at me when he wants to kiss me. “Yes you do.”

So I wait it out. He finishes his beer and doesn’t want to leave until I have him by the arm and am tugging him past the pool tables and out the door. He has to get something from his truck. He forgot to say goodbye to someone. He wants to have a cigarette.

“Smoke in the car,” I say, getting in and slamming the door. “Please. Just get in.”

He blows the smoke out the window while I drive. “I’m really sorry,” he says drowsily as he flicks the half-spent cigarette out onto Lansdowne. “I came with Ben. He left to go do something with his girlfriend.” He practically spits out the last word. “He totally ditched me for her.”

“Um.”

“Then Mike said he’d take me home but he left early and I don’t know. You’re like my only real friend.”

I turn onto River Des Peres Road and roll down the window, letting the wind blow on my face to wake me up a bit.

“Twice in a week, though. You can’t keep doing this to me, you have to make sure someone less than twenty minutes away can drive you.”

“I’m sorry. I tried, but Mike–”

“Then leave with Mike next time.” I sigh and stare at the road. “E would not like it if he knew I was out with you in the middle of the night. I don’t want you to drive when you’re drunk but you can’t keep putting me in this position.”

“But we’re friends now. He’s secure, he doesn’t mind me.” He reaches across the console and rubs my arm. I try to shake him off.

“He would mind this. Stop rubbing me like that.”

“You’re just such a great girl, babe,” he says. My lecture has obviously had no effect. “Remember when we…” And he’s off.By the time I pull up to his house, drunken nostalgia has gotten the best of him. “Come in.” He tugs at my hand.

“No.”

“Then gimme a hug.” He leans awkwardly across the console and wraps his arms around me. I sort of pat him on the shoulder. “You really are the best,” he whispers. “I owe you for this.”

He repeats this several times before I can convince him to get out of the car. Yes, he owes me. Again.

I drive to E’s house instead of my own, because I know it’s the only way I’ll feel alright about tonight.

I haven’t had a party for years. Forgive me if I squee and get a little “!!!” happy.

Thursday was my Girlfriends’ Guide to Gaming party, sponsored by Brand About Town and Nintendo! And on Thursday night, the first thing I saw when driving up to the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum on Washington Ave. was this sign:

The ladies of Brand About Town had reserved a gorgeous space inside the museum. We were there to promote the new Nintendo DSi, the newest in the DS family of handhelds. It was launched in April of this year.

I’ve never even held a DS or DS Lite before so I can’t make a comparison to those earlier models, but I CAN say that the DSi is pretty darn awesome. I’ve spent hours already just playing with all of the features on the one I got a few weeks ago. Seriously – it has wireless and an Opera browser! The marketers did the right thing in targeting us tech nerds for Girlfriends’ Guide to Gaming.

It was such a great night, getting to know the games and especially getting to know the girls. I was more than a little nervous when I was first asked to host the party and realized that I don’t have a lot of girl friends who live in St. Louis. Now I think the party was a great success because I invited people I knew – or mostly-sort-of-blog-land-knew – and invited them to each bring a friend. That method proved to be a lot of fun because we all got to know new people.

The party room was a huge space in the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum.

Melissa and Erin's husbands love gaming, so I invited the girls so they could give the boys a taste of their own medicine.

Amelia promised not to give birth at the party - she and Jen had to finish CrossworDS first.

Rachael almost couldn't come, but she managed to swing by for a little bit, Baby James in tow, and try her hand at Brain Age.

New friends, Angie and Liz IRL!

Liz blogs at Will There be Cake? and this was the first time I’d met her.

Even my little sister was able to come. This is my last chance to upstage her - I'm going to be her bridesmaid in August!

My friend Becky brought her old Gameboy case as a purse! That was a definite conversation-starter. Oh, Nintendo, you've come a long way.

The Rhythm Heaven group pauses for a snack. The food was fantastic! Black bean cakes with cilantro, chicken satay, chocolatey desserts, and of course we could has teh mini cheezburgers.

When the girls finished gaming at all four stations, they got a little surprise gift! Kelly and Nora show off their new toys.

I met Nora for the first time that night – she blogs at Walking Through the Rain.

And a good time was had by all

I think it’s safe to say that our new DSIs won’t be gathering dust. Brain Age was probably the most popular game at the party. We all wanted to have the lowest score! (I’m 33.) I got Brain Age with my starter set a few weeks ago, and I’m an addict. I smelled addiction in some of my fellow partygoers… you can tell. You just can. And since the DSi can connect wirelessly to other players in the room, you can play against each other on BrainAge, MarioKart, and others.

Rhythm Heaven was crazy because it LOOKS so simple, but once you get into it you realize that there is no messing around. It was tricky to get used to the stylus, but I think it made everyone more determined to beat the thing.

You can learn more about the DSi on the official website, http://www.nintendodsi.com. One of the coolest things about it – an upgrade from the previous models – is the DSiWare Shop. You can connect wirelessly from your DSi and download apps and new games – some for free, and some using DSiWare points. You can get points by registering your DSi and your software on the website, and use those points to get more! Since all of the girls took home a DSi and a game, we’ve all got points to shop with. Jenny from The Reckless Chef got me started on a downloaded game called Boxlife and I think we may have a habit on our hands.

AND… you can use your DS and DS Lite games in the DSi!

Big thanks to the ladies of Brand About Town and the folks at Nintendo, who for some reason chose me to hostess this fantastic Girlfriends’ Guide to Gaming party. And a big pink puffy heart to all of my friends – new and old – who came out to join me for this awesome evening. Game on!

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The Brand About Town ladies took all of these pictures. Click here for their Flickr photostream of the whole shindig.

Disclaimer: I am always carrying champagne in these photos because I was mingling and didn’t set it down at any one station. And it was free.