Syndicated!

I am delighted to have a post syndicated at BlogHer today. You may have read it here already, but click on over and see it in situ - it'll look totally different, honest.

I think this is actually the first time I've been paid real money for something I've written.

I'm hoping it won't be the last.

A singular sensation

A strange thing happened when I came back from BlogHer. I felt very small.

Not that I go around feeling like a great lumbering giant every day, but I usually feel comfortably right-sized in my space. But at the start of last week I found myself looking in the mirror and thinking I was a mere wisp of a thing; that a breath of air would knock me over; that I was lacking weight, significance, heft.

Small in a not-good way, then. Maybe it was the exhaustion that hit me when I got home, a combination of post-excitement, post-travel tiredness and a bit of an extended hangover. Maybe it was because I'd hung out with some women who were taller and bigger than me - but that was by no means the majority. At 5'4 and a US size 8, I'm pretty much average, and certainly not tiny. I am not a wisp.

I think perhaps it was a physical manifestation of the fact that I'd been such a small fish in such a huge pond at the blogging conference. I don't mind not being in the limelight; I don't want to be top of the heap. I have very little ambition, and I'm fine with that. I have no illusions that my blog is secretly a Big Deal. I don't think anyone's going to jump out of the alcove and present me with a trophy for being the biggest little blogger that could, I really don't.

So I don't know why, honestly. It was an odd and unsettling sensation. But I'm happy to say it's wearing off, and I'm feeling pretty much normal again.

Which probably means I should get back to that 30-day shred thing if I want to keep fitting into my size 6 Gap jeans. (Which we all know are just like size 8s anywhere else.)

BlogHer '13: But Maud, how did you FEEL about it all?

View from my room on the 21st floor

Can I squeeze one more post out of the BlogHer experience before you're all sick to death of the subject? It's just that I have more things to say about it. I'm still processing the whole weekend, but I also want to write it all down before I forget.

When people in Chicago heard it was my first BlogHer conference, they would say, sympathetically, "It's all a bit overwhelming, isn't it?" But honestly, I didn't feel overwhelmed. It was exhausting, but I didn't realise that till I came home. I did burn out a bit on sessions, but I could cope with that by simply not attending the last one I'd tentatively put on my schedule for the day.

When I went to University College Dublin (17,000 students) from my high school of 300 (which is a normal/medium size in Ireland but tiny by American standards) the same thing should have happened: I should have been intimidated and overwhelmed by the size of the place and all those people. But I wasn't. I found my place and I slotted in, and it felt right straight away.

Maybe it's because I like big cities or maybe it's because I'm halfway between intro- and extravert, or maybe it's because as an only child you're often plonked into situations among many adults you don't know and expected to just entertain yourself quietly until everyone's ready to go... or maybe it's just me. I'm generally content to quietly put myself somewhere and watch what's going on, even if what's going on is positively enormous.

Day one: Not overwhelmed

And BlogHer is pretty enormous. There were about six thousand attendees this year, I was told. The giant hall at the conference center in Chicago full of round tables did elicit a small gasp when I saw it on the first morning, while juggling breakfast plate and coffee cup and quasimodoed by my laptop in my shoulder bag. Imagine your debs (if you're Irish), or a sit-down dinner at a wedding, and then multiply by a couple of hundred, and you have some idea of the scale.

But after breakfast and the keynote speeches, we all broke off to go to our sessions, as if after an English lecture in Theatre L you went to a Spanish tutorial (if I may continue with my UCD reminiscences), and then you were in a room with only fifty or a hundred or maybe ten other people, depending on what you chose to attend. In fact, the whole experience was a little like university, distilled and then concentrated and then scrunched up into two very fast days.

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I may have arrived with some notion that all the business cards I handed out would translate instantly into new loyal readers, perhaps catapulting me into fame and fortune; but the sad truth is that the "big" bloggers, even the ones who might have my card now, are too busy tending to their own empires, and their own real lives, to take the time to read and love and then blogroll little ol' me.

That's okay. I can't please all the people all the time, so I'd better just please myself. That's why I went to the session called The UnMarketing Manifesto, why I went to the writing panels. My blog's purpose is to make me a better writer; that's why I started it, and I don't want to lose sight of that in all this friend-making kerfuffle.

The truth is that I probably won't end up adding all the cards I got to my blog reader, even though I'm following everyone I met on Twitter. And they won't all add mine. And while it's nice to be told that I'm a nice person, or that I'm fun to hang out with, what I really want is to hear that someone enjoys reading my blog.

Am I weird? Is that not, um, normal? Oh well. Thanks for being one of the ones who's reading.

What I Wore: BlogHer '13

Seriously, it is utterly unimportant what you wear to a BlogHer conference (unless it is). I get it now. There is no dress code. Whatever you wear, there will be people who are more stylishly dressed, more formally dressed, more dressily dressed, more quirky, more queer, more basic, more elaborate, or more schlumpy than you. But people tried to tell me this and I studiously ignored them, because planning my wardrobe for the conference was the one area I could have control over in this whole crazy unknown future.

So I feel a bit embarrassed to even share this post, but I'm doing it anyway, precisely because I'm not a fashion blogger or a style blogger or an arty crafty person or anyone with an agenda about what she wears. When I was searching for guidance on this area before I went, I wanted to know what the regular conference-goers wore, not what the style bloggers were showcasing. I'm not saying I'm particularly representative of anything, but I'd say I didn't stand out as over or underdressed, if that's what you are going for. And I was comfortable and happy about how I looked, which was the aim of the game. 

My one caveat is that it really is COLD in conference centers, and my thin summer cardigans weren't quite up to the job, for me. Next time, whenever, if-ever, I'll bring something a little more substantial. A full-body fleece wouldn't go amiss. Maybe a Snuggie.

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So this was day one. Apologies for the badly lit bathroom selfie. I think my top looks like a sofa, but I hope in a good way. I usually shy away from prints, but this one is so delicate and pretty that I was happy in it. It's a sleeveless top in a very light chiffony fabric, which would have been perfect in the July weather I was envisaging. In the event, we had an oddly cool few days and I don't think I removed the cardigan at all. I forgot to wear earrings and thus had a short identity crisis during breakfast, but I got over it.

Top: Marshalls. Khakis: Old Navy. Cardigan: Gap, I think. Sandals: Naot.

On Friday night I got dressed up, but you don't need to even do that, depending on what parties you might be attending. Again, some did, some didn't. I didn't feel overdressed but I was chilly waiting for Voices of the Year to get started. (That's a polite understatement. Also, they kept turning up the music because Queen Latifah was stuck in traffic, so I couldn't even chat to my friends without screaming.) The dress looks odd because you can't see the length, but it's just to my knee. Both knees, actually. If you were around for the belt discussion, I asked my roomie for her opinion and went without the belt at the last minute. In hindsight, still not sure about that.

Dress: Nine West from Macy's. Cardigan: Gap, as before. Jewelry: Old Navy. Sandals (not visible, obvs, but I am wearing some): dull gold slingbacks from Softspots with a fairly low heel.

On Saturday morning I was a little hung-over and feeling I'd lived several lifetimes since I'd arrived in Chicago. I already understood about it not mattering what I wore, but I'd packed the clothes so I had to put them on. (See, I didn't even bother with a selfie, so this is that picture of me and Stacey again.)

Saturday: Green cowl t-shirt, Marshall's. Cropped stretch denim trousers, New York & Co. Cardigan: Old Navy. Shoes: Naots again, which are incredibly comfortable and well worth the investment.

These trousers (which you can't see very well) were inexpensive, fit nicely, and are very comfortable thanks to the stretch. I wore this all day, from conference to airport to home at midnight, so I guess it was a good choice. The green and orchid were more vibrant together in real life than they look here, so it wasn't a day for feeling like blending into the background. It's good to wear something a little bright or otherwise distinctive, so that if you're trying to meet up with a stranger you don't have to tell them you're the one on the jeans and the black top.

Now I look at it, I really did have the green and purple theme going throughout, which is only because apparently everything I own is either green or purple. When I got to the airport and realised my suitcase was purple and my carry-on backpack was green, it was not really a proud moment. More of a sigh, really.

See what I mean?

BlogHer '13: The one with all the links

I don't want to just name-check a bunch of people I met at BlogHer. I'd prefer to list them logically, both as a reminder for myself and also to help you find new blogs that interest you. So here we go: hold onto your hats for a whistle-stop tour.

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My BlogHer family came ready-made for me by my wonderful and open-hearted roommates, who - like the best of parents - gave me both a safe space to come back to and the freedom to roam and have my own crazy BlogHer experience. I am more grateful to them than I can say. They just happen to be a thematic group as well, as they came together a long time ago and bonded over infertility, pregnancy loss, and adoption. They blog the hard topics with more courage, grace, and good humor than I could ever hope to have.

ALI bloggers
Justine of A Half-Baked Life
Kathy of Bereaved and Blessed
Erin of Will Carry On
Mel of Stirrup Queens
Amy of Life According to Johnny
Jamie of Sticky Feet

My crazy-night-out accomplices, who let me crash their gang at the Voices of the Year reception and sit on the floor with them; and if nobody sang karaoke, never let it be said that it was for want of my encouragement or enabling. They just happen to all be autism parenting bloggers.

Autism bloggers
Jean at Stimeyland
JennyAlice at Into the Woods, Living Deliberately
Kim at Autism Twins
Mir at Woulda Shoulda

(That night I also met a barman from Galway who's been in Chicago twenty years. But I don't think he blogs.) 

People I sat beside at lunch, or on the bus, or even on my flight home. They don't really fall into a single handy category.

Parenting
Cheryl of Busy Since Birth
Kimberly from Red Shutters
Jolawn from Spelhouse Love 
Gina from Mom Psych
Ruby of Growing Up Blaxican
Louise of Single With
Allison of SilverSpiral
Melissa Langsam Braunstein, who I was standing right beside on the first morning, but didn't end up introducing myself to until we turned out to be sitting beside each other on the flight home to DC.

Personal
Emily at Zweber Farms, who has the moo-est Moo cards ever.
Kailynn of Ginger Sass
Sarah of Bluegrass Redhead

Food
Stephie of Eat Your Heart Out
Stephanie of Sarcastic Cooking
Mary Fran of Franny Cakes, who filled me in on the vital difference between a macaron and a macaroon.

Style/fashion
Alice of Practically Stylish

Useful stuff
Sarah from USA Love List
Stephanie of SuperMom Tested
Kim and Lisa of Bliss-Chicks
Shannon of Social Moms
Kyle of ShopGab (Hey! You're a guy!)

Everyone else
Joyce of The Voice of Joyce
Margaret of Nestache
Jenny of Jenny on the Spot
Jo of Media Mum
Kim of Save My Sunshine
Javacia of See Jane Write
Julie Danis
Blondie of Tales from Clark Street

Very important speaker-type people. I went to some really great conference sessions, but my favourites were the writing round-tables. Inspiration and entertainment in one great package. These gals are the pros, and I look forward to learning from their writing.

Turning a blogpost into an essay
Rita Arens at Surrender, Dorothy

The UnMarketing Manifesto
Veronica Arreola of Viva la Feminista
Jenna Hatfield of Stop Drop and Blog
Dresden of Creating Motherhood
Michelle of Burgh Baby

Humor bloggers
Pat Dunnigan of Suburban Kamikaze
Georgia Getz of Bossy
Krista of Effing Dykes
Elizabeth of Flourish in Progress

Anatomy of a story
Vikki of Up Popped A Fox
Jenny Chiu of Mommy Nani Booboo  
Nicole Blades of Ms. Mary Mack
Tanis Miller

Finally, I did manage to meet up with one blog crush. I was thrilled and delighted to meet Stacey of Is there Any Mommy Out There?, who was gracious and sweet and instead of running away when I twitter-stalked her, arranged to meet me in the lobby and let me yammer on at her for far too long. If you don't already read Stacey's beautiful, hilarious, eviscerating blog, please proceed directly there. She's a writer who inspires me. Thank you, Stacey.

I never know what to do with my hands, and it shows.

Expectations and exhortations: the BlogHer advice post

Blogging has suddenly gone from something I do on my own to a serious group activity. Blogging isn’t writing at my kitchen table any more, it’s going to roundtable discussions where great writers and hilarious women talk about what they do; it’s eating breakfast with a thousand other women; it’s hugging someone I just met and meeting people I’ve only ever read about (and hugging them too). It’s like work, when work is fun and you get to meet your co-workers from all the other offices and finally put names to faces.

I expected to make connections and I hoped to grow my readership. I thought I would meet like-minded people and learn more about the technologies and techniques of blogging. I didn't expect to make friends. I thought you couldn't make friends instantly like that; friends take time and serendipity and are not just the people you sat at lunch with.

They're not, but actually, it turns out they are. What did I do at BlogHer? I made new friends.

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But if you're looking for actual useful information because perhaps you're going next year, and perhaps it already is next year, or perhaps you're me in the future and I've forgotten all the things I think right now I couldn't possibly forget, here are some weighty words of wisdom for you.

• Conference centers are cold. People said “Bring a scarf or a wrap or a light cardigan,” but they forgot to say “Bring a full-body fleece”.
• Don’t get 500 business cards even if they are only a couple of dollars more than 250. At least, not if you think you might want to change the design in the next couple of years. But do get business cards, and it's a good idea to have your photo on them if you can bear it. Definitely put your Twitter handle on them as well as your blog URL.
• If you can, have a family. I mean, a friend family, a safe space to return to, and people who will save you a seat even as they set you free to go a little crazy having your own experience.
• Obsess over what to wear if it helps you feel prepared, but know that you don't have to. You can wear jeans every day. There is no dress code. I didn’t see anyone in sweats, but I wouldn’t call it “business casual” or “dressy” or anything at all. If I go again I don’t think I’ll feel the need to put so much thought or preparation into my wardrobe.
• A smartphone is pretty handy for keeping in touch with people. My phone is not very smart and decided not to work for Twitter or Facebook even though the wi-fi at the conference was just fine. So I was reduced to old-school texting, which only works if you have had the forethought to get actual phone numbers from the people you intended to twitter-stalk, or taking out my laptop to communicate, which was not so handy if I wanted to find out where my friends were sitting while on my way from the buffet to the tables. Still, it sufficed. Don't feel you can't go because you don't have the technology.
• While I'm on the subject, do use Twitter at the conference. I've only been on it since earlier this year, but I found it invaluable for following people as soon as I'd got their card or sat in the session they were chairing, and becoming part of the conversation instantly. I only realised towards the end that every session has its own hashtag, so if you follow that you can see what everyone's saying about it while you're in the room. Which is quite cool. 
• Comfortable shoes. You know that, right?

And do be prepared to have your entire view of what blogging is turned upside down. Because that will probably happen.

Notes on re-entry

O'Hare airport, Saturday afternoon.


I feel as if when I get back to my kids, they might have aged ten years in my absence. I can’t be sure time was passing at the same rate where they were. It probably wasn’t.

Talking to the kids on the phone is a disembodied experience. Their voices don’t even sound the same, and they don’t know what to say to me and they nod or shrug and forget that I can’t tell. Talking to them on Skype is even odder because I can see them, but only in two dimensions. My children are a 360-degree experience, a full-body contact sport, an assault on all the senses. Being at a remove changes them and I don’t know who they are, those flat noisy beings who flit in and out of view.

On our first Skype call, on Thursday, Mabel looked at me and said, “I’m thirsty.” She clearly expected me to do something about it.

I am a woman with children, almost always. Can’t you tell by looking at me? Isn’t it obvious? Don’t I have it tattooed on my face (in lines) and streaked through my hair (in grey) and written in braille all over my body? Apparently not; I couldn’t tell whether anyone else at BlogHer was a mother just by looking at her (unless she had a baby with her, as some did). We were all singular. 

I am at a remove from them, not just physically, but mentally too. Not simply that I’m not thinking about them, but that I’m some other version of myself who leads a parallel life without children. How can they exist if I’m not there with them? It’s a little lonely, but I don’t feel a void. If I think about them a lot, if I tried to, or if I see other children the right age, I could miss them plenty bad. But mostly they are existing in their universe and I in mine. Our universes will align again and return to their rightful place soon. I’m not ready for more time in this one yet, but it was interesting to visit.

Of course, nothing exists if when I’m not there in it, observing it, with it. It all leaps into being from its flat-pack life as I walk into the room, as my train approaches the station, or my plane flies over the pop-up trees and houses, as we slowly round the curve of the globe. Isn’t that true for you too? Isn’t that how life works?

I trusted, and my trust has not been misplaced. I had faith that they would be returned to me in the condition I left them, plus or minus a few meals, a few ice creams, a few squabbles and scraps and scrapes; and they will be. I believe it. I believe in them. I didn’t invent them; though I did conjure them into being, once upon a time.

Inter-

We went to the theatre a while ago, my husband and I. Say it the posh way, thee-ate-er. We left the children in the capable hands of a babysitter and took our cue to pretentiously discuss Beckett and Joyce on the metro into town. We even had a drink before the show. We'd never have had the audacity to book ourselves tickets for something like that - a real play, at night, in the city, no less - but we'd won the tickets so we had to go.

It's been so long since I've been to a live production of anything other than a tantrum being thrown that I'd forgotten all the things that make theatre such a different experience from a movie, even though on the face of it you might think they're much the same. This was a great example, though: a very intimate production, in the round, so that watching the audience opposite us react was as much part of the play as watching the actors. And being so close to the protagonists that you could reach out and touch them as they went by (if you wanted to; of course, I would never do such a thing) and admiring the grace and speed with which the actors moved the sets and props around between scenes, like a dance.

I love those moments when they're between selves; they're not quite in character yet, but they're about to be. The curtain call is the same, of course: it's the actors, not the characters, who are bowing to our applause. I strained to see if I could hear them speak as they went by, because the play was done with British accents and I'm sure the actors were American - but I didn't catch any hint of their real selves' voices to lift the veil a little further. I think this is why I love the blooper reels on a DVD so much: it's not just because they're funny, but because we see the actors being themselves just for a moment.

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I am between selves at the moment, I think. With the kids in camp for six hours a day, parenting is not the immersive experience it has been and will be for the rest of the summer, but I'm not quite sure what else it is I do; other than rush around getting last-minute things I might need for BlogHer. Once I'm there, I'll be a new self, or an old self - a new old self, perhaps. A professional amateur blogger, doing whatever it is such people do, in the company of many many others. A writer among writers, or a mommy-on-vacation. A woman among women (and some men, but not many, I'd say), without children.

Just me, Sheryl Sandberg, the Pioneer Woman, thousands of other women, and Queen Latifah too.

I think I'm going with the pale lilac toenails

So far so good with summer camp, though Mabel objects to having to stay quiet for rest time after lunch, and I didn't send any money with Dash on his field trip so he was subjected to the huge injustice of not being able to buy anything in the gift shop at the Baltimore aquarium yesterday. As for me, I'm having a lovely time.

Yesterday I went to the mall and spent more than an hour shopping, unhurriedly and in a focused manner, alone. I don't think I've done that since I had children, and it was excellent. First I bought a bra from the proper place to buy bras, so that everything else I tried on would look better. Then I found exactly the trousers I was looking for in the first place I looked for them, and on sale too. (Making up for the bra. When you breastfeed for seven years, your double-Ds turn into something more like double-Fs, and there are no cheap bras.)

I bought some posh moisturizer and had some good lunch and tried on some dresses that were almost but not quite what I wanted. I resisted the Nordstrom lady's hard sell on the blue dress (which was really cute but would clash with my shoes and need alterations and was a little dressier than I wanted) and at the last minute found the perfect thing in Macy's, on clearance, no alterations needed, just dressy enough, and works with the shoes I already have. Score.

Yes, a lot of this shopping is inspired by the upcoming blogging conference. No, you don't have to go and buy new things or take up an exercise regime to go to a conference. But I like motivators, and inspiration, and finding excuses to do things I might not otherwise do.

Let me put it like this:

How would I like people to look at a blogging conference?

a) Fat
b) Thin
c) Friendly

How do I think people should dress at a blogging conference?

a) Preppy
b) Sloppy
c) In something comfortable that makes you feel like your (best) self

Option c) all the way. That's all.

Personally, however, I do have a few other requirements: not being too hot or too cold, not feeling like I have to stand up straight and suck my gut in all the time, not worrying about sweat stains if I've been shuttling between conference venues in Chicago summer heat, and not clashing with my orange bag. And, vitally, wearing shoes I can walk in. All of the above will help me feel like myself and meet new people with a genuine smile.

I'm not going to pretend that BlogHer isn't a big deal for me. It is. I've never left my children overnight before, I've been out of the professional workplace for seven years, and I'm only just starting to call myself a blogger out loud. Sometimes. So while dressing for a fairly casual conference and hopping on a plane without emergency diapers and goldfish crackers might be a regular occurence for many attendees there, for me it's a giant leap out of my everyday life and back (or forwards) into another.

As far as I know, there's only going to be one other person there who I've actually met (though she knows several others). Quite a few of the bloggers I love to read regularly, and who I know have gone in the past, don't seem to be going this year. I'm fairly interested in some of the sessions and of course I want to see the keynote speakers and the Voices of the Year presentations, but mostly I'm going for the Experience. I want to meet people who are dorks like me.

Are you going to be there? Leave me a comment, and maybe we could try to meet up.

The other vacation

This is what I wrote last night:

Tomorrow, my vacation begins.

I mean, the one where the kids both go to camp from 8:45 to 3:30 every day for two weeks, and culminating in my three days away at the BlogHer conference in Chicago.

I'm still feeling a little I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it about the whole thing, really. Mabel has never been away from me for full days like that, and she's not the lover of organized activities her brother is, as well as being fairly clingy at the moment, what with the Four And A Half Thing. Camp is meant to be fun, so if she's really not having fun I'll see if they can refund me the difference and go with the half day instead. Eight forty-five to noon is still 45 minutes longer than her school day has been all year. It wouldn't be quite as intoxicatingly freedom-y as no kids all day, but I'd still take it.

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This morning began with a moan from D's bedroom. Since he's a happy cheery morning person (didn't get that from me), a moan is never exactly a harbinger of good.

"My tummy hurts. And my forehead feels funny."

Of course. Of course it does. What else would it do? Sigh. I know he's not faking because he's the one who really wants to go to camp. His sister, on the other hand, was fine until about ten minutes before we had to leave the house, when she started telling me how maybe she didn't really want to go to camp after all and maybe she'd much rather stay at home and how it wasn't fair that Dash got to be sick so he didn't have to go.

Oh, the injustice.

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I brought Mabel to camp and made it out the door again alone. She was happy to see a friend from school and - more importantly - a large pink doll house WITH PONIES. She looked a bit wobbly when I left but was holding it together.

Dash is now perfectly fine, after three pieces of toast. He's been making things out of duct tape and making movies of himself fighting/dancing with my old camera. I am going to bring him down for lunch and the afternoon half of today's camp, because if I don't he'll drive me demented and use up all my computer space with uploaded crap.

Luckily for you, I couldn't get the movie to upload, so you just get a photo

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I brought him to camp. He was immediately hailed by at least two kids in the room, and slotted right in to his group with a grin. I dropped by Mabel's building without seeing her and inquired of a counsellor how she was doing. She's fine. Totes fine. (They're not in the same camp, but are based about a minute away from each other.) I went to Old Navy and Safeway and did some shopping.

It's awfully quiet around here. I wonder what I'll do next. When's pickup time again?

Windows to my soul

So far, my planning for BlogHer has mostly centred around what colour my toenails are going to be.

This is a vital consideration. One's toenails, in sandal weather, are an extension of one's very being, a porthole into one's personality, and an ever-present accessory. I don't want to spread pedicure paranoia or anything, but as far as I'm concerned the shade of my toenails says a lot.

I also have a problem with purple at the moment. My problem used to be with green, and I sort of declared an embargo on green things to deal with that. But apparently I moved to purple and now I'm in great danger of matchy-matchyness, which just won't do at all.

Let me run through the shades of nail polish I have at my disposal, and the messages they convey, at least in my head, and probably not in anyone else's.

• None: A classic option for the natural beauty. Groomed nails with no polish say that I'm above all that. Or that I didn't get a chance to paint them. Or that it's winter and I'm wearing socks and what, you brought your x-ray specs, Superman?

• Clear: Not much point, really. If you're painting your toenails, paint your toenails.
• Darkish tomato red: Fun, but not really me. A little too bright and clashes with most of my clothes.
• Dark sparkly red: Classic with a twist. Goes with almost everything, but doesn't say a lot about the purple/green-loving person I am deep down inside.
• Dark bronze: Very me (I'm an autumn, you know), goes with everything. But a little too much like the colour of my sandals themselves. Too safe, maybe; doesn't say "I take risks in blogging!"
• Palest lilac: Lovely, very summery; has the unfortunate side-effect of making my pale feet look as if they belong to a corpse. Pity about that. If I have to spend several conference sessions with my toenails in my line of sight, I don't want to be wondering whether or not I'm still alive.
• Brighter lilac/orchid: Also very summery, not quite so corpse-like. The problem is that I have too many t-shirts the exact same colour, not to mention my two orchid dresses and my purple/berry bag.
• Dark sparkly purple(not pictured): I just got a pedicure in this shade, and will probably never be able to find it again. It's very nice, though. On the other hand, it's exactly the same as my glasses frames. (See what I mean about the embargo?)
• Metallic teal: Last year's purchase - gorgeous colour but doesn't suit my skintone at all, and clashes with almost all my greens, which are more on the yellow side of green than the blue. Great with the bronze sandals, mind you.

Some might say I should choose my clothes for the conference first and take my cue from there. But then I'd be denied all this very engrossing and important contemplation. I probably need to invest in a few more options. Now taking suggestions.

I'll let you know what I finally decide.

Exposition

So what happens nowadays (by which I mean this week, probably; my memory is short and constantly renewing itself) is that every few mornings I put on my sexxay workout gear and I flit around the house doing the normal before-school morning things like eating cereal and making Dash's lunch and nagging people to get dressed and checking my Facebook in case something important happened on the Internet overnight. The children are slightly confused: "What are those jeans?" Dash asked me this morning.

And then I bring Mabel to school and then sometimes I actually do something like exercise and other times I have what my cousins taught me is called a French workout, when you dress for the gym but don't go. And they should know, because they live in California where you have to at least pretend to go to the gym.

The something like exercise I'm tending towards at the moment is a 20-minute "extreme burn" pilates workout DVD. It doesn't sound like much, especially when you realise that extreme burn is an extreme exaggeration (except for my abs, which, ouch), but it's more than nothing and I think that's the point.

I've also been known to take a bike ride or even just a brisk evening walk lately, since my Stupid Toe won't let me run any more. (It's much better. I don't even notice it, unless I try to run half a mile or so, and then I start limping, which is unpleasant and makes me grumpy and despondent.) I loved the yoga class I went to a few times in the new year, but it takes too much of a chunk out of my brief, brief window of morning. By the time I'd got home and showered it was time to go straight back down and pick up Mabel, because she's all done with formal education at 11.30 every morning. And formal education has about had it with her by then too.

The prospect of going to BlogHer bang smack in the middle of the summer is actually more of a motivator than the idea of the local swimming pool opening up at the end of this month. My swimsuit, after all, is stretchy, and I've basically got into the habit of switching off all my mortification circuits on entry, as a self-defence mechanism. Anyway, all the other people I run into there are similarly uncovered, and we're mostly all imperfect one way or another.

But BlogHer is another story: I'll be meeting a whole passel of new people, mostly women, all of us trying to make the best first impression possible but look like we didn't have to try very hard because we always look this way. I won't lie - it's a scary notion. But in reality it will probably end up much like the swimming pool - we're all imperfect, and we'll all focus on the pretty, whether it's someone else's shoes or their necklace or their smile that lights up the room.

I'm really quite excited about BlogHer, you know. Apart from giving me a little more impetus to get fit(ter) and a rock solid excuse to buy some new clothes, I have a cool and lovely roomie whom I'm looking forward to getting to know a bit better, and for the first time since I've had children, I'm going to be doing something that's just for me. For three whole days.

It's a milestone of sorts. I don't know exactly what I expect to get out of it - I'm not fired up about any particular conference session, though I may learn great things or hear great people at whatever ones I end up attending. I'm not dying to get spectacularly drunk at any of the parties (though it may happen). I'm just looking to expand my blogging network a bit, meet some new people who like the same sort of things I do, get some new readers, and - most of all - take a step towards establishing who I am when I'm not being someone's mom.

It's been a long time coming. It's going to be good.

And/or

What a relief! Summer went away and it's nice and cool and rainy today. I'm sure there are people out there complaining about it - and I'm sure I'll be one of them this afternoon when the children are all cabin-fevery and/or then I have to take Dash to baseball practice in the rain/mud - but right now my brain has switched back on and I can inhale deeply and I'm wearing my jeans and socks and it's good. All that sunshine was giving me a headache.

And I let Mabel's feet get sunburnt yesterday because I slathered her up nicely with sunscreen on arms and legs and face and neck but forgot that she would inevitably ditch her new purple sandals after ten minutes on the playground and leave her lily-white hoofers in the direct glare of the midday sun. Bad mother. (It's okay, they're not lobstered. Just a little extra pink.)

The pink and purple blossoms look positively luminous in the rain, too. It's very April-showery.

A little bloggy PSA and self-publicizing now. As you might recall, I'm going to the BlogHer conference this summer, which is very exciting/terrifying, and because I'm paying more attention to my e-mails from BlogHer I noticed that they are now accepting submissions for Voices of the Year, which is a way they recognise some of the best blog posts from the past year. Even though I always assumed the people who won these things were the "big bloggers," I thought what the heck, and submitted two of my favourite posts, because why not, and who else is going to ever notice your best work if you don't tell them where to look?

The main awards are decided on by a panel of readers, which is fair and means that the blogs with the big readerships don't scoop everything just because they have more people to vote for them; but there's also a reader's choice prize, and if you happen to be also a member of BlogHer, I'd be really delighted if you'd like to take a moment to go and vote for either or both of my nominations, if you like them. (You can still vote for everyone else as well if you feel that would be fairer.)

The page to vote for the first one is here, and the second is here. You can click through to the posts themselves from each of those pages.

And if you have a blog and are a BlogHer member, go and nominate your own favourite posts too and then tell me about it. (You can join BlogHer just to do it.) Share the love.

Bipedal

I went to the doctor this morning and came away with the deeply unsexy diagnosis of "hammer toe". Unlike hammer time, this is not even arguably a good thing.

First, the nurse saw my Kindle and carried on an entertaining 15-minute monologue about how she found a book in the library that had streetnames she recognised and it turned out to be written by a girl she knew from her neighbourhood in Philly, and she called her up and said "Did you do all that stuff? Because if you did, you nasty," and the girl said, "Just don't read my other books." Which was all a bit surreal.

Then she asked about my foot, which was why I had come, and I showed her where it hurts and she considered it critically and then said,

"You have a pedicure recently?"
I wasn't sure where she was going with this.
"Does it look like I had a pedicure recently? If I'd had a pedicure and my foot looked like this I'd be asking for my money back."

She said she's seen a lot of pedicures gone bad lately, from old black ladies (her words) who start getting their feet done every two weeks and all the skin comes off.

I'm not an old black lady, nor do I play one on TV. Also, I haven't had a pedicure since last summer. So obviously I could not have a pedicure gone bad.

Then the doctor came and looked at my foot. I confessed that it wasn't so sore now, but I'd made the appointment because I was pretty sure that would make it get better, and my tactic seemed to be working. But that I'd come along anyway, and look, here's my stupid foot and right here underneath where it looks perfectly normal - or as normal as my foot can get - is where it hurts.

First he asked to see the other foot. Then he asked me if my feet had always been that way.

"You mean weird? Yup."
"Okay." He said. "So this is the normal foot - I mean, the asymptomatic one, since they're not all that normal---" (Not a man to mince words, this one. I like him.) "---and see where this toe bends up?"

So the reason the bottom of my foot hurts is because the toe on top is stupid. I have stupid feet.

"It's usually genetic," he remarked, helpfully allowing me to shift the blame to my father, where it belongs. Why the DNA couldn't have picked my mother's feet instead of her nose to give me, I don't know. I already had his eyes, his mother's hair, and his liking for bad puns; did I have to have his hoofers too?

But I'm sort of pissed off about this. I mean, it's not like I have a large collection of Jimmy Choos that will now start gathering dust, but it was hard enough to find shoes that fit pyramid-shaped feet to begin with (short, wide, high arches, your basic pyramid), and I'm already wearing the cushiest, most comfortable, most German-looking shoes you've ever seen.  

I have a two-day blogging convention to go to this summer, you know, I wanted to shout at the doctor. Where I will be meeting women I want to impress with my personal effortless sense of style. (Stop snorting. It makes your nose look funny.) I have to wear shoes that I can walk around Chicago in that also look okay with whatever I'm going to be wearing, into which a lot of thought will have gone.

I AM NOT READY FOR NUN SHOES. DON'T MAKE ME WEAR NUN SHOES.