Note: I had so much to say about BlogHer I’m posting two segments. Part II will have most of my photos and will detail the funny stories. It’s titled: BlogHer ‘08 Part II: What can I say? Hot Canadian woman just keep making out with me!

(And you think I’m kidding.)

This is ass-long but you really should just read the damn thing. I will be quizzing you later, Sarah.

**

The first five minutes into my BlogHer experience, I thought about going home.

I snotted a booger on the dress of one of the best and biggest bloggers on the planet.

I had nightmares that some how, some way, I was going to electrocute Dooce when I mic wrangled the closing keynote session.

We’ll talk about all these things later, though.

I will state right now that I had one of the very best trips of my life. BlogHer ‘08 blew every expectation that I had out of the water. I loved it. I’ll write about all my squeeing, making out and funny stuff that happened in Part Two of my recap, but for today I want to talk about the challenges of attending a conference of this magnitude and craziness.

I’ve been reading BlogHer recaps for two years and there is always one common thread that pops up amongst the posts with photos of happy people and parties and hugging. Some people write that they did not have a good time. They felt awkward, ignored, or slighted or that BlogHer wasn’t what they thought it would be.

For whatever reason, their conference was lacking.

I haven’t read any posts like that yet, but I am making a preemptive strike here. I want to point out to those people who didn’t have the best time that BlogHer isn’t always a bed of roses for people who had a GREAT time.

(That would be me. In case you were wondering.)

After one of the sessions I mic wrangled (ie-ran around like a crazy person thrusting microphones at people who had questions for the panel speakers in different sessions), I was speaking with a blogger who seemed to be having a particularly unhappy experience.

She said, “It must be so easy for you here. Everyone seems to like YOU.”

Well, yes. I can see that. I am outgoing. I am bubbly. I stand out in a crowd and can be silly. I had a great time and there were a lot of people who seemed to like me just fine. Was this conference a cake walk for me, though?

HELL, NO!

I think that the end experience you have greatly depends on how you deal with the situations you are given. I have a hard time in this area in other areas of my life, but I knew there would be negative things thrown at me at this conference and I was determined to do my best to turn them around. It went really well. Here’s a list of examples:

The first encounter I had at BlogHer made me seriously consider turning the hell around to go home.

I flew in at the crack of dawn and tagged along with my roommate Scribbit on an video interview she agreed to do for 5 Minutes for Mom. I was scraggly, tired, and had managed to dump half a can of Diet Coke on myself during the plane ride. When we got there, there was a makeup/hair artist, wardrobe racks, a production crew and I was met by three gorgeous, immaculate women who were the equivalent of Vogue- pages one, two and three.

They were very polite but I just felt so damn intimidated and felt like I should have “INSIGNIFICANT HICK FROM UTAH” tattooed on my forehead. I thought, “If this is how the whole conference is going to go, I can’t do it. I can’t walk around feeling this frumpy and lame and stupid for four days.” Luckily, I met someone who knew me and was also planning on hanging out in jeans the whole trip so I was much more comfortable and could relax.

Later, I had the opportunity to meet up with Janice from 5 Minutes for Mom and I told her how intimidated I was of the whole experience. SHE WAS WONDERFUL. Janice and I were joined by Jenny of Absolutely Bananas (who I pink puffy heart) and we had great conversation for three hours.

If I hadn’t approached Janice, I would still have this intimidating image of her in my mind and she is so easy to talk to. I’m glad I took that leap. I just wish that I knew that the young 20-something blogger that was hanging around our table was attending HARVARD in the fall before going on and on about how I write about my hoo-hoo on the internet.

My volunteer duties as mic wrangler had rocky moments.

I did a LOT of mic wrangling for sessions. I was so nervous about it because I wanted to do a good job for an organization that has been so good to me. It was a hard job, but I would do it again in a heart beat. I loved it. What I did NOT LOVE was during my very first session, CONTROVERSIAL TALK RADIO STARTED BLASTING THROUGH THE SPEAKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the midst of listening to a broadcast of political people saying things like, “Obama! You don’t know what the HELL you are talking about! You are an piece of poo in the flotsam and jetsam of the world’s sewage system!” I was frantically trying to figure out what the HELL was going on.

People were looking at me like I should know what I was doing and all I could do is give them a look that said, “I DON’T KNOW NOTHUN’ ABOUT FIXIN’ NO AUDIO SYSTEM, MISS SCARLETT!” and announce, “Never fear! I have a card with a telephone number to call!! YAY!!!!’

Problem? Number was out of service.

I played with some buttons and made it all much worse before the audio people finally showed up to save the day.

While I think I was sort of known as the Vanna White of mic wranglers and was really visible for the conference, I also looked pretty damn stupid some of the time.

I did some embarrassing things pre-conference and knew I would be running into the people involved.

Nobody likes to fess up to being an asshat. It was hard to do, but I found all of the people I had internet faux pas with and spoke to them. Every single situation ended up being good in the end. I don’t mean that I was ready to join the ya-ya sisterhood with all of them, but we all left on good terms and they were all understanding once I spoke to them and explained myself face-to-face.

I was a dork, scared, anxiety-ridden, insecure and felt intimidated a lot of the time.

While talking to the lovely Jess from Drowning in Kids, I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Schmutzie the fabulous.

In my head the introduction was supposed to go like this: “Well, hello, Schmutzie! My name is Loralee. Thank you for graciously featuring one of my posts on Five Star Friday. I am a fan of your wonderful website and that amazing birdie masthead that you designed.”

What came out of my mouth was garbled, high-pitched squeeing and “Oh! Oh!! Oh!!!-ing” that was accompanied by me pointing and jumping up and down while waving my name tag in her face.

Dorkish, indeed.

However, she was lovely and relating the experience to Some of us are clowns put her at ease because she felt HER introduction to ME didn’t go “as planned”, either!

I was scared to start talking to people I didn’t know. I made myself and it was great. Striking up a conversation about blogging platforms makes waiting in line to pee so much more enjoyable.

I was anxiety-ridden about my blog. I often had thoughts that my blog was “just a personal website”. One morning my roommates and I were at breakfast with a bunch of people from a global PR marketing firm. My roommates are an impressive lot of people. Plus, they are all gorgeous. Just look at them:

Besides being hotties, they are also quite accomplished in the bloggity world. Introductions went like this:

“My website is Scribbit, a one-author site that functions like a web magazine. I run my own advertising and am looking different ways to expand my business opportunities.”

“Hello, I am Amber. Aside from my personal website, I am the creator and editor of Mile High Mamas, a blog magazine that is sponsored by the Denver Post.”

“I’m Jill of Glossy Veneer. I have been blogging since 2001 and also have a website that chonicals my participation in a marathon to help lukemia research.”

Then it was my turn.

“HI! I’m Loralee! I write about my ta-ta’s on the internet!”

I am super awesome.

However, it made people laugh, which makes me happy, so I was good. I just embraced my blog and realized that I love it even if it doesn’t look as good on paper as some. I LOVE my roommates. We had the best time together.

I didn’t let my anxiety stop me from showing of my ‘Stellar’ dancing skillz. Even though there were only about 5 of us busting a move to sucky music on the dance floor. we had fun. If I had been drinking it would have made the situation a little bit less painful but I got to get a photo with Moosh In Indy, V Dog and BOSSY, and I had a great time, so it’s all good.

Intimidation was probably the biggest issue I had that was getting in my way. In a way it led to one of the most embarrassing but WONDERFUL moments of the whole trip:

I found myself in a puddle of tears surrounded by a semi-circle of some of the most amazing and well-known bloggers out there (who also intimidated the living hell out of me before BlogHer) and I also managed to snot a booger on the dress of a blogging goddess of the internet.

This moment sort of saved me and my blogging life. My favorite session of the whole conference was about “Taking back Naked Blogging”

The reason I went is that it was led by Sweetney and I had a question for her. I knew if anyone knew the answer it would be her, but I am the type that is way too gun shy to send her an email. So, I went to the session.

It was amazing.

It was one of those “What happens in this session STAYS IN THIS SESSION” so I will not go into detail, but I asked a question and found myself breaking down and sobbing. I am the most overly dramatic person on the planet but it takes a whole lot to actually make me cry.

And cry I did.

Big, fat, mascara-ridden tears kept coming and coming and coming. Thankfully, Jen and Tonica and Ink thinker had tissue and LeahPeah gave me chocolate. Backpacking Dad and Mr. Lady were wonderful as was the blogger wearing black whose business card I lost.

Before this conference I was down right SCARED to talk to a short list of specific bloggers. I was scared because while I know that I have talent and intelligence and excel in a lot of areas, the face and public side of me is very silly.

While being extremely theatrical, silly, and extroverted can be a plus a lot of the time, it can also make you look like a big dork to people of a more serious nature.

These are such strong, wise, blunt women who write damn well and really know their stuff and I was worried that they would see me as this dorky, flighty, silly person who well…worries and is insecure about coming off as dorky, flighty and silly. (If that makes sense.)

I even made a list of six women and made a goal that at some point I would try and introduce myself to them. Because I don’t want to feel intimidated. They certainly don’t make me feel that way, it is MY problem and my problem to resolve. I really wanted to tackle my fear because well…that is what I do with fear. I tackle it. Why the hell do you think I jumped out of a plane?

After the session, I looked up to see Sarcastic Journalist, Sweetney and Her Bad Mother standing in front of me with kind looks on their beautiful faces. Without dripping sap all over you…damn. These women were so kind. Generous. Helpful. HUMAN. Especially Tracey and Catherine. I just can’t even illustrate in words how much they helped me and how kind they were.

It helped to know I wasn’t alone and that all of them knew exactly what I was talking about and they didn’t see me as silly or flighty or spineless, just as another human out there that was looking for help, advice and understanding.

It made me smile and cry harder at the same time.

Someone I was crying too hard to notice before squeezed my right arm and said, “My mom always said, “Amy, when you have tough situations you just pull yourself up by your big girl panties and keep going!” and then she handed me her card.

I laughed, squeeked out a “Thank you”, asked if I could blog that her mother told me to pull myself up by my big girl panties and watched in horror as a small piece of booger flew from my nose onto her striped maternity sun dress.

No one seemed to notice and I was relieved that this fabulous blogger named Amy would never know that the snotting blogger she was so kind to left a genetic piece of the action on her dress.

I looked down at the card.

It was cute.

It was pink.

It was from…AMALAH.

Oh. THAT Amy.

Dear God above. I JUST SNOTTED A BOOGER ON THE DRESS OF AMALAH! ONE OF THE MOST AWESOME BLOGGERS ON THE PLANET!

Way to go, Loralee.

It made me cringe. Then I got over it. She was so nice, I’m sure she’ll forgive me. They were all so wonderful and in one fell swoop I saw all the crap and perception of big bloggers and smaller bloggers fall away. We’re all just people who blog. Or better yet? We’re all just PEOPLE.

It was such a great moment. I’ll never forget it.

And finally…

Crazy Blogging Canuck made me eat bacon mints.

They SUCKED. At least I wasn’t alone. Velveteen Mind had to eat them too.

In conclusion, I went into BlogHer DETERMINED to have a good time. I tried as hard as I could to walk away feeling positive. If I felt like an ass, I went and talked to the person I was an asshat in front of. If I was scared of someone I went and talked to them and tried to get that feeling to go away. If I was an idiot and forgot someone’s name I tried to tell them it wasn’t because they weren’t great, it was the limitation of my brain. If I felt neglected or if I didn’t connect with a blogger I was hoping to meet, I tried my best to remember that it was a crazy trip, people are human and sometimes things don’t work out.

I know that this doesn’t always work. Sometimes the “Oops!” is too big or the person you are dealing with just isn’t going to change their mind about the situation, but my point is…TRY. Then try AGAIN.

Oh, and get your ass to BlogHer ‘09. I WILL SO BE THERE.

Jon Deal has the run of the joint while Loralee is at BlogHer.

For reasons which will become clear starting in the next paragraph, this will likely be the only guest post he ever does.

As we out here in the Internet hinterlands all know, BlogHer 2008 has commenced, or is about to commence and holy crap, the whole Internet (at least the “mommy blogger” subset of the Internet) will just NOT SHUT UP about BlogHer; we who remain behind in our hovels are stuck with more than a few ambivalent feelings.

The “I’m not going because…” sentiments can be categorized and classified as follows (really, in no particular order):

1. I’m not in that “in” crowd anyway.
2. Nobody likes me.
3. I hate everyone.
4. It’s in July and I molt in July. The BlogHer people KNOW this and yet they keep scheduling it in July year after year. There would be feathers everywhere. So embarrassing. It’s like they are out to get me.
5. I’m afraid I’ll meet and subsequently drool on a so-called “A-list” blogger I have been dying to meet even since I fired up a browser and pecked out my very first and truly lame post on that stupid blogspot.com site I used to do and then through a set of freak and frankly suspicious circumstances, death and destruction will rain down upon my whole family and we just had the floors re-done and you KNOW how death and destruction can simply RUIN hardwood floors.
6. I don’t have a thing to wear.

(Possibly #5 only applies to me. Your mileage may vary.)

BUT!

I am here to dispel those feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing. Well, the last one anyway. Seek therapy for the first three reasons, a competent medical professional for the fourth and thank your lucky stars you don’t have to deal with number five.

I noticed that a few days ago, a lot of people (women, duh) were drop dead panicked about “What do I wear to BlogHer? What are you wearing? Holy bean on a stick, SOMEONE PLEASE CLOTHE ME!”

So I sent this email to a few people. I share it with you now. Because that’s how I roll.

(And because Loralee told me to. And she scares me.)

Ladies…

Since I see from your twitter feeds and blog posts that you are all kind of freaking out about what to wear at BlogHer, I thought I’d set your minds at ease.

Here is a detailed list of the clothes I am packing, though not necessarily wearing while at BlogHer:

• Black short sleeved tee-shirts (one crew, one v-neck, they go with everything)
• Some handmade jewelry I bought from someone’s Etsy store
• This darling plaid skirt and oxford cloth shirt, even though the skirt makes my hips look huge and is way too preppy
• Jeans (2 pair)
• Floral skirt with matching pink stretchy, lycra blend tee. (Scarf to match)
• Sweatshirt/sweater that goes with all of the above (S.F. == cold sometimes, even in the summer)
• Strappy sandals for fashion during the conference and comfortable shoes for walking around the city (feet might get cold walking around)
• One black dress that can go casual or formal depending how I accessorize it.

Wait…

Something’s missing….

Oh, right!

I’m not going to BlogHer, and I am neither a woman nor a gay man who cares about wardrobe. (I keep forgetting!)

I’m just a boring old hetero man, who decided not to go to BlogHer this year, but will probably go next year.

But seriously… black tee shirts go with everything! Can’t miss! (So sayeth my wife, who has 14 million in her closet)

Have a fun time!

Jon “yeah, I’m a little jealous, I should have just gone, but I didn’t feel comfortable about being one ‘those’ guys at what essentially amounts to an all-female group hug” Deal

P.S. I used to live in the SF Bay Area. Take a sweater/sweatshirt/jacket. It can get mighty chilly in SF, even in July. Seriously, take something with long sleeves.

—jon

So there you go! There is NO reason not to go to BlogHer next year. Heck, you could probably still catch a plane and crash the party.

See you next year.

*Hello, my lovely readers. It’s Loralee. I’m having a wonderful time and hope to hop on here before the end of things (I will not drone on and one about the convention, worry not.)

This post made me snort so loudly my “Heavenly Bed” at the Westin is SHAKING. I heart Jon Deal with the power of a thousand burning suns. If you are not reading him you should be.

HOWEVER!!! Jon forgot to add his OTHER emailed BlogHer instructions, which were as follows:

“I am going to give you a list of people to make out with while you are at BlogHer.

(A chaste, friendly sort of make out session, of course, I’m a married man after all)

Here’s how it will go…

You walk up to the person (for example… Angela from Fluid Pudding

“Hi, Angela! I’m Loraleee, but that’s not important right now.”

“Hello, Loralee, nice to meet you. Why isn’t that important?”

“Because I’m here on a Mission, Angela from fluidpudding.com” [Don’t forget to CAPITALIZE the word Mission when you say that!]

“A Mission? Whatever do you mean by a Mission?”

“Put down that knitting and stand up, Angela. You have to be standing in order for this to work.” [Angela is one of those crazy knitter people, but I adore her anyway. (chastely, of course)]

Once she is standing up, start humping her leg and then scratch my URL on her arm and sing out “Jon from Ransom Note Typography thinks you are the bees knees!” Feel free to make up your own little tune to go along with this. Something in a bright major key, I think would work nicely. Practice something in B-flat on the plane, OK?

Thanks! And I’ll get you a full list of people whose legs you’ll be platonically humping before Wednesday.

Kisses,

Jon Deal”

Soooo worth mentioning, no?

BTW-I don’t kiss and tell, yo.

Heh.

** Jon here again. I feel I need to clarify that last email, which A) possibly should never have seen the light of day (*ahem*), and B) could be misconstrued as “that Jon fellow is über-weird with the leg humping talk. Make sure he never comes near me. I’m afraid he might want to make a skin suit out of me.” Where I come from the time honored “hump your leg greeting” doesn’t carry any sort of sexual connotation, I assure you. It’s just how we natives say, “Yo, dude, you are awesome! Want to go get a moon pie and hang out at the mall?” Plus, it’s not humping so much as it’s “knee bumping” on a grand scale. (Hence the “bees knees” comment.) It’s just a traditional greeting, I promise.

***We really need to stop meeting like this, Jon. People are going to start yelling, “GET A ROOM!” (hee.)

Dude, no one is going to think you’re a creepy guy, although it is sweet that you clarified.

AND I DID ASK YOU BEFORE POSTING IT. (While I just can’t be afraid of you after reading your post about being mistaken for your daughter’s MOTHER, I WOULD be afraid that there would be no more awesome blog lunches in the big city in the future if I hadn’t!!!)

I just got home from a funeral.

Despite what the first three letters of the word may indicate, funerals are never fun. This one was especially sad and just…WRONG. Going to the funeral for a young, vibrant 20-year-old is something that just shouldn’t happen. It is out of order of how life should be.

I have put off writing about it because ever since I got the news I feel like I have been holding back a huge dam of emotion with a wall made of toothpicks. I don’t mean to take this and turn it into something that is about me, but this has evoked some powerful emotions and very painful memories for me.

I never met the person whose service I attended today. He was the son of my long-time OBGYN, Dr. Mark D. Heiner, who relocated to North Carolina about a year-and-a-half ago. His name was David and he was a Sophomore in college. You should have heard the lovely things that were said about him at his memorial. He just seemed like an amazing young man. Passionate, bright, and above all-very kind and loving. He was visiting his family in North Carolina and was swimming with his brothers at their country club pool and he was found at the bottom of the pool. After several days it was determined that his brain was not functioning, he was removed from life support and passed away on June 18th.

Today would have been his 20th birthday.

I know it may seem a little strange to go the the funeral of the son of your doctor, and to have such sorrow about it, but you don’t know Dr. Heiner. He has been my doctor since 1995. He delivered all three of my boys and brought all of them into the world kindly and safely. When I had a massive blood clot after Christopher was born, he diagnosed it over the phone and told me to get to the emergency room immediately. It saved my life.

I consider him more than a doctor. He is a friend. He is the kindest and most HILARIOUS man. I swear most of the progress made during my labors was because of the hysterical laughter going on in the delivery room. He once told me to schedule my yearly checkup in the winter because they are gray and boring. He is just wonderful.

When my little Matthew was born, Dr. Heiner was one of the first people to see him. That fact ALONE would be more than enough to make him a very special person in my life. He was the one who told me that he had red hair. Being a redhead himself, Dr. Heiner piped up, “You realize this means he is going to be a genius, right?”

When Matthew passed away and I was writing his obituary, I included Dr.Heiner. Matthew’s life was so short that there were not many people who made a significant impact with him outside of family and friends. He came to bug’s funeral and he was very helpful to me when I was dealing with the enormous fallout that happened because of Matthew’s death. He was non-judgmental, loving and wise.

It was very sad to know that he and his beautiful family are going through such a horrible loss, knowing what I know. I waited a very long time in the receiving line to see him and his lovely wife. I recognized the looks on their faces and I just cannot express how my heart hurt for them. For what they have been through and for what is ahead of them.

You would think that someone who has had a son die would know better what to say, but I didn’t.  Even those who have lived through it are at a loss of what to say in the face of such awful tragedy like this.  So? I just went on instinct, and I hugged both of them and told them how very sorry I was and how I had been thinking of them. There were some tears. There was also a good deal of laughter. (I know that also may sound strange, but honestly, it’s how I deal with things like this and besides, Dr. Heiner started it!)

I am very grateful that they had 20 years of memories that they can hold close to them. I envy that. I know that probably sounds petty of me, and some of you may wonder how in the world anyone could envy people who have had such a huge loss, but I would give anything to have had more than 4 months with my little bug, to have seen what kind of man Matthew would have grown into, even if it meant ultimately saying goodbye.

However, Dr.Heiner said something very profound during the eulogy. He said that even if he had known David would pass away at 20, he would have had him again in a heartbeat. I feel the same way about my little bug. Even though my time as his mother was so very, very short, he was absolutely precious. I would do it all again without hesitation.

Above everything, the sentiment that was expressed time and time again during the service is how each person would give anything to have more time with David. Things like this are so difficult but they are also needed to put life into perspective. To value what you have. To hug those you love a little tighter and give thanks that they are still here and safe.

So? What are you waiting for? Go tell someone you love them.

I got my bag from Bluefly.com today.

The UPS guy drove up just as I was starting the hideous task of de-jungling my yard and flower beds. Jonathan’s birthday is on Saturday and he has opted to take his geeky self and several of his geeky friends down to his office to spend the whole day and night with their geeky computers all networked together to play endless amounts of geeky computer games.

Not MY idea of a fantabulous birthday, but since I don’t have a million and one Leathermans, flashlights, phones and other forms of geekary attached to my belt at all times, I know that I “Just don’t get it”. It’s his day, he can do what he wants. I just want him to be happy.

As I will be kid-free that night, I will most likely be curled up with a good book or movie and possibly a vat of cookie dough, but you didn’t hear that here.

Back to my yard.

Since Jonathan is turning 32 (YES. HE IS OLDER THAN I AM, OK? He loves calling me “Mrs. Robinson”. We are not amused.), I did want to celebrate his birthday at some point. We have good friends that grew up with Jonathan visiting from Virgina and since we wanted to get together with everyone we just decided to throw a BBQ on Friday to celebrate both events.

Which means our first outdoor party of the year.

Which means I don’t just have to clean my house, I also have to get my yard ready. Which is not easy. My trip to Minnesota (and my inadequacy of dealing with my life-suck) has put me WAY behind on my yard. The biggest problem has been with our mower. It has been at the shop since the first thaw and so my yard has been HORRIBLE. The weeds in my area are crazy bad, too. It took a very long time, some serious swearing and about 3 herniations to get the whole project done.

I swear I thought I was going to find Jimmy Hoffa amongst the weeds in my back garden. GAH! I managed to get the 200 lbs of Sienna red chips scattered, all the flowers planted and my herbs potted, and made sure that all half acre of the lawn was mowed, even though it means that I am going to need to take eleventyhundred Aleve so that I can walk tomorrow. Although, since I also had a rehearsal full of the Charleston combined with tons of frantic house cleaning, I REALLY don’t think that there is much chance of that. I am in bucketloads of back pain and I can just imagine what a night on my suckass bed is going to make me feel like in the morning.
Back to my yard. Again.
All through my gardening process, I kept eying my box from Bluefly. I left it on the porch as a visual reminder that I had something AWESOME waiting for me. Call it a, ‘Don’t stick the pruning clippers in your eye, Loralee. Just finish the damn garden so you can open me!” pep talk if you will.
I finally got the last of the weeds thrown in the wheelbarrow as it turned officially dark and then went inside to guzzle water and open my box to see my new purse!!!!

DUDE.

Total disappointment.

It’s…Boring. And stiff. And the leather is nubby, which you can’t see in the photo and which I hate. The ruffles look stiff and awkward instead of feminine and it just isn’t something that I really want to spend a hundred bucks on, even if it was 60% off.

AND…it was designed by JESSICA SIMPSON.

I think that last tidbit was the final nail in the coffin for me.

It’s so disappointing.

It’s SO being sent back.

Few things are worse then hearing your name paged over the airport speaker system informing, “Salt Lake City passenger, ‘Loralee Choat-ay’, please come immediately to gate E15. Your flight is holding and is ready for departure.”, when you SWEAR that you have 35 minutes until your flight leaves.

That is, there is nothing worse unless you are hearing aforementioned announcement at the asscrack of dawn after getting zero sleep the night before due to anxiety of dying while flying in a plane the size of a Diet Coke can and/or missing your flight, and you are in the ladies room simultaneously having a panic attack and peeing like a racehorse and realize seconds after the announcer hideously mispronounces your name that THERE IS NO TOILET PAPER IN YOUR STALL.

THAT is much, much worse, my friends. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

As my flabby ass jiggled and my feet thundered as I ran and panted down the concourse to my gate, I kept cursing my decision to not continue with boot-camp classes because then I might not feel like I was inhaling hydrochloric acid into my lungs. I was still confused about my departure time, so while I was running I pawed through my purse to get out my boarding pass and saw that YES, I was right about the time. I should have still had plenty of time to board my flight.

When I finally got to the gate, I couldn’t even speak to ask, “WTF, yo?!”. I just stood there gasping, sputtering and clutching my pounding chest in a manner that probably looked like I was feeling myself up.
I mean, I love my boobies, but even I have some amount of public restraint.

Sometimes.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Sputtering, gasping, turning white and purple and spewing ropes of mucous at the gate attendant.

He guessed who I was.

“Oh, we just wanted to leave early. No problem. You’re fine.”

I AM? Try telling that to the very unfortunate guy who had to endure my mucous-infested coughing and wheezing for half of the flight as I tried to get enough oxygen to not pass out on him. Heart rate induced asthma can be a real bitch sometimes. I should have brought my inhaler, dammit.

I lived through the flight and on my way back to Cache Valley, I stopped in Salt Lake and met my beautiful, sassy, blogging friend, Sarah, for lunch at a restaurant that had a dessert case so glorious I considered raping it when I passed by on my way to the ladies room.

There was a lot of peeing going on with me today.

As I said, Sarah is gorgeous. I look like a homeless person (asscrack of dawn flight, remember?) but that is ok. If you look good all the time people expect too much of you. Personally, I am fond of getting a standing ovation for bothering to comb my hair.

The funny coinkidink about having lunch with Sarah is that is pretty much how I kicked off my whirlwind trip over a week ago. And yes, you are going to be subjected to it all. I will try to be brief, but try not to stick a fork in your eye, ok? I’ll sum up into brief paragraphs, if it makes it easier. I’ll even put in pithy little titles so you don’t get board.

“Who the hell knew that Diet Coke isn’t organic???”

As I was saying, I had lunch with Sarah and two fabulous bloggity friends, Jon Deal (Ransom Note Typography) and Brad (That One Guy). I didn’t have my stupid camera charged, so I don’t have a photo of the four of us, but I loved that lunch. We all got along like peas and carrots.I could lunch, talk, laugh and just be totally myself with this group of people until the end of time.

Indeed, the only drawback was when the waitress at the very tasty organic restaurant we dined at informed me that they only served “Organic” drinks and Diet Coke DOES NOT QUALIFY?!

WTF?

I plan on petitioning an organic hippie compound in Berkley to change that. Email me if you want to join in my quest.

“Fat cat in a little coat”

After lunch, I met Mandi and Jen for Jen’s baby shower. I heart them both. Mandi flew in from Georgia to throw the shower and Jen just looked radiant and adorable.

Plus, she has the fattest, most adorable, luscious, fatty fattakins cat on the planet. He is bigger than a huge watermelon and HIS name is “Abby”. Considering my female cat’s name is “Wilbur”, this just makes him rock even more.

The next morning I flew to Minneapolis to be with my brother. I already talked about some of the fun things we did in the previous post and I am going to add photos now that I have access to my photos.

The trip was a blast, even though we had no furniture in the house and I forgot my blowdryer. I guess the trip could have been titled “In which Loralee’s hair perpetually looks like a frizzy crap sandwich”, but I was just so happy to be in Minnesota that I didn’t care. (Too much).

“Loralee was here”

One of my favoritest things about this trip was hanging out with bloggity friends, both new and old. First off, I met Gretchen, who was so fun, vibrant and talented. She mainly blogs about her crafting, which she is ridiculously talented at, but she has the most fabulous personality as well.

We hit it off so well that we set up a second bloggity date where she braved my bad baking gene by teaching me to make rolls. I will post the whole recipe and photos plus directions at a later time, but these are the VERY BEST ROLLS I HAVE EVER SCARFED DOWN.

I want marry them and have little roll babies. Of course, this might be awkward as it would mean that I would totally fall into that category of “Those that eat their young”

I loved them and so did my brother, Brad. He has now commanded that I am in charge of roll making at all family gatherings (even if we’re not eating anything else. I still have to make the rolls.). They were soooo yummy.

And? To illustrate her personality, she posted this blog post with this photo after I left our “Roll Afternoon”. It is simply titled, “Loralee was here”.

You can see WHY I laughed my ass off. I so love the empty Diet Coke cups. HEE!

“Is an Amber Alert needed??”

Speaking of amazing baking and hilarity, I also got to hang out with “The Over Thinker”. OT has such snarky, witty comments on my blog, I love her. She is a million times better in person. Let’s add to the fact that she made me a tub of vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream frosting and that she has glasses very similar to mine and that just makes her perfection in my eyes.

Because she is anonymous in her blogging I can’t tell you THE COOLEST THINGS ABOUT HER, but I will say that she is an ordained minister and is going to marry her friend this summer in the Teatons. How awesome is THAT? I could have spent DAYS with her and not gotten board. She rocks the house.

I did force her to stay in my brother’s basement and look for a photo that I had “Somewhere” in the millions of unorganized files splayed across my computer. Her husband didn’t send out a search party, but it was close.

“Deep, lovely waters”
Meeting Tasha and Amber for sushi was also lovely. I love talking to them. They are secure, intelligent, ambitious young women that are going to do some amazing things in their lives. Both of them have been reading me since the first few months of my blog and are Bemidji state alums. They are wicked smart and I love listening to them and their conversation. I am so very fond of everything about them. We had a lovely lunch and whiled away the time walking, shopping and talking. Every minute was relaxed, familiar and much needed moment for my soul.

Here are the lovelies. I would post a picture of all three of us, but I kept cutting off half of Tasha’s head in the photo.

I mentioned that I LOVED hanging out with my brother, Brad, right? He is very similar to me in his sense of humor, as illustrated here:

“The taco champion of Minnehaha*”

“Brad, I cannot eat one more taco. Two is my limit. You’ll have to eat the last one.”
“What? You can’t eat three?”
“No.”
“You’re sure???? Not EVEN if I turn it into a taco eating contest????”

We are the weirdest family I know.

Speaking of Minnehawhaw Falls, they are pretty, are they not?

I ended up seeing Jessie the day before I left.

I love Jessie so much. She is like a sister to me. She is one of my Bemidji readers and she has had the coolest, most varied life, living in India, a lean-to in the woods, hopping freight trains to Alaska and she just successfully defended her thesis. We went to lunch and coffee and talked and talked and talked. One day I hope to have half of the inner-peace that she does. She is amazing.

While I am SO GLAD to be home, I love Minnesota and the people in it. I am sad my brother moved from there, but hope, hope, HOPE that I can get there again.

As long as I don’t have to fly in a freaking tiny plane while needing to pee.

**Ok, this conversation didn’t REALLY occur in Minnehawhaw, but it is just SUCH a great name to say. And it sounds way better than “The taco champion of Apple Valley”, you know?

Roughly 700 people received an email saying that I was “Searching” for them from reunion.com. I was fiddling with the site today to upload a “Then” and “Now” photo, mainly to assure the world that I no longer had orange, double-processed hair and massive amounts of fatty layers embedded on my face.

I mean, LOOK AT ME:

See?

If YOU looked like this on Senior photo day, you would want a public record that you no longer resemble an obese version of that squeaking muppet, Beeker, too!

Then, the satanic site reunion.com asked me if I wanted to check my email account to see if I had any friends registered. Stupidly, and with the decision making process of a three-toed sloth, I thought, “Sure! Why not?!”, and I allowed it to upload my account.

You know how the process normally goes, right? You can do this pretty easily at Facebook and Myspace and the like. You import your email contacts and it allows you to see who has an account, then you can mark them as a friend or not and ignore the message that says, “Invite your other contacts to blah.com” because you would NEVER send unsolicited invites to people about that sort of thing.

No harm, no foul, right?

Wrong, wrong, WRONGITY-WRONG!!!!!

I had a million things going on this afternoon, and I am to blame for not paying closer attention, but not only did reunion.com upload my entire contacts but it AUTOMATICALLY EMAILED EVERY FREAKING ONE OF THEM saying that I was basically stalking them on the internet.

Anyone here use Gmail?

You do?

Then you know that Gmail automatically saves every.single.email.you.receive to your account.

Like, EVER.

That would include not only people that you know and email but it also includes all the people listed on things like forwards and mailing lists, so you have people you don’t even know stored in your contacts list.

So?

I ended up sending this crap to former professors, almost everyone I have ever worked with on my parent organization, The National Enquirer (You know, from that time I sold them photos off of this blog),extended family I have never met, the co-founder of BlogHer, former co-works, bosses, ex-boyfriends, and most wonderful of all–relatives of ex-boyfriends who consider me a stalking psychopath ANYWAY. (Not that this would add fuel to THAT fire or anything, right?)

I bumbled out a rambling blanket apology to all 700 people saying how sorry and embarrassed I am and that I am basically thinking of spending the rest of my days hiding in a burka and living in the Australian outback, but the fun doesn’t end there. Apparently because of said apology sending I am now LOCKED OUT OF MY DAMN GMAIL ACCOUNT FOR SENDING TOO MUCH EMAIL!

It’s so grand that Gmail thinks I’m a spammer. I am also having such fun with the tons of bounced email messages that my account is wracking up.

Happy, happy, joy, joy.

(Oh, and apparently I also might cause all of you to be on vast lists of spam because I suck further for not BCC’ing and provided a juicy spam list to the masses. GAH!)

What a headache this has all been.

I loathe you, reunion.com.

I really do.

If anyone needs me, I will be curled in the fetal position in my bed with an entire tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and a couple of Velveeta cheese slices. (And a Diet Coke chaser or four.)

Ug.

Twenty minutes before going on stage to sing the mezzo role in the matinée of “The Messiah” today, I found out that someone I have loved, adored, cherished since the day she was born was diagnosed with a very serious and scary illness.

(Obviously, the performance did not go very well, what with all the crying and snotting. Although in response to the emails, opening night kicked some serious tail. I’ll write about it later.)

She is enormously important to me and I am reeling in shock and sadness and the most fear I’ve felt since I lost my son.

She is a very private person and I want to respect that, so I will not write anymore.

This is all about her, not me.

I hesitate saying anything at all, I just wanted you to know because I don’t know how much I am going to be around the internet. There is so much that is unknown, I am not sure what and where I will be needed. Please understand if I’m not on your blogs and I’m begging all of you to keep our family in your thoughts.

James, I am so glad that you talked to me tonight, but so sad that you are hurting. I want you to look at me and really listen to what I am saying and trust me, ok?

Ok.

You just told me that you think that I don’t understand how you’re feeling because I have ‘Lots and lots of friends’, right? I want you to know that I absolutely understand how you are feeling. You are heartbroken because after struggling so hard with not having any friends at school, the one and only friend you finally made ditched you for someone he thought was better, right?

Right.

Honey, I do have friends now. Lots and lots of friends that I cannot even say how grateful I am to have in my life.

Do you know a big reason WHY I am so grateful for my friends?

I am grateful because I didn’t have many friends at all when I was growing up. I could count them on one or two fingers most of the time. People not only made fun of me every single day of my life. It was so painful and hurt me so much that sometimes I can still feel exactly what it felt like all these years later. It hurt me for a lot longer than it should and made me think less of myself because I thought something must be wrong with me because I didn’t have friends.

I know that you don’t understand why kid A, B, C & D are so mean to you. I know you don’t understand why no one will stick up for you when people are teasing you, even though you stand up for them when they are being teased.Do you want to know something?

Most of them don’t understand why they do it, either.

You know better than anyone how mean kids can be to other kids just in order to fit in, not stick out, to be accepted. To stand up and face a crowd that is picking on someone takes an awful lot of courage. It’s one reason I am SO proud of you. But…a lot of kids just don’t have that at this stage in their lives.

I AM sure that at least ONE person has wanted to stick up for you in their heart and hated what was happening, but they were too afraid of everyone turning on them if they stood up and said ‘Stop’.

At some point in their lives, they will grow up, be stronger, be less afraid to stand alone. They will also regret the way that they treated you. They WILL. They will wish that day in the cafeteria had gone differently.

You and I are so much alike. I so wish you didn’t have to go through this, but if I could undo anything about my past it would be to change how hard I was on myself. I would want to see me like people who loved and cared about me see me.

How I see YOU.

You are a wonderful, wonderful person. You have such a fun personality, so much energy and kindness. You DO know how to be a friend, you are just in a tough place. This age is so hard on most people, son. Everyone else needs to catch up to YOU. You will see. For some it happens in High School, but it didn’t happen for me until college.

Suddenly, people got to college and everyone was on a level playing field. People were less worried about what the kid sitting next to them would think of their friends and more about how much they actually liked being around the person in question.

And guess what? I was a person people wanted to be around. I looked around a room full of fellow Choir-geeks and realized that every single person in that room LIKED ME.

They liked me because I was funny, smart, talented and kind.

JUST LIKE YOU ARE.

It was a wonderful, wonderful moment, James and I know you will have something similar if not better.

I can see it, son. I can see what you can be. I absolutely know without a shadow of a doubt that your life will be blessed with friends that love and care about you just the way you are.

You have to trust me that I KNOW IT.

You are an excellent brother and I couldn’t ask for a better son.

Now it’s time to try and get some sleep.

Hopefully, things will be better tomorrow.

I love you with all my heart.

Goodnight.