I am here, but before I arrived her at BlogHer, I had to allow myself to be a bleeding mess. A weepy, Ativan-saturated mess with second thoughts and a close call of no socks for the second trip in a row.

Yesterday was a family holiday known as Wolvog Day. It floats along the family calendar and pops up once a year (there is also a ChickieNob Day). The way one knows that it is Wolvog Day is that you go down to your chair in the kitchen and it is completely decorated in all the things you love. So we had stacked up toys and candy and pictures of cars and iPhones. On Wolvog Day, the Wolvog gets to choose all the activities and meals so he kicked off the day with a bagel, led us to a car dealership where he pretended to drive a $104,000 Jaguar, lunch at Whole Foods, and then the Verizon store. We came home, made dough for homemade pizzas, and then went to see a local swim meet after dinner. All in all, the perfect day.

And it was so perfect that I couldn't pack. It was 11 p.m. and I still hadn't packed because I was miserable over the idea of leaving. I don't like to be away from home and I especially don't like to be away from the twins. They gave me long cuddles and told me to bring them home bags of swag. Finally, at 11:30, with the Colbert Show starting, I dragged out my suitcase and started to unroll a new pair of pants I ordered from J Jill. Except they were the wrong pants. They sent me the wrong pants. I own no pants.

Which is why I'm wearing my old jeans to BlogHer. Sorry Tim Gunn.

Then I needed my garters. I wear garters because I am so damn short that traditional stockings end up somewhere around my bra's underwire. They are also a prop for the Community Keynote so we had a take-apart the whole house moment where we finally found them at the bottom of a bag that once contained boots. How did they get there? I don't know.

Then I closed the suitcase and realized I forgot to pack socks. Again. Because I seriously cannot handle placing items inside suitcases.

And then I got into bed around 1 a.m. And I felt this overwhelming roll of sadness that started behind my eyes and moved down over my heart. Stilling me. I wanted to go and I didn't want to go. I woke up several more times in the night, each time untangling my brain by reminding myself that I would be leaving in 6 hours. I would be leaving in 3 1/2 hours. I would be leaving in 2 hours.

The twins had a hard time separating this morning and I had a hard time separating this morning and I went to the plane feeling like I should be in two places at once. And then I took Ativan so I could board the flight without flipping out and then the Ativan kicked in somewhere over Ohio and I felt calm with the idea that I was thousands of feet above the earth and again, this overwhelming sadness to be away from the twins that felt like it was crumpling up my inner layers. As if the inner layers had pulled away, lost their adhesion to the outer wall of the body, and now were crumpling and twisting and crunching themselves down.


I sound like a flaming nut-job.

I am writing this still under an Ativan film.

I shared a taxi with a lovely woman named Tanya who is also from Maryland. She is going to BlogHer, representing an organization called CurrentMom. We got to the hotel and I immediately saw Cecily and Sarah in the lobby, waiting for their room.



I went out to get lunch, and now, instead of the sadness about the twins, adding to that was a feeling that I can only liken to New Years Eve 1999. A little before New Years Eve, I broke up with my boyfriend. I wouldn't meet Josh for a few more weeks. And I needed something incredible to do. It was the turning of a new millenium, every computer in the city was going to break, the world was going to go into mayhem, and my future children were going to want to know what I was doing when the world imploded.

A friend told me to come with her a party, and I was happy to have something to do, but it didn't feel like it was enough. This was New Years--it only comes once a year and this special New Years was only going to come once in our life times at that. I mentioned this to a friend at the party and he promised to find me at midnight and kiss me. I spent the whole evening anxious that he'd forget and the moment would be ruined, but he found me at 11:58, held my shoulders while we counted down, and then gave me this incredible kiss. He topped himself by leading me up to the roof of the building so we could over look Adams Morgan and see the fire works and kiss some more. And after a few moments, he pulled back and looked at me seriously and said, "did I do well? Did I give you your moment?"

And that's sort of the thing about BlogHer. You feel like you can't take it in. It only happens once a year, so you want to do it well, but doing it "well" sometimes means going against true impulses and trying activities just for the sake of feeling like you sucked the marrow out of the event. I skipped all the parties last year and people kept telling me that I had done things wrong. So I decided to swing by two parties or so this year, but people are telling me that I'm still doing it wrong. And I am--I'm doing it wrong by their standards and as someone who is so not a party person, I'm doing it wrong by my standards.

The place I am excited to be is in the panels. And the ALI bloggers lunch tomorrow. And live blogging from the discussions. And the community keynote. And just meeting so many new people that I would have never had the chance to find if I had been left to my own small corner of the blogosphere. Many more updates will follow between now and Sunday.

Which means that this blog may become a little busy for a bit, and feel free to skip around and only read entries that interest you. Though two things:

We're still under 100 posts on the DIY Roundup Extravaganza and they're due tomorrow--Friday. You read stuff every day. You love stuff every day. Now tell us what you love. Don't get thrown off by the coding thing. Just cut-and-paste the url; we'll figure it out. One day, people, one day. For the love, at least we can hit 100 posts.

And the Show and Tell is still open and kicking. Come show the class something from your world this week.