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<< Previous: BlogHer Coverage 8: ... | Next: BlogHer Summary Post >>

BlogHer Coverage 9: The End?
Monday, 2005 August 1 - 4:45 pm
This is about a post-conference party... and an incident where one word, left unspoken, changes everything.

Saturday 8:00 p.m.
The cocktail party has shut down, so a few of us move back to the hotel bar. Here I really start getting to know Meghan and Elizabeth. We're joined by baketown and Jelly and Jenny and Jenn, and a guy whose name I don't remember. (Hey, I'm not here to meet GUYS.)

I guess this shouldn't surprise me by now, but everyone is funny and charming and smart and ever so beautiful. Most of what I remember from the evening is laughing laughing laughing, and periods of picture taking. It's the most fun I've had in a long time.



The night wraps up, too soon, it seems. But we're becoming drunk and tired and this can't last forever, no matter how much we'd like it to. We get up to go, and baketown's flip-flops have broken. She flings them at me (in a funny way, not a hostile way); I pick them up, and we all start walking to the hotel elevator.

Here's where a moment of serendipity should have happened.

As I'm about to get in the elevator, someone (I think it was Meghan), tells me I need to go talk to Elizabeth. And I'm not sure what to think or say, so I say, "Okay". And the elevator door closes, and I'm standing there with flip-flops in my hand, and the question that never leaves my lips is: "Where?"

Because, see, I have no idea where Elizabeth went. I also don't know WHY I'm supposed to go talk to her, but clearly, someone thought Something would happen. I wander around the lobby, and I don't see her anywhere. I walk through the bar, by the restrooms, outside... and then I just stand there waiting, hoping that she'll come back and that Something will happen.

She doesn't come. I go to the elevator, deflated, and I press the "12" button. In a movie, this would be the point where a woman's hand catches the door just as it's about to close, and after a joyful realization of what the moment means, Something happens. But this is not a movie, and the door closes, and the evening is over. I realize I didn't get to say a proper goodbye to any of my lovely new friends, and that makes me sad. I ride the elevator back to my room, alone, holding a pair of broken flip-flops.

So the unasked question "Where?" is replaced with the question "What if?" Maybe someday, I'll find out. Because as much as it feels like it's the last day of summer camp and we're all going our separate ways, we will surely all stay connected via our blogs. And that is the beauty of blogging, and the main reason I came to this event in the first place: to connect.

This is not the end. It is only the beginning.
Permalink  12 Comment   Bookmark and Share
Posted by Ken in: bloggersdatinglife

Comments

Comment #1 from Bake Town (Guest)
2005 Aug 1 - 6:22 pm : #
Fine - go looking for Liz and leave ME to stagger to my room alone. No wonder I have bruises all over me.

Gimme my shoes back.
Comment #2 from Bake Town (Guest)
2005 Aug 1 - 6:26 pm : #
His name is Matthew Homann and his blog is the nonbillable hour.
Comment #3 from elizabeth (Guest)
2005 Aug 1 - 7:37 pm : #
you do blog about everything don't you?

Another perspective:
So we're wrapping up a night of drinking and I'm saying goodbye to people and it's a bit weird to say goodbye to people you've just met but know so well and the elevator comes and it's a bit rushed and all of sudden I'm walking out of the hotel by myself. hmm. i'll walk slow. nothing maybe I'll go to the bathroom and give him a minute. still nothing. Well, i have an hour drive home & he was carrying the other girls flip flops & maybe i misread the signals. ok, maybe I made the signals up. b/c really, who picks up a guy at BlogHer? Bad timing aside, it was a fun night.
Comment #4 from Jenn (Guest)
2005 Aug 1 - 7:38 pm : #
Yeah, ummm, so I was wondering about those other pictures. Did you get my pay-off check yet? Are they on their way to the Enquirer?

LOVED hanging out with you Saturday night. My stomach hurt from laughing so HARD at the conversations, pictures and totally loud story-telling.
Comment #5 from mr. X (Guest)
2005 Aug 1 - 9:33 pm : #
What the hell happened after I left with Mindy's wine stained shirt and much talked about ass—sounds like a blogorgy!(tm)
Comment #6 from Jenn (Guest)
2005 Aug 1 - 10:09 pm : #
mr. x... I could tell you, but then I would have to pay you off. Or you can join our pay-site at rev-me-in-your-garage.com
Comment #7 from Ken (realkato)
2005 Aug 1 - 11:57 pm : #
Yes, I do blog about pretty much everything... sometimes with unintended consequences. I suppose I should have learned a lesson about that from this conference.

Jenn and Mr. X, I do have a number of more incriminating pictures, and I'm trying to figure out how to monetize my blog with them. :lol:
Comment #8 from Phil (Guest)
2005 Aug 2 - 2:02 am : #
Aiee!! Tragedy!
Comment #9 from Mindy (Guest)
2005 Aug 2 - 1:22 pm : #
*throws flag*

PERSONAL FOUL on anyone who had more fun without us!!

I was soooo wiped. Not drunk, per se, um, just wiped. Just to show how uncool we are, we went home to watch Willy Wonka, and I was snoring in the first five minutes. I shit you not.

Oh and another for the bartender who served me too much too fast to be able to hang in there!

*throws another cocktail napkin*
Comment #10 from Meghan (Guest)
2005 Aug 2 - 5:08 pm : #
Dude. Mama should have stopped drinking wine way before she did. I recalled a fuzzy spanish inquisition type of interrogations of Elizabeth some time after I demnaded every stop talking about their freaking blogs.
Just so you know, every time I have attempted to play cupid has failed miserably. Can't say I would mind if you guys put an end to my streak. haha.
Comment #11 from Jenny (Guest)
2005 Aug 2 - 8:33 pm : #
Heh. I love you all, you big lushes. The drama! The drinks! The ruined outfits! (Sorry Min ;)

Serendipity is a word I've actually tried to utter while drunk, and it went something like this:

Serendippy. Serentitty! *snort* Sererenditty! *squinting with effort, moving mouth slowly and deliberately* Ser-ren-dip-shitty! Hahahahahaha!

It's really hard to make that happen when drunk. That's all I'm saying.
Comment #12 from Elisa Camahort (Guest)
2005 Aug 2 - 9:30 pm : #
Ken: I have enjoyed reading your entire saga in one fell swoop tonight. And I'll tell you right now why relying on Technorati and those other services to find "quality content" SUCKS. Because these entries have not all showed up in ANY of my ego-feed subscriptions.

Not Technorati, Feedster, Blogdigger etc. etc.

And it's a crying shame.

I've tagged them all in de. as Bloghercon. Hope people find them that way.

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