BlogHer10 Saturday: One of the Best Days of My Life

Like Leelo, it takes me a while to process information and experiences. So I suspect it would have taken me this long to process BlogHer 10's Saturday, even if the weeks that followed the conference weren't unrelentingly full of activities and Seymour travel and weddings and road trips and excursions and weekdaily Thinking Person's Guide to Autism essays and BlogHer articles and Leo SF Weekly stories and Chinese-"interesting" social developments. Now I know what the brown sugar feels like when I pack it into that measuring cup, sweet though it may be.

BlogHer10 Saturday, with Jen and so many other friends, was one of the best days of my life. I only wish Seymour could have been there, too. And I wish Leo knew the role he played, in gifting me so many friendships with people I might otherwise never have met. You are cherished, every last one of you.

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Jen and I hit the ground running again on Saturday but without panicking -- I didn't turn off our alarm this time. I'd spent much of the previous night nuzzling my keyboard in confusion, thinking it was a pillow as I sleepily tried to finish my work shift. Jen eventually came to my rescue work-wise after she finished making friends at the hotel bar around 4 AM. (Where she gets all that energy, I'll never know. Me = friends with ZzzZzz.)

We opened our day with BlogHer's International Activist Blogger Scholarship Recipients Keynote. "Inspiring" is an insufficient word for the experience. If I was a hacker, I would turn the liveblog into a Trojan horse email, one that would freeze the screen of every middle school through college student in this country until they read what these women had to say about how they continue to blog/speak out, and why. I especially appreciated Esra'a Al Shafei's wry humor. I hope she and MidEastYouth.com end up ruling the world. (Benevolently.)

The four scholarship recipients:

Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai, Sri Lanka, publisher of Humanity Ashore
Esra'a Al Shafei, Bahrain, publisher at www.mideastyouth.com
Freshta Basij-Rasikh, Afghanistan, writer for the Afghan Women's Writing Project
Marie Trigona, Argentina, publisher of Latin American Activist

Some tweets from the panel, from me and from other frozen-with-awe audience members:

• @Sassymonkey, she of the Maritimes cred, noted: Reminder: no photography in the International Keynote. It's life or death for these amazing, brave women. #blogher10 
• @Mamacita Speakers like these remind me of how very fortunate we are to be able to write about anything we want, without fear.
• @jennyalice: Esra'a al Shafei "If you're going to piss a lot of people off you better do it very well ."
• MideastYouth.com: "It's giving the LGBT community a platform. It's giving the Kurdish minority a voice too."
• RT @whymommy: International activists at #blogher10: 400 young writers at www.mideastyouth.com -- STUNNING. Go see. 
• "The initial goal for Mideast Youth was to piss off as many dictators as possible"
• RT @ElisaC: RT @dtanton: RT @sassymonkey: Read more about the women on this keynote here: http://bit.ly/bq9ESn #blogher10
• "How to bring bright lights to my eyes: Education is the way" #afghanwomenswritingproject 
• An honor, a privilege: Listening to a writer from the Afghan Women's Writing Project talk about her country, its history, people.

During the panel, we sat with Elizabeth, who writes Just a Girl in the World, recently got the job of her dreams, and makes Memphis sound like a dreamy place to live. Later in the Smores lounge we met Natalie from The Bobby Pin, a sometime trapeze enthusiast and MBA student, who advised us on Yoga classes in San Diego. Both were attending BlogHer as livebloggers. I have followed Natalie and Elizabeth for a while and so have a long-standing opinion of them as the cutest things ever, but they were even more so in person. (In case that sounds patronizing, they are also really damn smart. But so cute!)

Then it was time for Kyra's book signing for Gravity Pulls You In:

This is her serious author face, for Jordan. The women behind her don't seem to be having as much fun.











How Kyra really appeared for most of the signing, with equally pleased Jen. The women behind them are discussing how much fun Kyra is having and wondering why the people lined up for their book signings aren't making them laugh in quite the same way.

Other signing attendees included IAmPixieMama, who was there God damn it and no she does not want to be left out, the effervescent NiksMom, and a lovely woman who floats anonymously through the Internet world and is no less loved for that practice.








I took a lot of armslength "dork" pictures. This is me and Stimey, and I am the dork. This is also shortly after I forced her to borrow Paul Collins' Not Even Wrong - very awesome book, worthy of her (and your) attention.

You know who else showed up at Kyra's signing even though she wasn't attending BlogHer or even in NYC but very kindly took the train from CT to come have an IRL meetup even though she was stressing over her class reunion that night which was understandable though unnecessary because she looked fantastic especially since you couldn't see her mountain bike road rash under her beautiful tiered skirt? Susan. Fun! Another dork picture.


 


Since it was too glorious a day to stay inside and since we could see Central Park from the conference hotel, we trotted parkward for lunch (which for me was a NY-style slice of heaven, a.k.a. pizza).














Jordan and Kristen came with us and we passed a lovely lunch sitting and snarking on a bench in Central Park, gazing out at the lake while watching clouds that looked like they were commissioned by Pixar and being rebuffed by disinterested New Yorkers who refused to take our photo. So we asked a tourist instead.







 It's a good thing we shook off the lure of outdoors after Susan had to rush off to her CT reunion (sob, but thanks again for making the trip!), because when we got back to the hotel Jen checked her tweetstream and found out she'd won a free laptop!

Then we found Carol and made our way to the Closing Keynote: Use Your Voice, Your Platform, and Your Power (Full liveblog and video coming soon), featuring:

"Need to Know PBS anchor Alison Stewart moderates a powerhouse panel: Marie Wilson, Founder and President of The White House Project (and creator of Take Our Daughters to Work Day!), author and activist Gloria Feldt from Heartfeldt Politics and P. Simran Sethi, Emmy Award-winning journalist, blogger and environmentalist."

It was amazing. Sigh. I soaked up as much as I could about how to kick ass from women who've been doing it for a long time under much less women-friendly circumstances. Two main takeaways: 

• 'Power you don't use is useless.' 
• 'A critical mass of women will move Supreme Court focus from gender to agenda.

And then it was time to hop on the subway and head to Soho for our My Baby Rides the Short Bus reading at Bluestockings bookstore.

Look, my friend Luis! We went to grad school at Syracuse together. He is a longtime NYC resident, guerilla gardener and yoga instructor. We lost touch for a few years which was so wrong, but thanks to the Facebook fairies, we are reunited. And it does feel so good. He was also our photographer for the reading.




I am not sure why this photo is warped, but I love Jen's expression: "Why yes, this is my East Coast literary debut!"

Here is Jen Silverman. She is one of three co-editors on the book. She totally kicks butt. Seriously, don't get in her way. She radiates uncompromising awesomeness.
















Here is Sharis Ingram. She is reading her story What I Said, and What I Didn't Say. Which is mandatory reading for anyone with a child on the mainstreamed or fully included end of the autism spectrum. And she went to the same college as Joss Whedon and Leo's godmother Hayley! Later on she and the other three of us argued over who had the world's greatest husband. Sharis won, but only because she brought hers along as proof.

Here is Jen, reading her story about trying to find a babysitter for her son Jake on Craigslist. She had the audience weeping as they laughed -- quite a trick.

And here is me, not crying during a reading for once. Go me!

Here is part of our wonderful audience (that's Carol talking into the mic) many of whom came all the way form the BlogHer conference in midtown. Thank you all! The house was packed, and it made for good energy.

 We had dinner at a vegan cafe with Jen Silverman and Luis and some friends, bid adieu to Luis and his bike, and shot back to the hotel in time to catch the last hour of CheeseBurgHer. Nom free cheeseburgers! The party was also full of my favorite Jens. Here are two who didn't room with me.

And here we are, right before crashing and Jen needing to leave in the wee hours and did we really pack all that into one day? We really did. Phew.

Attendees, how was your BlogHer Saturday?

BlogHer10 Friday: Autism Panel and Beyond!

BlogHer10 wasn't quite the same without several members of our tribe: Gwendomama, Vicki, Christa, TC, and Mir, who sighed when tickets went on sale; Lindsey, who only started blogging weeks ago; Liz, Emily, Elise, and Sandy, who bought tickets but had to reverse course; and Susan and Sharon, who were thwarted by the Fates at the very last moment. You were spoken of, with regret and fondness, throughout the weekend. Sarah Dopp and SJ too -- I've never been to a BlogHer without SJ, damn it all.

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BAM! There's nothing quite like sleeping through one's alarm on a really important day -- especially when you're the one responsible for the alarm. Jennyalice and I woke in instant panic far too close to the start of the BlogHer autism panel -- which I was moderating. Since we have superpowers, we made it with time to spare -- but the pace of the day or indeed the weekend never slowed, not for moment, once our feet untangled from our (respective) sheets and hit the ground. It was fabulous! Here's my take on Friday/Day One, with lots and lots of pictures.

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The Autism panel [liveblog here, podcast coming in about two weeks] was a thrill, an honor, a celebration of our testimonials, togetherness, and truths. And my co-panelist Jean Winegardner/Stimey already wrote it up! Twice! Here's my favorite quote:

"Of course I think the words that we spoke and the comments from the audience were important—very much so. Even more important, however, was the powerful experience of sitting in a supportive room with a group of people who care about people with autism and want the best for them. When you're in a room like that, you don't have to explain, you don't have to justify, you don't have to be defensive. You just have to be. And you can be because the other people in the room get it, they really, really get it."

She's so right. As Molly wrote, "I knew I was in the right place at BlogHer when [yours truly] shared that Leo took a bite of cheese pizza and the entire room applauded."

Our co-panelist Pamela Meritt/Shark Fu of Angry Black Bitch (she is the co-guardian of her brother, who is an adult with autism and aphasia) blogged the panel as well:

"...Because of the work of parent’s and advocates like my mother, finding resources and educational opportunities for folks with autism isn’t as hard as it used to be ... we’ve got a long way to go, but we have come a long way already.  I’ll admit that my image of parenting a child with autism is greatly influenced by the challenges that I witnessed growing up.  That image is changing now that I’ve met parents like those who attended the panel and learned that parenting experiences and options are as diverse as the lives of people with autism."

So here we are, the three panelists: Pamela, me, and Jean. Where was Sharon DaVanport, from Autism Women's Network and our fourth panelist, you ask? Unfortunately, she had a medical emergency the night before BlogHer, and had to drop out -- we were all so worried for her (she's going to be fine), and sad for our panel's missing piece. Sharon and I tried to arrange for Carol Greenburg, a local autism advocate and parent who herself has an Asperger's diagnosis, to take her place -- but my Friday was spend mostly offline exploring several circles of travel hell, and the early Friday morning internet connection was recalcitrant -- so I arrived at the panel thinking that we'd remain a trio.

Silly me, for not placing complete faith in BlogHer's Jes (red shirt): speaker wrangler, conference programming manager, and, apparently a sorceress. She made Carol apparate, moments before the panel was to start.

And then we were four. (Carol was an ideal speaker, and, really, should have her own stand-up act; it was a privilege and so much fun to hang out with her during the rest of the weekend.) 

And then more magic happened: Positivity and community were made manifest. We did shatter several autism myths, we did hear and recognize others' challenges and pain and victories and voices, we did learn from each other, we were lifted -- as I commented to Stimey, I considered it an emotional Lourdes. Amalah contributed to the catharsis onsite, and, afterwards, online:

"There is joy and happiness and laughter in our homes, just like in yours. We have dreams and so does he. We go out for pizza and play on playgrounds and drag our children on boring errands for back-to-school clothes. We bribe and scold and lose our temper and make mistakes and start over the next morning. My son is "lucky" because his father buys him eleventy hundred Star Wars toys every month, and because sometimes I make a pan of chocolate brownies before dinner, and because we live in an area with well-funded, progressive early intervention and special needs programs ... not because the stars aligned and blessed him with two perfect, sainted parents who are uniquely suited to drive him to occupational therapy."

We could definitely continued the conversation for another hour or two (look at Julie, and me, post-panel-chatting; no suprise that she is intense and wonderful, as those seemed to be attendee requirements), but BlogHer had a schedule to keep. I think we covered much of what we wanted to cover, but if we missed anything big, say so in the comments -- we can continue the discussion there.

Being bounced from the panel venue didn't mean we had to part ways. Ellen from Love That Max set up a Birds of a Feather lunch for the extended special needs community directly after the panel -- and it quickly became the hottest and best-attended table in the BoF room. Witness!

Also witness a very happy moment: Jen and me with the inimitable and instantly likable Ellen.

We were surrounded by so many other real live women from inside the computer -- I was so thrilled to spend time with ass-kickers like  Jorja, Carmen, Juliette, Varda, Janis, Julia, KAL, and  Melissa ... the latter is a bookworm extraordinaire who floored me by bringing copies of both Can I Sit With You? books for Jen and me to sign! That she had bought at the onsite BlogHer bookstore (thank you Melissa)!

See? Our books! Plus My Baby Rides the Short Bus in the upper left corner.

We went to Liz Henry's fun Geek Lab presentation on not getting hacked. Where we sat behind Skye as she ever so charmingly alternated between muttering corrections to herself and raising her hand -- she was with her people, and we were happy to be counted among them (she is one of our teammates at work), Where Liz told everyone how Iz had shoulder surfed my iTunes password. And that I then changed it to "fu_isob3l." THANK YOU LIZ. But seriously, people, change your password every six months!

Then we hung out with one of my kids' heroes: Ashley from The Jimmies! Who does about 5,000 things -- she's the voice of Nickelodeon, makes Twitter handle jewelry at Survival of the Hippest, has her own band, and personifies awesomeness -- as you'll see in my BlogHer interview with her later this week.

Between Ashley and the evening there was some questionable behavior, for instance going to the swag pavilions and nomming on breakfast "corndogs" that were actually breakfast links wrapped in pancake batter. Soooo bad, sooo good. 

And then it was time for dinner at a tiny, scumptiousness-filled restaurant in the West Village with people who rock so much that even I, superlative abuser, can't properly capsulize the awesome -- though I can bow down to Kristen and Jen for making the dinner happen. (I'm not featuring/mentioning a couple of folks as they may not want to be publicly associated with us.)

Joooordan (Wondermama)! and Jen!

Niksmom! And me!

Estee! And Kristina!

Kristen! And Niksmom again! While Jen holds ALL the cash.

With Kyra/ThisMom. Who is such good raucous fun that I can't show you all the pix we took - NSFW.

With Carol. Who is an immersed Star Trek enthusiast with serious cred, turns out.

We all parted ways after dinner, some of us to consult psychics (which I didn't need to do, having consulted one merely a week before). So I dragged Jen to my favorite East Village bar, Burp Castle. She likes Belgian ale, I figured, she'll like Burp Castle. And she did. She even listened while I got a bit weepy over never having been there without Seymour, not ever. Jen is so rad. And gorgeous. And tall. And blonde.

Last shot of the evening, before we took a cab home and I collapsed over my laptop in the middle of a work shift -- shocker. This is a Burp Castle bathroom self-portrait. I have to fish out my 1994 shot of the same.

BlogHer: Saturday, which was equally eventful, documented soon. But can you understand why we were tired, all weekend long? I'm still tired, really. *yawn*

Not Blogging BlogHer Yet. Srsly. Sorry.

Reader, you're probably sick of excuses re: not blogging BlogHer. Trust me, I've got a good one. Except it's not my own business, so it's not something I can or would choose to share. But it was my first priority. And it's taken all my non-work, non-child wrangling time.

So, until tomorrow when I absolutely will regale you with BlogHer10 links pix and tales galore, enjoy this picture of Jennyalice winning her brand new Gateway laptop in the Microsoft suite at BlogHer, and catch up with her and her amazing family during their somewhat bumpy motorhome roadtrip across the country at Has Autism Will Travel.

Oh, and check out the portfolio of Kelly Nicolaisen, the photographer who took the pix of Leo for the SF Weekly iPad article: www.kellynicolaisen.com.

Also, any tips for staging an intervention with a five-year-old Zombie Farm addict would be appreciated.

BlogHer10 Weekend Post Coming

We did so much, hung out with so many (so many!) amazing people, saw so much, reveled so much, gave thanks so much -- our wonderful weekend might take as long to document as it did to experience. I'll try over the course of this week.

But for now, here's my favorite photo from the weekend: my two favorite Jens -- Jen Scharpen Monroe, who has successfully lured me deep into the BlogHer fold despite my initial 2006 skepticism and whose support I both relish and never take for granted; and Jen Myers (Jennyalice), whom I never actually gave a choice about being my friend, and without whom I might have spent the entire conference overwhelmed and hiding in my room, trying to break back into the minibar. Both of these women are social lightning rods, attracting all the energy in the room and then illuminating everyone they encounter. I am content to bask in their considerable glow.

And, of course, sincere thanks to the BlogHer team who magicked together our alternate reality weekend of awesomeness: Elisa, Lisa, Jory, Lori, Jes, Denise, and so many other wonderful women.

Directions From BlogHer10 to the My Baby Rides the Short Bus Reading

Are you coming to see Jen Myers, Jen Silverman, Sharis Ingram, and me read our My Baby Rides the Short Bus stories this Saturday night at 7 PM at Bluestockings bookstore in Manhattan? Are you coming from the BlogHer conference? Are you worried about how to get from one point to the other?

No worries, it's actually a simple route. I'm cheap and so will not be taking a taxi -- I'm going to opt for the subway instead, and hope you will follow suit using these directions (give yourself 45 minutes):

From the Hilton:

• Walk three blocks north along Avenue of the Americas/6th Ave to 57th Street station, about 5 mins
• Subway - F - Queens Blvd Express/ 6 Av Local (8 stops), about 15 minutes
• Arrive Second Avenue - Lower East Side - 2nd Ave
• Walk east along Houston, turn right on Allen, walk to Bluestockings at 172 Allen (about 5 minutes from subway station)

I recommend mapping the route yourself using the public transportation directions option in Google Maps so you can visualize it properly. Hopefully an actual NYC resident will verify what I wrote above!


Truly hope to see you there.