How To REALLY Pack For a Blog Conference

 

I’m heading to BlogU this weekend, and have read scads of articles on how to pack for a blog conference.

I have my own ideas of what to bring. Here’s how to REALLY pack for a blog conference, à la Samara.

1. DRUGS & BOOZE

If I’m going to mingle with other humans you best believe I need to have a righteous buzz. If you see me face down sizzling in my own drool, it just means I got a package from one of my friends in Portland. Feel free to wake me by hurling Skittles at me and yelling “TASTE THE RAINBOW!!”

If you’re flying, you can always hide drugs in your vagina. If you’re not flying, you can STILL hide drugs in your vagina. Everything is better after it’s marinated in vagina.

Crushed up and snorted Adderall is fabulous when paired with a nice Merlot. Crystal meth is optional but always a crowd pleaser.

The conference is at the University of Maryland, and we’re all housed in the dormitories there. There’s no alcohol allowed in the dorm, and, YOU KNOW, NO ONE EVER BREAKS COLLEGE ALCOHOL RULES. Forget wine, I’m gonna need lots of tequila to answer questions I have no answer for, such as “What is your blog about?”

2. EVERYTHING IN MY CLOSET

One article suggested I make index cards for each day, with my itinerary written and an outfit planned.

hahahahahahaha

By what sorcery would I know  on Thursday what I want to wear on Saturday? I’ll need at least 3 sizes of jeans, depending on my level of bloat.

Maybe I’ll break out that pair of high-waisted denim shorts with suspenders I bought because they were on sale at Forever 21. They make me look like the love child of Boy George and Urkel but they were only $4. 

You can never pack too many clothes. What if I meet a millionaire who wants to whisk me away on his boat for a three-hour tour, ♫ a three-hour tour ♫, and we run into a tropical storm and are shipwrecked on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and I need ALL THE THINGS?

3. FORTY-ELEVEN PAIRS OF SHOES

I’ll be doing lots of walking, so I need flats. That could mean combat boots or gladiator sandals, depending on how prehistoric my toenail look. I need stiletto heels for obvious reasons. If it rains, I’m going to need my cute rubber rain boots. Workout sneakers, in case I decide to work out. I know, I know, I don’t even work out at home don’t LOOK AT ME!

Flip-flops are essential. I do NOT want to catch foot herpes from a communal bathroom.

4. MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS

The uterus ninjas are here. Light, medium, heavy, ultra heavy “I should just stuff a fluffy rodent up there”? It’s a crap shoot these days. I’m packing the Super Deluxe Variety Pack of tampons.

5. HAIR STUFF

Blow dryer, duh. But also, in case I get ambitious, flat iron, curling iron, maybe a roller set I got on clearance at Walmart and never used? Root volume, hair spray, gel, smoothing spray, detangler, oh I was supposed to get travel sizes of all these things? Who has time for that? I’m writing THIS when I should be packing.

6. HANDCUFFS

In case I have to make a citizen’s arrest.

 

7. MANY EYE MAKEUP PALETTES

I like a daytime natural eye look, but I also do a smoky eye, a cat eye (if I have an extra 30 minutes to do winged eye liner), and a statement eye (the statement being “help me, I look like Steve Buscemi.”)

8. FIREARMS, AMMUNITION AND ACCESSORIES

I’m fairly certain guns are legal int the South. YES, Maryland is the south. It’s below the Mason Dixon line, isn’t it? Listen, I’ve heard you can eat crabs and drink beer in a restaurant there without wearing a shirt or shoes. That sounds like the South to me.

Also, I need specific clothes for concealed carry. Thank goodness for this Concealed Carry Fashion Expo. A girl needs options, ya know?

9. DUCT TAPE

Why wouldn’t you want it for a blog conference? Shoe breaks, luggage tears, purse gets a hole in it? Fix it with duct tape! Flat tire? Duct tape. Skin exfoliation? Duct tape. Alien space ship crashes and needs minor repairs so they can return to the Planet Crouton? Duct tape.

Add clothespins and baby powder to the duct tape and you have a portable S&M kit. The baby powder is to help put on latex – but you knew that.

10. EMERGENCY PONCHO, FIRE EXTINGUISHER, FLASHLIGHTS, DOOR HINGES, JUMPER CABLES, GLUE GUN

Because shit happens.

 

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to BlogU!! I can’t wait to spend time with my online friends!

The most talked about event at the conference is the closing night costume party. This year’s theme is “Tacky Wedding.” Costumes are not my thing, but my girl Ashley Fuchs convinced me to dress up as “Hungover Stripper From Last Night’s Bachelor Party” since I could just pull things from my own closet. Score!

Maybe, there’ll even be pictures…

 

What do you pack when you go away for the weekend? Are you an overpacker, like me?
Where should I go for good crab in Maryland?
Talk to me. I’m listening. 

Join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, so I can have friends without leaving the house. 

Broken When He Found Me

 

I want to write about sex.

I want to write about the glorious way it feeds my creativity, and how deep pleasure is balm to my soul. I want to capture the absurd dichotomy of my existence as both single mom and sexual being, in long wet delicious sentences.

But then I would be a sex blogger. And I’m not brave enough for that.

 

I want to write about the tug of war going on in my brain, my anxiety and depression and PTSD and Imposter Syndrome.

But then I would be a mental illness blogger. I don’t want to be mentally ill, let alone write about it.

I’m inflamed with unexpressed ideas. It feels like sickness. Tender, feverish, swollen.

I want to bite off more than I can chew and chew longer.

I want to navigate the jagged edges of all my experiences, dance among the wreckage, celebrate the joy and the hideousness of every mistake I’ve ever made.

I want to write about the grief and anger that are spinning out of control, that feel like ground glass shredding me from the inside.

Instead, I am a phony.

 

 

 

Long ago I learned abuse and neglect as love. I am addicted to feeling never good enough, and the sweet momentary high when I’m mining for love and hit right into a silvery vein of approval.

Because in our first exchanges, you either criticized or ignored my writing, you felt like home. But this time, I WOULD be good enough. If only. If only.

If only.

 

I was new to the online world. And didn’t know that unwanted attention is part of the experience for many women.

You said it was because I had a sex blog. And that no one would take me seriously.

 

I turned to Brenda at Burns the Fire. Two years later, I have not forgotten how she saved me.

She told me, LOVE. Just, LOVE.

Yes, you are provocative, she said, and what’s wrong with that? Just LOVE.

 

I’m disconnected from what ever it is that people feel when they read me. When I sit at the keyboard all I feel is fear. The blood pounds in my ear so loudly all I hear is a verbal dance of madness.

 

I want to write stories of horrific post partum depression, the kind that makes you want to drown your own child. And how I crossed over to a love so deep, I’m the one drowning now.

But how tiring it is, that I need to share everything, down to the last blood cell.

I’m not funny on Facebook.

My rock tees are silly.

Bad things happen to me because I seek pain.

My beloved project was only popular because misery loves company. I left it over a year ago and once an arrow shot into the heart, it bled out.

 

I’m not a writer. I’m simply part of a cult that writes little 1000 word essays for other WordPress bloggers.

Yes, that is what I am. I have no evidence to the contrary.

Is that a bad thing?

*dances in a cult-like fashion around a WordPress statue*

 

I only use profanity because I’m a lazy writer. Yes, it’s an easy way to get a cheap laugh. Suck my dick.

 

I want to breathe fire into these keys and tear apart every fucking idea about what a blog should be

I want everyone to know that I’m crazy, and find it thrilling because it means I’m doing great things.

I want to Write Free!

Freedom feels like a walk along the ocean’s shore, accompanied by the cry of sea gulls and the briny smell and the wind blowing cooler than inland.

Freedom feels like a month in a loony bin inpatient treatment center getting electroshock therapy to burn this out of my brain, for once and for fucking final.

 

The wrong person at the wrong time can build a nest right inside your insecurities and confirm for you that you are, in fact, nothing.

 

I have learned the hard, soul crushing way that writing your deepest tragedies leaves you open to pain almost as fierce as the tragedies themselves.

When someone you cherish asks for the fourth time why you moved out of NYC. Or asks you how your beloved brother died, when you spelled these things out in technicolor horror on posts they, in fact, commented on.

I learned the painful way that some of the people I love most don’t read what I write, and that sometimes, people leave comments to keep up appearances.

Which is like, inviting you to my brother’s funeral, and you showing up in a clown suit.

 

My posts are too long. I violated the formulaic 700 word rule. What’s the point in tapping out this sentence when everyone stopped reading by the time I wrote “sentence”?

 

This will be another story that I won’t publish, part of the daily bloodletting.

I write daily but publish infrequently.

I fear being ridiculed again, hearing you sneer that not everyone writes about shoplifting and heroin, you know.

Yes.

I know.

Here. Here’s a recipe.

Vanilla Chai Frozen Smoothie

• 1 scoop vanilla chai protein powder
• I frozen banana
• ½ cup almond milk

Put everything in your smoothie maker thing. Turn that shit on. Eat it.

 

There.

 

I often sob while I write. Out of sheer relief that comes with sharing my truth as transparently and vulnerable as humanly possible

Self sabotage is my comfort zone. I squander my life on drugs and terrible choices and people whose need to make me feel small meshes perfectly with my need to disappear.

 

I have been force-fed so many different versions of myself, there is nothing left but everyone’s idea of me.

 

He did not break me. I was broken when he found me.

He was just drawn to the glittering shards and could not help but grind them down into dust.

 

Please refrain from disparaging comments. Be encouraging. 
I need positivity. Talk to me. I’m listening. 

 

Join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter . Or don’t. You do you. 

MONETIZING HATRED: How One Mommy Blogger Earned Her Fifteen Minutes of Fame

 

It’s a simple formula. Write something offensive and inflammatory, sit back, and watch the flames blaze out of control.

Publishing intentionally sensationalist pieces designed to generate enraged clicks is going to garner more attention than meaningful writing. So when Josi Denise (link intentionally not provided) decided her Mommy Blogging days were over, she fantasized that she would take down all Mommy blogs with her as she stormed off the Internet.

To accomplish this, she launched a vitriolic attack on Mommy bloggers, and drew massive undeserved attention. She claimed that her blog is disingenuous, artificially cheery, and just “sucks.”  As part of a moral and creative epiphany, she wanted to write more substantial material. Frustrated with being taken advantage of by big brands and PR firms, she declared war against writing sponsored content.

Packaging your disgruntlement as a rancorous tirade towards everyone else, whose work and motivations you have no clue of, is more than just misdirected hatred. It’s socially and culturally irresponsible.

It’s women to women misogyny. And in the online world, where people act without consequence, it is especially brutal.

 

Some view “Mommy Blogger” as a pejorative term. Blogging in and of itself is a target in the professional writing world. Blogs are a self-regulated publishing platform, and as such, can be filled with questionable content and rife with cringe-inducing spelling and grammatical errors.

Mom-centric bloggers, who typically write about their homes and family, are often stereotyped as stay-at-home moms, with little or no writing skills, hoping to “make some extra money” blogging. This is a damaging cliché.

“Mommy Bloggers” write bestselling books. They have elite bylines, including The Washington Post and the New York Times. They publish gorgeously crafted essays designed to reach across the cyber channels to support other women in the often desperately lonely journey of raising a family.

Thankfully, the lines are being blurred here, in both directions. I may not write about diapers or breast-feeding, but my son is my highest priority. He is the subject of the majority of my blog posts, despite the reputation I have for salacious content.

Am I a Mommy Blogger?

And if I am, what of it?

Even if the stereotypical Mommy Blogger does exist, why do we need to judge her? How does telling all Mommy Bloggers that they “suck” help one woman on her journey to a different creative outlet? It doesn’t.

I have no experience in the world of writing sponsored content. Perhaps it is deplorable and inauthentic. Perhaps bloggers are being exploited by big brands and PR companies. It was especially important, then, that this blogger actually communicate her message, without alienating the very audience she was hoping to enlighten.

If there is a seamy underbelly to the Mommy Blogging world, Josi Denise could have called out the exploiters without being destructive and regressive in her writing. But she knew that it would drive anger-based traffic, and that was more important to her than contributing to the quality and diversity of women’s voices online.

She chose to feed the misogynist media climate and advance herself on the backs of women writers everywhere. 

The compulsion for women to tear one another down is deeply imbedded in the female consciousness. Intentionally and unintentionally, we collude with sexism – sometimes for personal gain, often, in response to feeling oppressed by a sexist society. However, the impulse to attack other women in response to feeling oppressed is a symptom of that same oppression.

We lash out at each other, instead of at the real issue.

Josi Denise is protected by her First Amendment rights. Like everyone else, she is allowed to publish what she pleases. That does not mean that these tirades are innocuous. We have a responsibility to acknowledge what hundreds of studies have shown – that media content directly impacts people; how they feel about themselves, and in turn, how they treat each other. Even if the writer does not have bad intentions, misogynist tropes in media are profoundly damaging to all women.

 

We are battling a world in which women are bombarded with false notions of physical perfection and hypersexuality. We are ravaged by sexual assault and domestic abuse. Even in 2016, women experience gender pay gap. Women writers are struggling to be heard in a male-dominated industry.

If we are going to move the needle on how we are treated, if we are going to create change of any kind, we have to join together. Can you imagine how much women could accomplish if weren’t preoccupied with publicly and privately maligning one another? If we stopped attempting to annihilate other women online, and in real life? If we focused our energies on building one another up and joining forces.?

Part of me is worried that by writing this, I am feeding the machine. I purposely refrained from saying disparaging things about this woman and her blog. That rhetoric would be dangerous and counterproductive. I would be contributing to the very agency I am battling. Because she, too, is a victim of our culture, which preaches and practices hatred against women.

She’s already received coverage on bigger sites. She finally got the widespread acclaim she sought, which eluded her in all her years of mommy blogging. But her big break came at a price – a price all women are paying.

 

Going forward, how can we –  men, women, writers or readers –  change this conversation from the inside without harming this, or future, generations of women?

Talk to me.
I’m really, REALLY, REALLY listening. 

 

Join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter  so I can have friends without leaving the house.

 

50 Happy Things: Bloggers Unite in Flood of Gratitude

My friend Dawn, who writes the blog Tales from the Motherland, invited me to a big blog party where we all flood the Interwebs with happiness and gratitude.

I met Dawn when I went to BlogHer. It was a magical meeting – we recognized one another in the lobby of the Hilton and screamed like hyenas. So, in honor of that cacaphonous connection, I’m writing this post.

The catch: We are supposed to come up with 50 things in 10 minutes.

People who read my blog know that even writing a post in one hour was hugely challenging. But I got amped up on caffeine and decided to Just Do It.

Here are 50 things that made me happy in 2015:

 

1. My kid, Little Dude. He’s a great big funny soul with a lion heart.

2. Music. I’m married to writing but I cheat with music.

3. My Brooklyn baseball hat.

 

4. A great shade of red lipstick that doesn’t make me look like a deranged old lady.

5. This laptop. My partner in crime.

6. Writing. If I didn’t write my soul would implode.

7. BOOKS.

8. Books.

9. Did I say books?

10. Colors. Especially purple, but all of them. They make life interesting.

11. Patti Smith. She was a skinny, picked-on outcast who reinvented herself as something else. That sounds familiar…

12. My Guardian Angel. Bless.

 

 

13. Eminem

14. M&M’s.

15. The incredible birthday mixtape blog hop that Lizzi created for my birthday this year.

16. Good hair days.

18. The fact that I can be rebellious and defiant and skip a number if I want to. Freedom. Fuck you, #17.

19. Laughing. I do it frequently. It fights aging.

20. Orgasms. Ditto.

21. Flirting. Especially at a red light. Long enough to be fun, short enough to make a clean getaway with no complications.

22. Math. This year and every year. Give me a complex math problem and my brain lights up like a pinball machine.

23. My rock tee collection.

 

 

24. Weight gain. Which is also something I loathe, but with it came breasts. I’m a REALLY late bloomer.

25. Blanket forts. My kid is King of the Blanket Forts.

 

 

26. Lenny Kravitz. Still. Always

27. New York City. I had way too much fun there this year.

28. That my kid fell in love with art this year. A pivotal experience.

 

 

29. Libraries. Nerd Central. Liking Star Wars doesn’t make you a nerd. Hanging out at the library does.

30. WordPress. They make me feel like a rock star. They recently included me in a New Year’s Blog resolution round up. 

31. Spotify. Whatever music I want, where I want it.

32. My new car – a Nissan Rogue. I know nothing about cars, and I totally I bought it because I like the name “Rogue.”

33. My guitar.

 

34. The high school kids who recently let me join their band.

35. Roku. I may never leave the house again.

36. The fact that nerd culture is now cool. It wasn’t always.

37. Superhero pajamas.

 

38. A black slouchy beanie that my kid says makes me look like one of the Seven Dwarves but is incredibly warm.

39. Kurt Cobain. Specifically, a documentary about him called “Montage of Heck.“

40. The kind of movie that you get a movie hangover from. See number 39.

41. I’m grateful for teenagers, and for being emotionally stunted enough to still feel like one.

42. The fact that my kid has not found me on the Internet. When he does, I’m fucked. For now, I can say whatever the hell I want on my blog and Facebook page, and I do.

43. French fries. One of the true great vehicles for ketchup.

44. Green drinks. They taste like swamp in a cup but I feel pretty great after I drink them.

45. Jason Bateman. He’s handsome, hilarious, and twisted.

46. The Sisterwives meetup in Dallas.

47. The fact that people READ WHAT I WRITE. And comment. Thank you.

48. Travel. That I live in a world where I can do it freely. This year I went to Nashville, Dallas, and am about to leave for Portland, Oregon for the holidays.

49. My mistakes. Holy shit, I made some HUGE ones this year. But the upside is, I won’t be making those again. And they give me something to write about. People love a good debacle not of their own making.

50. This song. Chills.

 

What things were you happy about in 2015? 
Talk to me. I’m listening. 

 

Join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter  so I can have friends without leaving the house. 

 

 

If you’d like to join in, here’s how it works: set a timer for 10 minutes; timing this is critical. Once you start the timer, start your list (the timer doesn’t matter for filling in the instructions, intro, etc). The goal is to write 50 things that made you happy in 2015, or 50 thing that you feel grateful for. The idea is to not think too hard; write what comes to mind in the time allotted. When the timer’s done, stop writing. If you haven’t written 50 things, that’s ok. If you have more than 50 things and still have time, keep writing; you can’t feel too happy or too grateful!

When I finished my list, I took a few extra minutes to add links and photos.

To join us for this project: 1) Write your post and publish it (please copy and paste the instructions from this post, into yours). Click on the link below to join the party. 

Share your happy thoughts, your gratitude; help us flood the blogosphere with both!

 

Linkey thing here: http://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=592585

I’M ON THE NEWS!!

 

WordPress News, that is.

 

The editors at WordPress asked 7 bloggers what their blogging goals were for 2016. I paid off an editor

curled up in the fetal position and cried outside their office

gave them my kid to do yard work

was legitimately asked to be a part of this!!

I’d love it if you come and check it out. Because guess what? I mention all of YOU.

 

Here’s the link: What Are Your Blogging Goals for 2016? 

I’m super excited I was asked to be a part of this, and totally grateful to WordPress for the opportunity. They ROCK!

I’m going to close comments here, so you’ll comment over there, if you are so inclined.

 

I love you guys. Thanks for reading.