Soylent Blissdom: It's People! Peeeeeople!

Yes, it's been a couple of weeks since Blissdom. Yes, I've taken my sweet time assembling this post. Yes, I'm a little conflicted about what to write.

I love the enthusiastic, fired-wired-inspired posts from people who have discovered their Inner Writer, or Inner Entrepreneur, or Inner Brand Spokesperson. I love hearing about people who had their creative potential unlocked by a panel or a microsession. I love Lesley, who is now practically the Blissdom Poster Child, or should be, and I love seeing what Blissdom started for her.

Lesley, rocking the Jack Skellington look

But I'm not young, or fired-up, or especially unlocked. I've looked into my Neighbourhood of Inners, and let me tell you, it's full of assholes. And I'd like to say that Blissdom stuffed a gag in the gob of my Inner Name-Caller, or obliterated my Inner Confidence-Sucker, or shouted down my Inner You-Can't-Do-Anything Reaffirmer. But I'd be lying.

I still haven't figured out how to move my blog to Wordpress. I still haven't found a way to make money writing that doesn't make me feel like I'm losing or corrupting or selling out my voice - the voice I finally felt like I'd found with blogging. I've seen other people do it, and I'm happy for them, but I'm not there yet; I might not ever be there.

And that's okay. Blissdom is a sprawling, wide-ranging animal, and not everyone will get the same thing from it.

What I get from Blissdom, is free, unfettered, week-end-long access to some wholly kick-ass people.

Like Nicole, who texts me telling me I'm wonderful and sends me chocolate-covered fruit when I'm sad and introduced me to Erica Ehm as if I was the famous person. She is the most delightful combination of sweet and salty (rarely has an unkind word for everyone, worked tirelessly for the Yummy Mummy Club and still had time for me and Hannah, and every once in a while comes out with a well-timed "Tell him to eat your dick!" just to keep things interesting) and I love her. 

And Hannah, who has the same stupid no-one-is-going-to-be-happy-to-see-me anxiety I do and is smart and witty and funny and lovely and pretends it's not weird that I can't let people eat on my bed and when she got there we were so excited that she screamed and I think I hit her in the face with my phone trying to hug her and when they played My Humps at the P.J. Party she yelled"Oh, fuck off - if I don't wear a two hundred and fifty dollar bra, my humps are ON THE FLOOR!" And I love her. 

If there had been nothing good about Blissdom except Hannah and Nicole, it still would have been well worth the trip and the admission price. But I also got to see Courtney, a fellow book-blogger I met at Blissdom last year and became blog friends with - she ran a microsession on blogging for mobile technology. She also wore a poodle skirt to the Throwback Thursday party, which, hello, insanely cool.

She was afraid no one would show up for her session, so Hannah and I said "We will! We will show up! Even if we are slightly hung over from a fabulously strange lentil carnival." Okay, we didn't really say that, but we were, and we did, and the session was was full of stuff that I didn't know and really should know, and Courtney is a great teacher, and we had fun.

And Schmutzie. Schmutzie is wise and kind and a national treasure and I love to read her writing but it's nice to hear her voice now and then, and plead for my yearly pity hug, which she claims is not a pity hug, so I should probably stop calling them pity hugs, because honesty is kind of Schmutzie's thing. 

Then there was my extra-special sparkly prize at the bottom of the Blissdom box this year.....

Kate! My Kate! She's a well-established blogger and Ambassador of Chill and she spoke at the Power Hour, so she's kind of a big deal, but I still persist in thinking of her as My Kate, and she's generally pretty gracious about it. . She came up to me and Alex and Jolene when we were having dinner (after I had already crashed Alex and Jolene's dinner) and said mind if I join you, and who could mind being joined by the quintessence of grace and charm with an effervescent sprinkling of goofiness? 

This was Kate's first Blissdom, so she didn't know about the dance-til-you-sweat-your-ass-off part of the Pajama Party. "I thought we'd be laying around on pillows" she said plaintively. It's okay, My Kate. Lots of people wear flannel their first year.

I spend so much time in the world feeling like a round peg in a square hole. There's something magical about walking around in a crowd of people who get that a computer screen can actually be a portal to a deep, wide, comforting and supportive and uplifting community (I just made the blogosphere sound like a really expensive bra, and I'm okay with that - presumably Hannah is too). 

So no, I probably won't turn up next year all fired up about SEO optimization (I like to stick quirky, cryptic titles on my blog post and rely on fate to lead people to them), or pitching brands for sponsored posts, or if I'll start writing in shorter paragraphs with the important information near the beginning. Some people would say I'm doing it all wrong. And maybe I am, but at least I'm doing it. Before I started blogging, I was hardly writing at all. I couldn't find a voice, I couldn't see a path. In a million years I wouldn't have shown up at a conference for people who write and called myself one of those people. 

Do I call myself one of those people now?

You bet your ass I do. (Yes, I wish this was my ass. It's Nicole's. It's kind of a tradition for Nicole's fabulous ass to show up in my Blissdom post). 

After the pajama party on the last night, when Hannah and Nicole had gone to bed, Courtney knocked on my hotel room door and invited me down the hall to hang out with some friends. I wandered in and, within a few minutes, realized I was in a room with two people I knew and four I didn't, and that I had gotten ready for bed before leaving my room, so instead of party pajamas I was now wearing non-party pajamas, and a smear of zit cream on my chin, and no underwear. 

Yeah, I might have been a little TOO comfortable at that point. I will endeavour to restore some standards for next year. 

Thank-you, Blissdom people. If I never make a cent from blogging, I feel like meeting all of you is an embarrassment of riches.