When I woke up in San Diego on Thursday morning, the weather was in its usual state of southern Californian obscenely perfect and I decided to get in the old rental car and drive to the beach. By myself.
Alone.
Now, there was a time in my life when this would've been a disastrous decision, and that time might've actually been exactly one day before this trip and probably resumed one day after I got back to Memphis because I have never, ever in my life, had a great sense of direction. (I'm going to blame my lack of official Boy Scout training, despite how I SO wanted to be one. Damn you genitalia!) This would usually be the spot in our story where I would give you some harrowing example of a time when I got completely lost in a foreign country or, alternately, some type of public housing project, as a direct result of my inability to navigate. But there are just so many of them to choose from, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
So let's focus on the positive: I woke up that Thursday morning, got in the rental car and drove to the beach. And what's even more miraculous and amazing? I actually caught myself remembering things. Like, streets and stuff! Landmarks! From when I'd been in San Diego in June! (Apparently this is is the part of our story where I congratulate myself excessively for figuring out how to do something that every other functional adult has been able to do since they could drive a car. WHOOPS.)
I spent some time working that morning and then went for a good stroll down the beach. I headed to the convention center that afternoon to get registered, get my swag bag and take my first lap around the expo hall. Or, as I think it should be more accurately called, Rows and Rows of Free Shit Plus an All You Can Gorge Buffet.
Later that evening was the first of my parties for the weekend: Kiss Our Sass. It was held at the rooftop bar at the Hard Rock Hotel across from the convention center, with a pool and a hot tub! And beds! Only one of which we were allowed to actually get in.
The thing that is frustrating to me about BlogHer is that single ladies are hard to find. And single, childless ladies? We are like the mythical yeti, often discussed but rarely spotted in the wild. Kiss Our Sass was a great way to kick off the weekend because it was for single gal bloggers only, and I did run across a few of my fellow yeti. Yetis? That word seems like it's already plural. Like the plural of Elvis: Elvii.
Anywho. Despite the yeti sightings, the party was still by and large single mom bloggers. And I love them. I do! The first blog I ever loved in general, in my life, was Dooce.com. The mother of all mommy bloggers. The person who made me see "Shit Ass Ho Motherfucker" instead of "Stay at Home Mom" every time someone tells me they're an SAHM. But it does tend to make you feel a little irrelevant after a while. Like maybe you need to pop a kid out to be worth reading.
The party was great though, despite the fact that I didn't win a door prize and couldn't get in the hot tub. All these rules! There was talk of going to see a drag show afterward, but I had to head back to the house and get some rest since I'd signed up to run the 5K kicking off at 6:30 the next morning.
No one was home when I got back, so I scrounged up a blanket (and when I say scrounged I mean tried to sleep for an hour or so without one because I could not find one anywhere, woke up freezing and in the fetal position and went on a 10-minute scavenege and FINALLY found one hidden between a couch and an arm chair) and went to sleep. And then, round about 2 o'clock in the morning, I was awakened. By what can only be described as screaming. Drunken screaming.
Oh, boys.
The drunken screaming was followed by me squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as I could in hopes that, much like imaginary monsters, if I couldn't see them they couldn't see me. They turned on every light in the house, yelled a little more and finally realized I was sleeping in plain view. I hear some whispering. And then, the following:
"Hey, blondie! Hey blondie, what are you wearing?" (Play dead. Go to your zen place. LAY LIKE BROCCOLI.)
Finally I guess I pretended to have superhuman sleeping skills for long enough that they gave up, but not before one of them (the roomie of ball-busting fame from my last San Diego trip, if you'll recall) came and shook me "awake." I rustled a little bit and muttered something and then there was more drunken yelling about how it was his couch and he didn't even know me. Something like that, mostly it faded into the distance as he walked toward his room and passed out, immediately.
Leaving all the lights on.
I was very thankful for my free accommodations, but I guess you do get what you pay for. And on that note, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the time I was minding my own business, blow drying my hair in the bathroom, probably on this first morning in S.D. And like I had done so many times before in my life, I flipped my hair over. And while my head was hanging upside down, just about at eye level with the commode, I made the mistake of looking to my left. And I came face to face with the inside back rim of that toilet.
Burned. Inside. My retinas. WHY GOD?
cheers,
elizabeth
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