Things I'm Doing - Traverse Trip: Day 6

Interesting what three days of driving plus three days of BlogHer plus one day of driving can do to a person. I just checked into a perfectly reputable hotel outside Sacramento, California, looking like this:

Make way for the crazy lady, y'all.

 Also, yes my phone case is a monster face. Because I am twelve.




Full disclosure: GM Canada is providing Karen, Nicole, Tracey and I with a Chevrolet Traverse, insurance, gas, and hotels to make the road trip to San Diego and back. I've paid for my BlogHer ticket and hotel during the conference myself. And the crazy just comes for free.

Things I'm Proud Of - Eighteen Years

Eighteen years, friends.

My sobriety is, as of today, old enough to vote. It's old enough to send to college, old enough to be legally married, old enough to serve in the armed forces. It's old enough, believe it or not, to drink in Alberta, Quebec, and Manitoba.

Exactly eighteen years ago today, I woke up, took a long look at a tumbler of scotch by my bedside, and decided not to drink it.

I don't know why I didn't; I don't think I knew in that moment that I never again would.

Eighteen years. Sobriety's been a part of my life for me so long that I struggle to remember what it was like without it.

I remember events, and anecdotes. Flashes of experience, like someone else's old home movie. But I don't really remember being that person who needed to drink to feel normal. I'm not her anymore.

But I was. And that's what makes me an alcoholic.

Quitting drinking was the hardest thing I've ever done. I forget that sometimes, because it was so long ago. The days when it was a conscious decision - sometimes on an hourly basis - to not drink are far behind me. Now it's just part of who I am, like my green eyes or my delight in the absurd.

I only know my own story, and I'll tell it to anyone who wants to listen. But for now, I'll just say this: getting sober's hard. But I promise you it gets easier. I promise you.

I promise you.

I'm Alexis, and I've been sober eighteen years.

Things I'm Doing - Traverse Trip: Day 4

It feels good to be not driving.

Not watching for road signs, not finding rest stops, not filling the gas tank.


Except I'm doing all of those things anyway, metaphorically at least.

The BlogHer experience is overwhelming. I knew this going in; I scheduled some quiet and alone time into the weekend. I didn't seek party invitations or product launches in the weeks leading up to this event. And today I am happy to just be.

I've sat in sessions today and been shown road signs: Why do you blog? What do you want to get out of blogging? What are your goals?

I blog because I can't not write. I want to tell my story, flawed as it may be. I want to know that there are others who have been there: alcoholism, triumph, identity crisis, motherhood. I want to leave a record for my son, so that he might know one day who I am, what I'm afraid of, what I love.

I've found some rest stops.

I hosted the Serenity Suite for an hour. I'll do it again tomorrow. I've had the opportunity to speak one on one, if ever so briefly, with some bloggers I admire greatly.

I've filled the gas tank.

I've sat in sessions and wept at the resonances. I've looked at these women, these smart, funny, accomplished women who accept me as one of their tribe. I've felt like I belonged.


And that is no small thing.


Full disclosure: GM Canada is providing Karen, Nicole, Tracey and I with a Chevrolet Traverse, insurance, gas, and hotels to make the road trip to San Diego and back. I've paid for my BlogHer ticket and hotel during the conference myself.

Things I'm Doing - Traverse Trip: Day 2

I have a confession, friends.

As Curator of Musical Experience, I have totally skipped out on the job.

See, the Traverse that GM Canada has graciously allowed us to gallivant about in has satellite radio. My job: done. No need to play dj when you can tune into All Pearl Jam All The Time whenever you want. Plus, I've been doing a largish chunk of the driving, because the other women on the Traverse Trip team have deemed it prudent to allow me to drive rather than have to hold my hair back while I vomit on their shoes.

Motion sickness: it's a motivator.

(I am totally having greeting cards made with that on them.)

So today I turned on the Wayback Machine and we listened to 80s music all day. ALL DAY. For 1063 km. Which is 661 miles, for my imperially minded friends.

Tracey and I were pretty much on the same page, musically. At one point the seat dancing was so accidentally but perfectly coordinated that we felt the need to high five each other. This is what Madonna's Holiday will do to you, people. Consider yourselves warned.

So despite the fact that she does not share my love of Rick Springfield, and I don't understand her enthusiasm for Tears for Fears, there was much loud singing in the front seat. Nicole and Karen in the back looked up from their mifi-enabled tech addictions periodically to blink at us in puzzled wonder.

In addition to providing endless hours of amusement, the Wayback Machine also led to the inevitable "Who was your favourite member of Duran Duran?" question. Neither of us were Simon girls. (For the record, she: Nick, me: John.)

"What ever happened to Howard Jones, anyway?" we wondered as the miles rolled by. "What's Richard Marx doing now?" and "What ever became of Rick Astley?"

Because I have superspy access to secret information (read: google, I can haz) I will tell you what has become of them. I'm giving like that.

The good news: none of them has died.

The even better news (for them, anyway): all of them are still working and touring.

Howard Jones has a regularly updated website, a twitter account, and will be touring the US in October. He's also released a bunch of his music for the remixing pleasure of the general public.

Richard Marx is still writing songs, touring with a solo acoustic show in the US starting in a couple of weeks, and is tweeting and google +ing like a boss.

Rick Astley has committed the heinous crime of having music auto-play on his website (he's rick rolling us, how meta!) but is still touring. He'll be in Denmark in October, for my Danish readers.

(I'm pretty sure I have no Danish readers.)

(But now I want pastry.)

Tomorrow: the thrills of LA morning rush hour traffic, and on to San Diego and BlogHer '11.

w00t, etc.

Full disclosure: GM Canada is providing Karen, Nicole, Tracey and I with a Chevrolet Traverse, insurance, gas, and hotels to make the road trip to San Diego. I've paid for my BlogHer ticket and hotel during conference myself. And no animals were harmed in the writing of this post, although Karen and Nicole's ears may be bleeding from all the bad singing.

Things I'm Doing - Traverse Trip: Day 1

Five o'clock came way too early this morning.

Four women have rather a lot of luggage, especially when you add in four laptops, four smart phones/ipods, a mifi unit (which I choose to call "mofo" since it's a bit unreliable, connection-wise), cameras, cables, and coolers, oh my. The car, fortunately, has adequate cargo space.

Barely.

After sufficient ingestion of caffeine, we got underway, crossed the border without causing an international incident, and have made our way to our first stopping point, a town with the most romantic and imaginative name of Central Point, Oregon. This is how I summed up our first day on twitter:

But since I have more than 140 characters to play with here on my blog, I'll fill you in on the Rules of the Road, arrived at by general consensus.

1. Requests for pee stops shall be promptly attended to.
2. Requests for Starbucks stops shall be promptly attended to.
3. Requests for chocolate shall be promptly attended to. Fortunately Karen brought home made chocolate chocolate chunk cookies and enough Purdy's to choke a horse, so this one can be accomplished while hurtling down the highway at a hundred kilometres an hour, no stops required.
4. No unflattering photos of Traverse Trip team members shall be posted on these here internets without consent. No bikini shots. (Or in my case, tankini shots - the bikini shots for the over 40 set.)
5. Cheese is to be consumed at every opportunity. As someone who sneaks cheese in the dead of night after The Imp's gone to sleep (he has a dairy allergy) I heartily approve.
6. Potty mouth actively encouraged - nay, expected. Three out of four of us are parents of small children - the freedom to speak like a trucker at will gives us all a heady sense of recklessness.
7. Innuendo: see #6 above.
8. Friends don't let friends tweet tipsy.
9. No Pink Floyd.
10. No, we are not there yet.

So far no one has had to threaten to stop the car. No one has lost any articles of clothing or other personal possessions.

And most importantly, not one chuck was given this day. (Meaning: my motion sickness did not make an appearance.)


If you'd like, you can follow our adventures on twitter, and read posts by my fabulous travelling companions.


Full disclosure: GM Canada is providing Karen, Nicole, Tracey and I with a Chevrolet Traverse, insurance, gas, and hotels to make the road trip to San Diego. I've paid for my BlogHer ticket and hotel during conference myself. And I'm paying for my own cheese.

Things I'm Doing - Packing

I'm packed. Karen is sleeping in the living room as I finish up last minute things before we leave for eight days on our big! adventure! road trip to BlogHer. In more than three years, I've never been away from The Imp for more than 48 hours, and he is not pleased that I am going.

I am very pleased that I am going, for what that's worth.

We have the car, and we have named it George.

We have discussed what to wear.

And we have unlocked the Sparkletoes Achievement.

I'm really not sure what to expect from BlogHer, but I tend to go about my day inclined to have a good time, so I have no doubt that fun will be had. There's no other agenda for me for this trip. If I can meet some like-minded people, learn a little, and hit a party or two, I'll consider it a roaring success.

One thing I am very much looking forward to is hosting the Serenity Suite for a couple of hours during the conference. I saw tweets about it last year, and thought then that if I ever made it to BlogHer myself, I'd volunteer as a host.

So here I am, going to BlogHer, and I'll be hosting at the Serenity Suite on Friday morning between 10:00 and 11:00 am, and Saturday afternoon from 1:00 to 2:00 pm.

Wanna know something cool? The Saturday shift marks, to the hour, the eighteenth anniversary of me waking up one day and deciding not to drink anymore. I can't imagine a place I'd rather spend it.

So if you're at the conference, and you need a quiet moment and a friendly face, please come by and say hello. I give good hugs!

Of course you don't have to hug me. I'm not creepy about it.



Full disclosure: GM Canada is providing Karen, Nicole, Tracey and I with a Chevrolet Traverse, insurance, gas, and hotels to make the road trip to San Diego. I've paid for my BlogHer ticket and hotel during conference myself. And I paid for my own pedicure. Grin. (Just making sure you were still reading!)