Things That Are True - On Not Chickening Out and Holiday Concerts

My friend Neil over at Citizen of the Month has been doing a blogger holiday concert for years - and last year I really wanted to participate and I totally chickened out. This year I'm doing it - fumble-fingered guitar playing, flat vocal bits and all. The song is "The Christians and the Pagans" by Dar Williams.

Please to enjoy!

Things That Are True - List the Fifth. And BlogHer.

I keep sending iphone photos like this via text message to HWSNBN (who is stuck at home, working) with witty captions like, "Hey, the Chrysler Building! No big deal."

Despite my assertions that I am really only here on his behalf to do some advance scouting for his two-years-away milestone birthday trip to New York, he remains unimpressed. He simply doesn't recognize what a giver I am, taking time out of my busy work and child-rearing schedule to research the best restaurants in New York. For him. It's all for him.

Oh, that little conference I'm going to? The one where I meet new friends and share long hugs and earnest conversations with some of the people I admire most in the world? Pure coincidence. Honest.*

In keeping with my rule of packing light, I brought only a carry-on bag and a laptop/large purse-ish bag, which left not a lot of room for excess stuff. There are a ton of posts out there about what to bring to BlogHer. Here's my list of things I didn't have room for:

1) Cynicism. Despite all my travels and city living, there is always hidden inside a young girl from Watson Lake, Yukon, pop. 1000 on a good day, who is startled and amazed at this incredible life I get to live. Jetting across the continent to spend time with all these gobsmackingly awesome people? And hearing Katie Couric, and Martha Stewart, and (for real, yes, not in person but by live video, uh, wow) Obama speak? Yeah. No room for cynicism in this suitcase.

2) Insecurity about how I measure up. This is a thing that has held me back my whole life. I refuse to carry it around with me anymore.

3) Worries about what to wear. I have clothes. They fit my body. Some of them are even cute. The end.

4) Guilt for leaving my husband and child for a week. There were brief moments of feeling bad, especially when The Imp had a total meltdown as I left, but remarkably it dissipated rather quickly as I enjoyed my surprise-free-upgrade-to-business-class pre-takeoff beverage. Funny how that is.

5) Obligations. So much of my day to day is filled with things I have to do. I have plans, and schedules, and lists, and all the necessities of parenting. This trip is entirely unencumbered. I've carefully not bought tickets to a Broadway show, not made dinner reservations every evening, not made plans at all. Spontaneity is a luxury I am going to enjoy.

6) A desire to shop. New York, I'm doing it wrong. Maybe. I just have a lot of stuff already, you know? Although stopping in at Strand today made me seriously consider just fedexing a box of things home.

7) Time for negativity. I try and make my way through my day inclined to be pleased with things, and I find that for the most part, things live up to my expectations. New York does not disappoint, which is hardly surprising.

Statue, Rockefeller Center

8) My DSLR. A radical act, for me, to travel without my big camera. Last year I brought it with me, lugged it everywhere, and barely used it. This year, I brought my iphone as my camera. So far so good.

9) Fear of not belonging. Of all the places I don't belong, I don't belong here the least.

10) My guitar, which makes me sad. But a week in New York can make up for a lot.



*Fingers crossed means it's ok to lie, right?

Things That Are Awesome - Whimsy

Forgive me if you've seen this one, but sometimes you need something a little bit ridiculous to end the week. In a fit of whimsy, I embed for your viewing pleasure, a trifecta of geeky awesome: Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage of Mythbusters, and Gollum. Plus a disco classic.



Giggle.

Things That Are True - My Kid's a Genius

The other day The Imp was paging through a magazine that was sitting on our coffee table. He paused at a shampoo ad and looked up at HWSNBN.

The Imp: Is this a commercial?
HWSNBN, glancing up from his reading: Yes, it is. It's a commercial for shampoo.
The Imp: There's a girl in the commercial. Do only girls use this shampoo?
HWSNBN, taking more interest now: Well, I think that mostly women would use that shampoo, yes.
The Imp, not satisfied: But how many? How many girls use the shampoo?
HWSNBN: I don't know. I'd guess that this kind of shampoo would be used by women 95% of the time.
The Imp stops; thinks. Then: So only 5% of the time boys would use it?

HWSNBN and I gawk at each other across the room. Um, what?

The Imp is three years old. I fear he may be smarter than both of us.

(Help!)

But also: how awesome is it that my genius three year old can differentiate between editorial and advertising? Do we win at parenting or what?!

Things That Are True - Rules to Live By

Rule to Live By #1:

When life gives you a beautiful fall day and time to spend with your favourite people, don't be a fool. Take it and run with it.

Rule to Live By #2:

Pastry dough is no trifling matter.

Rule to Live By #3:

Dance every chance you get.

Things That Are Random - Thursday Night Edition

While I have not been here, I have been doing other things:

I wrote about why cycling rocks.

I wrote about sandwiches to salivate over.

I wrote about my five favourite things on Denman St.

That's right, I'm the new downtown contributor for Vancouver Mom!

I also waged battle against another Cold of Doom. I used to get the sniffles, feel yucky for a couple of days, and get over it. Now a cold lasts weeks, I'm unable to function for many days, and traces of it linger on long after the worst has passed. What's up with that? (I am not getting older. I am not getting older.)

Oh yeah, and I turned 41. (I am not getting older.)

BlogHer '11 was seventeen kinds of awesome, and then some. Every time I sit down to do a recap post, my head explodes.

Traverse Trip was seventeen different kinds of awesome. I'll do a recap post of that, too, when my head's done exploding from the other one.

Honestly, there's so much awesome in my life at the moment that I need a thesaurus to describe it.

You know what else is awesome? Sidewalk chalk, and a boy who won't stop moving, that's what.

Things That Are Awesome - I'm Going to BlogHer!

Last January, in an impulsive fit of whimsy, I bought myself a ticket to BlogHer '11. I didn't actually think I'd be able to go, but better to have a ticket and have to sell it, I reasoned, than find a way to go, and not be able to lay hands on a pass.

I had no money, no way of getting to San Diego, nowhere to stay. No clue, really. I just bought a ticket. I don't think I actually believed I would be able to go.

For two years, I'd read blog posts about BlogHer, seen my friends attend, and been regaled with tales and photos of legendary parties. I followed the fun in my twitter stream: Chicago in 2009, New York last year. Seething with envy, I added it to the "maybe someday" list.

Three days after I bought the ticket I knew I wouldn't be able to use, my friend Karen asked me if I wanted to do a road trip with her to San Diego for BlogHer '11. Just like that.

Uh, yeah. Yes. YES! Absolutely! Yes, please?

She'd been having conversations with GM Canada about getting a loaner car to do a blogger road trip, and they said, "Yeah, sure!"

Seventeen kinds of awesome right there.

So that made two of us.

Soon after, Nicole climbed aboard the fun machine. Itineraries were vaguely discussed, but it was still so many months away, I don't think I actually believed it was going to happen.

And then Tracey joined our band of merry pranksters, GM told us what kind of car we'd be driving, and Traverse Trip was born.

And now, it's a week away. A week from now we'll be on the road to San Diego. Hotels are booked, forms filled out, passports renewed. We leave next Tuesday!

Four bloggers, a car, a boatload of tech, and 2247 kilometres. Give or take.

To say that I am looking forward to this is to be very restrained in expressing my over the moon giddy happy-dancing excitement.

We checked out a Traverse one sunny day a couple of weeks ago. The verdict: cup holders, check. Power outlets: check. Good times? You know it!

And I could not ask for better traveling companions. In my head, it goes like this:

Karen at Chasing Tomatoes is our Director of Noms. She will save us from the indigestion and hardened arteries of freeway fast food, making delicious cooler-friendly meals to bring along, and she's already scoped out all the Starbucks and Trader Joe's locations between here and our final destination. Also, there are rumours she will be bringing cookies, and people, you have not lived until you've eaten her cookies. I even like the ones she makes with oatmeal, and I hate oatmeal.

Tracey from Fashion Forward 40 and TJR Ramblings is our Mistress of Fabulous Fashion Finds. She's plotted out our stops for outlet malls, vintage shops, and specialty boutiques along the way. I know I can trust her to tell me what looks good and what doesn't and to say, bluntly if necessary, "Honey, no. On you that is not a deal, even if it's discounted 90%." And although we're all working to live greener lives, Tracey's gone and done the math about driving vs flying emissions and how to minimize the garbage we create on our trip.

Nicole is our All Things Tech Goddess, bringing adapters and cables and external hard drives, oh my. Pretty sure if I locked her in a hotel room for a couple of hours, she could show me how to code my own website. And, she's giving away some very cool tech right now over at Resolving Timeline Issues. Go leave a comment by July 31st to enter to win.

And then there's me. I'm, um. I'm bringing the cooler. And, uh, an inflatable mattress. And the motion sickness. No trip is complete until someone's ready to hurl. I've also appointed myself Curator of Musical Experience. I'm putting together playlists and burning a couple of CDs (old school!) in case we're stuck somewhere without satellite access and we're sucked into a vortex of doom where all of our iPods stop working all at once.

There will, friends and neighbours, be seat-dancing. Eighties music for the win!

I also plan on doing a largish chunk of the driving. An old boyfriend of mine used to call me the Road Warrior based on how long I could drive without needing to stop. What he didn't know was that I insisted on keeping my hands on the wheel because I'm a control freak I get carsick as a passenger. So yeah. Road Warrior/Curator of Music. Either of those sound better than Princess Pukes-A-Lot.

I have so much to do before we leave.


Full disclosure: General Motors Canada is providing us with the use of a Chevrolet Traverse, gas, insurance and accommodations for our road trip to BlogHer and back. I've paid for my own ticket to the conference, and will be responsible for my own accommodations while in San Diego.