We’ve made it back home.  Exhausted and so completely overwhelmed, but home nonetheless.  How do you describe to those who didn’t go what BlogHer was like?  I don’t think you can.  But what I can do is give some of my impressions, now that I’ve had some time to digest everything.

• No matter what, some people just aren’t going to “measure up” in person.  And you start to realize that maybe you built a lot of impressions up in your mind that just aren’t so.  And while these people are still fabulous in their own way, they ARE just average people.  And average people are as insecure as you are.  So it’s silly to be putting them on a pedestal or something.
• Bloggers, as a whole, are a self-absorbed bunch.  This is not meant to be insulting or anything.  It’s just a fact.  I mean, we have to be self-absorbed to prattle on nearly every day about the minutae of our lives.  Whether or not we expect anyone to actually read it.  So therefore, it’s pretty interesting when you get a bunch of self-absorbed, socially awkward people together in one place.  No, make that VERY interesting.
• I’m completely retarded for being so inept that I didn’t try to assert myself more, meet more people.  At least TRY to say “Hi” to someone who I considered to be an “a list” blogger.  I spoke briefly to Amalah on several different occasions, but I didn’t REALLY talk to her.  And I never got a picture taken with her.  In fact, I didn’t get a “one on one” picture with anyone and that’s just stupid.  I’m pretty mad at myself about that.  I mean, what a great opportunity and I was so introverted that I couldn’t even take advantage of it.  Bah.
• I very nearly chickened out on introducing myself to Zoot.  I got to the conference pretty early on Friday morning, got some refreshment and sat at a table.  Where I proceeded to freak the heck out.  I didn’t recognize anyone and I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb.  I was starting to contemplate my escape when I spotted Zoot.  And I sat there for another ten minutes trying to work up the nerve to go over and say hi.  I swear to God, I was arguing with myself (internally, of course) over this.  A simple thing like, “Hi!” became this huge deal.  But the good news is I did get up and I did walk over and say hi and she totally knew who I was and gave me a hug and the world righted itself once again.  But that?  Was HARD. 
• But if I hadn’t introduced myself to Zoot, I wouldn’t have met Brit. And she is so fabulous, I don’t think I can totally explain it here.  We had a great time, hanging out.  And she let me pump in her hotel room which was VERY nice of her.  I wouldn’t have met Cagey either, and she was totally cool!  So now I have two new blogs to read that I wouldn’t have had before and I owe it all to my sucking it up and introducing myself.  Imagine all the other blogs I’d be reading right now if I had had the guts to introduce myself to more people?  The mind boggles. 
• Someone wrote a really, really nasty post on their blog about mommy bloggers which everyone knew about by the end of the conference.  It was even mentioned during the mommy blogger session on Saturday morning.  I read the post and yeah, it’s offensive.  The thing is, I’m not bothered by about 90% of the post.  Yeah, she’s a total hater, but it’s her blog and that’s her perogative.  I could just about care less.  But the part where she says, “Go home already and let the rest of us eat, drink and be merry,” really sorta got on my nerves.  The hate I can get, but the intolerance and overtone of censorship is really, really uncalled for.  Who the hell is she to think that BlogHer wasn’t just as much for mommy bloggers as it was for hate-spewers like herself?  She just crossed the line on that one.  But… whatever.  I’m not going to link to it, becuase she TRULY doesn’t need more traffic. 
• The Hyatt totally dropped the ball on this conference.  The sketchy internet access was bad enough.  But I’ve heard so many stories of awful hotel rooms that I have to wonder what this place was thinking.  You’re having a bunch of bloggers come into town and they all have laptops.  And some of them have HUGE audiences on the internet.  It just doesn’t seem to be good business sense on their part.  Everything else was nice.  The facilities were decent, the food was pretty good… but they should have paid attention to some more of these details.  I think the wireless internet issue is the biggest mistake they made.  THAT made me want to tear my hair out and then go find the manager and tear all their hair out too.
• Yes, I still think Contrex water sucks and every time I saw a bottle of it for the rest of the weekend, I’d nearly gag. 
• More on the anti-mommy blogger thing: someone during the final panel discussion introduced themselves as not being married or having any children (in essense, not a mommy blogger) in a sort of “thank god” sort of fashion and got some pretty decent applause for it.  That was pretty insulting.  WHAT is the problem?  I don’t see why mommy bloggers are so awful, do you?  Can’t we ALL just get along?
• I skipped more sessions than I thought I would.  And I’m sure I should feel guilty for that, but I don’t.  Because usually when a session was being skipped, I was doing something else totally fun and/or relaxing.  And when I skipped out on the “Autonomy” session after lunch on Day 2, it was because the place was MAD PACKED.  Dooce was on the panel for that one and everyone and their dog was in there.  Making an already stuffy room unbearable so I *had* to escape.  Note to coordinators for next year’s conference:  air conditioning in the sessions is a very, very good idea. 
• It’s good to have a series of hand gestures in place before something like this.  You know, just so you don’t announce in the lunch line in a not-so-quiet voice that, “Hey, isn’t that Heather??” Not that *I* did that or anything.  I’m just saying.
• I’m sure I had so much more to say here, but I can’t think of anything right now and I’ve been writing this darned entry for four days now and it’s far past time I hit the publish button already.
• Nothing can prepare you for how EXHAUSTING this conference is.  It’s all day, from 8am to at least 7pm.  And if we’d been staying at the hotel, and sans children, it would have been later.  MUCH later. And then to go home and have a new baby to deal with… by Sunday I was a waste of a human being.  In the car, on our insufferable seven-hour drive home, I could hardly keep my eyes open.  And I’m one of those people who can’t sleep in the car so it was torture.  I’m only just now starting to feel halfway normal.  I was SO tired.  I think by the last few hours of the conference I was running on pure caffeine alone.  Albeit, Pepsi brand caffeine.  Beggers can’t be choosers.

So that’s it.  BlogHer ‘06 is over.  Next year it’s in Chicago and I would so love to go.  But seeing as that’s a big trip, we’ll have to see how things work out.  I’d love to have another chance to hang out with these bloggers, maybe meet some new ones.  Because I’ll be remembering this for the rest of my life.  It was just THAT awesome.