I Know

Look, I just...I KNOW, okay? I've been trying to write -- really, really trying -- but my baby has suddenly decided that sitting still is completely unacceptable. We must walk! Pace! Go places! Walk over there! Now walk back again! Show me things! I want to see windows and ceiling fans and interestingly pointy potted plants! Have you not seen those diaper commercials? I AM NOT A BRICK, I AM A HUMAN BEING. NUTURE MY INTELLECT, BOOB LADY.

Speaking of diapers (hey! what?), I do have new posts up at the Luvs site. I've pretty much given up on the true "time-and-money-saving tips" theme and am now hoping to educate by examples of what NOT to do, unless you want the simplest task to end in disaster. It's the Amalah Way! Recent disasters include gift wrapping and creating an art gallery for Noah's preschool projects. Honestly, I'm amazed I can manage to walk upright most of the time.

Anyway, I shall keep trying to figure out how to type while doing the baby-pace-and-butt-tap dance and will post again very soon. Hopefully this afternoon. I've got Big Ideas involving my kitchen counters and a figure-eight walking path. (Seriously. Even in the sling he seems to know when I try to use my hands for Other Things and will start squawking if I do not pat or rub or touch him in some way every .325 seconds. And what am I supposed to do? You've seen his face. He's pretty much going to get whatever he wants from me, and he knows it.)

The Tuesday Redirect

So my maternity leave officially ends this week, all around. Just in time for all our family to depart and for me to suddenly be thrust into solo double-hammer-time parenting for the very first time. Not really sure which rocket scientist worked THAT schedule out. Oh, wait, it was me. Right. Okay.

*wanders off stage right, audience hears muffled cries of "STUPID, STUPID" and some head-slapping sound effects*

Ahem. Anyway! I'm back at the Advice Smackdown (thanks to Sarah of Whoorl and Kelly of Mocha Momma for filling in the last couple guest-author spots), although I admit I'll be cheating a bit longer by only answering easy questions. So those of you who have submitted questions that require actual brain power and thinking, well...you just hold onto your horses there, missy. I'd say it'll be at least mid-December before my mind catches up to my typing fingers. In the meantime, mush and nonsense, ahoy!

Baby sucking on Daddy's pinkie finger = mush.

Baby wearing floppy-eared puppy booties = nonsense

And on that note, this week's Time & Money-Saving Tip is up at the Luvs MomSpeak site. It's about pee-pee. Yes, it is. I'm certainly not expecting another 136 comments on a post about pee-pee, but you have to admit that would be pretty awesome. (NOTE: If the sight of the word "pee-pee" triggers your gag reflex, the post also includes a photo of my cleavage. See? Something for everyone!)

For those of you interested in neither babies nor cleavage = hamsterdog

Housekeeping Not Involving My House

Honestly, I could do an entire photo essay about nothing more than the various large, gaping holes in my walls and ceilings at this point. There are at least seven of them, and I am getting better at ignoring them every day. It's like hands-free breastfeeding. It just takes practice.

Anyway. Website housekeeping! Exactly the kind of post everybody hates, but please. I just had a baby. I bought clothes and diapers for a linebacker and gave birth to a peanut. I thought the two Miracle Blankets we received as gifts (thank you Michael and Amy!!) would be enough but now! I know! You can never have enough Miracle Blankets! Miracle Blankets are a gift from God himself! The gift of sleep and silence and showers -- all in a miraculous blanket form!

I came into the bedroom this morning to find the dog sleeping on our LAST! CLEAN! MIRACLE BLANKET! and I nearly killed her right then and there, but then I remembered that Ezra is our second child, and that I could maybe use the lint roller on the blanket instead of rewashing it, but then I couldn't find the lint roller and just sort of shook it out real vigorously for a minute before reswaddling His Delicate Preshusness.

Wait. I was not coming here to write anything today. Was I? No. I was not. I was coming here to say:

• That I will be back posting at Mamapop as of today. Hooraaaaay pop culture drivel! And subsequently getting my writerly ass handed to me by all the other amazing authors over there! I've missed you, babies.

• Guest authors continue over at the Advice Smackdown, for just a little longer. But I really doubt anyone is missing me over there, because the guest authors have all been supremely awesome and interesting. This week: Holly from Nothing But Bonfires writes about how to maximize your pre-trip neuroses (and possibly, How Not To End Up In Newark, AMALAH), Isabel from Hola Isabel reviews some super extra crazy cheap lip glosses, and Nicole from Not Perfect returns to talk about knocked-up bridesmaids.

• HOWEVER, lest you think that I have just been laying around eating Halloween candy for close to three weeks now while I let other people care for my Internet Empire, I somehow got talked into writing stuff over at this site for Luvs. It's a once-a-week thing for two months, and I'm supposed to write about valuable tips to help save you money and time. Which is probably not my forte, since it is currently 11:41 am and all I have managed to accomplish is four nursing sessions, two cups of coffee, seven emails and adding fourteen more Miracle Blankets to my Amazon cart. Miracle Blankets that I CANNOT PAY FOR, UNLESS YOU VISIT THE LUVS SITE AND LEAVE COMMENTS AND YOU WOULD IF YOU LOVED ME! WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME? IS IT THE CAPS LOCK SCREAMY THING? IS IT?

• Ahem. My money-saving tip for this week involves stealing shit from the hospital. Free maxipads, people! Shove one package in your suitcase and pretend you used them all! And then they'll bring you ANOTHER PACKAGE!


• You are welcome.


• (I really have been eating a lot of Halloween candy.)

• (He also really does love the Miracle Blanket. Usually.)
  

With Friends Like These

Let me tell you something about Sweetney. Okay, a few things. You know how I am.

Internet friendships get a bad rap sometimes. They burn fast and bright, but are ultimately, kind of disposable, if you want them to be. Someone can be your bestest friend that you've ever bested one day -- and then suddenly it's been six months since you emailed them and Jesus, you can't just email them NOW because what are you going to say you've been DOING for the past six months? They read your blog. They know your email has probably been working at least 50% of that time and YOU SPECIFICALLY TWITTERED THAT YOU WERE DOING EXACTLY DIDDLY SQUAT ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS so you can't even be like, "Oh, GEE, I've just been so busy! What with the...blog! And the...thing. With the place."

And it's not like you're mad at them or stopped caring or reading their blog or anything...it's just flat-out easier to neglect friendships based around the Verdana typeface. Particularly if you have the attention span of a gnat.

...look! I bought a new fruit basket at Target. It's just like the other fruit basket we have, except oval instead of round which will be better for bananas and...

Right. I may mostly only be talking about myself here, and my horrific flame-out track record with keeping in touch with Internet friends.

And then there's Sweetney. You know...we FIGHT. We've actually gotten FUCKING PISSED OFF AS ALL HELL at each other. We've both looked at the other person and informed her that dude, you are being a ridiculous jackass here, knock it off. And then the other person is like, yeah, you're right, I know.  And we never, ever fail to make up, hug it out, lay down some sappy sentences over email to thank the other person for both 100%  having our back and 100% not putting up with our shit.

And that's what makes it, honestly, one of the healthiest and most normal friendships I've made out here on the ol' series of tubes.

All this is to say, of course, that Sweetney scares the crap out of me and after trying to ignore her subtle and not-so-subtle hints about a baby shower ("A shower for a second baby?" I'd say, clutching my pearls and smoothing my gingham apron, "That's just NOT DONE, you know." And then she'd be all, "Fuck that! Fuck the rules! Let's have a baby shower and worship SATAN!"), she finally threatened to come to my house and yell at me in person if I didn't comply and offer up a registry.

And I don't want her to come to my house. The last time she was here we drank three bottles of wine and I fell off the couch.

So fine, she's throwing me a baby shower. For both Internet friends AND real-life friends AND really, anyone in the MD/DC/VA area who would like to come to the Sleep is for the Weak book signing on September 27th at Vinoteca in Washington, DC. She's hijacked the event for her own purpose. Which is: WITTLE ITTY BITTY CUTIE PRESHUS BAYBEEEE THINGS. She's got all the details on her site -- I'm posting about it here because she ordered me to, and again. The yelling. I fear it.

>>The Amalah Baby Shower Extravaganza 2008<<

(That would be the link, since I know my stylesheet doesn't underline links and make them super-prominent or anything. You don't have to click if you don't want to. I'm just like, you know, whatever, baby gifts, no baby gifts, totally not expecting anything from anyone, oh God, this is embarassing, I bet Tracey did this JUST TO WITNESS THE DELICIOUS AWKWARD on my part. That whore.)

(Also, because Miss Manners is indeed one of those Imaginary Authority Figures whose rebuke I also fear mightily, let me say that the "registry" is really an Amazon wish list that Jason and I were mostly using as a shopping list for our own purposes, and up until a week ago it contained exactly four items. Then Tracey was all, dude, come ON, so that's how it went from containing the Ergo carrier and a box of diaper sacks to "Well, GEE, if you're buying lunch, I'll have a double turkey sandwich on rye, a large knockwurt, three bags of potato chips, a chocolate milk and two beers. You want one? Three beers.")

(Are you getting the sense that I do pretty much whatever Tracey tells me to do? Hmm. Perhaps "healthiest" is not the word for this friendship. However, I really do want some extra-cute socks for the baby.)

(Anyway, if you are local and will be around on September 27th, we would totally love and appreciate it if you came to the little book event thing. [Click here for the eVite.] You SO. DO. NOT. need to bring a baby gift -- just your lovely, fabulous-smelling presence will be enough, since I have this image of Tracey, Rita and I sitting there with the books and sad little Sharpie pens all by ourselves, and THEY can at least drink wine to cope with the mortification.)

(I will also be as big as a motherfucking brick house by then. You should come see, just for the freak SPECTACLE of the thing. Behold! The world's rolliest pregnant woman! Who continues to walk upright! The human Jenga tower! Smelling salts will be provided for our sensitive patrons!)

Nitwit

Internet: 1

Amy: 0

www.twitter.com/amalah

I am now "tweeting" to my "tweeps" on this thing called "twitter" and jesus ham god in a blanket, I want to punch myself in the face.

Feel free to now abandon twitter en masse for shark-jumping, oh-my-god-it's-so-two-weeks-ago reasons. Or let me bug you via "cellular phone" with important updates like NOAH, WE HAD FROZEN PANCAKES I MADE IN THE TOASTER FOR BREAKFAST, YOU MUST EAT SOMETHING APPROPRIATE LIKE FROZEN PIZZA I MADE IN THE TOASTER FOR LUNCH.

(Shit! 158 characters! How do you people stay so concise? Does this mean I may have to start breaking my thoughts up into [HORRORS!!] separate sentences? Like with [GASP!!] periods and shit?)

(Oh my God, WHAT HAVE I DONE?)

The Princess & the Pantyhose (aka Blogher '08)

I lugged about 10 pounds worth of camera and lenses to Blogher, and the only photos I have in my possession to share with y'all are these two, taken with Kristen's iPhone. During our impromptu Floor Party in the pantyhose department at Macy's:

After realizing that I was simply not getting nearly enough attention, I decided to have a dramatic fainting spell en route to the shoe department portion of the Blogher cocktail party. (For anyone who wasn't there and is thinking...Macy's? Shoe department? Cocktail party? What? Yeah, I don't really understand either, and I was both THERE and SOBER.)

The party started out in Handbags, and I started out very horrified by the sight of hummus and various hors d'oeurves plates perilously close to the Marc Jacobs, I was soon distracted by this vague feeling that Oh Shit, I've Possibly Gone And Overdone It, and started meekly asking people if they knew where I could get some water. Various people went on a search mission for me, but returned with the news that champagne appeared to be the only option available. (Pregnant traveling ladies, I highly recommend you get yourself a whole posse of Danas and Catherines and Traceys and and Isabels and a couple Laid-Off and/or Backpacking Dads, who will ignore your protestations that you are FINE, stop FUSSING, and bring you chairs and shake down cocktail waitresses on your behalf.)

And then, while walking through the aisles of pantyhose, I found myself grabbing the nearest elbow and hissing that I needed someone to GET ME ON THE FLOOR, RIGHT NOW, and...I remember spinning, high-kicking, thigh-highed mannequin legs and very cold marble and Catherine rushing off to find water and returning with a little thimble of a Starbucks cup and wailing that it was all they'd give her, and then I laughed so hard I thought I would puke, and that's when I noticed pretty much every conference attendee filing by and staring at me strangely. After awhile a nice group of people joined me on the floor, where we accepted bottles of water and Luna bars from anyone who could scrounge one up for me, like some kind of really fucked-up Nativity scene.

(TANGENT! For anyone who has been to Blogher, you know how you go with a List? That List of bloggers you're just really jazzed about and hoping to meet, and you possibly rehearse what you'll say when you meet them [because OF COURSE you'll recognize them, being so excellent with names and faces already] just so you don't do something lame like SCREAM DIRECTLY INTO THEIR FACE [sorry, Cecily] or otherwise make a fangirl ass out of yourself? It was at this moment, there on the floor of the pantyhose department, that Jenny the Bloggess sat down next to me. All I can say is that I'm very happy I was having some kind of horrific Blood Sugar incident at the time because at least I am not forced to live with very detailed memories of what a spastic dork I was -- it's all lost in a glorious haze of dizzy spells and those weird spots that cloud your vision. Ahh.)

(TANGENT, PART TWO! I missed all the drama, is all I can say about all the drama. I was TRYING to rest up and take care of my delicate little self and missed the keynote.)

THEN the party moved up to Furniture, where I at least got to recline on a sofa while signing books with Cagey and Kristen (the Non-Dramatic Pregnant Lady) and...oh God, everybody else, until I 1) kicked over somebody else's glass of red wine all over the rug, and 2) really really really really really had to pee and had to take an ELEVATOR to another floor and it was like I was back at the airport and once I found the bathroom I was completely baffled by the stall doors (they didn't look like doors! and you couldn't tell if they were occupied unless you hurled your body at them and after slamming myself into the third locked door I turned around and randomly screamed to the heavens and scared a lovely group of young 20-something non-mommybloggers before spotting a slightly open door and peeing for oh, about the entire running time of Juno.

On Sunday my friend Julie (some of you may remember her as Bunny. Met her in Gymboree, bonded over our hatred of everyone else at Gymboree, moved to California in February, broke my heart, is total whore) picked me up at the hotel and whisked me off to her house/decompression chamber, since she knows about my blog but doesn't read my blog, doesn't read ANY blogs and if I dared spend one second trying to rehash some kind of OMG DRAMZZ! moment from the conference she'd...she'd...well, probably just call me an asshole and change the subject. Perfect.

Now I'm home, surrounded by the dozens and dozens of business cards I picked up, marveling at how many new people I met, old friends and whores I reconnected with however briefly, and then there were the people I technically met for the first time who already felt like old friends, in that weird Internet way.  And that's just culled from my memory (haaaaa) and the cards I stashed in my camera bag (well, I had to use that bitch for SOMETHING)...I'm pretty sure I have about a hundred more in my actual suitcase, but opening that one means I would have to do laundry. And...it is not time for laundry yet, I don't think.

Jason and Noah met me at the airport last night, and Noah pointed and screamed (he gets that from me -- he'll be a huge hit at business conferences!) and came barreling at me for a huge hug, and then pulled back and said (for the first time ever), "I love you, Mama."

(That one goes out to all my peeps at the Blogging About Special-Needs Kids panel, who both refrain from playing the Pain Olympics AND are okay with me cornering them at parties to talk about SPD Manifestations in Poop without batting an eye. All we need is a gang sign that somehow incorporates what Miralax dosage we use.)

(Regarding Every Other Photo Of Me Out There: Look, I forgot lipstick, AND I brought sample-sized everything, including foundation, which I guess was a TAD PALE, bordering on TRANSLUCENT REFLECTIVE POSSIBLY UNDEAD. The persistent double-chin, however, I have no excuses for.)

Rumours

The last and only time I went to Blogher, I had a great time. Seriously fabulous. Then I came home and learned that a fairly weird rumor was making the rounds about me -- somebody said I said something hurtful about somebody else, and although I could never quite nail down the specifics of who and what and huh, what I was able to piece together was something like this:

Somebody wrote something on their blog, quoting something they'd supposedly overheard an anonymous "mommyblogger" say about another blogger. This quote, which may or may not have actually been said by ANYONE, or at the very least was taken ridiculously out of context, somehow got attributed to me and expanded offline to include all sorts of other hurtful stuff. It sure didn't sound like anything I would ever say (mostly because I DIDN'T SAY IT), but still. I think the crazier the rumor, the harder it is to sputter out a believable-sounding denial. I did deny it, of course, and apologized in case I had said something as a joke (hi, wine! lots of it!) that had gotten misunderstood and twisted around. The injured parties assured me they believed me, but still. It's an ooky feeling to realize people think You Might Be That Sort Of Person, especially after meeting you in real life, when you're supposed to be safe from misinterpreted tone of typing or spam-filtered emails or a forgotten winking emoticon.

Anyway, it was all very strange and annoying and hopefully I'm the only person who even remembers it by now. Which brings me to the point of this post:

Listen. If you hear some CRAZY PUNK ASS rumor that I went and broke our own dear IzzyMom's foot with a baseball bat over a discounted conference pass just so I could indeed go to Blogher this year after all, let me just say right up front:

No comment.

So. There's This Book. With the Word "Amalah" On It.

After I got my share of the book advance, I went out and pumped myself a full tank of premium gasoline, and then I stopped at Wendy's for a chocolate Frosty and a small order of fries. 

And that was the end of the book advance money.

Every once in awhile it occurs to me that I will at some point be holding a book in my hands that contains words that I wrote, and the first emotion that sweeps over me is complete and utter terror, because words on paper are very different than words on a computer monitor, and quite honestly I usually feel my words are better suited for the latter.

I don't remember exactly which entries appear in the book -- Rita (who made this whole thing happen, start to finish, I think I signed a piece of paper along the way and then got right back to the vitally important business of wiping a butt) asked if I'd be okay with her submitting a couple entries from Noah's newborn days and I just sort of...waved my hand in the direction of the archives and told her to have at it. Like I've said many times before, re-reading my own writing seriously gives me hives.

I remember going back and expanding on her semi-final picks, rewording some of the more inelegant prose, trying to make them more "stand-alone thoughtful essay" and less "blawg blawggity blawg that I blawgged with one hand while attached to the breast pump."

I remember when I wrote the original entries, though. I remember how shockingly thin-skinned and vulnerable I was, how terrified I was of the depth of emotions I felt towards my new little baby, and how frustrated I was that I couldn't ever seem to find the right words to describe it all.

Thus, if you are so kind as to order yourself a copy of the book, be prepared for some mighty fine hand-wringing and new-mother neuroses and oh! MAH BAYBEEEE! I JUST LOVEHIMSOMUUUUUUCH! The good news is that they applied some professional-type editing, so perhaps my writing will contain a better punctuation-to-word-count ratio.

Then again, Rita never doubted that my words and the words of other bloggers belonged in this book, on paper and everything, and the story of how hard she worked to make this happen is inspiring to me in more ways than one.

I had a literary agent, once. A lovely, patient and experienced agent who wanted nothing more than to help me write and publish my first novel. I had an idea, a plot and an outline. She cheered me on and told me to get up on that bitch and start writing.

And so I did. And then I froze. Not more than 20 pages in. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I went back and rewrote chapter one so many times I'm not sure I ever even made it out of chapter two. The characters were all wrong. The dialogue was stilted and the pacing was atrocious. The story got lost as I skipped ahead to the rejection letters and terrible reviews and ultimate placement in a secondhand store's bargain bin, a pulpy testament to why bloggers shouldn't get book deals. The agent stopped bothering to email me, and I've since lost the early drafts I wrote to a busted hard drive.

When Rita asked for my entries for a book SHE was putting together, that SHE would pitch and sell and bear the brunt of rejection and criticism, I had nothing to lose. Why not? It probably won't happen, anyway, but it's worth a shot, eh. I signed on to contribute but was certainly never a big shiny ray of optimism about it. I am not really a writer. Blogging does not translate. I only have readers because of dumb luck and a lot of workplace boredom. Rar rar rar ur cerebral cortex thinks u suck!

And yet, here we are. Some stuff I wrote made it into a book. Along with the writing of many other bloggers writers from all over the pageview map. It's available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers. Maybe one day I'll stop cringing long enough to actually read it. In the meantime, I guess this means I can stop trying to explain "blogging" to my dad. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wipe that butt again.

Swag in Action

I took approximately 40,982 pictures of this bee. I do not like bees. I do not like pictures of bees. But here, look at this picture of this bee, and be grateful that I'm not making you look at all pictures where the bee is a little blurry blob because I WAS VERY OBSESSED WITH THIS BEE FOR SOME REASON.

New-found camera skills aside (I should have increased the shutter speed, since I wanted to capture freeze-frame bee wings because I had it in my head at the time that freeze-frame bee wings were the ultimate in photographic accomplishment), there's a reason I should stay away from "arty" shots and photos of boring things like flowers.

For example, my eye for composition is so keen that when aiming my camera at an entire garden of gorgeous blooms, the only one I managed to keep in focus was the dead and wilted one.

It's a metaphor, man. You wouldn't get it.

What does this button do? Oh.

That one was snapped during our initial demo of all the cameras, when we were all particularly giddy and snap-happy, even though there really wasn't much to take photos of, besides the carpet and the chandeliers and oh look! A chandelier!

Okay, clearly it was time to turn the cameras around on our own dork asses.

Tracey, by the way, performed admirably as the group's go-to photography guinea pig, and at one point had about seven different people aiming a barrage of Cyber-shots and Alpha DSLR cameras at her, ordering her to help them test out their metering modes and the Cyber-shot's creepy robot Smile Shutter function, which allows you TOTALLY PWN your bratty, ungrateful child who only smiles two seconds AFTER you've snapped the picture. Because it waits until your kid actually smiles to actually take the picture. The Sony people claim it's an "algorithm," but you and I know it's actually very small hamsters who will one day arise and enslave us all.

Anyway, Tracey handled the mommyblogger paparazzi admirably, and didn't roll her eyes too badly when I made the obvious LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE joke, since I am very Hip and With It when it comes to the kids today and their YouTubes.

Hey, speaking of high-definition video cameras! And dorks!

DORKS from amalah on Vimeo.

You stay classy, La Jolla.

And...that was my trip to California. While I'm not under any obligation to write about the event or Sony or the swag (HAVE I MENTIONED THE SWAG), hats off to Sony, man. I've had some baaaaaad experiences with accepting even the smallest gift or sample from big corporations -- sample arrives, sample gets boxed back up and shipped back on my own dollar because nooooo, I won't sign away the rights to my child's image for your marketing stock photography library in exchange for a photo printer, THANKS THOUGH -- but I'm really glad I went.

I mean, the whole point of squeezing my increasingly pregnant ass on a cross-country flight was originally just to get some quality Sweetney time <insert some mid-90s Bryan Adams here, in your head, on repeat play FOREVER>, and other than that I was secretly expecting the whole thing to suck and be all kinds of eye-rolly. And then everybody there was so nice and laid-back and I got a massage and fresh strawberries in my room and a giant bed that I took up as many inches as possible with my giant body. Plus Tracey gave me chocolate and this body cream that smells like cupcakes and I got to share a limo with PlainJaneMom (confidential to Erika: do I owe you $400? I'm a little afraid to look, frankly) and talked about my boobs with Jenny and HAVE I SCREAMED At YOU ENOUGH ABOUT APERTURE. AND THE FACT THAT I KNOW WHAT IT IS NOW.

<breathes>

Okay. That's really it about California. And aperture. I'm done now. I promise.

And now for some extremely boring camera talk, for the two of you who might be interested:

My Canon Digital Rebel, for now, probably beats the Sony Alpha, but only because I already own some really excellent lenses for it. Lenses that are just plain better than the one that comes with the Alpha, but hey. We paid a lot for them, they sure as hell better be better. HOWEVER, for someone just moving away from point-and-shoot and learning how to use a DSLR, I think the Sony is MUCH easier to use. I like the menus better, I feel like I can get to the different settings faster, and the adjustable liveview screen just flat-out rocks. (Although I'm so used to looking through the viewfinder on the Canon that I find myself turning it off more often than I thought I would, but that's probably just habit. When I first got the Canon I couldn't BELIEVE I couldn't just hold the camera out in front of me and get a preview of what I was shooting.) I'm very, VERY interested in getting a better lens for the Sony, especially since I don't have to pay extra for image-stabilization (it's built right into the body of the Sony) (image stabilization = the reason your no-flash pictures on a point-and-click camera look all blurry, Ms. 5 PM Alcohol Shakes).

(Taken with the Cyber-shot in the low-light ISO setting.)

(APERTURE!)

A Businesswoman, a Tibetan Monk & a Mommyblogger Get on an Airplane

The next night I went to bed at 9:22. Party up! Or on, or whatever it is that people who party usually say.

And then the next night was spent watching hours and hours of my life vanish into the time zone map as my very delayed flight home from California turned into an impromptu red-eye (HELPFUL AIRLINE MONITOR: Reason for Aircraft Delay: Aircraft Delayed), during which I really did share a row with a businesswoman and a Tibetan monk, although there is absolutely no punchline to that story, except that the businesswoman was very kind and filled me in on what I'd missed on the in-flight movie during each and every one of my 439 trips to the lavatory, and the monk brought along about 15 chicken snack wraps from McDonald's and you know what? I don't think those things are really designed to be kept in a paper bag for six hours before consuming.

And now I am back on the East Coast, where I remain solidly on West Coast time, going to bed at 3 am and feeding my child breakfast at 11ish and not updating my blog at all, just like all those California bloggers. With their laid-back attitudes and bean sprouts and whatnot.

(Last night I hallucinated that I heard the garbage truck outside at 4 am and shook Jason awake and ordered him to chase after it with our trash and mixed recyclables, which he did not, and my point is, everything coming out of my mouth at this point is a big, steaming, sleep-deprived lie.)

ANYWAY!

I went to California, and all I got was a lousy four metric tons of fancy digital imaging equipment.

We had to move our PILES O' SWAG to the floor because they were substantial enough to mess with the hotel's wifi signal.

I have to admit that I am generally a cranky old bastard when it comes to anything that stinks of Bloggers! We Here At <Corporation Name> Really Get and Dig What You Do PR tactics. (A lot of those PR tactics tend to be something like GIVE US VALUABLE MARKET RESEARCH AND FREE ADVERTISING IN EXCHANGE FOR...UH...THIS T-SHIRT! THAT IS NOT ACTUALLY IN YOUR SIZE! NO? HOW ABOUT ONE OF THOSE SQUEEZY STRESS BALL THINGS?) And I got the sense that several of the other attendees were expecting to be similarly annoyed by the whole thing, but then the boxes of cameras and camcorders and lenses and camera accessories starting piling up and everybody started ripping things open and the air was full of bubble wrap and packing peanuts and we all looked at each other, frantically trying to get unspoken permission from the crowd to OMFG SQUEEEEEEEE????

For some reason, I think the view from my hotel room helped improve my usual curmudgeonly demeanor.

At one point, I returned from my 230,293 trip to the lavatory and noticed that almost everybody had been given silver travel coffee mugs. EXCEPT FOR EVERYBODY AT MY SIDE OF THE TABLE. And our eyes got big and ugly and Bilbo-Baggins-like because WE DIDN'T GET TRAVEL MUGS. WHERE'D EVERYBODY GET THOSE TRAVEL MUGS! GAR! SWAG! MINE! NOW!

(The travel mugs were still in the process of being unpacked and distributed. I did indeed get a travel mug, although it's hard to look at, since the polished metal only seems to reflect the blackness of my soul.)

The best part of the trip, hands down, was the fact that Sony did not just hand us complicated A/V equipment and expect us to like, read the manuals. They also gave us the gift of KNOWLEDGE, by bringing in someone who could explain DSLR cameras and aperture and ISO to us in a way we could understand. Also known as drawings on a chalkboard and makeup analogies. (You know how your makeup looks awesome in the bathroom mirror and then looks like ass outside? THAT'S WHITE BALANCE, LADIES.)

(Me Ra, by the way, will be speaking at BlogHer this summer, so if you're as camera-challenged as I am was, she's TOTALLY worth the price of admission, for real.)

It was jaw-droppingly awesome for this blogger/influencer/opinion-maker, who prior to this weekend had never taken her fancy camera out of the green box mode, but who now desperately needs like, seven different lenses and a wireless flash and sent her husband the following email from the conference:

HI GUESS WHAT! I KNOW HOW TO WORK OUR CAMERA NOW! I KNOW ABOUT SHUTTER SPEED! AND ISO! AND APPERATURE! APPEARATURE? APPATURE? I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT BUT IT'S THE THINGIE THAT CONTROLS THE SIZE OF THE THINGIE THAT LIGHT SHINES THROUGH AND I THINK MY LIFE IS CHANGED FOREVER.

(Yes. I send emails in all caps sometimes. I also call people sometimes just to scream into their voicemail when I am very excited about something.)

(HI GUESS WHAT I AM AT THE MALL AND I GOT THE GREATEST PARKING SPACE IN THE WORLD! I WILL PROBABLY NEVER LEAVE BECAUSE IT'S JUST THAT GREAT! CALL ME BACK, WHORE!)

Did it just get really smelly in here?

So...at some point I do plan to post something other than camera phone photos. You know, maybe some photos with some of the new cameras that really demonstrate just how far I've come as a photographer and as a person. I will. Just as soon as I get over my current bout of hyper-perfectionism ("well, this photo is lovely, but I just didn't really fill the frame with my subject as well as I'd like") and go back to not really caring about whether Noah is really "in focus" or "not covered with yams."

This was the sign on the inside of the bathroom door at the hotel's meeting room. I spent a lot of time looking at it (fetus vs. bladder = rock vs. small defenseless insects), and pondering just what are these "other alcoholic beverages" that are not 1) distilled spirits, 2) beer, 3) coolers, or 4) wine. Cough syrup? Xanaxaritas?

I still have so much to learn about so many things. Including how to get all the pretty photos off of my new cameras, and how to stop staring at the camcorder in bafflement because you don't a tape in it. So how does it record? Where do the videos go? Does it involve some sort of gnome? Does this mean I will be significantly less likely to accidentally record over the birth of my second child like I did with my first? Huh!