feminist blogs

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A very pleasant surprise. I just watched the artisan cheese episode and am about to dip into chocolate religious icons.

Somehow, I find the idea of a goat farm quite amusing. Actually owning one? Even more whimsical.

According to Pew (link is pdf), more than half of all bloggers blog anonymously or under a pseudonym. So I wonder if everyone was lying, coming out naked or drawn from a self-selectively-skewed sampling, because I was the only pseudononymous blogger I met at the BlogHer conference.

"So what's your blog?" was the opening refrain to many conversations. Multiple choise: (a) "Oh, I blogged more in the past, but not much lately, but I'm thinking of getting active again" (which is true); (b) "Mrs. Borden's Parole" (which is false); (c) "I don't want to say, I'm too embarrassed" (which is true); (d) "If I told you, I'd have to kill you" (which is false b/c I'd just kill myself)....

This may not be a fair generalization, but it seemed like a mommyblogger's conference. At least it seemed like I was meeting a lot of mommies (who presumably were bloggers, or else why would they be there?).

A lot of the sessions were interesting. From what I read of the first conference, I guess I was expecting more interaction within the room, but it seemed like most of the presentations were just that -- presentations, and while they all had Q&A, few of them were room-wide discussions, and that's too bad. There were a lot of really interesting women there, but it seemed like I heard mostly just panelists and presenters.

Now maybe I'm just too burnt out on politics, but I think the most boring session was the politics session. At first the room wasn't even that crowded, but people started to come in after it started. It was kind of unique, with one woman (whose name has escaped me) being kind of the Sally Jessie Raphael, walking around the room with the microphone, getting questions, having a panelist answer, and then opining herself.

I don't know. The whole political thing bores me these days -- which was kind-of addressed, at least the burn-out "dark night" kind of angle. Me, I'm just bored with stupidity. And so I guess I was hoping that we'd have some sharp commentary on the political scene. Maybe I just slept through it. It just seemed like this session was the opposite of what I'd expected, because while the panelists for the most part did not engage each other in debate, it almost had this kind of kumbayah feeling, like, Isn't it just so cool we're all blogging about politics (but let's not really get into it).

It was kind of fun seeing Lindsay Beyerstein up there, and for a conserative, Ann Althouse was reasonably non-offensive -- at least her statements were mostly devoid of party-line jingoism.

(I can already hear the protests about my admittedly over-generalized characterizations of that session and the people. Well, share it. Maybe we can have the exchanges that did not happen there.)

I also liked hearing Jarah of Fresno Famous, who was funny talking about how odd her town is. And hearing about Lindsay's harrowing encounter with the gubmint post-Katrina, and a soldier's (?) threat of "disappearing" her and her friends when they trespassed onto prison grounds where an unofficial morgue was supposedly kept.

The room was overwhelmingly liberal in the I'm-skeptical-of-anything-the-government-does kind of way (which used to be a conservative trait before conservatives embraced fascist values), so at least I didn't feel out of place.

Just bored.

But the conference itself wasn't boring. Arianna Huffington and Grace Davis were almost more political in their closing keynote. Arianna's story about losing her social circle of friends when she dropped conservatism and embraced liberal values was interesting. As someone whose politics haven't changed much in xx years (while the parties have raced righward), I'd never thought about losing all of one's friends just for dropping GOP gang colors.

Still, looking back I can see why the majority of bloggers who blog anonymously or under a pseudonym don't seek out an event like this. In many ways, it was like going back to high school, with clicques and -- how do you spell what sounds like "soashiz"? and then the rest of us.

Biggest hoot: Seeing a blogger named Liz Henry living it loud (to the extent that she is the subject of not one but two of the more outlandish appearances in the Flickr BlogHer photos [and that's 'nuff said]).

Biggest disappointment: Missing Lauren, formerly of Feministe, who's now blogging under a male name and suddenly garnering all sorts of respect. Go figure, huh?

This is pretty cool:

For 147 years, marriage vows in Mexico portrayed women as delicate, weak and potentially annoying.

These days, judges across Mexico are switching to versions that stress equality and mutual support, reflecting the growing power of women in a country still struggling with macho attitudes.

The old vows say that a husband should treat his wife with a "generous benevolence that the strong should give to the weak" and that a woman should "avoid awakening the most brusque, irritable and hard part" of her husband's personality. So no nagging, ladies!

Younger couples are opting for vows that are less, you know, stupid.

I wish the bags-under-the-eyes look circa 1995 would come back into style because I’m rockin’ it like a mufuh. Even the two cups of coffee, two cans of Dr. Pepper, and the handful of Stackers somebody gave me at work didn’t deter me from trying to sleep through the jet lag at my desk today.* Add the 100 degree heat index and 70% humidity and you’ll find me ready to melt into a great big sticky pile of sweat and exhaustion.

Over the next week or so I hope to write about bits and pieces of the conference in detail (as well as the time I spent with Chris in lovely Pinole, CA), but for now I want to detail the people I met at the conference. Because holy shit. I met a lot of people.

One of the strangest things about meeting bloggers in meatspace is how different — and yet alike — they are in person to the image you craft of them from their onscreen persona. I became very self-conscious of this fact and on several occasions represented myself as straight stupid. (For instance, when I met Tiffany of Black Feminism. I walked up to her and introduced myself after realizing she was at the conference, and then I had a total brain fart. Poot! I tried to seek her out again, but she may have been avoiding me. Ditto when I tried to approach Susie Bright, who, unsurprisingly, oozes sex when she moves and talks.) I discovered that some of my nervous habits include whispering, mumbling, rocking back and forth, and smelling various flora. Also chain-smoking, which is a very unpopular habit in California.

In any case, I arrived late Friday evening after Chris and I took a tour of the bay area.** Most of those present were still attending various panels so I walked into a mostly empty courtyard and promptly got myself a tiny glass of wine.*** Then another. After tiny glass number two, I worked up the courage to join a table of women next to me, and realized they were talking wedding photos and authentic wedding ceremonies, whatever those are. I considered bailing out and retreating to my hotel room for the night until a tiny elf-like creature sat down at the table with a plate of shrimp and cheese. I very nearly jumped on her to save me from unwanted A-list blogger wedding conversation.

Lyndsay and I palled around together for most of the evening. There was a Dooce-spotting, and a Champ-spotting, and not long after Liz Henry and her sister (both of whom are are a riot) were thrown into the pool. These things were not related. We chatted with a food blogger named Rebecca whose video-blogging sounds spectacular (I’ll let you know once I have the time to watch her vids myself).

Lyndsay and I spent a long time talking to Laurie and Debbie about art, photojournalism and Japanese feminism, and by the way whose work absolutely must be plugged again and again. I chatted with Miss Nina and Kimberly for a bit about our blogging exploits (and our cats), and after the beautiful Grace introduced herself, the four of us talked at length about Hurricane Katrina and Grace’s success at building a blogging relief community. Then. Then! I was attacked. A whirling, squealing dervish arrived, slammed my head between her breasts, and screamed. I nearly passed out.

That was Day One, I think.

Day Two, holy shit. I nearly shook out of my skin all damned day long, nervous about the panel I was to join in the afternoon. What made it worse was sharing a comment during the sex blogging panel, turning red and shaking, and Susie Bright again looking like she felt sorry for me.

SJ and I hung out all afternoon — and just so’s you know, I think she and Liza are in competition for brightest laughter. SJ is one person I wish I knew in meatspace. I sat next to Farah during the identity panel and occasionally cribbed off the notes she maniacally typed. I sat across from Liz Rizzo (badass) and next to Elkit at lunch while we pondered what sort of meat substitute made up the veggie burgers, and I secretly coveted Ariel’s lime green and canary yellow kitten-heeled shoes all friggin’ day. After the sex blogging panel I met Killah B, she of the modern feminist video blog. She, too, tolerated the chain smoking directly before I started my panel.

As for my co-panelists, Maryam Scoble is genuinely cute enough to eat. Her husband, Robert Scoble, beamed at her from the audience where he filmed our panel, and I’m pretty sure he thinks she’s edible as well. Mecca Ibrahim, aka Annie Mole, mesmerized me with her accent — she can talk tube to me anyday. Bonus: thanks to her I know a new meaning of the word “anorak.” The final member of our panel was unable to attend for reasons I still don’t know, and Jory des Jardins, bless her heart****, couldn’t remember the url to this website.

I finally got to meet Erika, one of the first female bloggers I found back in the wee days of blogging. She was to run her first half-marathon the following morning so we didn’t get to talk as long as I liked. She did, however, fill me in on some BlogHer gossip. The night before the conference started, someone wrote a blog post titled, “I Hate MommyBloggers.” This started a chain of events that, while not unwarranted, were quite juicy considering the obvious rifts among the attendees and the demand for an official disclaimer by the conference hosts due to fears of pissing off the sponsors.***** The topic of another post, I presume.

Finally, at the end of Day Two I convinced Chris and Becky to sneak into the conference and eat fruit with me so that they could meet Lyndsay in the flesh. Liza joined us (the two of us [bias alert: smokers] bitched about California smoking laws), and I had the privilege of meeting Nabil, who arguably had the best coat in the bay area.

People who attended the conference I wish I talked to: Lynne D. Johnson (I realize now that I saw her several times and I’m kicking myself for not recognizing her), Christie Keith (too chicken to say anything to her)

Other people I need to stalk: Black Phoebe (again, edible), the folks at Cross Left, and Squid

My new idol: Halley Suitt

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* And before somebody chastises me for the caffeine intake, I’ll have you know that Mr. Clarke beats my addiction anyday. The dude is an espresso madman.
** He made me listen to Shakira the whole way. Shakira. He and Jill totally need to get together sometime so they can discuss how cool and earth-goddessy Shakira is.
*** In line I met Pamela, who immediately recognized me as “Roxanne’s friend.” I was tickled considering that Rox and I have never actually met.
**** Yep.
***** Which included Fat Ladies R Us™ and Ladywater™. Yet another post.