Sad and Beautiful World

BlogHer '09: My excuse to go to Chicago

I suppose I best write something about Chicago and post it before everyone forgets I even went there, huh? Right. The BlogHer Conference is basically my excuse for getting to go to Chicago, finally. I went with Cecily for our second time this year. I go with Cecily because she asks me to go with her, part of it is her birthday present to me, and because I get to go to a city to which I have never been before. As Cecily’s best friend I fill the rolls she needs me to fill, as she does for me: a roommate, a confidant, a touchstone for reality-checks, and someone to fall into fits of laughter with at 1am or 8am or whenever exhaustion sets in.

Cecily is the blogging “rock star” and I am very happy to be known as her best friend (or not known at all, as the case may be).  People knowing me separately from her, or knowing me because of my photography on Flickr and not even realizing I had a blog surprised me! Anyone recognizing my name and complimenting my photography made me far happier than I showed, just so you know. I was squealing inside…I’m just not a real squealer.

My goals attending BlogHer are basically nil. I really enjoy meeting people I know online in person and I of course end up with many new blogs to read upon returning home. I love being there for Cecily. My focus is about seeing the city we’re in and meeting up with any Flickr friends in the area to go out and take photos. I have a lot of photos.

Before I get into my posts about what I did each day, I figured I’d give a general post about the conference itself from my slightly removed but still in the hotel perspective. Was the sponsorship as out of hand as people are saying? My perspective is yes, but I realize that most of that is not actually put out officially by BlogHer organizers. It is overwhelming, however, when everywhere I looked there was a brand name. I am wondering about other ways to raise money to subsidize the cost of these conferences. I was involved in organizing and putting on an AA conference for over 1,000 attendees, and the registration cost per person was really small. We held fundraisers all year long to offset the costs…dances in different cities, t-shirt sales, etc. With the amount of pull BlogHer has all over the country (and world), I think we could easily manage a sponsor-free conference. I will comment on this over at BlogHer, yes, because I’m sure there is something head-smackingly obvious that I’m missing, otherwise they probably would have already done it. ☺

I attended the breakfast and presentations each morning and the community keynote on Friday night. That keynote was incredible; inspiring, moving, hilarious, and beautiful. I thought it was a bit much to have 20 readers that night, but now cannot imagine not hearing one. Favorites for me were Danielle of KnottyYarn, Tanis of Redneck Mommy, Catherine of Her Bad Mother, and Mel of Stirrup Queens (who wins award for the best of the night in my opinion; a piece that took us through much laughter then sudden sobs of recognition and beauty. It was powerful beyond reason).

The other issue was the swag. I’ll just say that none of that stuff was worth shoving people over, but sure I love some free shit as much as the next person. Well, maybe not as much. When the Eden Fantasies folks started moving their swag bags through the area where I was sitting quietly chatting with Cecily, Julia, and Kathrin, what I witnessed was disturbing. I wish I had taken video, actually. The swag bags had a gravitational pull, I kid you not; something I could literally see as women began slowly swirling closer in smaller and smaller circles. The party was originally supposed to be in a specific room, but apparently the hotel kept moving them. It wasn’t supposed to start for another HOUR. The women moved closer. We got up to investigate, since of course we were curious about what the sex toy company would be giving away! They were still putting things in the bags when someone yanked one right off the luggage cart, then yanked another one and handed it to Cecily. She went and sat down. The crowd was growing bigger and the space between me and other people was growing smaller. I could feel my first twinge of panic begin (I really have an issue with crowds, but if I feel I have an exit I can deal. That feeling was going away). I finally looked around and it seemed I could see fingers twitching in anticipation! I had to leave. “I am not a whore,” I said to myself as I went back to my seat. Julia and Kathrin stayed up there for maybe 45 minutes before getting their swag, and Julia happened to get an extra bag for Cecily who already had one, so guess who still got a bag? Heh. The experience felt dirty somehow, so I guess the cleaning products that mostly filled the bag were a good idea. ☺

All that said, it didn’t upset me or mar the conference at all. For me, any time any large group of humans gets together there are issues. I was saying something about me being socially awkward and Cecily very accurately pointed out, “You aren’t socially awkward, you just don’t like people very much.” I had trouble arguing with that. Individually, I love people. I mean, once I know you or are connected to you, I am very warm and kind and funny and loyal to the death. This is what keeps me going in life, really, the one-on-one connections we make with people. And for me, this is what is best about the BlogHer conference or any large gathering: the quiet corner conversations, the elevator epiphanies, the late night bonding over ___; the people who surprise you, the people who move you, the people who make you laugh. It is those moments that keep a real face on blogging. We are not all faceless, soulless, ranting lunatics out in the ether. We are real individuals, with real feelings, real hopes and desires and loves, and we write on the Internet to connect with others.

*Photos and details of my day excursions to come!*

Vacation, Part 5

*I wanted to get this last post up before I went to  Chicago, but neglected to and now I have to post it before I can move forward. I'm SO behind on stories and photos and totally overwhelmed. Good news is I'll have things to post every day this week, most likely.*

[Trip Day 5: July 17th Heading Home]

It rained all night our second night in Maine. We stayed mostly dry. I woke up ridiculously early and went on my laptop for a bit in the car (yes, the camp had wi-fi, but I mostly just used it to email my daughter at her overnight camp and post the occasional Twitter). My back was killing me. Eventually I started packing up everything I could that wasn't in the tent or the tent itself, and made coffee. Pete got up and we broke down the rest of camp. We were in the car and ready to check out at 9am.

Our plan was to drive down the coast until the town of Exeter, NH, where an old friend of mine since high school had recently moved. Her daughter turns 2 in August and I had yet to meet her! Originally we were going to go slowly and camp one more night somewhere between there and home, but we were both ready to get home and decided to see if we could make it all the way. No more avoiding highways on the GPS.

I had a problem, however. I didn't have Alison's phone number. She was supposed to have emailed it to me and hadn't yet as of that morning. She also thought I'd be coming through town on Saturday. This was Friday. As we got about an hour or so away, I called my friend Siobhan and left her a message saying I needed Alison's number, and she called back just in time with it (when we were coming to the exit for the town). She gave me Alison's husband's number too. I exited and pulled off the road to phone. "Mailbox full" was the response! Great. I can't leave a message. I phoned her husband and got voice mail, but didn't leave a message since I had no idea how long we'd have to wait for him to call back. Disappointed, I turned around to get back on the highway heading home. I was almost in tears, actually, knowing I was that close and couldn't see my friend! And then he called back to see who it was. He told me Alison had misplaced her phone (they've been living out of hotel rooms for weeks and weeks as they wait for their house to be ready). He said he'd see if she was at the Inn and have her call me back. I had pulled over on route 101 or 100, just before the exit to get onto I-95, and we sat waiting.

And then the state trooper pulled up behind us. LOL. He was very nice, but said "You can't wait here!" after I explained what we were doing. We started driving to pull off again and Alison phoned. Hooray!

We were able to see her and meet her adorable daughter and sit by the river for about 2 hours. We sat near a famous food cart run by Ian, who smokes and grills real hot dogs, sausages, and chorizos. We had one of each. Turns out Ian is from my neck of the woods, too!

After that we b-lined it for home, stopping when we needed to switch drivers. We drove through rush hour in Connecticut (which sucks any time of day, actually...driving through it on the highway, not the state), through thunderstorms in NY. We made it home at 10pm, exhausted, delirious, and grateful. We slept like the dead that night, happy.

Vacation, Part 4

[Trip Day 4: July 16th]

After such a great nights' sleep, we had time for a leisurely breakfast. We made our coffee and eventually scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. Yum! Our plan for the day was to hike up the trails to the top of Mt. Battie (all part of the state park) in the morning, come back and have lunch and showers, then head down the coast a bit to check out Owl's Head State Park where there is a lighthouse, grab dinner somewhere and bring it to the trail by the water across route 1 from our campground.

It almost worked out like that! People can drive up to the top of Mt. Battie, so there is a long road. We had to walk up part of the road to the first little parking lot where there were trail markers, then into the woods we went. It was a bit muddy, very mossy and green, and rocky. It was gorgeous. It was a bit steep in places and we are a bit out of shape (understatement of the year), but we plodded upwards.

Our weather, while damp at times, was mostly great. Breezy and cool, even cold at night. This day was probably in the 60s, but by the time we were a little ways up, we were sweating! We came out to 180-degree views of Penobscot Bay and cool breezes. It was gorgeous even if it was cloudy. We could see Camden Harbor below and all those boats. We went out to some rocks away from the other people up there and had a snack. I took some video. Then we walked down on the road back to our campsite (ohmygawdmyknees). We had lunch and then I went to check out the shower.

The showers in Camden Hills State Park were a religious experience. Individual stalls side-by-side with a changing area in their OWN compartment. Locked door. FREE shower. Hot hot hot water. It was truly glorious, and I'm not exaggerating.

Around 4pm we got in the car to drive down to Owl's Head. It started pouring rain. Thunder, lightening, dog freaking out rain. We missed the turn for it. I parked in a harbor parking lot in Rockport and took some photos through the windshield and some video. We found Owl's Head but there was a 1/4 mile trail to the lighthouse on foot, and it was still thundering/lightening so we left. We stopped at a General Store that truly had it all, including a cafe, so we got some food to go (got my crab roll), gifts for my daughter and goddaughter, and some postcards and left. It stated to clear up, we thought, but when we got to the state park and went down to the side by the water, it was drizzling again. The sign said the park gate closed at 5pm, but it was 6 at this point and it was open. We went and parked down by the path that led to the 1/2 mile trail along the water and brought ourselves and our food down there. We ate our dinner and marveled at the view (and I took this video and another one).

And then a park ranger came down the slippery, muddy trail to ask if we were the Bloom family (he saw our car and the pass in the window). He came to get us because he was going to close the gate!! We were flabbergasted and so grateful for such kindness! We figured if we got locked in it would be annoying, but we were camping across the street so we could just walk over there with what we needed from the car. I wanted to hug this man, though. This was Maine. Everything was nicer up here.

Vacation, Part 3

[Trip Day 3: July 15th]

This was our campsite in a town and on a lake called Island Pond, Vermont. It was a huge lake, despite the name. It was also just past and below those trees. We had our pick of sites here, which was nice. We woke up on Wednesday relieved that there were only a few puddles around the edges inside the tent. We had put our clothes in garbage bags just in case, thankfully!

Packing up when things are wet is never fun, but at least it had stopped raining. The sand on everything was annoying, but manageable. On we drove through to New Hampshire, which if we blinked we might have missed since we went west to east across the very narrowest part. It was beautiful, though, going up and through a very mountainous and rocky area. Then we had the joy of going on a completely under construction road...like, from scratch under construction. We would go along on dirt and rocks for a 1/4 mile then get stopped by a worker to wait for opposing traffic to come through. This happened about 5 times before we were finally on a paved road again!

Then we were in Maine! We made our way east to Belfast, ME and then turned north on Route 1 along the coast. We marveled at how many B&B's and Inns there were and I wondered how we'd find camping when the GPS only listed Inns. All of a sudden I saw the large sign for Camden Hills State Park with a big CAMPING and arrow, so I swung in and said, "Let's see if they have room!"

Turned out to be perfect and probably the nicest state park I've ever been in (not that I've been in that many, but still). We paid for 2 nights and went to set up and have dinner. That night we both had the best nights' sleep of the trip. I don't think I woke up at all, in fact! We went to bed probably around 9:45 (if that!) and woke up at 6:45 or so. It was so nice to know we didn't have to pack anything up yet. We had arrived.

Vacation, Part 2

[Trip Day Two: Tuesday, July 14th]

I slept horribly in the camper. I felt really nauseous when we got into the super squishy bed and it wouldn't go away (must have been all the cookies). I got up twice afraid I was gonna lose it before giving up and moving to the front (back?) of the camper where the couch was. I lay down with a blanket and instantly fell asleep there, just waking up every 2 hours whenever Pete moved in the bed on the other end because the whole camper moved. I think there wasn't enough air where the bed was and the chemical smell from the toilet was making me sick!

Anyway! We got up early and got our complimentary coffee in front of the office before hitting the road. We drove up to Port Kent because Pete thought it would be fun to take a ferry across Lake Champlain to Vermont, and since he's from Kent in England, he picked this one. I was very very nervous because I get very very seasick and it seems to get worse as I get older. I felt seasick on a small riverboat a few months ago. A river!

We parked in the line and had 45 minutes to roam around in the drizzling rain and fog and cold air to take photos and let Tyson stretch his doggie legs. Once on the ferry, I decided to just stay in the car since we were parked in the center (it was a pretty small boat, too) and just try not to move my head too fast. I made it and amused myself with the GPS showing us over water.

We arrived in Burlington, VT and walked around there for a bit to find a place for food where we could sit outside with our dog. It was soooo touristy and typical college town and the sandwich shop I stopped in wanted $7.50 for a sandwich so we left, figuring we'd get food at a small place away from the tourists. We drove northeasterly and enjoyed the beautiful Vermont countryside, hoping to see moose like all the signs promised. And then voila! There were two right there!! No males, unfortunately, but I think a mama and her baby (I say that only because a male with antlers would be most impressive). I had Pete turn the car around and they stayed there and posed for me as I took a bunch of not-so-good shots. We were totally excited!! :-)

On we went, stopping at some roadside pizza/burger joint on the way where I ate a really bad burger while looking at some cows. We ended up camping in Island Pond, VT for the night at a private campground. Our site overlooked their lake. We set up and relaxed. And then it rained. And rained. It poured all night long so we both slept badly and poor Tyson was miserable. We kept expecting to get wet! In the morning the rain stopped and some large bird of prey forced us out of the tent by circling the lake making a huge racket with the most annoying sound in the universe, stirring up all the crows in his wake. Ugh. It was time to pack up the wet stuff and get to Maine.

Vacation, Part 1

Trip Day One: Monday, July 13th.

We left here and drove through Central New Jersey to 87 North. I realized I was driving part of the way exactly how I used to drive to my ex-boyfriends' house. That was weird, only in the way that things from your past make you think about where you've been and where you're going kind of way. :-)

Speaking of weird, we then went up to New Paltz, where I've lived on 2 separate occasions. Once I lived up at Mohonk Mountain House where I worked, and another time I lived in town with a previous boyfriend (who I met at Mohonk) and worked at a warehouse. It is even trendier than I remembered. I think we parked on the street Ben and I lived and I might have recognized the house of apartments, but I can't be sure. Years of brain damage have made it impossible to figure out anything anymore.

We then drove up into the Adirondack Mountains. It was going to rain and we were beat so I put in a search for a motel on the GPS when we stopped in Chestertown, NY. There was a place right up the road and the woman was super friendly when I called. Yes, they took dogs but no, they had no cabin or motel room available...but wait! She had a camper/trailer out back if we didn't mind that or need a refrigerator. How much? I asked and the price was right.

Had to take advantage of the white trashiness for a self-portrait. LOL. I'm not really drinking beer, don't worry.

Muscle Memory

On the platform in Cold Spring, NY waiting for the train to Grand Central Station.

Are we imprinted
by the essence of a place?
Does it call us home?

I was born in Poughkeepsie, NY and moved to the house where my parents still live when I was 2 and a half years old. Each time I'm in this area, the air, the smells, the very nature of the place feels...right.

This Beautiful Mourning

RIP Dr. Sheldon Jacobson He was the Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He and his wife, Diana, knew my parents since college. They were my parents' best friends. Diana and my mother have known one another since high school. They've known me since birth, as my parents have known their son Andy. They were always like an extra set of parents for me and, later, another set of grandparents to my daughter. Shelly was the kind of man you instantly liked. Humble, sweet and kind with an adorable smile and a fabulous sense of humor. I feel confident that not one person who came in contact with him could have disliked him.

Here's his NY Times obituary, published by the staff at Mt. Sinai.

Today was the funeral. Today was one of the longer days of my life. I have so much to say, so much to process. Several stories about Shelly at his work were told at the service, and suffice it to say that he was a good man in every single way. He chose to go into emergency medicine specifically because he believed that the under-served—the homeless, the poor, the uninsured—deserved respectful, quality, exceptional health care. He made sure everyone he trained (from clerical staff to doctors) believed the same.

The most beautiful image that was gifted to us today was from a nurse in the Mt. Sinai ER who said when the homeless came in they would ask for Dr. Jacobson. She would call him at his office and he'd put his white coat on and run across Madison Avenue to the ER. Everyone who came through there saw Shelly as their doctor, because he treated them as such.

The service at the cemetery was one of the more intense experiences of my life. It was storming off and on the entire day, pouring rain between the funeral home in Manhattan and the grave in Vahalla. It cleared up a bit once everyone arrived and we wound our way in our cars to the site. We gathered there, under a big green canopy. When the Rabbi invited anyone who wished to pour some earth onto the grave, two lines formed. I’ve never seen that many people participate, and after a long while it was becoming unbearable—the sound of the dirt on the coffin, the sobs. Diana was pale as a ghost and shaking and looked as if she’d pass out. My mother was losing it seeing Diana like that.

The Rabbi said some final prayers and brought things to a close, but then Diana asked that the grave be filled and family and friends went back to the shovels. It had just started to rain again and at that moment, the skies opened up and it was all just too much—like an orchestrated piece of schmaltz. Those covering the coffin with dirt were getting soaked through their clothes with the downpour.  I lowered my umbrella for a moment to feel the rain on my face, to remind myself I was alive.

We got in the car after that and I took this photo, to remember this moment, this moment of life and death interwoven in this beautiful mourning. We went back to the house in Nyack and connected and chatted with family and old friends and people I haven’t seen in ages and people I’ve never met. We missed Shelly.

Shelly lived and taught that it is better to light a candle—to always light a candle—than to curse the darkness. He quoted this often in his work, we were told today. I feel humbled for having known him and honored to have been part of his circle of “family” friends. His passing is wrong in every way and unfair and horrible and just WRONG, but his legacy is expansive. Everyone who has been in contact with him will remember him, and is better for having known him. I will miss him. I will smile when I think of him and his silly jokes and how he emanated kindness, always.