I don't know if I could drive a car/Fast enough to get to where you are

Hey hey---
My lovely cousin Erin is going to post for me in the morning so I can keep my blog365 promise going- I may be able to post tomorrow night (but I might be having too many cocktails and living the high life),so she is so sweet to help me out.
Please give her some love? xoxoxoxo Amy who really needs to pack!

Sunset on the Golden Gate Bridge, originally uploaded by Wiggum03.

I am going to San Fran in the morning for Blogher and I am insanely excited. I flitted about my bedroom last night trying on outfits and realized that the art of primping for other women is so fun and it is like riding a bicycle. I am also quite astonished at how quickly things change in the span of one calendar year. I can remember be hunched over my old desktop last summer and reading all about the Chicago conference and thinking that it looked fun. I think I thought it was simply a networking conference about writing. I was so blog unversed at that time. I clearly thought that Blogher would have been much like any conference I would have attended for work. I would have extended arms, padded business card portfolio, wasted time, and had some fun yes, but I had no idea that going to Blogher would mean more.

I am a major extrovert and have no problem mixing and chatting and working a crowd. Rarely a year goes by without me dancing on a bar. I was very good in the business world as I made connections very well. I made connection after connection, but might not really have connected. I have often been resistant to change, saying that I have always had too many friends and had little time or energy for new ones. I held people at arms length and I hate it. I would work the work and then close the door right before someone would probably offer me some magical gift. It is called being stubborn and I learned it somewhere.

Doobleh-vay has given me a gift, it has made me reach beyond my easy breezy comfortable surface connection level and really care and learn about others in a new way. I had no idea that in a measly year I would form real relationships and connect in ways that would help me so much in my personal quest as writer. I had no idea I would come to care about people so much who lived inside my computer. I have made friendships and connections that have offered me wisdom & advice, money making gigs, the courage to write my novel, and the balls to send queries off that have landed me freelance writing jobs. I have been so moved by other people and blogs that I have sat here and sobbed and had my heart broken in ten thousand pieces. I have been enlightened and I have swooned and I have had my creative soul charged until fire flew from my fingertips.

I have discovered so very much about myself by dipping my toe in this community. I have also come to think about this conference. I may be way off, but I sense a real bonding experience. I think if I were to go back and look over those photographs on all the blogs in 2007 I would see the truth in the eyes that stare back. They were throwing their heads back and laughing, they were huddled together in small groups smiling, they were living loud right off the screen...They knew. And this year I know and it makes all the difference.