The World is Smaller Than You Think

In a strange twist of coincidence, both of my dead dads were computer genuises .... back in the day. My real dad, Bill, worked at IBM in Sydney in the very early eighties, and my stepdad David was a self-taught computer whiz who always had the latest in technology. We had a "computer room" when I was a kid, I remember typing out game programs from this huge thick book. At the end of four hours, I coded something like, a pixelated rabbit bouncing down the street.

We also had the very latest in Atari .... oh yeah. Pitfall, Space Invaders, Defender, Frogger, ...... my sisters and I were allowed to play Atari whenever and for however long we wanted to. Probably because it kept us quiet, but man it was fun.

Point is, years later, as a grown woman with a family - I have met some of my best friends in the computer. Bloggers are people too, you know. We can reach through each others screens, support, love, help build up. Make changes, get enlightened, get real.

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I had the privilege of meeting Mel from Stirrup Queens.

It was so amazing to hug her, this lady who does so much for the infertility and loss community. She mostly cried when we met; I mostly cried when we said goodbye. I thanked her for sending me support at a time in my life when I needed it the most. She's beautiful, inside and out.

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I've read Heather since 2008. Finally, I met her (and Gramma and Annabel) at a party she was hosting for one of her sponsors:

I met her through my friend Gemini Girl. Heather is wonderful. Beautiful. Hilarious - one of the best bloggers around ..... and life has made her into a wise Soul, at a very early age. She went on her honeymoon in AUSTRALIA. I keep pestering her about coming back down and staying with me. She will, one day. Armed with bug spray, because she hates spiders too.

At the Sparklecorn party, on the last night of BlogHer, my roomie and entourage all left. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to it yet. Especially not when the DJ played Jay Z .... singing Empire State of Mind.




But then, I got self-conscious and started to feel strange, all alone in a sea of bloggers. Right then, Heather appeared from nowhere and grabbed me, pulled me up on the stage, to dance with her and her friends. We all said hi to each other - there was a *lot* of pulling blogging business cards out of cleavage. Really. (I'm looking at you, Shauna Glenn.)

You would call Heather a "big" blogger ... for her to pull me up was like a lovely analogy ... there's room for all of us, on the blogging stage. There is. (That's if you actually want to BE on stage.)

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A few days afterwards, TB was coming to meet me in my hotel lobby. I was really nervous. TB doesn't stand for tuberculosis ..... she used to blog at Tob.acco Brun.ette. Now she blogs at The Clamor. (Even though it's supposed to be 'Clamour' - what is it with you Americans dropping your u's?). TB always needs to blog. She makes me feel normal. Look how gorgeous she is -

Smart and sassy and so fricken hilarious. We talked and talked and laughed. We were both shy at first, but that quickly stopped. Dave came down and met us, we all had dinner together. Then we both needed to go to the bathroom - I said oh, TB I HAVE to get photos of the toilet. She was all, o-kaaaaay. But seriously, check out this toilet!

I was relieved to find that she was just as amazed as I was, at the toilet. Thought she might have been all, "Oh that's what ALL the toilets are like in NYC, you hick."

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I met many more bloggers over in the Americaz - and I plan on meeting many more. I went to a Sydney bloggers meetup last week. Where the hell have all the Australian bloggers been? Well, they have been right under my nose, apparently.

Lucky my nose is BIG.

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Right now I'm at my MILs, lounging on the bed, reminiscing and blogging. Dave just collapsed next to me after taking all the kids to the beach in the rain. "It's your turn." I'll probably never write the recap of our trip - maybe when we're in our sixties and all the kids have left home, then I can sit down and think properly. In the meantime, my blogging is always rushed and sporadic, bursts of inappropriate banter and ridiculous thoughts.

(An exact replica of my life, really.)