Meet the BlogHers, or The One Where I Drop Many Names

I remember when the Muppet Movie first came out and Kermit was shown riding a bicycle. It was so funny that no one had ever considered what he would look like mobile.

That's how it's felt meeting all these women so far. They have legs! They can walk! Oh my God, Julie from MotherGoosemouse is walking - how cool! Plus they're all three-dimensional. Nothing at all like the little pixilated photos I've seen on their blogs for months. They even talk and smile and bounce their knees under the table and put pretty polish on their toenails.

Just like real people.

And for real? Everyone is seriously younger and prettier than they look on their blogs. I don't know why I thought that Mir was like 50 but she's this adorable petite young thing.

When I hopped the free shuttle to the Hyatt from the San Jose airport, the first person I met was Roo.



Pretty, pretty Roo, one of the first bloggers I ever discovered. And now she's here! Talking to me, every bit as eloquent and thoughtful as her writing; being nice enough to keep me company after the desk clerk informs us that, um, yeah, we're like four hours early for check-in.

We grabbed a table outside, while I looked for Catherine like a complete loser fan overeagerly stalking a rock star. The delightful Mary Tsao joined, and since pretty much everyone in the whole blogging world seems to know her, the table just sort of grew from there. It was like the student union in college, only without the turf wars with the rich Euro kids at the adjacent tables. Julie showed up (how much do I love Julie?) and it was instantly comfortable, like meeting a long-lost friend.

In fact, the whole weekend so far has seemed rather like attending a highschool reunion with amnesia. You know the people--you just aren't quite sure you could identify them without the nametags

Without further ado I announce the BlogHer (Night 1) Class of 2006:

(NB: This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the awesome people I've met so far. It's just the ones for whom I was able to put my wine glass down long enough to take a picture.)

Mary Tsao, Most Popular.

Catherine, Class Brain, In the requisite dorky "hey, let's take a picture of each other taking a picture" picture.

Asha, Most Likely to Succeed (and to be found giggling in the back with Mom101 through the lectures)

Karen Rani, Class Cleavage

Me, Class Drunken Shinyface
and Julie, Most Likely To Facilitate Drunkeness

Tracey, Class Rebel

Alice, Most Likely to Make me Starstruck and Incapable of Putting Words Together in a Sentence That's Not Quite English

Mir, Most Prolific
Stephania, Class Fashionplate

Izzy, Class Beauty (I mean holy cow, she's GORGEOUS!)

Dawn, Class Clown

Amy, Queen of the World (And not just because she agreed to wear a Mom-1o1 button, although it did help)

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PS: For those bloggers not at blogHer, Shannon at PhatMommy is doing a very cool virtual BlogHer thingie. Check it out! It's just like San Jose but the hangovers are optional and your beds are probably a little more comfortable.