Highlight Reel.

THURSDAY.

• I have a longstanding love affair with The Warwick Hotel. If I had my way, I would live there—as Cary Grant did for many years—but in this as in so many things I have been thwarted, and have had to settle for the occasional brief stay whenever I visit New York. This last time, I reserved The Hollywood Suite for a night to host my book party, a suite with an honest-to-god TERRACE. Heather was with me when I checked in, and once we saw the view, our cameras came out with a fierce quickness, like something out of an old Western.

In one direction, you could see all the way to the river.

And here we are, pretending to be the Other Half that presumably is accustomed to such accommodations:

The hotel room was full of surprises—part way through the evening we discovered a whole second bathroom in what I had assumed was another closet. This struck me as more luxurious, even, than the terrace: two whole bathrooms! I never!


Also, once it was dark, I noticed what I am pretty sure was the Bat Signal.

{fig. 1: Something terrible has happened at the Commissioner’s Ball!}

• The party itself was perfect. I’d been certain that I would, at some point, be arrested, on account of I was unclear on the legality of bringing one’s own food and alcohol into a hotel room without paying graft to the catering department, but somehow I escaped with my criminal record unblemished. There was wine, and there were cupcakes thoughtfully arrayed upon every surface by my beloved friend Fernanda. I got to meet Jonna, which more or less made my weekend (and for her own sake, I hope she wasn’t kidding about the “come to Boston!” invitation, because otherwise it’s going to be terribly awkward when I show up, bag in hand). I met Holly, whom I’ve long felt I already HAD met, simply because we’ve been reading each others’ words for so very long. I was happily reunited with and surrounded by many dear friends (TOO MANY FOR THOROUGH LINKING, god help me), friends like Linda, who are close enough to dispense with small talk entirely and open with a remark about my breasts. It was wonderful.


{Ed. Note: Cupcake photo courtesy Heather, photo of books courtesy Leah.}

• Speaking of being reunited (and it feels so gooood), when I was in New York for BEA in May, I was reunited (cause we understooood—sorry, I’ll stop now) with one of my very best friends from college, Ashley. That is a story for another time (it’s the story that involves me being mistaken for a Soiled Dove, which tale I never did get around to telling), but this time, Ashley brought another of my closest college friends, Abby, along with her.

The strangest thing about meeting up with friends from college is the way that even if it has been ten years (my god, can that possibly be right?), somehow, it feels as if no time has passed at all. Except, of course, that we have matured greatly since our school days.

Obviously.

• When nearly all the guests had gone, Abby and Ashley remained, and we had a dance party. Heather was still there and joined in. She kindly refrained from mocking us, though I did notice her videotaping—I assume because the sight of three 30-year-old white girls dancing to Biggie for hours and hours was too absurd to leave undocumented. That video is probably in a locked safe deposit box somewhere, in case Heather should ever decide she needs the sort of favor only blackmail could induce me to perform.

FRIDAY

• I woke up at 7am after three hours of sleep and gathered up the case of empty wine bottles and consolidated the trash and then got carried away and cleaned the whole suite, including scrubbing the stone of the terrace on my hands and knees. Sure, I could have left a crumb or two for housekeeping, but it was so satisfying to clean a space thoroughly and know that no baby would come behind you and muck it up again. However, I left the picture frames as they were—askew—to show that Something Had Happened there the night before. Then I had breakfast on the terrace (pretending that I was in White Collar) before sadly bidding adieu to the ample lap of luxury and shuffling across the street to the Hilton for the rest of my stay.

• I finally met Lawyerish, and didn’t steal her baby. I can’t tell you the restraint this required, because that baby was indecently delectable. In the end, only my unwillingness to add to the mountain of “UNHINGED INFERTILE WOMAN KIDNAPS INFANT” storylines so popular on television crime shows kept me from it.

• Sometime after lunch, I saw Eden mention her room number on Twitter—to someone else, mind you. Eden and I’d had IVF retrievals (and thus due dates) two days apart (though Simone undershot hers a bit, obviously). I was eager to meet her in person, and since her room number indicated we were staying on the same floor, I figured I’d pop down the hall and say hello.
As I neared her door, however, it occurred to me that “Hello! We haven’t been formally introduced, but I saw your room number on Twitter!” might be an…unsavory way to open a conversation, so I began composing an email, only to realize that an email that reads “I’m standing outside your door RIGHT NOW” was even worse. I gave up and knocked, and when Eden opened the door she greeted me with a grin and a hug that were just what what BlogHer is really about. Discovering over and over the alchemy that turns people you have only known online into real friends, or, more accurately, reveals that actually, they always were.

• Friday night I hit the inevitable wall that approaches the day after you stay up until four a.m. dancing and then neglect to sleep in, and so I skipped the parties and crawled into bed with delicious room service.

SATURDAY

• I really, really missed Simone this trip. Last year I was fine, both for BlogHer and the nine days I spent in Switzerland. People would say “Oh! It must be so hard to be away from your baby!” and I would just cackle and roll around on my big, fluffy hotel bed. This year, though…this year, it was rough. At some point I got it into my head that it would make me feel better to get her a present, and I knew just the thing: a new baby, one with longer hair, long enough that she could indulge her sleepy fetishistic hair rubbing proclivites even while my head and I were far away from her. Alas, I ran into a familiar problem when I tried to find a doll that passably resembled my daughter. I don’t know why I get so stroppy about the glut of blonde haired, blue eyed dolls, but I do, and so first thing Saturday morning I walked twenty-some blocks uptown to Mary Arnold Toys and found my brunette quarry at last. The walk along the park was beautiful, and when I decided to take a cab back downtown I discovered that nowhere are taxi drivers so responsive to even the suggestion of a raised arm than the Upper East Side.

• My signing at the BlogHer bookstore was wonderful. They sold out quickly, before I had signed more than ten or so copies, so either the bookstore didn’t order that many to begin with or they sold most of them the day before. Either way, a success. My friends came to lend support:

• Next I took the train downtown (I even helped a frightened-looking tourist decipher her subway map and saw her to her stop, thus performing my good deed for the day) to Joe’s, where I met Ashley, Abby, and another college friend I last saw a decade ago: Tony.

{fig. 2: Yes, gentlemen, he’s available}

• After a delightful conversational interlude, Abby, Ashley, and I started off toward the train, and had a picturesque New York moment when a very excitable man began running along beside us. He had a lot to say.

“CUNTS! Hey you! Cunts!”
We kept walking, as one does. It was a beautiful day. The crazies were in bloom!
“You UGLY! Ugly HAIR, ugly BODIES, ugly CHEEKBONES…ugly, ugly, UGLY!”
We kept walking, trying not to laugh because They Don’t Like That, but this only infuriated him further. He waved his arms and spit upon the ground, shouting:
“NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU FOR YOURSELF!!”

(Which, as I pointed out, is highly illogical, as I would think that ugliness would virtually guarantee that if anyone loves you, it is for yourself—because it’s certainly not for those substandard cheekbones.)

We stopped at Gray’s for hotdogs, and encountered another persistently sociable gentleman on the platform waiting for the train uptown, but he was easily put off when we began discussing Abby’s parole officer. It was all just like old times.

• The three of us made our way to The Volstead, where I finally met Alice. She is one of my oldest Internet pen-pals, and yet like Pyramus and Thisbe, circumstances have conspired to keep us apart. UNTIL NOW.

I’d imagine the picture is blurry because we are vibrating with glee.

(That night I also met the truly lovely Jenny, whom I can only assume I hadn’t encountered previously because we both spend so much of our time at conferences hiding in bathrooms/corners/hotel suites with our respective anxiety medications.)

• I knew I had an early flight in the morning, so I said my goodbyes. I was sorry to be missing the big Saturday night parties, and frankly felt pulled all week between the conference and the city, as if I were trying to have two separate weekends at once. There were friends I didn’t get a chance to talk to, others with whom my conversations were far too brief. It’s always this way. But in the end, I saw familiar faces, discovered lovely new people (Susan!), and left already counting down to next year.

Next up: Tales from the road…