Three Babes Walked Into a Bar

Three babes walked into a bar.

All on their own.

And not to meet men.

They were there to meet women.  Oh, hold on to your excitement guys.  This is not that kind of story.

We were invited guests for an ‘on the road with Blogher/SheKnows’ event.  Blogher was the mac-daddy (or mac-mama would be the better name here being we’re mostly women who are part of this gang) of all blogging conferences for many years… they really invented the notion of all of us in the blogging world, people who bond online through our stories, actually getting together face to face at least once a year to get real hugs instead of virtual ones, to share our knowledge and learn from each other’s experiences—in life and the blog.

This was the must-not-miss event for many of us for many years.  There were sessions and parties and good old fashioned connecting.  And, oh the swag.  You needed an extra suitcase for all the stuff you’d bring home.

But that swag and those parties kind of spiraled out of control for some…other conferences were created and eventually, those of us who in previous years wouldn’t skip a Blogher conference ended up missing the annual event, for a variety of reasons.

But now, Blogher, which recently merged with SheKnows (another awesome site full of fun and a gazillion followers) is taking its party on the road, and that’s renewing interest in the event again, and doing what I think made it so great to begin with—bringing bloggers together, making it easier for some of us to see each other,  even in our own cities.

They set it up in a bar and bought the drinks (food, too).  They didn’t charge a thing for us to come…and the swag at the end of the night was a chocolate bar (a fancy chocolate bar, but still, not a suitcase of stuff).  And I loved that.  I loved that it was really just about getting together again…not lots of extra swag.

I got to see some of my favorite people, including the two gals who I was talking about at the beginning of this little article.

They’re SurvivingMommy and SassyPiehole.

Technically, those are their blogs.  And their Twitter names.  And in this universe, I know people by their Twitter names, not their first names, in many, many cases.  It’s how we know each other.  And come to love each other.  And I have to say, I love these two people.  Adore them.

SurvivingMommy is a sweety…the kind of friend who will do anything for you at the drop of a hat.  She has a good heart and a killer knowledge of all things celebrity (other than The Walking Dead…she’s too sweet to get into that yet, but I’m working on contaminating her).  SassyPiehole is wicked funny.  The kind of funny that gets me into trouble for laughing at very bad times because we tend to fall into our own private conversations while a speaker is talking about something incredibly heavy. Sorry about that speakers.  I told you, this woman is funny.  I can’t help it.

My pals call me Spunky.  That’s not my blog…the blog is Stress-free, baby! (duh, you’re reading it, right?) It’s meant to be sarcastic, but few people get that.  My life is anything but stress-free.

But I digress.  Back to the story.

So, in this bar, the three of us find each other….just like a romance movie, right?  Here’s Sweet, Sassy and Spunky, in our own corner being what outsiders would call silly (or stupid… dang…enough with the s’s, right)?

We should have been working the room, talking to more people… you know…what you do at these kinds of events.  But we were having too much fun yapping.  Laughing. Connecting.

Don’t get me wrong.  We did visit with other people, but I bonded with these babes (again, not that kind of story boys!) and plan to see these gals again. And again. And hopefully, we’ll help each other through the hiccups that our real lives are serving up right now, while guiding each other through the online stuff, too.

And THAT is what it’s all about.  I think Blogher has it’s groove back, because THIS is what it’s all about for me.  Finding my tribe and loving them.

And it’s ok if it keeps happening in a bar where someone else is buying the drinks.

Expect to hear more about Sweet, Sassy and Spunky soon.