I’m single.

For the weekend that is.

My wife has left me to attend RollerCon in Las Vegas where she will be gambling, sitting by the pool, drinking cocktails, and picking up chicks learning lots about how to be a better derby player. I’m excited for her, especially since she gets to go somewhere cooler than Portland! The other day it was either 105, 107, 109, or 111. No one really knows but there was grand speculation on exactly how hot it was. Really I don’t think it makes any difference once the temperature gets passed, oh, say 102, but people loved talking about it. Today it’s a cool and breezy 90 degrees and I am home for the weekend. All Alone.

It’s a bittersweet thing. On one hand, I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do, I can watch whatever I want on television, not make the bed, throw towels on the floor, eat ice cream all day or really just go crazy if I feel like it.

On the other hand, I miss her and I get lonely and whiney!

One thing I will be doing is appearing on Strange Love Live tonight at 10 pm (pacific time) where I will be talking about BlogHer09 with Melissa Lion. For the After Hours program it will just be me, (memememe) talking about (memememe) and other things. I have a feeling that the conversation may turn to roller derby and the Rose City Rollers but we’ll see what Cami Kaos has in mind for me! Do you know Cami Kaos? She’s my latest Blog Crush (not to be confused with my Derby Crush, who is someone different.) Cami is so beautiful and sexy and I feel all fluttery when I’m around her. Hopefully tonight she’ll give me a cocktail so I’m not so nervous; maybe a Tiki Drink with a Very Long Straw! I guess everyone will have to watch and see!

In the meantime, I do have that review to do for Eden Fantasys and I haven’t yet opened the product that needs to be reviewed. That could pass the time I suppose . . .

BlogHer09 Wrap Up

I’m home from Chicago and my second BlogHer conference, and although I enjoyed it, I’m not signing up for next year’s conference just yet and probably won’t. Not because I have a big complaint or was treated poorly or got into a fight with anyone–I’m just a bit over it. It’s big. There are so many people (estrogen) and there is so much energy. It’s exhausting. I came home exhausted. I’m still not completely recovered from all of the socialization and stimulation and energy (and estrogen, did I mention that?) I’m not the type of person who has good boundaries all of the time and sometimes I get caught up in what and all that I’m doing I don’t realize that I’m quickly heading toward a fast moving downward spiral into a very bad place. I get over-tired, over-stimulated, over-socialized, over-partied, and over-done and then get anxious, anxious, anxious. When I get anxious I start to get insecure and think that everyone hates me and Cher is going to leave me and I’m fat.

Luckily I have good friends like my BlogHer09 roomie, Melissa Lion and Twitter friends who gave me good support. Saturday night was a four xanax night and it took until yesterday to feel better and not until today to feel completely better, just in time for my wife to leave to go to RollerCon in Las Vegas! I’m also grateful to my amazing wife, Facebook friends and derby friends. Thank you for helping me pull myself out of it, I’m much better now.

Besides my personal issues with being over-stimulated and doing too much and the fact that I can’t seem to learn that Kathryn+Not Eating+Vodka=NotAGoodSituationForAnyone I have other thoughts about BlogHer09 that I will attempt to review (kindly.) I will do it using the sandwich method of feedback.

1. (Positive) I was absolutely thrilled to speak at the Blogqueers panel with Stacy Jill Jacobs and Liza Barry-Kessler. We had a wonderful group of women attend including Deb on the Rocks, Lesbian Dad, and Zoe from Gaymo, just to name a few! We were small enough to be able to have everyone make introductions and really participate, which was wonderful. The entire room came to tears when a wonderful woman named Jennifer introduced herself and told her story: she is the mother of a five year old transgender child who is looking for support. She has not had a very positive response from many people and is now going to be grappling with legal issues regarding changing her child’s gender on school registration forms so that she can begin kindergarten as the gender she identifies. I felt blessed that I had just received an email from someone with a child with gender issues and was able to tell her that she was not alone. I hope that she felt a sisterhood in that room and was able to get some good advice from other participants.

Our live blogger, Amy, was also in tears at the end of the session. She told us that she was a mommyblogger and out of her element being around us. She said that she was not exposed to much outside of her cookie cutter life and was grateful to hear our stories and be a part of our group. It was really wonderful how moved she was. I was always happy to see Amy’s happy face during the rest of the conference and I hope that she was able to leave this weekend knowing that lezzies don’t have three heads and that we are actually quite normal!

It was wonderful that the BlogHer founders made an effort to bring some diversity to the conference. Not only did we have our panel session, both days we had a GLBTQ table at lunch and Ilene Chaiken was one of the keynote speakers. It was nice not to feel invisible in the sea of mommybloggers at the conference–it was a good step.

Also, the Queerosphere party that was organized by Deb on the Rocks and sponsored by Queerlywed.com was amazing at an amazing space with an amazing cocktail waitress that I may or may not have made inappropriate comments about. This was also where I had my bad run in with Vodka. Vodka and I are no longer friends.

As always, I enjoy being with like-minded people and we seemed to find each other quite well. I can’t even begin to list the wonderful women that I met and talked to and lunched with but I can tell you that they were amazing. Yes, most of us who hung out were queer identified but that wasn’t the only connection. Melissa Lion and some other ladies who are straight hung out with us too–it was a great group of women!

Overall, I loved the part about socializing with other women. I enjoyed the sessions I attended (for the most part) and overall, the part I took away the most was how neat (yes I just said neat) it was to hang out with other women who are techie and love to write and blog and care about a lot of the same things that I care about: women, feminism, birth, equality, writing, twitter, the internet, technology, social media, etc. All of that was the best part. The very best part.

2. (Negative) I could sum it up with one word (mommybloggers) but that would be very unfair considering that I spoke to a few of the mommybloggers who were lovely (including the aforementioned Amy as well as my co-panelist Liza.) For the most part, however, I was a teeny tiny afraid of their en mas state of being and presence. I was unaware that the mommyblogger market was so hot and how much sponsors lurve them and want to give them stuff (like laundry detergent and Mary Kay samples and shampoo and vacuum cleaners and other stuff.) Funny enough, the only swag party Melissa Lion and I were really interested in attending was the one with the sex toys from Eden Fantasy’s. We didn’t get a bag because all of the mommybloggers rushed the place; it was like a sale at Filene’s basement, only worse. Mommybloggers love vibrators I guess. I have many vibrators and since my collection is growing thanks to reviewing Eden Fantasy products, I thought I would step aside and let them have the sex toys. After all, I remember being an oppressed, sexually repressed hetero-woman and if any of them are in that state, they need all the help they can get!

Monetizing. Last year I was very surprised at the sessions on monetizing your blog because I’ve never looked at my blog in any way except to express myself, connect with others, share information and as a tool to practice the craft of writing. I’m not alone in that camp but it seems that there are a lot of others who are very concerned/obsessed/focused on trying to somehow make money from their mommyblogs. Confusing to me.

Size. It was big. Lots of people. It would have been nice to see some more sessions where people could find like minded others (like ours, but other niches.) I’m not sure how to make something that large more personal but it was just overwhelming at times the sheer amount of people.

The food. Was terrible.

Would have liked to have had more sessions on Social Media, Techie stuff, website design, CSS, etc. Melissa Lion has some great ideas on her post and I agree with her completely! (It also looks like she’s going to plan something for Portland next year so stay tuned!)

3. (Positive) Chicago.

Chicago is a wonderful and beautiful city with very nice people. We took the train from Midway to downtown and had to read a MAP to find the hotel. Kathryn does not read maps well at all (my wife can attest to this fact) so we had a bit of confusion navigating our way. Every time we stopped to look at the map someone came over to ask us if we needed help. It happened three times and three times someone rushed over, and it wasn’t even a homeless person or anything. So nice.

Chicago has tall buildings, which for a Portlander is very cool. We don’t have any. There are very, very tall buildings. Our hotel room overlooked the river and from the other side we could see the ocean. I didn’t know there was an ocean in Chicago but I saw it! I told Melissa, “Look, it’s an ocean!” Then I thought about it and realized that despite my public school education I was smart enough to know that it must be Lake Michigan (which it was.)

On the first day we took the train to a neighborhood that reminded us both of Portland and our new friends took us around to see some different neighborhoods while we were there. We also had brunch with some ladies Cher and I met on our last Olivia trip, which was super fun. They told me that they are expecting a baby in January and I gave them a teddy bear from my swag bag (mommybloggers like teddy bears.)

So Chicago and her people? Big Positive.

That’s it. Or all I can sift through right now. Melissa and I will be on Strange Love Live this week to discuss BlogHer, so please subscribe through iTunes and listen! Until then, stay cool peeps. It’s freaking hot in Portland right now (107) and everyone is cranky, cranky, cranky!

We’re off like a prom dress

To BlogHer09 in lovely Chicago.

I have all of my clothes picked out for the parties we’ll be attending. One is black, one is black and white and one is black with white.

I’ll be wearing black shoes.

My conference clothes are black and grey and black and white.

I’ll be wearing black shoes.

I’m super excited to be travelling with Melissa Lion and seeing lots of bloggy friends including Deb on the Rocks who is hosting the Queerosphere Party on Friday night! (I’ll be wearing black.) The party is sponsored in part by Queerly Wed, the business and website owned by my co-speaker Stacy Jill Jacobs. I wonder what she’ll be wearing? (Stacy? You should wear black!)

It’s all very exciting.

Melissa Lion and I will be taking the red eye tonight out of Portland and arriving at Chicago Midway sometime in the morning. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to sleep a little on the plane or I may be very, very cranky a little tired. I’m sure when I get there I’ll be so excited my lack of sleep will matter not.

I’ll warn Melissa.

While I’m gone I will worry about HG being lonely and crying for me. I really, really hope someone will take pity on her and do something to entertain her! (Or I hope she does some really fabulous project while I’m gone like replace the flooring in our bedroom or have the house painted…)

When I’m in Chicago, I will be tweeting so follow me on Twitter @KLMartini for BlogHer09 news (and gossip.) And I’m sure a post or two may appear!

Cheers y’all!

I’m going into the Sex Toy Business

Oh, Hi Internet!

I couldn’t blog for these many days because I was taken captive by a band of pirates, had a kidney removed, and joined a monastery where you weren’t allowed to talk (or blog.)

Okay so I’m a liar.

Really it’s so summery outside and I’m off from school and I’m really, really lazy. Also I’ve been doing projects like painting my powder room and ripping out all of my bedroom carpet and having meetings and going camping with roller derby teams.

And lazy.

On our camping trip I was a really big girl and did a couple of things that I wouldn’t normally do (besides the obvious camping with rollergirls.) We went to a super secret location in the woods and nearby there was a natural swimming hole area that was glacier fed and beautiful. I, Kathryn, do not go into cold water, ever, so one foot in the water pretty much decided that I would be sitting in my chair reading a magazine. Until some of the girls talked of going on an adventure. Being older than the rest of them, I didn’t want to be shown up so I decided to go, which required me to SWIM in the glacier fed swimming area. Once in the water I believe I went into some kind of shock because I Could Not Breath. Eventually my breathing returned and because I was in shock, the water didn’t seem to be all that cold. Then there were rocks. Tall ones. And the girls wanted to jump off of the rocks into the water. I, Kathryn, am afraid of heights and with the exception of sky diving does not jump from high places, ever. But again, not to be shown up by the younger women, Did It.

When we were walking back a couple of guys who were sitting in their chairs asked how far we went and if it was hard. I said it was a little bit hard but we were tough bitches. He said to one of the girls behind me, “Did she just say you were tough bitches?” and she said, “Yes she did and Yes we are!”

Who would have thought I would turn into a tough bitch?

I would tell you more about the camping trip except that I took a vow in blood never to reveal the details. What happens in the woods, stays in the woods–that’s my motto and I’ll take it to the death.

Also I don’t kiss and tell. Or do anything else and tell. Unless I’m blogging about it.

BlogHer 09 is coming up in one week and I can’t believe it! Melissa Lion is trying to outdo me by looking all skinny. She had the nerve to go on a diet and lose ten pounds! (Okay, actually she had a stomach virus and puked for nine days but whatever.) Now everyone will be like, “Oh Melissa you look so much skinnier in person than you do on the internet!” And then I’ll have to whisper, (”shhhhh, she’s a puker.”) We have so many parties to attend and people to see and meet. It’s very exciting.

Hopefully when I return from Chicago I’ll have a package or two waiting for me from Eden Fantasys! It seems that someone from there has enjoyed a post or two from this blog and asked if I would be interested in reviewing some of their products. Well after the debackle from the sex toy party I attended with Teresa DiFalco where we almost had to have the sex toy lady arrested for not giving us her products, I decided yes, I would be happy to review the products of Eden Fantasys and report about them here at recoveringstraightgirl.com. Who was that who said something bad would happen to me as a result of blogging? Oh, it was my exhusband but I don’t think he even knows what a sex toy is so this opportunity would be lost on him.

Blogging in Real Life is the theme of BlogHer this year and this theme means a lot to me. I can honestly say that nearly every single good thing and opportunity that has come into my life has been a result of either the internet or blogging directly. That is huge and very true. I owe a lot to blogging–my best friends, work, escapades, volunteer and writing opportunities and now sex toys!

Who would have thought?

I’m not afraid to shamelessly self-promote

Well now that I’m actually going to BlogHer and actually get to speak at BlogHer on a panel with two amazing queer bloggers, (Liza and Stacy, they rock!) I think I should do a blog re-design. The problem is that I’m way to lazy to do this and really need an assistant. Unfortunately there is no money left in my (non-existent) disposable income for an assistant. I figure I have a few choices:

1. Just do it myself.
2. Beg someone to do it.
3. Trade sexual favors.
4. Whine until someone helps me.

When you stop by here and see that things are different, you’ll know that one of those choices worked out for me. In the meantime, here is the description of what Stacy, Liza and I will be speaking about:

Room of Your Own 2: Blogqueers – LGBTQ BloggersQueer bloggers are in every corner of the blogosphere. Sometimes, but not always, their identities bring many issues to their blogging because they write and live through the lens of being queer. Their community is made up of mommybloggers, lifebloggers, craft bloggers, garden bloggers, foodies, business and marketing SMS pros, political pundits, infertility bloggers, literary bloggers, special topic bloggers and bloggers who feel that they don’t fit into any niche.

So let’s discuss some of the things that come up when blogging, such as: What is the state of the LBGTQ community? Does it meet your needs? Do you feel accepted by straight bloggers in your niche? Do you feel safe enough to blog out of the closet? Have you experienced backlash, and if so what has helped you respond to it? How have you dealt with your partners’ and friends’ thirst for privacy? And perhaps most importantly, what support do you need to continue blogging with your fullest passion and truest voice? Join Kathryn Martini, Stacy Jill Jacobs and Liza Barry-Kessler as they discuss with you the answers to these questions.

That’s a little bit fancy, isn’t it?

There is one wee bit of sadness about this particular break-out session. It’s at the exact same time that Melissa Lion is also speaking, which means that she can’t come and pretend she’s a lezzie and ask poignant questions and I can’t go and pretend I’m a fancy businessy type person and ask her questions. I’m hoping someone will live-blog her session so at least I can hear what’s happening.

In other news: I’m getting some projects done around the house, my kids are cranky, I think I may ban sleep-overs for the rest of the summer, I need a good therapist, and it’s going to be god-awful hot the entire weekend.

Why is everyone so damned cranky around this house? It should be a happy time and a happy place.

Can someone please recommend a therapist?

Please?