BlogHer'08: Just the first night...

Shallow as I am, I must confess that the parties and the socializing were the raison d'etre of BlogHer'08 for me. But then I announced that ahead of time, didn't I.

I meant to go to the Guy Kawasaki/Kirtsy party on Thursday night, but it was a tad difficult to get to. They had hired buses to take us from the St. Francis to Guy's house in Atherton. Good thinking, that. Not so good was the rush hour traffic, the 30 mile trip, and the bus driver who got lost. I got to the appointed pickup area at about 5:15 or so. Evidently I just missed a bus. The one with the bus driver who got lost. At 5:30, someone came out and told us the buses were "running slow and late." The earliest the next one would be there was 5:45, if then. And it would take, oh, another three quarters of an hour, if not more since it was smack in the middle of rush hour, to get to Guy's. Why didn't we wait inside, it was suggested, since this was San Francisco, and it was cold and windy outside. I did some mental math and decided that no matter how much I wanted to meet Guy (and thank him for putting the Midlife category on Alltop), I probably wouldn't be all that pleasant when I finally got there. So, yeah, I bagged it. And it was my loss, as I hear from those who went.

The two parties I did make it to on Thursday night were BlogHer's Newbie Party and The People's Party. The Newbie Party was quite lovely. Open bars...waiters passing endless amounts of finger snacky things--which was good, since I'd missed dinner. I feared, this not being my first but my THIRD BlogHer Conference, that I would be turned away from the Newbie Party. But would BlogHer do that? No way. I wish there had been a Newby Party the year I was a Newby, although that year we all hung out by the pool at the San Jose Hyatt, so meeting people wasn't that much of a problem. Still, it's nice to have the weekend begin with a celebration. I was with Melissa Silverstein at the Newby Party and we talked to Stephanie Klein, who told us about her new book, Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp. Clearly Stephanie has mastered forever the days when she needed Fat Camp, and she is now working on the tele- (or is it screen-?)play of her first book, Straight Up and Dirty. However, Melissa, who blogs about Women and Hollywood, was itching to meet some radical feminist BlogHers, so we went to The People's Party to see if the bra burners were hanging out there.

Everyone was hanging out at The People's Party, which was in a smallish room. Consequently, the noise level was ab-so-lute-ly unbelievable. The People's Party was loud, people. Make that LOUD. Make that Ear Assaulting Pain Inducing Loud. I must confess that I was somewhat embarrassed, nay humiliated even, that a room full of my fellow female bloggers sounded like the aural definition of the word cacophony. Our voices hit a decibel register that, well, that approaches a cackle, as heard through a superbowl sized megaphone. A Superbowl Cackle, a chorus of Cackles.


This noise level issue was a problem at the St. Francis all weekend. I cannot believe that a room full of men sounds so dreadful. If it did, I'm sure the acoustical engineers would be trotted out instantly to do whatever was necessary to amend the problem. But since it was just a room full of women--like, how often is that going to happen? Let them eat cake, as it were. Let them go deaf listening to their shrill selves. Let them.....whatever.

I Can Hear You Now...

...whereas before I could not. Or at least, not very well. Perhaps you didn't know that. Or perhaps I allowed myself the illusion that you didn't know that.

When I was three years old, I had massive ear infections which prompted the doctor to swaddle me tight in a sheet and stick needles into my ears to lance the infections. That's what they did in those days. These days I believe they surgically insert tubes in the child's ear which is, to be sure, much less trauma-inducing. Whether it is any more effective is moot. It seems, however, a likely candidate for blaming my piss poor hearing. When I finally ended up in an otologists office, the official word was that I have "bilateral hearing loss in the human voice range."

When I was first tested, it was deemed only a marginal loss, hardly worthy of hearing aids. Which was a damn good thing because I would be buried in clover before I'd wear a hearing aid. Me? I mean, I was practically nubile at the time and hearing aids are for OOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLD people.

Then a couple of years ago, the electric wires started speaking to me. Truly. Walking down the street, I heard a constant hum. The hum turned to a SHHHUSSSHHHH and another trip to the ear doctor yielded the diagnosis "tinnitus", an untreatable, incurable, put-up-with-it-till-you-die condition which layered a constant white noise over my normal piss poor hearing.

Poor me.

Whatever.

A lot of the time I live in my own little world. If you're not facing me or if your mouth is covered, chances are I can't hear you too well. You may think I'm deeply involved in conversation, but I'm really sitting there thinking, "this is amazing...I can't hear shit."

In some ways it was like having a little secret with myself--lookee, I get to play with me and you can't join in. Nah! nah! In most ways, it was ridiculous because I am so very much a social being and I was locked out of the group. So, finally, yesterday, I hied myself to Whisper Hearing Aid Center and got fitted for a Savia Art, this cute little thing that comes in colors, which promises to "address all my communication needs."

I thought about getting it in green, which is my favorite color and it was such a pretty emerald, but instead I ordered the Black and Silver, to match my hair, of course. I only got one--because, well, maybe I don't really want to hear all that well all the time. My own little world is a pretty cool place to be, at least some of the time.