These Are Merely Helpful Suggestions...

{This post was written in the spirit of Letters From a Nut by Ted L. Nancy. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, there's a small chance this could still be funny. This was written one night in the hotel room while at BlogHer, when Heather and I were at our giddiest. You're welcome.}

Dear Blogging Conference,

We wanted to write to you today to express some gratitude, opinions, questions and ideas. As your conference comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on our weekend and we are filled with many over-flowing emotions.

Please give this letter to the highest of higher ups, so they can know about these emotions. We are the people. We are the bloggers. We are tired, and even so, we deserve to be heard, we the people-bloggers.

As a side note, please be sure to consider our status in this subculture. We are known. No less than one to five people rushed up to us and wanted to say hello in the last few days. If you think about how there are millions and millions of blogs out there, one to five admirers is really a lot.

Of course we want to thank you. We bet this whole event-planning thing is terribly difficult and even tricky. Thank you for making a way for us to have this precious time together in person:

Tandem Tweeting:

We admit it's a little awkward for bloggers to communicate in person, but as you can see, that can be remedied. So we share this picture with you as a suggestion for future attendees. Side-by-side tweeting gets all that strange eye contact and body language stuff out of the picture. It's more comfortable, you know? Especially if you can swing it on a plush hotel bed--make it a double!

@onecraftyellie - I M tired.
@HeatheroftheEO - Me 2
@onecraftyellie - remember that one time when I danced at the sparklecorn party?
@HeatheroftheEO - I wasn't there.
@onecraftyellie - Oh. Just a second. I'm going to tweet @maggiedammit & @annsrants to see if they remember
@HeatheroftheEO - OK. I'm going to pull the covers up higher now. am a bit chilly.
@onecraftyellie - stop tweeting me. I'm trying to tweet @maggiedammit & @annsrants to see if they liked my dancing.
@HeatheroftheEO - Jerk. End tweet.

There you have it. 140 characters or less of complete comfort.

Anyway. We would also like to apologize on behalf of ourselves and all the other attendees. We realize that our feet bled all over the hotel sheets while we were sleeping and you probably had to pay for that. But it was inevitable really. I mean, if you pack 7 pairs of high heels and put them on feet that don't recognize such shoes, you get what you asked for--goiter blisters within 5 minutes. So about those stains--may we suggest those wipes that are supposed to remove stains, the ones that were in a swag bag? Maybe those will work on the sheets? Just a thought.

Speaking of thoughts. We have some really good ones! We love community keynotes. There's nothing like hearing the actual voice (as in audible, not figurative) of our fellow bloggers. The posts that were read were moving and sometimes heart-wrenching and then sometimes funny. So we thought it might be cool if the blogger's name and their blog and twitter handle could be written up on the screen the whole time they talk. We are bloggers. We are somewhat creative. Which means we are scattered and we forget things like names really quickly, especially when overstimulated. Thank you.

(To clarify--we don't mean that you should write on the big screens with a sharpie or something. We mean you could project the words to the screen from an overhead or something of that nature.)

Also. Could you tell the hotel employee who was checking badges at lunch on Saturday that I (Heather) should not have had to take my name badge out of my lanyard thingy to prove I could eat there? He had me take my attendee name badge out from behind the CLEAR plastic, and then he inspected it like an airport security person does. Do I look threatening? It got wrinkled from trying to get it out and I don't like wrinkled things (especially noses, for the record). Thanks!

Next up: Let's talk elevators. There was something terribly frustrating about the elevator system. Tell the hotel we don't know why the elevators hated us. I'm pretty sure we could have gotten more swag had we not spent half the day waiting for elevators and then being surprised to find ourselves in the opposite corner of the hotel when we would step off, far away from our intended destination, in chafing heels.

(Just so you know the truth, we almost never wore heels, actually. Only for those first five minutes. I'm guessing this is the case for many attendees. Maybe you can tell the hotel people that if they're mad about the sheets.) (And maybe you should tell next years attendees not to bring any heels. If we all went heel-less no one would care or compare. You know how women are about comparing their shoes. It will be The Great Heel Ban of BlogHer '11--so exciting!)

We have another idea. Maybe next year you could create some kind of really large sign (this time, with a sharpie!) that explains what blogging is to all the other hotel guests. It's terribly exhausting to feel so misunderstood while explaining over and over.

Like this:

Stranger: Why are there so many of you with those name badges on?
Blogger: It's a blogging conference.
Stranger: Blank stare (almost as bad as a wrinkled nose) or a confused expression or a "what does that mean?" Or a, "What do you do at a blogging conference?"

Awkward. We've seen sharpies change the course of history before. We're pretty sure it can happen again. You're welcome.

One last thing. Can you let everyone from the change agents session know that when Maggie said (from the panel and into a microphone) -"Oh, I don't know. I can't speak to alcoholism...," she was being sarcastic. You see, when the topic of alcoholism was approached, she was simply using her sense of humor to disarm the listeners...but no one laughed. This leads me to believe they did not get the joke. So we think people should know that her alcoholism has not gone away.

Oh. One more last thing. When blogging events are in big cities (and they usually are, let's just be honest) every attendee should be given some sort of portable GPS, maybe as swag?!? We saw many bloggers standing on street corners looking up and around with confused expressions while wearing little black dresses and heels...you can see where we're going with this. Getting lost=walking a long ways=bloody heels and toes=stained sheets.

Sincerely,

Ellie and Heather (room 620) (with Alexis) (she's the pretty one)

P.S. Wait. We just had the best idea ever. Next year, we should all wear lanyard HATS!!! Fashionable hats, of course...with our name and blog name in very big red Sharpie letters. That way, we won't have to stare down at one another's chests or navels as discreetly as possible to see if we're matching the in real life face with the online avatar/profile pictures correctly. (Awkward.) If we had this information on hats, well, I'm sure you could imagine how that would be easier. When glancing at names, we could all just act like we're looking around, high up. Again, you are welcome.