1. Flying alone is a piece of cake, even when you’re directionally-challenged. O’Hare airport is blessedly idiot-proof. I wasn’t stressed at all on the actual flights, except for the part when the pilot not-so-briefly forgot what city he was flying to when he announced take-off on the trip home. A full planeload of people screamed him the answer.

2. Wearing heels for 14 hours straight is a bad idea. I know it. You know it. Everybody knows it. Still did it. I almost blew my knee out the morning of the first day and then limped along for the next 10 hours. My dumbness knows no bounds.

3. If you’re not a psycho fan of Tim Gunn, you will be when he’s standing right in front of you. And you’ll squeal with glee when he reads your conference badge and tells you he loves the name of your blog. It’s official! Tim Gunn hearts The Junk Drawer!

MakeItWork 

4. Swag is highly overrated. Liquid swag is the devil. That cracking you hear is BlogHer women everywhere getting realigned at their chiropractors.

5. Friends shouldn’t let friends have access to a bathroom scale, especially when the stupid friend already knows she’s carrying six pounds of vacation instabloat, and yet still wants proof of it.

JDandKathy

6. Helpful women will dig through their purses for dental floss when you tell them you have a poppy seed stuck in your teeth that you can’t remove with a fingernail. When someone says they have a floss pick, but it’s been used, you will consider borrowing it anyway. I wound up having to dig for it again. BlogHer women who were at the bathroom mirror with me during that exercise, I’m sorry. I’m generally not so disgusting at home.

7. Chicago has the very coolest art! And it’s SCARY BIG!

The Bean American Gothic

8. Stressing over what clothes to wear to BlogHer is a colossal waste of time. Spending gobs of money on it adds insult to injury, especially when a button falls off a brand new $49 shirt mere minutes into wearing it. Which cute top did I wear not once, but twice? The one that cost me $1 at a consignment shop. Yes, one dollar.

9. You should not buy delicious treats for people back home that you soon discover you want for yourself. Sorry, Heather. You can’t have ’em now. But I did buy you a cheap keychain with your name on it. And you can have a T-Mobile clicky pen. And a $2-off coupon for laundry detergent. I’m such a giver.

half-eaten laceys 

10. SEO experts at the conference tell you that Top 10 Lists are blog gold. So there you have it!

Bonus #11. Head over to JD’s place and admire her awesomeness. She was among a group of bloggers invited to read one of their posts to an audience of over a thousand conference attendees. I’m still amazed that my good friend could get up there and give the performance of a lifetime, all without vomiting on stage as she feared.

Thank you JD for EVERYTHING! Thank you JD’s family for getting me to and from the airport and for being such entertaining company on my trip! Thank you BlogHer for putting on such a good show. See you in NYC for BlogHer ’10!

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