WARNING: THIS POST IS NSFW! (Insert Expletive CD Cover Warning Here.)

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you probably knew Friday (February 11) was a meet up for all local bloggers (Michigan/Detroit/Grand Rapids/Detroit) in Ann Arbor, MI.

Via Suze

My best friend, Sarah (Sillygrrl), organized the whole thing, and we all met at the Ann Arbor Brewing Company for drinks and convo. It was pretty insane. The two only men who signed up didn’t show up, and the third and forth who were loose maybes did not even come…. (one being my husband who toyed with the idea of attending–he was, after all, the one who introduced me to blogging on WordPress vs. LiveJournal/Xanga/Blogspot/Self-hosted blog @ Tripod–yes, I’ve been blogging a VERY LONG TIME–10 years).

So 21 girls. 4 hours in a bar. Mayhem. Lots of weird strange looks thrown our way, because we were all wearing name tags with a big “Hello, My name is” in Futura emblazoned across the top.

And a lot of the word “fuck” thrown about. Well, I was the F-word factor. I’m also sure I said “cock”, “cunt”, “penis”, “vagina”, “bitches”, and a ton of other inappropriate things about nineteen thousand times. Surprisingly no one ran away screaming, so I actually guess people liked me. Or at least disguised their abject terror and repulsion better than most actors. If none of them drop by either of my blogs, let’s just say I wouldn’t be half-surprised.

My other new bestie, Mandy of GingerMandy, had a terrible headache the whole time, born of fatigue. It made for Miss Quiet Pants who later morphed into Miss Grumpy Pants around mile 20 on M14 on our way home. A normally gregarious, snarky and cleverly loquacious one, a silent Ginger, for me, spelt disaster. What happens when your regularly, almost as equally foul-mouthed bestie stops talking? Are we sitting in the De-Friend zone? Has my life turned into a real life Facebook, where you can just De-Friend at will without so much as a “Hello, Go to Hell, You Bitch-ass Motherfucker, Goodbye!” emotionally wrought conversation? I had to slow down to the speed limit and ask in a trembling voice, “Everything okay back there? You have me worried.”

“No, I’m just tired,” was her reply.

You have no idea the kind of sigh I heaved in anxious relief. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit for creative-writing’s sake, but a quiet one in a group of three chatty girls can be a bit disconcerting.

I did really sigh, though. They probably thought it was just flatulence from the pesto cream ravioli, which I fervently promised Sarah would prove for a disastrous ride home. Luckily, the girls were spared the horror that happens when I, a pescetarian vegetarian with terrible lactose intolerance and a stubborn yen for cheese, eat copious amounts of dairy in one sitting without a large amount of dry carbs to neutralize… issues. I’m sure neither of the girls have any clue as to what sort of olfactory catastrophe they were spared. Sarah and Mandy, if you read this, thank whatever diety you pray to right now.

So, back to the meet up. Bar. 21 girls. 1 table. 1 server. Probably lots of spit in people’s food. She was not the most spirited or necessarily agreeable server. She was nice enough, but considering that there were 21 girls at one table… I’m sure it was a cluster fuck of a service situation for just one person.

Whatever, it was amazing. I want to blog about all the individual amazing women I met, but there’s so much to say. I just want to say that meeting everyone was rather lovely. I got to spend time with lovely ladies at my end of the table named Dotty, Anna, Bethany, and Selina, and then later got to speak a bit with Stacey. We were also able to squeeze in a few moments of Asian craziness with Amanda and my cousin Ria in which I flashed my ever-so-tired Asian Peace Sign pose (several times). Lauryn and Jenni had to leave with Ria pretty early, but we were able to catch up for a few hot seconds before they left. Mandy and I made friends with some boys who expressed utter cluelessness but a genuine interest in the phenomenon of blogging and social media, which pretty much closed the night out with Amanda, Sarah, Mandy and I chatting with these men about all things nerdy and Internet-y. (In case he actually sees this: Happy birthday, Nathaniel!)

Even though I’m really social, that only happens at the actual moment I arrive to that public forum. When I am home, or with the husby, or anywhere that wasn’t a planned social event, I’m actually rather reclusive; the idea of being around crowds of people gives me quasi anxiety attacks, which in turn, makes me grouchy, disagreeable, and a general pain to be around. Then once I get into a social setting, my anxious nervousness translates to non-stop idle prattle laden with the too many occurrences of the word “like”, and more expletives than I can count. It’s the opposite of shyness. It’s nervous inappropriate babbling. I’m lucky they don’t put me away.

This runs through my head for several days before I eventually make the grudging decision to attend x-event:

• What, I have to be friendly?
• What, I have to learn people’s names?
• What, I have to censure my sailor mouth?
• God, do I really need to go out in public again?
• I’ll just make people uncomfortable or accidentally toss around seemingly racist jokes (even though I’m just making fun of being Asian or Brown–which tends to make my Caucasian friends squeamish) or say the word “fuck” 20 times in the course of five minutes.
• Do I really have to get pretty and gussied up and choose an outfit other than for work? So much effort. So much time. So much emotional investment.
• What if they don’t like me?
• What if my carefully chosen outfit goes dramatically awry, and they talk shit about my horrible “ensemble” on their blogs?
• What if I’m so offensive to the point that even my new best friends divorce me?
• Oh jeez, can’t I fucking stay home and just play video games or edit more beauty tutorials?
• Well, I’m just going to shoot myself in the foot the moment I open my big mouth and something deplorable comes tumbling past my lips without stopping in my brain to figure out how offensive, off-putting, or just plain dumb it is, so I guess I ought to just go.
• Hopefully my friends will still manage to love me out of the goodness of their hearts anyway after the night is over.

I’m serious. I’m a mess in my head. I think that’s why I love the Twitter so damn much. Immediate catharsis and ablution.

Because I hate the shit out of my crappy Verizon phone–at one point I actually tried to break it by throwing it hard to the table, but the infernal thing did not break–and out of respect to my fellow bloggers, I didn’t tweet but once or twice. Also for that reason, there is no running Twitter commentary of my reactions to the night, which, all in all, was so good that again I did not really need to have my waste of $49 Verizon brick in my hand.

So here are a few of my reactions which spilled out of me as soon as I got home and on the computer, which, as you will read, I liken to a cork being pulled from a bottle.

@gingermandy had a headache tonight, so all the people in the bar watched, agape, as I gave her a facial massage. #ItWasNotPervyREALLY
59 minutes ago via web

For those of you who are currently tired of my barrage of 1 page of tweets… No one was running a Twitter commentary during our meetup.
56 minutes ago via web

That’s what happens when you pull a cork from a bottle. The bottle being my mouth. And the cork, no phone in my hand earlier. Sorry.
55 minutes ago via web

And for those of you who want to know, yes, the #Michigan #bloggers meet up was freakin’ awesome.
55 minutes ago via web

And no one ran away screaming when they realize how much I say the words “like” and “fuck.” Pretty damn good night, by my estimation.
54 minutes ago via web

So, if you didn’t get that, here are the takeaways of that rambling… whatever…:

• Michigan Bloggers are awesome.
• Lots of them happen to have ovaries.
• The ones with testes like to stay home in lieu of being surrounded by The Awesome, consuming massive amounts of alcohol and laughing a ton.
• I say fuck a lot.
• It was a good night.

Be sure to check out my Valentine’s Day Giveaway of a brand new in box YSL Rouge Pur Lipstick in shade 131 – Opium Red.

Go enter! Tell your friends.

Open worldwide. Ends TOMORROW, Valentine’s Day at 11:59PST!!!

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