Countdown to BlogHer '11

Got my hair cut last week and realized that this was my BlogHer cut. I will not need to go to the hair salon before August 4th when I board a plane for San Diego and leave my wife and two children for a weekend of blog-mania.

A word about words – specifically the word wife. Only recently have I reluctantly embraced the word wife when referring to Gabriella. I had held on to partner ever since we moved to London in 1999. I wanted to hold on to it like so many other words and phrases. It was time to shed the term with the other words that have slowly evaporated out of my vocabulary since our move back to the U.S. Lift, chips (meaning fries), crisps (meaning chips), kip, git - all just confuse people especially spoken with a Yankee accent.

Philosophically, I still believe that partner should replace all couple oriented terms as it does in the UK. Lover, girlfriend, fiancée, wife - 1 word fits all is my version of couple equality. But the more we discuss our relationship and friends’ relationships with our kids, the easier it is for them to understand the terms that everyone else uses. Wife is the word that best describes who Gabriella is to me in U.S. English. Scratch that. Wife best describes who we are in Canadian English where we are, in fact, married. In spite of our status as Civil Union partners in New Jersey, kids and grown ups alike understand what a wife is, and Gabriella is as wifely as she can be without the legal benefits.

Reminds me of the day when I finally ditched spelling women in a way only feminists and seven-sisters graduates could recognize. Womyn. Wombon. Wimmin. They don’t compute in Word spell-check; a program clearly written by a misogynist who hates his mother. I’ll admit to taking the easy route and conforming to the mainstream vernacular for the sake of ease. In a land where tradition trumps intellectualism, sometimes it’s best to go with the flow. Can I get an A-womyn?

I will continue to struggle with the word ‘wife’ until we are married in the U.S. - Canadian-style. But for the sake of our kids, I now pronounce us wife and wife. Lick-hymen! That’s how you say “To Life” in Jewish lesbianese. Fur real.

BlogHer hair cuts. That’s where I was. The week before my hair cut, I received a message from Vikki. “One more month to go until BlogHer!” I smiled. And then I panicked. Business cards, packing comprehensively yet sensibly, the fear that my credit card will be declined at the hotel (one of the many illogical fears that follows me everywhere). Must make a to do list. Lists sooth me. Also soothing is collecting enough happy thoughts to outweigh my anxieties. I have collected quite a few happy thoughts about BlogHer.

The first time I went to BlogHer in 2009, I traveled to Chicago. I had no expectations, and Gabriella was unemployed and able to take care of the kids. I didn’t have to pay for a hotel, and I figured if it sucked, I’d hang out with my Chicago crew. It didn’t suck, but I wasn’t sure I’d go again if I had to pay for airfare and a hotel room. And then they announced that BlogHer would be in New York in 2010-home turf. No plane ticket. No hotel room. And, there was the little matter of the Community Keynote.

This year, I bought a ticket to fly to the opposite end of the country and booked a hotel room and asked Gabriella to take a couple days off work to mind the children because this year, I will see friends I actually made online-a concept that freaked me out when I first started blogging. This year, I will be able to let loose as opposed to constantly gagging at the thought of reading in front of hundreds of bloggers. This year, I’ll reunite with the fantabulous ladies I met last year. This year, I’ll be a bit wiser about how to manage my time. But most importantly, this year, I need a vacation! The count down has begun, and I’m well chuffed.