This is post #2 in a five-part series about how awkward I was at BlogHer ’10 in New York last week. Here’s the first installment if you’re interested.

Join me, if you will, on a full day of reminiscing how horribly awkward I felt (and really was) at the blogging conference everyone’s been talking about. Every few hours I’ll post another humiliating experience so I can relive my shame in the hopes of getting it out of my system.

I have a whole year to fine-tune my cool.

Yet somehow I don’t think it’ll be long enough.

**********************

Awkward of All Awkwards #4

I have lived and relived this moment a million times since it happened, searching desperately for how I could’ve done it differently. Oh, how awesome my life would be if only I had—

Well, let me set the scene:

Saturday, early afternoon, last breakout session of the day.

I’d been needing to use the bathroom since the session before (nearly two hours), but I was loathe to miss out on even a second of BlogHer goodness for fear of not hearing the one tip that could change my blog and make me rich and famous (emphasis on the rich, please). Who wants to sit on the toilet while life passes her by? Not me! I don’t have time for that! I’m a go-getter! YEAH!

Except I’m not, because I finally gave in to the monster in my bladder. Just minutes before the last session of the conference was to begin, I whispered to my friend, “Hey, if I leave my purse here will you watch it for me while I go to the bathroom?”

Of course she agreed, that’s what good friends do.

I snuck out of the rapidly-filling breakout room and dashed down the hall in search of the loo.

Now, I run like an ostrich on the best of days, but when I have to pee? It’s not a pretty sight, let’s just say. So there I was, flip flops flipping, chest flapping (I haven’t had a new bra in three years), hair flying as I ran—RACED—to find a toilet in time to get back and hear the panel that would make my life a success.

And then I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks (imagine how ridiculous THAT looked):

PIONEER WOMAN. IN THE FLESH.

I had heard she would be at BlogHer, but till that very moment I hadn’t seen even a glimpse of the fire red hair. Yet there she was, standing in the hall practically alone while everyone else was mingling in the breakout rooms, which means that SHE WASN’T EVEN SWARMED BY MASSES OF DESPERATE WOMEN! There were only two ladies talking with her, both of whom, I could tell, were fans like me.

As I was processing all this information, I was still standing there in the middle of the hall, still staring, mouth open, at my business-blogging idol, still looking like a fool and still needing to pee.

Finally I worked up the courage to saunter right over there and ask to take a picture with her.

UNTIL I REALISED I HAD LEFT MY PURSE WITH CHELSIE. Complete with my camera, my business cards, and my breath mints (still hadn’t brushed my teeth [just kidding I had by then]).

I was petrified with indecision.

I should talk to her anyway. No, what’s the point? She’ll never remember me. I don’t have anything to tell her! There’s nothing I could say that she hasn’t heard from a bajillion fans already. Gosh, her dimples are fantastic. Of course this would happen during the one—ONE—thirty-second window of the entire weekend that I am without my purse. I wonder if she can go anywhere without people recognising her? I should go introduce myself. No way, not without my business cards.

And then, just like that, I turned around and walked back to my spot at the breakout session.

It was a long walk, let me tell ya. With every step I took, P-dub’s voice got softer and softer. It was like, goodbye, hopes and dreams, I’ll see you NEVER AGAIN.

When I got back to the class I told Chelsie—with tears welling up in my pathetic eyes—what I’d done, how I’d sabotaged my life’s everloving happiness, how I’d never get an opportunity like that again, how tremendously I’d blown my chance.

“Why, Chels?” I asked. “Why did I do that? Why didn’t I just talk to her?”

“It’s because you are always looking for that one perfect moment,” she said, “and you don’t have enough faith that you have the power to create those moments by yourself. You trust Fate too much, and yourself not enough.” (Profound, right? She’s getting ready to be a psychologist, you should all sign up to be her clients.)

I realise this may not seem overly awkward to any of you, but it was. It was a turning point in my life.

What it boils down to is this:

I’m a fool.

I could spend hours (and I have) blaming my idiocy on other influences—it’s Pepsi’s fault for providing so much free soda that I had to pee in the first place; it’s Pioneer Woman’s fault for looking so intimidating; it’s Chelsie’s fault for being nice and agreeing to hold my purse; it’s BlogHer’s fault for choosing a venue with bathrooms so far from where I was at that particular moment; it’s God’s fault for ever creating me in the first place—but when it comes right down to it, I can’t deny that the only fault was mine.

I missed my chance to tell Ree Drummond that the way she runs her blog/business is an inspiration to me.

(I would normally be showing a picture of me with Pioneer Woman, except, well…y’know.)

And I’ve been depressed ever since.

Plus I never even got to pee.

*********

Here are the rest of the posts in this series:

Part the First

Part the Third

Part the Fourth

Part the Fifth

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook on Google+