Viggo Mortensen sitting in my kitchen wearing nothing but cherry red jogging shorts that flop open at the sides. and a grin.
Amy of Doobleh-vay and Neil of Citizen of the Month at their panel on Blogging as Storytelling.
Everywhere I looked, people and ideas leaned in to one another. It was a buzz of reunion and recognition at BlogHer in Chicago, a conference of more than a thousand people who write on the Internet and comprise the Spousal Bewilderment Support Network. I was there to speak, and to hug more people in one weekend than I've ever hugged in my whole life.
It was squashy. And navigable, in all ways except the literal. It was invigorating and loud and electric. It was the reason I can no longer be cynical about blogging, nor about the validity of friendships that are mined in this utterly backward way.
+++
Viggo nods, only mildly interested. He tips back in the old wooden chair and stretches. Would you like me to speak in Russian, or perhaps with a slight Amish lilt?
Amish, please. With a plate of cheese and a smart black hat.
POOF.
And suspenders.
POOF.
No wait. Scratch that. Woodstock-going 60s drifter.
POOF.
Perfect.
Viggo chews contemplatively on a single stalk of hay.
The room at Mamapop's feminism and pop culture panel.
I've never seen so many people so singularly focused on delighting in one another. So many people engaged so actively in exploring writing, feminism, courage, exposure, contrariness, love, vulnerability, craft.
I couldn't stop with the hugging.
+++
The chair scrapes against the floor as Viggo rises. I could listen to you all night long, kit-kat, but I need to eat.
Have some Amish cheese.
Would you like me to melt it first, and then lick it off my fingers in slow motion?
Yes please.
POOF.
No wait. It needs to be in an inflatable mini-pool.
Viggo's eyes go wide. Me, or the cheese?
Both.
Can I put my cherry red jogging shorts on again for that?
You may.
He smiles.
POOF.
I met people I want to be friends with always. Friends who live on the prairie and in Brooklyn and stuff. Friends who are endlessly loveable as well as most clearly in love and who insult the elements and write poems for monsters and who make art with vintage toy cameras. Friends whom I've already accosted with elaborate plans for Nova Scotian backyard cabin visits.
+++
Would you like some hot cheese, Kate?
Why yes please. Yes I would.
Viggo offers a pinky.
Jenny the Bloggess, who is pure sweetness as well as totally one of those people who will corrupt you upside-down and backwards.
I was happily oblivious. All weekend I walked around grinning stupidly. My cheeks hurt. My teeth got chapped. I didn't witness anything that made me grimace. I lapped the Expo floor once, dodging promoters with clipboards and free stickers, and yawned, and left in search of more hugs.
+++
I've got hugs.
I know you do, Viggo.
Here's our moderator Ponzi Pirillo, the beloved Kelly of Ordinary Art and MTV-veteran Daniela Capistrano listening to me talk about rainbows and puppies at the Transformational Power of Blogging panel. Audio will follow at some point, I'm told. Thanks to Mishi for the photo.
There's me in mid-speak, remembering the experience of blogging in the NICU and in its fallout. You know, death and cafeteria food. And beauty! Ever so much beauty. And terror. And grace and spontaneous dreadlocks. And powerless but very kind gods who make themselves microscopic and squirm in underneath ventilator tape to whisper all the secrets of the universe to two-pound babies. And about how when you write such things with enough conviction, they become irrefutable truth.
I said something like that, or something about the incessant beeping that still knocks around in my brain, the echo of intensive care. Then I saw the face of Alexa in the back row. She was nodding. She knows that echo. I leapt out of my chair, ran to her and knocked her down. On the floor we were a tangle of limbs and she kept giggling. We were rolling over and over as if we were going downhill in knee-high daisies. Then we popped up, straightened our skirts and felt a little embarrassed. Everybody cheered. It was the best ever, in my two-second on-stage daydream. Later, at the Mamapop party, we did indeed find a darkened corner. We pulled up the collars of our trenchcoats and smoked cigars together. Cigars that were rolled on the inner thighs of young, nubile neonatologists. And we smiled.
+++
Viggo wipes a single tear from his right eye and stands up dripping a cheesy sheen. I pause. He smells delicious.
Thanks to Ms. Sizzle for this.
Here I am with one of many favourite girls, Maggie D, and another, Heineken, who is Dutch and very shy indeed and likes to be held tightly in the company of strangers.
+++
She looks like fun.
She is, Viggo. She's one of the best writers anywhere, her and all those other people I'm going to kidnap and stuff into my cabin forever and ever.
Is that a WISCONSIN t-shirt she's got on? Wisconsin makes excellent cheese. Can I have that? I'll be departing on horseback and if I wear that, it will slouch down over my shoulder just as the sunset catches my ruddy skin.
Sure, Viggo.
POOF.
In the bathroom, where BlogHer parties spill into, with Angella D who cuts a rug and most rightly demands nothing less of all who cross her path.
+++
Look at you with your cute little pooch. You're sucking it in.
(glares at Viggo)
Redneck Mommy, Kristin D of Better Now (from whose camera this was grabbed), me, Her Bad Mother and Motherbumper.
This time it was my Mexican friend who suffered severe social anxiety with a wedge of lime when faced with a posse of rowdy Canucks. Caring and selfless, I am, again with the comforting grip.
+++
Wait a minute. You're ... Sweetsalty Kate? But you're so ... short.
Oh Viggo. Shush now. I'm not that short.
You were on your tiptoes in this, weren't you?
(sighs)
The immensely talented Sarah-Ji snuck a photo of my conversation with Andrea of Superhero Designs, who has this way of looking and listening that's uncommonly rare.
My god, these women, these sisters. They make it so that I intersect with women who blog about humanitarianism, and art, and photography, and design, and who look intently at the world and see light and hope as beings unto themselves.
Have you ever lusted for a converstion like this so ravenously that the mere wanting of it becomes sustenance?
Sarah-Ji's eye catches the radiant Karen of Chookoolonks in the company of me and Shutter Sisters galore in the suite.
I spent the whole weekend staring at people and seeing beautiful things. More are here, on flickr. I was just so thrilled to be there. It's striking me as maybe kind of uncool to be this entranced but I'm okay with that because you see, I've got Viggo Mortensen in my kitchen, and he can make anything tasty. Even stale BlogHer cracker crumbs.
+++
I'd like to do this again sometime, Kate. I liked that when you put that BORN TO BLOG t-shirt on and climbed into this melted cheese-filled inflatable pool with me and writhed around licking yourself, all while you were typing, and those people had no idea. That was hot. I just live-tweeted that with a picture from my iPhone.
Excellent, Viggo. Make sure it's tagged KATE WANTZ MOAR.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Reader Comments (52)
And OMG VIGGO IS COMING FOR ME! On horseback, no less! I am fun, Viggo, I AM. At least, I'm fun when I'm in the presence of Heineken and Kate.... but I for sure always have cheese!
You know, Kate, even if he turned up sweaty and brokebacked at my door, I'd turn him away if you weren't there straddled behind him. Someday? Please say yes.
And also? You have some very nice gams, Kate. Short or no.
; )
And beyond, how did you know about the mountains of pot at blogher? That was the one huge secret and conspiracy that we all agreed to not write about. Elisa was passing ganja out in tote bags. It was thrown from the main stage of the community keynote. Please don't tell. It's supposed to be a secret. The scandal of the swag and the sponsorships is all a front to distract people from the real underbelly. Which was AWESOME.
:)
This post is delicious, and makes me want to re-write my wrap up into something more lovely.
would you say hi if i did? looking forward to the audio when it comes.
my girl crush can't handle you getting any more cute.
Oh with the pretty. Thank you but it's more like stumbling and tripping over self. Spilling plates of food, sloshing drinks while failing to manage my stuff, shaking hands and leaving potsticker sauce all over you. That's what it was.
Cecily, I was ever-so grateful for the rare eye-to-eye moments. I just think of myself as being tougher to knock down. Lower centre of gravity and all. Those tall girls have to watch out on windy days.
JenB, the smittenness is 100% requited. That conversation with you was one of too few... I spent too much time running around headless, meeting en masse, and not enough time sitting down and gazing and listening more intimately. So I loved that.
This is truly the only wrap-up post that makes me wish I'd been there. And also inspires me to save my filthy lucre to try and go next year.
I believe I said something about your wicked dance moves, hot red shoes and a plethora of bathrooms in New York next year.
See you there, my friend.
xoxo
It sounds like you had the loveliest of BlogHer experiences.
And to think that just a few weeks ago, you were really nervous and scared about this event!
And this made me want to go to BlogHer more than ever!
I am SO glad you had a wonderful time, funny enough, I have flipflopped a thousand times as to whether I would like a conference like BlogHer...and what I think i am getting is that BlogHer is what you make it...and you look for the magic (the hugs!) it is there...they are there....you were there!
PS - send Viggo to NB, I like red shorts too!
I'm so glad you had such an great time at BlogHer. You are gorgeous in your pictures, and look like you are surrounded by fun friends.
And, from a relatively tall-ish girl, I've always envied short, petite, cute girls. Your height is lovely.
True story: I couldn't stop gushing to my room mate about how I actually met you. In the end she made me stop talking about you so she could sleep. Then I just talked about you in my head. You have no idea how much your writing inspires me.
I reveled in your beauty and I hope to one day be able to spend more time with you.
Maybe it's 'cause I forgot the vat of melted cheese?
Now I want to go next year. My sister and I, deux soeurs amongst the rest of the sisters.
love that kate-
xo
i
love
you.
and IF i had a cabin, i would stuff you in it for sure, for keepsies!