<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/3512205272_8981095cb1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-427" title="3512205272_8981095cb1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/3512205272_8981095cb1.jpg" alt="" width="525" height="420" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 390px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/picken/">John Picken</a></h5>
If you're a blogger, you've probably at least heard about the annual <a href="http://www.blogher.com/blogher_conference/conf">Blogher conference</a>, which is taking place, as I type, in Chicago.

If you're a woman who blogs, you <em>definitely</em> know about it, and know several fellow bloggers who are there.

And if you're on Twitter, you're getting Blogher updates every few minutes—what session they're in, the temperature of the room, what the swag is like, how many pairs of shoes they packed, who they're having lunch or cocktails with...you get the idea.

<strong>As I read all of the updates and get a sense of who's there, I'm simultaneously glad and sad I'm not a part of it. Isn't that one of the most complex human emotions of all? That mixed sense of relief and regret that comes after we make a difficult decision?</strong>
<h4>Why I decided not to go to Blogher</h4>
Not going to Blogher actually wasn't a very difficult decision. I probably should have spent more time thinking through it, and done a bit more research. It is in Chicago, after all, which is only a two hour drive from my house. And even if I didn't want to spend the money on a hotel, there are several people I could have stayed with (my wonderful in-laws, for example).

<strong>When it got down to it, I just had this sense that the Blogher crowd isn't my core posse. That I wouldn't fit in. That I would feel out of place, and simultaneously annoyed and hurt by the dynamics.</strong>

Sometimes I still have the mind of a middle schooler, I guess. Part of me desperately wants the thing that gives you cred—the right designer jeans, the right friends, acceptance at the right table in the cafeteria—and part of me despises and resents it.

I've never been to Blogher, so I'm completely speculating based on limited information I've gathered from blogs and tweets. But I get the sense that some of the same cred applies there: who you know and hang out with and how great your wardrobe is matter.

<strong>Then you add to that the blogging cred, which throws me even more in a tizzy: how long you've blogged, what your stats are like, what kind of corporate endorsements you've snagged, and if you've achieved some level of blogging fame</strong> (like people recognize you when you're walking down the street).

I just don't need that kind of pressure, at this point in my blogging career. I'm trying to do something my own way, building an audience more organically, and focusing on a hybrid subject matter that doesn't fit the neat, tidy package of "Mommy Blogger" or "Feminist Blogger" (One session, for instance, is called "Have you found your Mommy Blogging tribe?" Umm, no. I haven't.)
<h4>Why I'm sad I'm not at Blogher</h4>
But on the other hand, I REALLY WISH I WAS THERE! I work from day to day in so much isolation, both as a freelance copywriter and as a blogger. <strong>To spend a couple of days with a bunch of women who really <em>get</em></strong> <strong>what I do would be amazingly fun and affirming.</strong>

I need colleagues. I need comrades. <strong>I need people to gripe with and laugh with about this crazy non-lucrative thing we devote so much of our time and energy to.</strong> And I need (OK, I <em>want</em>) to meet many of the people I've connected with on Twitter and my blog who are at Blogher, <em>right now</em>. They're in Chicago, having fun together, and I'm not. Booo on me!

So who knows? Maybe next year, two years into my blogging run, I'll have a clearer sense about whether this conference is for me. Or maybe I'll be faced with all the same, wacked-out, mixed feelings. Either way, I'll be sure to let you know.