Marcus, Alex and I are back from our whirlwind trip to California. While I was at the BlogHer conference, Marcus and Alex went camping with my brother-in-law and his kids, and as expected, Alex got on with her cousin Julia like a house on fire. In fact, I was told today that Julia and Alex got along so well, they started The Bad Girls Club ('just pretend, Mom,' Alex reassured me), and the only way I can become a member of The Bad Girls Club is if I come camping with them next time. Also? When I asked her later on what, exactly, The Bad Girls Club does, the response was, 'perform on stage!' as if I were the stupid one for not knowing that.

I will be keeping a close eye on this Bad Girls Club, if only to see exactly what they intend to perform on stage. You know, in an abundance of caution.

As for me, I really, really enjoyed the conference. I had been to BlogHer '06, and to be honest, found the entire experience overwhelming; however, a couple of days ago when I was describing to a friend what was so uncomfortable for me at '06, she wisely said, 'Oh. You hadn't found your tribe yet.'

This year I feel like I may have found my tribe.

Furthermore, while I can certainly hang with the best of them (as evidenced by the way I busted a move at one of the parties on Friday night, under the now-clearly-false impression that I could still dance with the abandon of a 20-year-old without some physical repercussion the following day), I have also discovered I have a rather substantial introverted side, and as a result I'm feeling the need to decompress a bit from the entire weekend. But before I do, I wanted to say thank you for indulging me in my little portrait project (the results of which are published in the last 9 or 10 previous posts), because it gave me the opportunity to photograph some really lovely souls who attended. Also, for those of you who did attend BlogHer '08 and took the time to tap me on the shoulder and introduce yourselves, thank you so much: it's just so lovely to put faces to commenters, and connect with people who I would otherwise know merely virtually.

And so, for a little needed break -- likely just a couple of days. In the meantime, please check my BlogHer set on Flickr -- at some point in the next 24 hours, I'm going to download the photos I took on the little point-and-shoot Marcus got me for my birthday. A warning: I hadn't shot with a point-and-shoot in 15 years, and clearly had no idea what I was doing: I kept trying to take pictures by putting my right eye up against the little LCD screen on the back!