Velveteen Mind

The 3rd Annual People's Party 2009

It’s time to party like it’s 1999!  Back before anyone was concerned about things like stats and comments and review disclaimers.  Back when People were People, not metrics to be valued or ranked.  We love People!

 And you are all invited! 

Shake off all of the peripheral distractions of the blogosphere and throw down with what makes blogging so worth it:  The People!

You are invited to the 3rd annual pre-BlogHer

People’s Party!

The People's Party 2009
open-invite pre-BlogHer party
Thursday, July 23, 2009
8:30-11pm
Sheraton Chicago X ("Ten")

~~~

Hosted by:

The Bloggess
Green Mom Review/ IzzyMom
Motherbumper
Mrs. Fussypants
Playgroups Are No Place For Children
Velveteen Mind

~~~

Sponsored by:

     

       

         

         

              
 
             

(private performance by Chris Mann... share the love on his fan page!)

~~~

Psst....  Want to throw your company's name into the party?

Help keep all of these lovely bloggers in drinks and fanfare!
Sponsor slots still available (including the 2nd top slot, which updates on all of the badges!), providing you with exposure to 30,000+ twitter followers and 500+ attendees.

Why support an open-invite party vs. throw a private party?

We understand that every company wants to be the star and we love to shine the spotlight on your good works within our community.  However, BlogHer is a community and private parties can be very limiting in reach and effectiveness. 
Rather than insist on being the sole star of the show, help make the bloggers behind this community shine by supporting open parties like The People's Party. 
Join our community and show what you can do with us, not in front of us. 
We pride ourselves on seamlessly integrating our sponsors into our event, illuminating your message without blinding our audience...  which both our attendees and sponsors appreciate.

 email us and we can talk about how you can participate, too.  This is The People's Party, after all, and the people tend to consume a lot of, ahem, goods.

~~~

RSVP!  Everyone is invited… but it helps to know how many to expect…  Last year was far more of a blowout than we expected, so we don’t want to run out of swag or drinks!

Please drop your name into the Mr Linky at the bottom of the page (everyone loves to see your blog name so they can recognize you or expect you) or, if Mr Linky is acting wonky, just leave your name in the comments or email me. 

Don’t worry if this is your first BlogHer or if you think no one will know you.  The beauty and design of The People’s Party is that we thoroughly believe that once we are face to face, all of the numbers truly don’t matter.  We just want to meet you!

Don’t forget to let everyone know you’ll be partying with The People!

Grab your badge and tell everyone “Let’s Go Crazy!” Prince-style:

Copy this code:

<a href="http://www.velveteenmind.com/velveteenmind/2009/06/the-peoples-party-2009.html"><img src="http://www.velveteenmind.com/PeoplesParty2009ImGoing.jpg" alt="People’s Party 2009 BlogHer”></a>

~~~

We’ll see you there!  Don’t forget to RSVP!

(Mr Linky goes here, if you don't see it, just leave your name in the comments!)
(Update 7/14/09:  Mr Linky seems to have gone MIA as of the 575th RSVP.
If you already RSVP'd on that deadbeat, you don't need to leave a comment--
we counted you!)

~~~

Don't miss an update! Sign up for free delivery of new posts from Velveteen Mind via email (recommended) or feed reader.

Follow me on Twitter!

Subscribe to the free audioblog podcast of Velveteen Mind on

Perfec-she-yawn

Nothing like a slew of women in their twenties coming to peek in your life to make you feel, well, not in your twenties.

Welcome, vibrant new readers.  I am not Miss Musing.  I do not write about my beautiful piano room or my heroic boyfriend or my pink bicycle.  My life is not perfection.

Fortunately, for those of you that stick around, it appears that perfection can be wearing.

But it gets worse.

I don’t even post that often.  Period.  I own this baby, it doesn’t own me. 

So let’s just own it.  I’m a mom, at home, no longer living in a large city.  I live near the beach but no longer own a bikini.  I have stretch marks.  Because I have two toddlers.  And a new baby on the way. 

A new baby that I haven’t even written about because I am nauseous and tired.  Laissez les bon temp rouler!  No?

When I do post, it is rarely about controversy.  Instead, I’m usually pleading with women to stop worrying so much and to come out and play with us in real life, because seriously, it’s okay.  Reality bites but we don’t. 

For instance, are you going to BlogHer?  I see many of you have the BlogHer ad network on your much-updated blogs.  (Ahem, I did until they booted me for, um, poor update frequency.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)  Well, I’m co-hosting a party the night before BlogHer.  It’s called The People’s Party and this is our third year (which we’ve only teased so far, but more details to come).  The goal?  To make women feel at ease while out from under the cover of their blogs.  Imagine that.

But that’s about as glamorous as I get.  I do publish and serve as the Editor-in-Chief of a successful (aw, shucks) online magazine called Blog Nosh Magazine, but that thing is currently run without shoes on and, were I updating it this morning, without a bra on, too.  Ya deal?

I am not in my twenties.  Haven’t been for a few years.  And when I was?  I spent all but one year of it with my would-be husband, not exactly gallivanting around with a martini in hand.  Chick, I don’t even own stilettos.   The last time I wrote about shoes was to demonstrate my own dichotomous personality that seems to straddle between punk rock and Florida retiree.

We might not have a lot in common.  Other than the dichotomies that define us.

But I write to you from the heart because I don’t know any other way.  And I embrace all that is me.  And you might be surprised what bits of yourself you find in me.

I write this to you from my backyard because today is too gorgeous to not inhale deeply.   Our roses are blooming.  I’ve been so busy, I hadn’t even noticed.

When I ran inside to grab my camera just so I could show you our modest accomplishment (if by accomplishment, you will accept that we simply didn’t touch them and therefore did not kill them), my two year old decided a romp outside suited him, as well.  You haven’t lived until you’ve dated a two year old.

While chasing him around, I caught wind of a smell from my childhood in Illinois.  Wandering around old properties, gathering Queen Anne’s Lace to take home and dye with food-coloring-spiked water.  This smell, the one in my own backyard, was the smell of my mother, stopping at the side of a rural road to gather and assure us we could taste.

Honeysuckle.

I didn’t even know we had honeysuckle in this yard.  But this morning, it is blooming.  And filling our yard with the warm scent of simpler days, superseding the rich layers of the bayou, so close to our home.

I live in Mississippi.  On the Gulf Coast.  Not in New York.

Perfection here comes covered in powdered sugar and doused in sweet tea.  Our fingers hint at crawfish boils enjoyed with friends and the air wafts by with a hint of Zydeco.

Yes, there’s a hurricane party every time it blows.

My musing comes in very different flavors than you might be used to, but there is room for you here at my table, sugar.

Ya’ll come back now.

Don't miss an update! Sign up for free delivery of new posts from Velveteen Mind via email (recommended) or feed reader.

Follow me on Twitter!

Subscribe to the free audioblog podcast of Velveteen Mind on

The Big Tease '09 #3

Are you picking up bread crumbs and started at this starlet's digs?  Then you are on the right track and should make your way over to this maven's place for the next tease.

Lost?  Start here.  You'll end up back here and I'll send you on your way to there. 

It's like you are drunk already, right?  We are just getting you in the mood. 

Speaking of, how about some background mood music?  Just hit play and then be sure to open all links in a new tab.  We're kicking it old school and hope you'll join us! 
More details coming soon...  this is just a tease, after all, to drive you crazy...

Seriously, go here now if you are already on the trail!

Let's go crazy／Prince & The Revolution
Uploaded by gaimon5656

Don't miss an update! Sign up for free delivery of new posts from Velveteen Mind via email or feed reader.

Follow me on Twitter! and

Subscribe to the free audioblog podcast of Velveteen Mind on

Into the Wild with Your Own Tribe

I’m in my studio today, brainstorming for a new writing project that I hope to tell you about soon.  Managing the Blog Nosh Magazine editors list, preparing to launch a couple of new channels.  Food and Race & Ethnicity, two of those channels whose links have been dead-ends since the relaunch so many months ago.

My studio is in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.  Just blocks from the water, but just far enough away from the waves that it suffered minimal damage in Hurricane Katrina.  I am on the same block as seafood restaurants and gritty little Southern bars.  At night, Lynard Skynard bleeds through the walls and the smell of poboys tempts me into unscheduled breaks.

Thanks to some tumultuous decision making I had to finish this afternoon, I decided to treat myself to one of those very same poboys for lunch.  Fully dressed shrimp poboy on crunchy-yet-chewy French bread, a side of crab balls, and a towering cup of sweet tea.

Rather than mindlessly watch my twitter stream or daydream while I ate, I decided to watch a DVD of Into the Wild, starring Emile Hirsch.  I’ve had this DVD for possibly years now, but never have gotten around to watching it.

Now, less than a quarter of the way in, it leaves me feeling much the same way the book Revolutionary Road did: 

This life of a suburban mom can sometimes be hard to swallow.

I have always wanted to be a mom.  I have always wanted to stay at home and raise the kids.  Though, to be clear, I don’t think I ever kidded myself or any potential suitors into thinking that I would be a reasonable housekeeper of said home.

But now I’m here.  And sometimes I can’t help but want to be there.

We all struggle with where we belong.  Who we are.  Who we want to be.  Who we once were.  Who we could have been.

We struggle with the ties that bind and simultaneously long for the ties that bond.

At the risk of BlogHer stripping me of their offer, I will be speaking at the opening Mommyblogging track panel in Chicago this year on the topic of “Have you found your Mommyblogging tribe?” and will most definitely touch on some of these feelings of dissonance.

Sounds like a barrel of laughs, right?  Well, I promise you, it will be.  But yes, of course I’ll be throwing in a bit of the “threadbare.” 

Identity, knowing where we belong, feeling distinctly as though we don’t…  it’s all part of it.  BlogHer said they selected me for the topic because I have more or less created my own tribe.  To that, I say “Amen.” and “Hell yes.”

And I also say, “You should, too.”

Join me at BlogHer in Chicago July 24-25, 2009.  Early bird pricing ends February 28, so hop to it, sister.

You might even want to get there early.  I bet there are some fun parties the night before…

In the meantime, tell me your thoughts on belonging and tribes.  It doesn’t have to have anything to do with blogging.  My feelings today on Into the Wild had nothing, I assure you, to do with blogging. 

“It should not be denied that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations. Absolute freedom.”  -Wallace Stegner

Don't miss an update! Sign up for free delivery of new posts from Velveteen Mind via email or feed reader.

Follow me on Twitter! and

Subscribe to the free audioblog podcast of Velveteen Mind on

5 Minutes for Moody Obscurity...

My 5 Minutes for Moody Obscurity are apparently up.  Following our evacuation for Hurricane Gustav, I found myself in a grumpy bout of emotional exhaustion.  Nothing particularly dramatic happened, however the entire evacuation process followed by long hours of waiting and watching just drained me. 

We returned home to a battered coastline but a safe and sound home.  I would think I was over being moody, go down to the beach to take photos to share with you (coming soon, I swear), then find myself right smack dab in the middle of a grump fest again. 

Lots of eating and sleeping have been going on, but no computer turning-on-ing.  ;)

However, my time for dabbling in depression has come to an end, as I find myself being dragged out of said moody obscurity by my Canadian twin-tastic friends at 5 Minutes for Mom.  Head over to their revamped network of sites and check out the first video interview I did for them while in San Francisco recently. 

What I should be depressed about is how they clearly shot me from my fat side (ahem), but aside from the rambling, I think it's a fun interview.  Susan and Janice were immensely professional and I was exactly the opposite.  In other words, it was a blast.

I think they said "stop mocking me!" at least half a dozen times, but I couldn't help it!  By the way, I was not mocking them at any point, but rather admiring their professionalism and completely contagious Canadian accents.  After working with them on The People's Party and the 5 Minutes for Mom video segments, I can't recommend this duo enough.  If you aren't a member of 5 Minutes for Mom, yet, get over there right now and sign up. 

I have the perfect first stop for you:  Me!  Talking aimlessly and touching my face way too much!

...........................

New Here? Sign up for free delivery of new posts via RSS or email.

Follow me on Twitter! and