Now for our regularly scheduled dishing . . .

With Chris and SJ at Navy Pier. Swiped from Kristin’s Flickr.

What’s one more torpedo to a sinking ship?

The great thing about staying in really swanky hotels is that you always have the option to charge things to your room, like a $4.00 cup of coffee or drinks for people you just met five minutes ago, or both, depending on the time of day and who you’re sitting with. Chris and I realized early on that there was no point in constantly whipping out cash or a credit card, because we could just sign for it and get on with our drinking networking. Of course, this meant signing MY name to everything because I had made the hotel reservations, and I think Chris took a little TOO much delight in this; she would sidle up to me with fresh drinks and say, “I just TOTALLY signed YOUR NAME to the check!”

She looks sweet, but she is hardcore. Seriously.

We spent the whole weekend joking that we had NO IDEA what the bill was going to be, and that we would probably wind up paying more for our drinks than we would for our swanky room and ha ha ha how funny would THAT be? But mostly we just didn’t care because seriously, how much could we POSSIBLY spend on DRINKS? On Sunday morning the nice people at the W slid our bill under the door while we were sleeping. I woke up and wandered to the bathroom and then, still half asleep, opened the bill and looked at what I thought was the total.

And nearly had a stroke.

So I’m thinking HOLY COW how did that HAPPEN and reminding myself that there’s nothing we can do about it NOW because we already DRANK all that wine and coffee and vodka and thinking that NEXT YEAR I will bring my OWN booze when I realize that what I’m looking at is our ROOM NUMBER (we were on the twenty-somethingth floor) and NOT the total bill. Which made the ACTUAL bar bill (which was NOT $1,600 or even anything close, thank GOD) look pretty good.

Today I’m wondering exactly how much alcohol you would have to buy to have a $1,600 bar tab. Hmm.

The Nancy Drew Dress

On Thursday morning, Chris’ friend Jeannie picked us up in her Mini Cooper and took us to Wicker Park to shop the vintage stores. Around here, “vintage” means Gap from two years ago, but the shops Jeannie took us to had actual VINTAGE clothes, like dresses from the 60s and 70s. I found one dress that was ALMOST perfect; it was a sheath dress in a turquoise blue and white toile, with a belt. It made me look like Nancy Drew, which made me incredibly happy, except . . .

The dress was made of upholstery fabric (you know, like you put on FURNITURE) so it was stiff and itchy, and the neckline was oddly small (the dress wasn’t mass produced, it was MADE by someone, which was awesome as well, except for the made-of-upholstery-fabric part). I almost bought it, just for fun, but then I realized that the combination of the stiff heavy fabric and the too-small neck would mean that I would never wear it.

But now I am DETERMINED to find a great vintage dress. Preferably one that makes me look like Nancy Drew.

Did you see that?

Before the vintage shopping, Jeannie and Chris and I had breakfast. Jeannie was telling us a funny story about house renovations or her daughter or something (Jeannie makes EVERYTHING funny, honestly) and I was looking away from the window and at Jeannie. Suddenly Chris says, “Did you SEE that?” and she and Jeannie start to giggle.

Because a man had just run by the restaurant in his tighty whiteys. Apparently he was out for a jog in his undies because that’s what they do in Big Cities.

There was a conference too, you know.

I hate to recap BlogHer with a bunch of stories about drinking and shopping and men’s underpants, but I suspect that those things are far more interesting to all of you than How I Networked. I will tell you this, though: over the weekend, I wore an antique cocktail ring of my grandmother’s, on my index finger. It’s a lovely piece but it’s too big to wear every day, so this weekend seemed like the perfect time to get it out. Today I’m back to my sensible shoes and kid-friendly clothes, and I’ve put the ring away, but I can still feel the band around my finger, that ghost sensation when you’ve gotten used to something and then you stop doing it.

I feel like that about this weekend. It’s hard for me to imagine that I won’t see Chris or SJ or HeatherB today, or anytime soon for that matter. I’m happy to be home, particularly since this weekend away really DID lift the Cloud of Crabby that had been following me all summer, but I kind of can’t believe it’s over. Not just the crazy fun parts (like the ENTIRE DAY of drinking nothing but coffee and wine with Chris) but the serious, networky, sell-myself-to-people-who-matter parts.

Fortunately, Charlie is running around in his tighty whiteys, so at least I have that to remind me of Chicago.

I’m blaming Chris for this whole situation; she linked to me twice in one week and tripled my traffic, which apparently is a sign to Blogger that you are Up to No Blogging Good. Also because she is so wee and pretty and funny and I’m sad that tomorrow when I wake up she won’t be right here throwing gang signs.

And yes, I realize that it’s time to get a new hosting service. If you have any suggestions, let’s hear ‘em. In the mean time, we’ll be hanging here. And fuming.

I have all sorts of things to tell you about Chicago and about the conference and about our hotel room which had a window that opened out of the bathroom and into the actual ROOM which made it a little awkward to pee (and never mind doing any OTHER sort of bathroomy business, if you get my drift). I had a fantastic time even though I was stalked by paparazzi and clearly in need of an exorcism. Or an intervention.

But tonight I’m really really tired because Chris and SJ made me stay up waaaaay too late every night, but tomorrow I will tell you about our $1,600 bar bill and the Nancy Drew Dress and the man who was jogging in his tighty whiteys.

I love Chicago. Blogger, however is On My List. Now who wants some cheap Viagra?