*Edited: Cross posted at BlogHer. If you leave me some comments there I will tell Santa that you were good all this year even though you have a few months left to be naughty.

As I continue to digest the contents of the BlogHer 07 weekend I also continue to get a bit of indigestion gassiness on some issues that just irk me to no end. All that was to say that I don’t plan on playing nice for a moment.

I’ll play nice later.

The State of the Momosphere session is the one that I wanted to attend to simply ask some questions about Who Gets Contacted by marketing professionals (and I have, so please don’t think I’m complaining that I never have) and Why. In fact, when the moderator, Jory, was outlining the session she made the three points that would be discussed and asked if there were any other questions the audience would like addressed before they got started.

Only one hand went up in the air. Mine. I pointedly asked if we could please discuss the lack of racial diversity in the blogrolls and communities we find ourselves in as a general topic but if we could explore issues of moms of color.

Naturally, the conversation was engaging, but we kept getting to a point where the audience wanted to say things that had already been covered so that they could have their say. And they kept on saying it and saying it over and over until I was prodded by a certain someone to just SPEAK MY MIND ALREADY.

Again. The Hand. It went up. As the microphone was being passed to me some gentlemen marketers were commenting on the fact that they pursue mothers who blog about products and that one of them even apologized on behalf of corporate America (Corporate America? You’re not forgiven. You’re ON MY LIST.) and another one said that the best way to contact these mothers is to establish a relationship with them so that they know you care.

Great. A segue.

The Hand.

My question, then, was directed at those two marketing professionals and I asked when they would tap into the mothers of color and bring us into the fold because they are leaving us out of the loop. When will the diversity come into play?

And the question? With The Hand? It died a sad death right there. We got back to the monetization of blogs and I got a little excited when Stefania chimed in that diversity does indeed need to include moms of color because she has concerns about Asians being marginalized as well.

Then, that died, too, as we went directly onto a privacy issue.

And I shook my head. And I pursed my lips. And I was disappointed and let down that the one question that was given to the moderator was ignored.

Certainly, I am grateful to the dozens of people I spoke to after the session was over. There was a full 20 minutes of chatting with people who agreed with my comment and told me to press on and to keep fighting for women of color. I needed something else instead. I needed any of them to take the microphone and say, “Excuse me. Isn’t anyone going to answer Kelly’s question?”

Where were you, Mommybloggers? I needed you.

Here I am in 10 seconds or less (for those of you who don’t know who the heck I am because you’re here saying, “Who the heck is she?“)

I’ve written online for almost 3 years and quit a while back to get a different job in my school district and I’m proud to say that I’m now employed as a high school guidance dean.

My oldest child is 21. I’m 36. Do the math. I tell that story more than any other story.

My kids say funny, inappropriate stuff that I write down and share with the world. For example, while frosting a cake with my mother the other day Mallory could be heard saying, “Oh, yeah. That’s it! Spread it like herpes!”

When I went to Disneyland recently (by myself, no children, I’m not bitter) I cried when I saw my first princess. You can make a guess which one, but the point is that I cried. What am I, 12-years old again? I teared up.

*This is the kind of stuff I find hilariously freakish and necessary for a good life. A whole bunch of WTF went on in my brain and then as I continued to watch I was fascinated and clapping like I wanted Tinkerbell to show up. Shit is amazing.

If you want to join in the fun (going to the BlogHer conference or not), see this post for directions! Nice to meet ya!

*edited to add: More details can be found here as written by BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone. Thanks for the nice words, Lisa!

*I am having slow server issues so please be patient. Go make a quick snack and check back to read through this post.

We all know that blogging/writing has evolved much in the last few years and I’m no exception to this. When I started writing my Allen series I had no idea where it would go and then I took all that I learned about writing and have decided to get it published in my free time.

That is, for you “free time virgins”, the hours between midnight and 6 a.m. I realize that what I’ve done with that time is look at the back of my eyelids, so I’m not putting pressure on myself to get it done quickly. It will happen.

Beginning to write seriously meant that I had to discipline myself to take the craft to the next level. Honestly, though, I’ve taught reading and writing for over 13 years at various levels yet I never loved to write until I started Mocha Momma as a personal website. I’ve toyed with so many options: writing strictly about education, writing about my family and daily happenings, tackling politics and racism and plain old insights about humanity. Most days I can’t get that meta because let’s face it: meta takes work and I have a family, a full-time job, and school.

Then came the realization that there were other writers that I wanted to read and eventually meet. Most of them, I assumed, didn’t know me or my writing and when I got to BlogHer06 last year I found that I was wrong. People knew. They referenced things I had written, wanted to know if my family really was that funny (they’re funny? really?) or if the party that was going on in my head really was that fascinating. That’s just how this brain works and I can’t rewire it now unless I want to get some shock therapy but I don’t think that would even be necessary. My brain is WIRED weird.

My point is that it really helped in knowing some things about the women I was going to meet last year at the BlogHer conference, but I was overwhelmed in trying to read everything about them. This year the number of women attending has doubled which means that much more amazing writers will get to mingle and learn from one another. What if I wrote a post that took 10 seconds to read and then you could go on your merry way or click on another attendees blog to read about them in 10 seconds? Wouldn’t life be much happier?

That’s what I thought.

So steal this button right here, insert it in a post about yourself tomorrow, and write something you want us to know about you that we can read in 10 seconds. It can be a bullet post or a photo essay or a vlog or anything you want. Go crazy, kids.

See you in 10 seconds.

Here is the button you will need. NEED.

Thanks to this great lady at Rocks In My Dryer for designing this button. (And I hope you feel better today!) You can pull it from this link right here, save it to your hard drive, and then plug it into your post. Happy plugging and posting!

There are pictures of California, stories to be told, and people to publicly humiliate, but I need more time to organize some things.

This will be a short post. Perhaps you can read it in 10 seconds.

There is a lot of stuff going on (yes! again! Don’t you love the drama here?) and I have two things to share with anyone who can actually get to this website without waiting for 45 minutes, but I know that I am having some server issues and that’s it’s difficult. You will get a piece of candy if you can be patient and wait. Maybe even a sucker.

Crap. Are those 10 seconds up yet?

Then I’ll be quick. Tomorrow soon soonish there will be some information about my career that I may be able to share and also a little BlogHer thingie to do like we did last year and lots of people seemed to really like, but more inclusive. So get those pictures of yourself ready, start thinking about what you’d like everyone to know about you, and enjoy that candy now.

It’s peppermint. You have nice, fresh breath.

When the astronauts come back into the atmostphere there is all this bumping around and bouncing of molecular activity in the re-entry stage. It’s much the same when returning from a wickedly fun trip where I laughed too much (and loudly - some of you know what I’m talking about), licked too often (and laciviously - some of the pictures may be mistaken for porn), and stayed out too late (and lied about it - “I think I came in at 1:00 a.m., Becky. Umm… wait. Maybe it was 2:00.“)

Coming home to real life has that burning sensation to it where the people who know you well tell you to stop name-dropping and get back to being the momma of the house. It’s a little deflating and yet good for me at the same time.

My deflation happened early on at BlogHer where my friend, Becky, and I went to the bar as soon as we got there where I was met with this question:

Oh, hi! Are you here with Club Mom?

No.

Ohhhh…. (turning slowly away from me and letting the other women know that I am a leper and should NOT be touched.)

That’s ok, though. She more than made up for it when I heard someone beckon me to their table where she was sitting when this other person bellowed “Mocha!” That must have jogged her brain that she had, perhaps, heard of me from somewhere because she squealed, “Ohmygod, you’re Mocha? You’re MOCHA?” I’m too gracious to have shoved it back in her face so I smiled and hugged her and got leprosy goodness all over her shirt and held pleasant conversation with her and the other women there.

It made it a little better when Becky, who laughed with me over this first introduction in the bar, went back to where Club Mom was having their pre-conference soiree to drop off her empty wine glass at the bar said, “It’s ok. They’re all still in there and I dropped a really stinky fart and left it there just for you. Now, let’s go somewhere else.”

This? This is why she’s my best friend.

My photos are being held hostage in my camera and won’t be uploaded until I can get Jayne fixed (AGAIN. AGAIN! What a shit she’s being to me.) but I will flickrize them soon.

My favorite question and the one which I answered differently every time came in two forms. Either it was “Are you a mommyblogger?” or “What kind of blog do you write?”

It’s a personal blog, I guess. What I mean to say is that I puke on the page and people somehow respond to it.

There was no shortage of stimulating and intellectual conversation with the people I met. I don’t say “women” because I spoke with plenty of men as well. Discussions of what makes a community and how I identify myself as a person of color brought about many more complex issues which my brain is currently exploring. Having this conversation with Karen and Alice prompted me to confess that when I write about issues of race there are often a great deal of comments because this is a safe place. Sometimes, that confuses me because I wonder how many people have multicultural experiences in their own life and that there is a sense of burden on my part to represent my views in an honorable way. Then, I told them that I’m sure there are better places where people write more fluidly on the topic. Alice eloquently stated, “Oh. You’re their practice Black person.”

I’m still giggling about that.

Since I do so love to be in a crowd and have never met a stranger, hopping from group to group during social time was a veritable feast for me. Cliques and I don’t go together well and it’s my mission in life to break into each one, leave a piece of myself, and move on to learn about other people. That, to me, was the beauty of being in this space with these fantastic people.

I didn’t get caught up in the mommyblogger-vs.-everyone-else-drama because let’s face it: I have enough drama to deal with in my real life that I don’t need to take on virtual ones.

I tried pulling the shy people into the conversation as much as I could because I’m the complacent, quintessential middle child because, let’s face it: I want everyone to get along and have a great time.

I let my mouth take over and just spill things out that I can’t put back in because, let’s face it, it is fun to watch the reaction from other people.

To wit: When conversing with Heather about people not coming up to her the first day out of their own fear, I was comforted by her frankness.

Me: What? You mean they are afraid? Let me ask you this: Do you put your pants on one leg at a time?

Heather: Yeah.

Me: Do you take a shit, too?

Heather: Yeah. And it stinks!

Re-entry burn may not be so hard after all. I’ll just ask everyone about pooping today and it’ll be like I never left San Jose.