This is a scene that has played out in every sitcom.  You’re in some kind of social situation where the attention is suddenly on you, and all you have to do is say one normal thing, but you can’t remember how sentences work and you’ve lost all touch with normal.

I always feel that way when something happens to send a bunch* of new people to my blog all at once.  I start asking myself, “what is it I do here again?”  I forget how to be myself.  I think, “Just say something.  Anything.  But right this second.  And make it normal.”

I started this post a couple weeks ago when this happened, but I didn’t finish it because I thought that calling attention to the thing I was experiencing might actually make it worse.  Same way you try to make up for awkwardness by calling attention to it or making a joke about it, and then no one laughs and you still have nothing normal to say.

I get over it quickly.  I remember how to be my weird self.  But it’s strange the way that seems so much easier when no one is looking.  Sometimes these experiences make me feel inauthentic.  I assume that other people are just so 100% themselves that they don’t get rattled by anything.  Me, I have to think about how to be myself.

In the first place, I am going to make the safe guess that this is not true.  I mean, it probably would not be a staple of sitcom humor if it wasn’t experienced by all kinds of people.  And in the second case, there is a lot of value to those experiences that knock you off your feet, not so much that you fall, but so that you’re on your heels before you recover with some wild arm movements that do nothing to really help.

I always feel like the worst thing I could do is get quiet.  I have something to prove to myself by just acting naturally. “I’m totes casual.  This is what I always do with my hands.”  I fake being myself until it’s easy again.

So, hello if you’re new.  I hope I didn’t just scare you away by admitting I am ridiculous.

*Anything more than three counts as a bunch, right?

You know those people in your life who you talk to so much that you find yourself thinking about telling them something that happened to you as that thing is actually happening?  Blogging is like that for me. The words I am putting together in my head to explain to other people what I am experiencing actually become part of the experience itself.

In other words, I blog a lot.  Way more than I actually post.  I have always done the writing and not publishing thing to a certain extent, but lately I have been writing without any real thought about ever publishing.  It’s like all the work without the fun part of throwing your words out recklessly into the world.

I don’t want to deny that sometimes it’s fear that stops me, but so often it is really nothing at all.  It’s just easier to not make a commitment to anything by putting it in words and then sharing those words with other people.  I have been slipping into this mood a lot in the last year, and I’m always shaken out of it when someone tells me that what I do here matters to them.

First, thank you to those people.  Second, we should all be better about telling other people that what they do matters.  Third, I really should not require that kind of assurance to keep moving forward.

Brain crack is a Ze Frank term that refers to the very good ideas that you hold onto as precious and never execute because you’re not quite ready yet or it would take resources you don’t have or you don’t have the time or it would be really hard.  Brain crack addicts are those people who are always talking about what they’re going to do, but never actually do anything.

There’s a little addict in all of us, but if you want to get off the stuff, then you have to execute your ideas as faithfully as you can and then put them into the world and move onto the next thing.  In the last several years, I have gotten into the very good habit of doing the work, but I still dance around timidly when it comes to sharing that work with other people.

I don’t want to do that anymore.  I am making a renewed effort to get out of my own way.

Ashley, Nicole, Ashley

I forgot that waiting for someone at the gate used to be possible until I got off the plane in Boston, and I saw Ashley standing there.  Good planning with a dash of good luck meant that she flew into the neighboring gate a few minutes before me.  We hugged, we cried (not really), we skipped (again, not really), we sat next to a woman with a dog named Starbucks while we waited for Nicole to pick us up (really).

We first got to know Boston in the dark and the rain, while starving, but still Ashley and I were like, “The leaves!  Who knew they came in this many colors?  Why does anyone ever stop writing songs and poems about these leaves?”  We moved on to other topics of conversation, but periodically throughout the weekend one of us would say again, “the leaves!”

After grabbing dinner with Nicole’s boyfriend, James, we finally got to see Nicole’s apartment.  I knew it had character, but I was not prepared for how much character.  Low ceilings, a nook, and stairs it’s a miracle I didn’t fall down.  Except that one time when I kind of did fall down, but it was dark and no one saw me.  We set up camp in the living room, which Nicole’s awesome roommates were surprisingly okay with, and busted out the Dawson’s Creek DVDs, which we watched until we all fell asleep at an embarrassingly early hour.

As we proved in Boston, traveling and being in the company of other people does not mean giving up valuable time spent with our laptops.  Every morning, we enjoyed coffee and internet time.  We really prefer communicating through Twitter DMs even while sitting on the same couch.  I know there are more people reading this who understand than don’t understand it, so I guess I won’t try to defend it except to say that there is something hilarious about sneezing and then receiving a DM that says, “bless you.”

Since it was 11/11/11, we discussed wish theory while eating crepes.  We wanted to make sure we did it right, you know?  I hope right means sitting in a Target parking lot, because that’s what we did.  Making up the rules ourselves, we decided to make our 11:11 am wishes secret and then our 11:11 pm public.  Except it was 11:12 pm before we remembered to make our public wishes.  Whoops!

Friday afternoon, we went downtown to see Blue Man.  While Nicole, the stage manager, was preparing for the show, Ashley and I went to a bar and enjoyed a well-rounded meal of fries, fried pickles (which I did not know were a thing), and beer.  Suffering from separation anxiety, we drew a picture of Nicole on a napkin and propped it up on the table.  I think we both forgot to be embarrassed about it until the bartender commented.  When we left, he asked us if were were taking our friend with us.  Yes, obviously.  Blue Man was hilarious and amazing and Nicole did a fantastic job.

Since all three of us participated in VEDA, and it was really the thing that transformed us from blog friends to fly-across-the-country-to-visit friends, we held a meet up that night, so we could see Joey and Germana’s faces.  They do indeed have faces!  But I didn’t touch them, because that would be creepy.  VEDA people: they were as awesome as expected, but who would really be surprised by that?

This Summer in Austin, we started the tradition of making one Pinterest recipe every visit.  Saying we means taking a lot of credit I don’t deserve, since I have no idea what I’m doing in a kitchen, but I did document the event and I did enjoy the Cinnamon French Toast Bake on Saturday morning like it was my job.  Since returning from this trip, I feel like I should be eating a huge breakfast of sugar every day.

Full of sugar and coffee, we took off for Harvard Square to drink more coffee and meet Kate.  She walked by us a few times, because my text said only, “we are here” without the added, “we’re the girls sitting at a table looking at our phones.”  It was lovely to meet Kate and discuss important issues like Dawson’s Creek (we wanted to take her home with us to watch more) and meeting bloggers (how it’s not scary until someone tries to take you home to watch Dawson’s Creek).

We tried to walk around Harvard and pretend we were Rory Gilmore making the tough decision between our dream school and Yale, but the campus was locked down (we think because of Occupy Harvard).  We just stared longingly through the gates, which I think Rory would approve of given the circumstances.  Then we went and bought wine across the street, which I am less sure that Rory would approve of (at least until she went through that rebellious stage in season six).

As it was getting dark, we headed back to Nicole’s apartment for #winetoreach.  Kristen came over, and then Liz and her friend Meghan showed up a little later with whipped cream vodka in hand.  Whipped cream vodka was even more amazing than expected and it immediately made it more difficult for me to pay attention to the drama of Dawson’s Creek, especially since every character on that show who drinks either falls off a pier and dies or finds some other way to screw everything up.

I would probably have more thoughts on meeting Liz for the first time if I had felt like we were meeting for the first time, but I didn’t.  I’m not sure how this makes sense, but I feel like the more bloggers I meet, the less they surprise me.  Maybe because I don’t expect them to anymore.  Liz did apologize for hugging me, since word on the street is that I’m not a hugger, but I would just like to state for the record that I have no problem with hugs.  I’m just not very good at them.

More from #winetoreach: there were tiaras.

Sunday morning, we ate funfetti cake for breakfast and worked on our half marathon training schedule.  Right, because some time on Friday, I agreed to run a half marathon in February.  A thing I haven’t done since 2005!  This will be interesting. Then we vlogged (warning: so much giggling), cried (not really), petted each other (really), and took off for the airport.  13 weeks until we’re reunited; hopefully, we’ll be in better running shape.

Last day sadfaces.

Oh, how I wish I had a life interesting enough to back up that title.  Short answer: not much.  I understand if you’re disappointed to hear I’m not running away to Germany with Zac Efron.  I share your disappointment!  But, listen, he’s not really an option for me and I am not at a point in my life where running away seems necessary.

Except I’m kind of running away to Boston today.  And, I just, I can’t even, ahhh, I’m so excited!

I don’t mean to make myself sound weirder than I am.  By most accounts, I appear pretty normal.  I’m generally friendly.  I can talk about a lot of things.  I like most people.  All of these things even more so with a glass of wine.  But I’m still kind of surprised to find people who get me.  And it’s something of a shock to find people I can spend endless hours with and not think, “Well, this is fun, but I would like to be alone now.”

Ashley and Nicole are those people.  We talk.  We laugh. We sit in comfortable silence. We tweet at each other while within arm’s reach.  They are just my kind of people.  And the universe requires us to get together every few months, so after San Francisco, Vegas (with just Nicole), and Austin, it’s now time for Boston.

We actually started planning the Boston trip when we were still in Austin, and we’re already planning on a February trip to Austin before Boston has even begun.  This is serious business.

While we’re on the subject of meeting kick ass blog friends, less than a week ago, I was bemoaning the fact that I have known both Katie and Liz for more than three years now and  I still haven’t met them.  Then all of a sudden, Katie decided to come with us to Austin in February, and Liz decided to take the bus to Boston this weekend.  Lesson learned: say what you want out loud and things will immediately fall into place.  More realistic lesson: saying “I want to meet you, like, right now” is more effective than saying nothing.

On almost no sleep, I’m going to go travel across the country now. That is what’s really going on.

Dear Internet:

Posts like this make me feel a little awkward.  I pretend to be comfortable with the self-promotion part of blogging, but I am not.  Then again, I think it’s stupid to make things and then act like you don’t care if anyone sees them.  What? That post I spent three hours writing?  I mean, read it or whatever.  No big deal.  It’s not my entire sense of self on the line or anything.  I exaggerate.  A little.

It is quite possible that I have not mentioned this here since we started in May, but I am part of a collaboration channel on You Tube.  It’s called Totes Awesome Channel.  There are five of use (me + four of my favorite people on the internet) and we each make a video once a week.  I make videos on Mondays.  Since it is Monday, I made a video today.  You can find it right here.  I talk about being tired.  I know, don’t trip over yourself trying to get there as fast as possible.  It’s on You Tube waiting for you.

I am also the Captain of We Blog, We Vlog.  Our main event is VEDA (Vlog Every Day in August), but we try to host vlog days throughout the year.  There’s one coming up soon.  We have a topic and everything.  Details soon.  If you’re like, “I’m just not that into vlogs,” that’s okay with me.  But, if you’re like, “I want to make better friends on the internet,” I’m just saying that participating in WBWV is a really good way to do that.  If you need testimonials, I can provide some. I also vlog on my personal You Tube channel.

I assume you know I’m on twitter, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in three years or so.  I’m @writetoreach.  Sometimes people refer to me as Ashley writetoreach, and that is why.  People sometimes refer to me as Ashley winetoreach as well, and this is why.  Or @hatetoreach, but that’s because I don’t like apple and cinnamon pastries.  Did I confuse you?  All you have to do is follow @writetoreach and forget everything else I said.

Also, I’m on tumblr.  Sometimes I write stuff over there, but mostly I just post things I think are pretty (the ocean, castles) or adorable (bears) or insightful (David Foster Wallace quotes).  A few times a week, I post a picture of myself holding a coffee cup on Dailybooth.  I always post what I’m reading on Goodreads unless I’m reading something embarrassing.  If you don’t believe that I’m always listening to David Gray, you can confirm on last.fm (fine, I’m actually listening to the new Coldplay right now, but DG understands).

You can also always email me at writetoreach[at]gmail.

Right.  That’s enough.  I will resume writing about my feelings tomorrow. I would say thanks for indulging me in this mass of self-promotion, but as you recall, I am totally comfortable with it.

Sincerely,

Ashley

I have been really fortunate to get to see many of my favorite bloggers this year.  Fortunate that I saved money, made plans, purchased non-refundable plane tickets, and then showed up.  So I guess I made it happen, but I still feel fortunate.  Mostly that I have such amazing people to go visit in the first place.

Today I am traveling North to visit Bri!  She is pregnant (a fact we both learned the last time I visited her) and this weekend is her baby shower.  I expect it will be amazing just based on how adorable the invitations were.  We also have plans to drink hot chocolate at The Ritz.  Few things sound more perfect than that.

I also get to see my oldest internet friend Sophia!  Okay, so she is just barely older than I am, but we have been friends since the Summer I started blogging.  Our chats are some of my favorites and we finally met more than a year ago, but she just recently moved back to the West Coast and I am so happy to see her again.

Totes excited, internet.  Totes excited!

The title is in reference to the first post I ever wrote about meeting bloggers: Making it Happen.

I have a name that I’ve gone by my entire life.  When you search that name here on the internet, you find this blog.  This fact freaks me out when I think about it, so I try not to think about it.  I was doing a really great job of not thinking about it, but then it hit me one day, and now I can’t stop thinking about it.

None of this is a surprise.  I thought a lot about what it would mean to go unanonymous before I made the decision.  It was a risk that I was willing and ready to take, and I do not regret it at all.  It is just that I think I thought taking the leap was the hard part, when really the hard part is figuring out what to do now.

I took so long to attach my name to my blog, in part, because I liked belonging to different worlds.  One of my few criticisms of social media (especially facebook) is how it threatens to undermine the very human practice of being different things to different people.  I am still authentically myself even while being the leader in some groups and the follower in others. Some people think of me as quiet, while other people have the (very great, I’m sure) pleasure of hearing what I think about everything.

I wanted to protect my right to belong to different worlds, but ultimately I attached my name to this blog, because I felt that anonymity had become my excuse not to belong fully to any of those worlds. Using my real name felt like this beautifully destructive act.  Things happen when worlds collide.

I thought there would be nowhere to hide when I ditched anonymity, and I guess that is true, but I’ve been walking around with my hands covering my eyes, space enough between my fingers just so that I can see where I’m going.

I said in my post last week that I have no idea who is reading my blog.  That has actually been true for a long time, but now it has intensified.  It is a little bit like the difference between talking to a person on the phone and talking face to face.  I hate talking on the phone, because I get so much out of reading facial expressions.  They have an effect on what I say next.  Blogging is kind of like talking on speakerphone and you have no idea who’s in the room or whether they’re actually listening.

I can see how some people would be comfortable with this, but I think because I am so sensitive and the nature of my writing is so personal, it makes me feel a little bit lost. It makes me very aware that despite my best efforts, my blog only captures parts of me, but it could easily be misinterpreted as representing me fully.  Something about the fear of being misunderstood seems almost petty, but I don’t know why.  As far as I can tell, feeling understood is basic to everything else.

I think the self-doubt I am battling right now is actually much bigger than any of this, but I am only able to articulate this part of it right now.  It is not that I’m insecure in my abilities. It’s that I’m lacking courage to, like, be a person in the world.

I had this professor in college who was always encouraging us to stick our necks out and dare to say things that might have real consequences. I always think about that, both in my academic and personal writing.  I’ve never been made to believe that anyone wanted anything but the best for me and I’ve never felt pressured by other people to change, but it is still remarkably difficult to always be yourself in the presence of other people who have a multitude of expressed and unexpressed opinions about you.

Whether I say anything of real consequence or not, this is me sticking my neck out.

I am to the point where even writing about how this is awkward feels awkward.  I could pretend I’m really comfortable telling everyone how I feel about all of the things, but I think I have a rule against playing it cool.  I am going to stop covering my eyes, because that does nothing to change what is in front of me.  I am going to write through all of the awkwardness and unknowing, because I think that is the only way out.

If you’ve been feeling inhibited, feel free to stick your neck out and join me.  These things are easier in groups.  More necks, you see.

What I love about the writing I do for both my blog and my journal is that it is only ever meant to represent my life as it is right now.  It is a recognition of the obvious: my perspective is very limited, I am trying to understand the past, I make the best decisions I can with the information I have, and the future is a complete mystery.  The archives exist, but they are too extensive to read in full.  Every entry is stamped with a date that I can point to and say, “this was what was true for me then.”

I still fall into the trap of thinking that whatever I wrote before is better than what I’m writing now.  I recently read through my posts from last September and thought, “I wish I could write something like this again.”  That was more raw feeling and what I’m writing now makes me seem like I am lost in my own head.  I have so many posts I want to write, but they all seem almost the same.

The reality is that I struggled with everything I wrote last Fall, I thought every post sounded the same, I was annoyed with myself for being so vague, and I didn’t think it compared to what I’d done before.  This is the way it always is.

To keep myself from being held back by crap nostalgia that masks a lack of confidence, I try to remember that this blog is only meant to capture what I’m experiencing now.  It is not comprehensive.  If it’s honest, then it’s probably both repetitive and contradictory.  I have changed a lot in a year.  That my writing is different now from what it was then is a really good thing, not just in general, but related specifically to the vague stuff that was drove me to write those posts.

I don’t know what impression I give of myself.  I have no idea who’s reading.  I still get nervous almost every time I hit Publish.  And I love blogging now as much as I did when I started.

Last weekend I had drinks with some bloggers at a British pub.  The only music they played in this British pub was The Beatles, Adele, and Coldplay.  Wait, they did play one Rod Stewart song just before we left, because he is also British. Nico checked the jukebox to see if they had any David Gray, but sadly they did not.  This part about the music has nothing to do with the rest of the post. I just wanted to mention it to someone who wasn’t there.

At some point probably during the third straight Coldplay song, we were talking about people we like on twitter.  (You probably came up.  We really like you.)  We got around pretty quickly to the clever people.  You know, the ones who post only a few times a day to say something so perfect that you can’t even be jealous of their wit, because you know you never would have thought to say that in a million years.

I love those people.  They make me laugh and I love people who make me laugh. As we readied ourselves for Adele’s set, though, I said about these clever people, “I like you, but once in a while, I want to know that you had a bad day.  You’re tired.  The sandwich you just ate was really good. And you’re currently drinking hot chocolate” (not my exact words).

So this is not about telling other people what they should share on twitter.  I have a lot of opinions on that, but they are all overruled by the big one: Don’t tell other people what to tweet.  It is more about pulling out of this whole experience what is most valuable to me.  And that’s the personal.

I remember what was so exciting about facebook when I first joined.  It was getting this little window into other people’s lives.  Every piece of information somehow seemed so valuable to me.  Hometown.  Current school.  Relationship status.  Then blogging kind of ruined facebook for me, because where someone went to school is not nearly as interesting as a 500 word post on things that actually matter.

Social media sometimes comes up in my academic life as this way of connecting to people superficially.  As an attempt to feel less alone that instead only makes people more isolated.  Something that undermines authenticity and real community.  And I always want to raise my hand and say, “You are doing it wrong.”

It is an interesting question and one I may pursue in the future.  I must admit that words like brand and product make me uncomfortable when applied to people and writing.   But, something is happening here and it feels authentic to me.  Belonging to the internet has taught me that connecting with people is hard, but possible on a level I was not aware of before.  Under what other circumstances would a shy person show up to a British pub and talk to people she’s met only a few times or never before as if they are her oldest friends?

I’ve received a few comments recently that suggest people think I know something about making friends on the internet.  No one has ever accused me of being good at making friends before, so I didn’t know how to take this.  But I looked around and realized that I have made more than a few really good friends.  People I talk to every single day.  People who understand me.  People I wouldn’t hesitate to jump on a plane to visit.

I really don’t know how this happened, but I think Amy solved the mystery in her post, so if you want to learn how to make friends on the internet, go read what she has to say.¹ I’m just going to add some of my own experiences.

I started making friends on the internet as soon as I began blogging, but for the first year or two, I mostly just wrote my heart out on my blog, left some thoughtful comments here and there, and shared in some light conversation on twitter.  You can get a lot out of these interactions and I did, but there was nothing going on behind the scenes.

Over time, people came knocking on my walls with a little more force.  I was taken by their enthusiasm, but I was mildly suspicious of it.  Why exactly do you want to be my friend?  You know I’m kind of weird, right? I mean, don’t you read my blog?!²

Then one Fall, a few people suggested we meet and I said yes.  The same thing happened in the Winter. That Spring I made a conscious decision to simply start replying to people more on twitter.  Like, even if I didn’t know them very well and even if they’d never replied to me.  Summer was when things really started to change.  I discovered that wine and twitter mix very well, that there’s nothing to fear about bloggers having your phone number, and that if you just throw an idea out, like vlogging every day in August, some people might be crazy enough to join you.³  By September I’d become one of those incredibly enthusiastic people who says things like, “I love your face.”

Things have only continued to evolve.  I’d known Bri for about a month when she brought up the idea of having bloggers come stay with her for New Year’s Eve, so naturally I felt comfortable inviting myself.⁴  And here’s a little secret about everyone who attended #SFNYE: we all invited ourselves.  I’m not sure Bri was even that serious when she suggested it, but before she knew it, we’d all purchased plane tickets and were telling her when she could pick us up from the airport.

Tomorrow I’m going to Austin with Nicole to visit Ashley and Linda.  We first started talking about this trip in May when Nicole and I were at #BiSC.  It was about as complicated as one of us suggesting we go to Texas to visit Ashley since she couldn’t be in Vegas, the other immediately agreeing, and then a quick text to Ashley to make sure she wouldn’t send us away when we arrived at her door.

I don’t feel like an expert in making friends on the internet, because I know I have benefited most from people reaching out to me, but I do still have some advice.  Like, show up every day.  Be available to talk, respond to people when they reach out to you, share parts of yourself, and know that it might take a while.  Don’t run away or give up when it turns out these friendships are as real as any other kind, and they come with sacrifice and awkward moments and hurt feelings.  Invite yourself to the party!  I mean, I’m not giving you permission to be creepy, but sometimes you have to stick your neck out and be willing to make it happen.

1. Side note: I’m pretty sure Amy knows every amazing person on the internet; whenever she links to someone, I run to go check that person out and I’m never disappointed.
2. I’m really not that weird, but I’ve come to enjoy giving that impression of myself and I’m grateful most people see beyond it.
3. Do you need even more convincing that you should sign up?  Do it already!  Right here.
4. If you know Bri, then you’d understand that me feeling comfortable with this had everything to do with her and not me.

Weeks ago when Katherine congratulated me on going public with my blog, I responded with “I’m a real girl!”  I hope, having met me twice by then, she already knew this.  I’m totes a real person, guys.

Attaching my name to this blog has so far not caused me any problems.  The nervous-making thing about it was not that I had pretended to be someone on the internet, but that I had been more myself on the internet than anywhere else.   For many of my friends, getting older has meant learning to hold back a little bit and not share so much of themselves.  For me, it’s been the opposite.  That’s why I started a blog in the first place.

Perhaps it sounds counter-productive, but semi-anonymity helped me be more myself.  A self that wasn’t so limited by the person I’d always been.  A self not completely defined by being a grad student.  A self with a lot of thoughts and so many feelings.   Keeping that all to myself is easy to me.  Being loud about it is not.

It has certainly gotten easier, though.  The thing is that if you’re doing it right, you don’t stay anonymous in the blogosphere for very long.  What I mean is that the minute you start making friends, then there are people who know you, and there are consequences to your words.  I didn’t know that when I started, but I am so grateful for it now, because really being known here has made it easier for me to really be known everywhere.

I have no regrets about going public with my blog, but it is hard to drop three year’s worth of semi-anonymous behavior immediately.

When I have an unusually high number of page views, I assume someone I know has found my blog and is reading the whole thing in this really mocking voice and laughing all the way.  Never mind that I’ve now made it pretty easy to find and it would take some serious dedication to read the whole thing.

When anyone in my real life mentions blogs, I go quiet and then change the subject when I get the chance.  Like there’s anything I like talking about more than blogging!  How does one work “I have a blog and it’s kind of my life” into conversation?  Advice needed.

Is it weirder to call people blog friends or just call them friends and then have someone ask if I met them on the internet?  On the plus side, my parents are no longer confused by how I seem to know at least one person in every major city.

When a stranger is standing too close to me while I’m looking at twitter on my phone, I still try to hide the screen so they can’t read my username.

When a coworker asked me why I was taking a picture of my food, I had no idea what to say.  The truth: “I need twitter to know how good this brownie is.”

So I’m still getting used to this, but I wanted to thank you for all of your support along the way!  Love your faces.

An email sent to my family this morning:

I’ve been meaning to tell you something.  I doubt it will surprise you much, but I have a blog.  I have for more than three years now and it’s a pretty big part of my life.  There’s no good reason I haven’t told you about it before, but there is a good reason I am telling you about it now: I recently attached my full name to my blog, because as you all know, I want to be a professional writer and writers have full names (and websites: ashleyriordan.com).

My blog is at writingtoreachyou.com. I’ve written more than 600 posts, so I can’t say I remember everything I’ve said, but I don’t think you’ll find anything all that startling.  Except for two things, which I want to tell you about now.

First, I was once in credit card debt.  A lot of it.  So I spent 14 months working 15-hour days, 6 days a week until I paid it all off.  I want you to know about it not just because I don’t like that it’s a secret, but because paying off my debt changed my life.  I blogged all about it at astoryofdebt.com.

Second, I did not go to San Francisco to visit my secret boyfriend as you might suspect.  I went to spend New Year’s Eve with six of my favorite bloggers.  I’ve met a lot of bloggers over the last couple years and not one yet has tried to kill me.  Far from it.  They are some of the best people I have ever known.

I’m sorry to announce all of this in an email.  If not for the debt, I probably would have just blurted it out in conversation by now.  If you have any questions, you can call me, but we all know how great I am at returning phone calls, so text or email is probably better.  You are welcome to share this information with anyone and I will pretend to be completely comfortable with that.

I’m not great at introductions, but please wave hello to my family, internet!

When I decided to get serious about my dream of being a professional writer, I knew I would need a last name.  The biggest obstacle in my way was ditching my semi-anonymity, but it certainly wasn’t the only one.

I’ve always been hesitant to attach my name to my writing.  I’m scared of taking myself that seriously.  It’s much easier to just talk about writing and think that one day I’ll write something really good and then I’ll put my name on it.  But, you have to start somewhere.  So I’m starting here.

I love my blog, but I wanted a place on the internet to introduce myself that wasn’t so feelingsy and boy bandy, so I asked Shatterboxx to design something.  Click below to check it out.

And, hi.  My name is Ashley Riordan and I’ve written everything here.  It’s nice to meet you!

Nicole and Jamie were a dream to work with.  I fully recommend them, but I think their portfolio speaks for itself.

Though it may be the year where everything changes, I will still be here writing about everything from Zac Efron to existentialism.  Give me some time to find my feet, but if I grow shy or let you forget for a second that I own a JT bobblehead, please send me an email with the subject line: “You’re doing it wrong, Ashley.”

Me, Katherine, and Nicole! (photo taken by suki)

I’m back from Bloggers in Sin City and I think I speak for everyone when I say my feet really hurt.  Seriously, so much walking in fancy shoes.  Also, I had a ton of fun and finally met some people I’ve known on the internet for years now.  And Nicole (@nicoleisbetter) did an amazing job of organizing everything.  Just one more thing, you should be there next year.  May 17-20, 2012.  More info here. Start saving now.  The end.

Oh, wait.  Not the end.  But I’m out of transitions, so I’ll say the rest in bullets.  (This is obviously a pretty limited take on the whole event since I’m one introvert and it was a meetup of almost 60 bloggers.)

• I’m within driving distance of Vegas (it’s about four hours away), so it was cheaper for my roommate Nicole (@NicoleMarieSays) to come here first and drive with Jenn (@jennbizzle) and Nico (@nicopolitan) and I to Vegas.  I hadn’t seen Nicole since #SFNYE, so we tried not to knock each other out with a tackle hug. A hospital trip would not have been the ideal start to the weekend.

• We took two cars, so I have no idea what Nicole and Jenn talked about, but Nico and I talked about gutsy winds and made plans to become cloud detectives.  This guy in the truck in front of us on the road was speaking very dramatically with his hands, so we amused ourselves by imagining what he might be saying.  Then we survived ALMOST TWO HOURS IN THE DESERT WITH NO CELL SERVICE.  At a certain point, I had to save my soul by giving up staring at my phone, willing it to connect.  Life without twitter is no life at all.

• We finally arrived in Vegas fashionably (or not so fashionably) late and checked into our room at the Flamingo.  Probably the coolest hotel room I’ve ever been in.  Nicole and I immediately decided never to leave.  I mean, everything was pink and we had a view of the Bellagio fountains.  Perfect.

• The first event was an open bar at the hotel.  Even before I proceeded to drink everything there ever was (including vodka and cranberry, beer, a tequila shot, and several things I don’t remember), I wasn’t nervous.  That’s really weird for me, but bloggers are just the best people. Per #BiSC tradition, I got @writetoreach written on my arm and then flashed it at everyone I talked to.  Several people told me I looked exactly like my profile picture, which I was strangely proud of. Good job looking like yourself, Ashley.

• We ended the night eating burgers, which I’m guessing is the only thing that saved me from a terrible hangover the next day.  I said a lot of things (please refer to the previous bullet where I said I drank everything), most of which I don’t remember.  But I do remember Nico, Jenn, and Katherine (@purekatherine) making me cry.  Listen, if you say nice things to me, I will not forget it.  I may just flatter myself by awkwardly repeating those nice things here.  A drunk Nico said something to the effect of, “I get the feeling that Ashley just thinks she’s this girl who writes, and she doesn’t know how much what she says resonates with us or that when you know her, and you’ve made absurd jokes with her, you feel this different ownership over her words.  Like, you read her, but I know her.”

• The next morning, though hangoverless, Nicole and I tried to hang out with everyone by the pool, but we were tired and struggled just to stay awake and contribute to conversations.  So, we gave up early and with Katherine and Kaci (@kacijohanna), set out to first find some coffee and then some tigers.  As Nicole put it, we found our personalities at the bottom of those coffee cups.  The tigers were found at the MGM grand and then we ate at the Rainforest Cafe before heading back to the hotel to pass out for a few minutes and then fancify ourselves for happy hour.

• That night we had the most amazing drinks at the Sugar Factory.  I mean, it was like dessert+alcohol=heaven. Then I failed a little at fondue before we went to Absinthe, which was this amazing show at Caesar’s Palace.  I don’t even know how to explain it.  Circus on crack minus elephants?  There was the thing on rollerskates and the other thing with adorable Hank and the keg stand.  You just had to be there.

• Like the old ladies we are, Nicole and I gave up early that night and returned to our room to drink and play Apples to Apples.  Let me tell you what that really looked like: taking one sip of Dragon Fruit Skyy Vodka and falling straight to sleep.  The following day, we heard about all the amazing fun we didn’t have, but wow did we sleep well.

• The next morning, we caught brunch with Katherine and then made a better showing at the pool where we drank Blue Moon and got ourselves sufficiently crispy.

• That night, we dressed up in our fanciest black, white, and gold outfits and went in search of food.  Nicole and I ended up at this awesome chocolate place called Max Brenner where we had a totes romantic dinner and talked about deep things like divorce and The Baby-sitter’s Club.  Those two things are related.  You see, we both connected with Kristy and Stacey because their parents were divorced and so were ours.

• We sadly arrived late for drinks that night at Saxe Theater, which was also a secret bachelorette party for Kaci, but we caught the end of it and then it was time to walk to PURE.  If you’ve known me for more than ten minutes, then you probably know that I only use the word clubbin’ sarcastically.  But, guys, I went clubbin’!  And, wait for it, just a little longer, keep going, I danced! I would like to thank the vodka for sponsoring my dancing.  After spending months telling Katherine that I don’t dance, she witnessed it for herself and I think she was shocked at how little convincing it took.  Like, none.  Slow clap for vodka.

• When our feet couldn’t take anymore, Nicole, Katherine, and I took off for the hotel again.  We changed into more comfortable shoes and then went downstairs to the casino.  But, Nicole and I aren’t gamblers, so we went for a walk down the strip.  Arm in arm we tipsily walked down to the Venetian.  The things we talked about I am considering turning into a regular feature called Deep Thoughts with Ashley and Nicole.  I mean, not really, but don’t be surprised if I start my next five posts with, “as Nicole and I were talking about in Vegas . . . .”

• Again, by some miracle, we felt perfectly fine the next morning.  It was a goodbye brunch and then we hit the road to head back to Los Angeles.  Jenn, Nicole, and I enjoyed an NSYNC concert in our car, where we ate Sun Chips and talked about people doing bad things to dead bodies.  We all stopped in Yermo, California to see the dinosaurs, turtles, and ducks.  Of course we have dinosaurs in California!  One of them is Nico.  We finally got back to my city, but we weren’t quite ready to say goodbye, so we enjoyed one more dinner together at Buca di Beppo where we were asked at least three time if we were celebrating anything.  We said we were celebrating surviving Vegas slash the rapture.

• I had to take Nicole back to the airport that night, because staying forever simply wasn’t a reality.  I could not have asked for a better roommate.  On the way home, I realized I hadn’t texted her all weekend, because she had pretty much never been out of my sight.  If you can spend that much time with a person and talk about The Baby-sitter’s Club, then it must be love.  We’re already making plans for our next trip.  AshleyD and Austin, we’re coming for you!

• Katherine stayed with me an extra day, because we wanted to watch Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure together.  It was better than expected!  When I was dropping her off at the airport, we were saying that it sucks to say goodbye, but with the internet, it hardly feels like a goodbye.

A meetup of almost 60 people is overwhelming, especially if like me, you are terrible at such things.  I had some regret that I wasn’t able to really connect with everyone like I would have wished to, but it’s just not possible with a meetup of that size and, as far as I can tell, that’s every reason I need to go back every year. This year we waved from afar.  Now we can spend the next twelve months high five-ing on the internet.  Next year it’s hugs and after that, I’m pretty much yours forever.

I totally fail at linking to all the amazing people there, so see here for a full list.  Also, I am not sponsored by anyone and do not write any sponsored content, but I’ve linked to many sponsors of #BiSC, because they made an awesome experience available to us at a super reasonable rate.

I would totally steal that Pride and Prejudice mug if I wasn't 100% sure Bri would notice and know it was me who took it. It says, "How shall I bear so much happiness!"

I came across this picture that I took when I visited Bri in March.  It was Katherine who was sitting next to me, as we watched High School Musical 2 (also known as the best movie ever), and asked me if I was taking a socks picture.  Apparently, that’s a thing. When you’re wearing striped socks, it should be a thing.

I started thinking about why I didn’t write much about that trip.  I just assumed it was because I wasn’t blogging much at the time.  But, then I remembered the real reason! Duh, I was keeping a secret!  I found out that weekend that Bri was pregnant and so did she!

A baby, internet!  And all kinds of other happy life changes.  Though, I made a push early for the name Ashley and they weren’t feeling it.  I think it’s going to take a while for it to come back around in popularity and by that time it will probably be spelled Ashl1ez (the 1 is pronounced like an i and the z is silent).

One of my first ever blog friends, Sophia, defended her thesis last week and now has a PhD.  A PhD!  I guess it really is possible.

Then there are the group hugs on twitter with Alex and Bridget, because grad school is hard.

My 500th post was a blog manifesto and a hug giveaway. I think I will use my 600th post to gush about the friendships I have that started on the internet but almost immediately outgrew the label “blog friendship.”

I love people who aren’t afraid of the serious, but are also experts in the ridiculous.  Bloggers are really good at that.  We can get all feelingsy and be laughing the next minute.  Not talking for a few days is cause for all kinds of dramatics.  And I get tweets/texts/emails whenever anyone tries Blue Moon for the first time, listens to David Gray, or pays off a credit card.

Anyway, gush.  And the offer for free hugs is still good!  Here’s to the next 100.

I can think about something for a really long time–years, even–and then make up my mind in an instant. That actually sounds quite reasonable if you imagine that all of those years of thinking were somehow leading up to this moment of decision, but it does not feel that way.  It’s not a matter of the proper steps being taken or the fates aligning. It’s just a sudden and instinctual knowing.

Sometimes these moments of decision get an “Ah, crap” reaction out of me, because I’m a decisive person (we do exist), so once I make up my mind to do something, I’m probably going to do it.  If I try to put it off or convince myself otherwise, the decision will haunt me until I can’t take it anymore and I do whatever it is just to move on.  This is precisely what happened when I decided to go public about my debt and when I decided to let people read my novel. In my head, it was “No. no. no. no. no. yes!” and then “Crap. Now I have to do this and it’s terrifying.”

I had one of these moments recently:

For those who don’t know, I blog semi-anonymously.  My name and face have always been attached to my blog, but aside from a few friends, no one in my real life knows about this place.  Not my classmates or my coworkers or my family (I mean, as far as I know). I have always written as if it would one day be public, but that day has not come.

As other bloggers moved away from the anonymous thing, I told myself that because blogging is not related to my professional life, I had no reason to do the same.  The more I think about it, the more I realize this isn’t true.  I have no interest in working in social media or escaping the 9-5, but my professional life as an academic is in large part about, well, what I think about things.  And with the way publishing works these days, if I ever get the crazy opportunity to actually be a novelist, I will be responsible for building most of my own audience (through social media).  Plus, have I mentioned my secret dream of being an essayist?  The kind who writes personal, blog-like pieces that are distributed widely!  My blog could bring actual opportunities my way and it could also help me (as it already has) become the kind of person and writer capable of doing the things I want to do.

That is all very important, but my real reasons are personal.  The person who started this blog needed for it to be separate from the life she was living otherwise, but the same is not true for me now.  I felt too limited in my real life to openly write about all the things I was thinking, but now for the first time, I’m starting to feel limited instead by my blogging anonymity. To be clear, I am terrified of going public with my blog.  Guys, my feelings are all over this place and people I know will be able to read them!  But, it’s not an impossible idea to me anymore.

One reason that I have resisted this for so long is that my work and school life are incredibly small.  I live, go to school, and work two jobs all within blocks of each other and all with the same people.  I do not walk around my real life anonymously.  I see the same people everywhere I go.  Being a shy person, it’s scary to think of potentially being as open with everyone as I am here. But, that’s also the reason I most want to do it.  I’ve been looking for something big–a worthwhile risk to take–and I think this might be it.

Considering the way I make decisions, I should know better than to pretend I’m not sure yet, but I do have some practical concerns.  The only thing that worries me about my content is that it’s personal.  Certainly, it’s not inappropriate (which is not me censoring myself, but really just the way I am). I don’t want to hide posts or edit anything, but I may just to start.  There is the small matter of my debt, which despite the fact that it no longer exists, is still something I am a little scared to share with everyone who knows me. But, I will.

I’m not sure how to go public.  Tell people? Make it easier for them to find out?  Stand out on street corners with a sign?  I am still quite hesitant to blog under my full name just for my own personal safety; considering how many people use foursquare, this might be silly of me, but I’m not sure I am comfortable with the internet being able to so easily find out exactly where I work.  Though, I can only think that I would bore any potential stalker to death.

My biggest fear is that going public will make it difficult for me to write.  But what at first seemed like the big potential failing of this whole idea now feels like the exact challenge I most need (my Kilimanjaro, perhaps). I want to be a more forthcoming person. I need to learn how to write in the open and I need to take myself seriously enough to say this is what I think and this writing thing is what I most love to do.  So I’m not sure when, but I think this is going to happen.

This is something I have considered a hundred times before, but it might have been the debate on the 20sb blog that put it back in my mind recently.

I realize this is a completely ridiculous thing to say about yourself on your personal blog, but there’s a reason why my 20sb profile has always said, “I don’t normally talk about myself this much.”

I’m not reluctant to talk about myself and I’m not bad at it.  I just don’t know quite where I enter the conversation.¹  Even in situations where I don’t feel the least bit shy, I notice that I will let things sit on surface level until I’m pushed to go deeper.

I don’t know why this is exactly.  I guess it’s something of a defense mechanism.  I’m not all that willing to put myself out there unless I trust my audience.  But, I mean, all you really have to do is ask.

I think maybe it’s a confidence thing too.  Again I realize this is a stupid thing to say on your personal blog, but I kind of assume people don’t really care that much.  And I don’t blame them; I wish my coworker had this kind of self-awareness in minute eight of a story I didn’t care about in minute one.

But it’s frustrating to me, because I like real conversations and damn if I don’t like talking about myself just as much as everyone else does.  The privilege of thinking yourself misunderstood wears off sometime after college and you find it’s much better to be known. It might actually be the best thing.

Maybe that’s why I like blogging so much.  It gives me an opportunity to talk about myself and to be known.

1. This also seems ridiculous to say in a post where I appears in almost every sentence.

Writing is suddenly easy again.  And I don’t know exactly what I mean by that, because it’s not like I don’t still spend a lot of time staring at a cursor.  Take that last sentence, for instance.  The double negative is kind of awkward, so I tried for several minutes to find another way to say the same thing before deciding that I prefer the awkward.  Then there’s that sentence I just wrote about the other awkward sentence; it had another comma in it, but that comma looked ugly to me, so I rearranged the words in a way that allowed me to take it out.

I could go on like this, but I won’t, because when writing suddenly becomes easy again, the last thing you want to do is highlight all the ways in which it is actually really difficult.

I feel like I’ve been going around thinking and sometimes saying I used to be good at this blogging thing for so long now that I was starting to think I’d be saying it forever.  I mean, what is this used to be I am referring to?  And what happened? Did I stop writing so much because I didn’t have the time or did I stop making time when the writing became difficult?

Well, I could think about that question forever or I could just take this good feeling and run with it.  Because that’s what you should do when you feel creative.  Run.

It’s that brain crack thing I talk about all the time.  I think I’ve repeated the idea to myself so many times that I don’t even need to be reminded of it anymore.  Say everything you can.  Write it all down.  Execute every idea that comes to your mind.  Don’t try to conserve them.  Don’t wait until you’ve found the perfect approach.  Throw them out into the world and then prepare yourself for all the new ideas that will come flying back.

When I think stupid things like, I’ll wait and write that when I’m not so distracted, I don’t even believe myself anymore, because I am always distracted and that hasn’t stopped me from writing many things I’m proud of.  When I think, maybe I’ll just hold onto this draft in case I don’t have time to write something for next week, I remind myself that sharing what I’ve written is the thing that keeps me most excited about blogging. I like publishing things that make nervous-excited.  So when I think, maybe I’m saying too much/maybe I should be quiet for a while, I ask myself what I’m so afraid of.  I’m learning not to regret being open even when it makes things more difficult.

At first it seemed bold to say writing is easy again, because what if I wake up tomorrow and it’s back to being hard as hell?  Then I guess I would have to explain that things changed.  What’s so scary about that?

Pham (@phampants), Bri (@habbala), Me (@writetoreach), Nicole (@nicolemariesays), Ashley (@AshleyD), Ashley (@ashalahblogs), Nico (@nicopolitan)

My first moment of #SFNYE was walking through the airport alone and hearing Bri yell, “Why aren’t your running?”  I hesitated for a second, but then I took off running toward Bri, AshleyD, and Ashalah.  We’d talked a lot about tackle hugs, but I really did not expect that I would almost get knocked off of my feet.  Our squeeing got the attention of everyone else in that hallway, and I’m sure we got in the way of several people passing through (something we became very good at over four days).

We went for giant cups of coffee and that’s when the quotes began.  Bri’s explanation for why a person who hates cheese can like Flaming Hot Cheetos is that they, “taste like hot.”  I started recording quotes in my phone.  It turns out we’re hilarious and we only get more hilarious with margaritas.  I took notes, Pham got video, and both Ashalah and AshleyD were our photographers.  We all did our part in tweeting the whole thing.  It was nice to be in the company of people who stare at their phones as much as I do.

We ran into Pham and Nico on the street and then went for pizza and Blue Moon (my ideal meal) before finding our way to a bar so cool that I didn’t recognize a single beer on the list.  Soon after that, it was time to pick up our final #SFNYEer, Nicole.  I will speak for Nicole and say that nothing beats having six people waiting to tackle hug you the minute they see you.  That’s how much we liked each other from the beginning.

Then there were margaritas, beer pong, and Rock Band, before we slept too little and woke up the next morning to head to San Francisco.  I had never been before and I don’t even know what to say about the city.  It’s amazing.  I need to go back.  The hills are no joke.  The Irish coffee is a must.  The Full House house is indeed a house, and we were indeed the people standing outside of it listening to the theme song.  There was a man dressed as a woman on the bus and then a charismatic guy who sat next to a beautiful girl and asked her, “What’s your New Year’s Resolution?  Stay pretty?”

It was New Year’s Eve, so we traveled back to Bri’s house, stopping for In ‘n Out.  Then we went home (okay, Bri’s apartment, but it was home by that point) and got dressed in our fancy clothes, but decided we’d rather stay in drinking champagne and playing Apples to Apples.  Before we knew it, it was almost midnight, so we grabbed our champagne and headed for the hot tub. In the minutes before the new year started, we went around and said our resolutions.  And then we said cheers.  And then we proceeded to say cheers somewhere between 10 and a million times.  With how many people would I sit in a hot tub in my dress and say that my resolutions were to find love and do something about this fucking anxiety?

Again with too little sleep, we woke up the next morning, enjoyed some gingerbread coffee, and got to work building a fort.  I will confess here for the first time that I had my doubts about the fort.  But, it came together.  There were even snowflake lights.  We remained in the fort watching movies for the entire day.  I don’t remember the last time I spent a day watching movies.  I’m not sure I ever have.  I never have the time and I’m not very good at sitting.  At one point in the late afternoon, I was sitting there making hand babies with Nicole and playing footsie with AshleyD and Ashalah when I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt that content.  I was downright joyful.

There was more Apples to Apples, every kind of junk food you could imagine, mimosas, a walk to the liquor store in tiaras set to “Show Me Love” (the official theme song of #SFNYE), and the moviefest continued in the fort.  It was the most relaxing day that many of us could remember.  Who needs makeup and real clothes when you’re with friends?

We woke up early the next morning to say goodbye to Pham and Nico.  There was breakfast and a trip to Trader Joe’s for gingerbread coffee (pictured above) and then a group hug.  Only the girls were left and we had plans to go somewhere, but we decided to stay in again instead.  It really didn’t matter what we did.  There was cleaning and Robyn and Gilmore Girls and even more gingerbread coffee.  And then we were going to the airport and it was time to really say goodbye.  We said “Stay” and “Bye Bye Bye” and then I was holding Nicole’s handing as we walked to my gate and then I was on the plane.

I didn’t know what to say about #SFNYE, so I decided to say everything, but I’ve left out so much.  Internet, I really like these people.  I love them.  And I don’t throw around my affections easily.  Maybe I should talk about this trip as an event, but it didn’t feel like a once in a lifetime to me.  And parting ways didn’t really feel like goodbye, because “I’ll see you on the internet” actually means something.  We were talking as soon as we walked away.  We’ll see each other again soon, I’m sure of it.