I came, I saw, I got conquered.
Seriously, Portland kicked my everlovin' city-girl ass. It's green, it's filled with books and really good coffee, the neighborhoods are adorable without tipping over into twee and, joy of joys, it's schlub-friendly. I mean, I love New York and L.A. and London and Paris and Rome and lots of other fancy-schmancy places, but I feel at home in places like Chicago and Ithaca and San Simeon and Austin and Bloomington, places with a little less gloss and a little more underarm stubble. Provided, you know, there's good food and wine and such. Which Portland has in spades, along with old buildings, trees and (woohoo!) free WiFi in the airport.
TequilaCon was fun, too. I'm really glad that I'd already met Neil and Sophia and Jenny and DeeDee, since there were so many new faces and I tend to get a little shy around new faces. And exhausted, did I mention exhausted? The BF and I had to call it a night way before (apparently) it was actually a night. Meeting a whole slew of new people is tiring for an introvert, even when the people are very, very nice. And while our TCPacNW07 venue, The Kennedy School, was every bit as fabulous as promised (and more!), old people like me need places to sit where we can hear the young people talk or we start to lose it. (Although I did not actually "lose it," unlike some other poor soul on the McMenamin's patio, thanks principally to the ninja drinkers' one-two practice of Pacing Oneself and Never Mixing.)
But it was delightful finally meeting some of my longtime blog crushes, and getting exposed (literally!) to a slew of other local-to-their-localities talents. Your friendliness and high-level social skills were awesome, if intimidating. The BF took tons of wonderful photos to document the wonderfulness, the best of which I'll post to Flickr when he quits futzing with them in Photoshop and hands them over.
Brandon, Jenny: words fail me. Thank you for organizing. Thank you for caring enough to give me my own, SCD-compliant schwag bag. (Thank you even more for caring enough to NOT give me herpes.)
And Dave? Dave, you crazy, mad, lovable genius of design deliciousness? Those lanyards are THE TITS, baby...THE TITS!!!
xxx c
Image by Whateverthing via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license. If you want a good feel for why I fell in love with Portland, check out his photostream.