In the ninth grade, I was in a public speaking class made up of students from every grade in my high school. This meant that as a terrified freshman, I had to get up and talk in front of a room full of people, including seniors. It was awful.

It was also one of the best things that ever happened to me.

The public speaking teacher made us tape ourselves and going back through those tapes is like listening to a butterfly emerge from a cocoon; a cocoon that said, “Like” a lot. A whole lot.

I never had a problem when I taped myself singing Barbra Streisand’s “Memories” in our half bathroom as a 5 year old, but put me in front of an audience at 14 and there was no chance of me belting out a tune, because I could barely talk. My speeches and stories ended up a jumbled mess of nervousness that were half Cindy Brady on a quiz show and half Miss Teen USA, circa 2007. Such as.

But, blogging has changed something in me, and my job most certainly has. I “talk” to tens-of-thousands of people every day now and I’ve learned that if you are truly authentic, it’s not so scary. Though, I’m not going to lie, speaking in front of roughly 4,000 people last summer was enough to give me nervous poops. See? Authentic.

In a few weeks, I’ll be in NYC to speak at BlogHer’s annual conference again; first as a Pathfinder (a HUGE honor) and then as a moderator/panelist on how beginners can leverage Facebook and Twitter to increase traffic and engagement on your blog. Did you hear that? That was my mom saying, “You lost me at traffic.”

In the planning of the all-day Pathfinder workshop and the social media panel, I find that I’m not nervous in the least. Instead, I am excited; practically bursting at the seams to talk, share, listen and learn. I will be among the best and brightest bloggers in the world and I will stand before them as my authentic self. Well, unless I run into Katie Couric or Martha Stewart in the green room, in which case I’ll freak out and sweat a lot. Fair warning, ladies. Especially you, Katie.

It feels good to not worry about public speaking anymore and it feels great to know that I have the confidence to say so.

It’s, like, going to be totally great!

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Today marks one, full week since storms rolled through and took away my internet. I love my internet. I work online, all my friends and family are online and it’s what I do all day long. It’s kind of like when you eat cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner for five years and then, suddenly, someone serves you soup. You’re all, “I can eat this, but it’s not going to be pleasant.” If I were 80 I would add, “This is really going to mess up my bowels.”

By the third day, you’re screaming for your Golden Grahams and when day seven rolls around, you would even settle for plain Cheerios, without sugar poured on top. That’s right. No gray, grainy spoonful of sweetness at the bottom of the bowl; just a big serving of whole grain O’s. But, NO! You’re still sucking down the salty, fake-chicken, soggy-noodle soup.

Of course, this analogy is awful, but you have time to think up good analogies AND really bad ones when you don’t have internet for a week. You also have time to look in the mirror and think, I wonder what is less attractive right now; my smudged eyeliner or the toothpaste I applied to the small, undetectable zits on my chin which the 95 degree weather turned into, what I now refer to as, my power-outage boils.

But that’s not all, because that soup you’ve been eating? It looks like you washed your hair with it. Except, not in a salt-water, ocean-kissed-wavy-locks way, but more of an I-just-washed-my-hair-with-chicken-noodle-soup way.

This is when I mention that you’re wearing the clothes that sat in the washer for two days because you forgot about them, and when you remembered, you had to hang them up to dry because THE DRYER NEEDS ELECTRICITY. So along with your toothpaste-covered chin boils and your chicken-noodle soup hair, you are wearing a wrinkled t-shirt with a slight aroma of must. Not, musk. Must. Big difference.

I kid you not that I saw a guy standing in his front yard, giving himself a baby-powder bath. I’m pretty sure his clothes had been in the washer for three days.

But, my electricity is back and once I get these boils under control, the only thing I want more is my internet. My sweet, sweet internet. Without it, I wouldn’t know how cute tealights look inside of mason jars, or if the power had been out too long to save the mayonnaise, or that you can tame your pimples with toothpaste (also, crushed up baby aspirin mixed with water…just sayin’).

The air conditioning sure is nice and having to hurl small children out of the way to get to the last bag of ice isn’t the most honorable thing I’ve ever done, but I can deal without electricity. Sure, it’s because our neighbors have a generator, but still…

All I know is that the internet needs to come back to me soon, because I am already a hot mess. Obviously.

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After four days without electricity, we are back in business! Well, except for the massive piles of laundry waiting to be done, the dog-hair-covered rugs which are in dire need of vacuuming, the sink full of dishes, and tree branches everywhere. Oh, okay, TREES everywhere. I am still without wifi, so I’m spending a fortune buying French fries at a restaurant where I can use their free internet. My random realizations:

1. The power always goes out right after you get home from the grocery store.
2. It’s kind of cool when you think of how it will bring everyone closer together…for about five minutes.
3. You might have seven flashlights, but you can’t find one when you need it.
4. You will finally find a use for your mason jars!

5. People DO NOT know how to use a four-way stop.
6. Bathing by candlelight is romantic, unless it’s 95 degrees, in which case it’s just sweat-inducing no matter how cold the water is.
7. When 500,000 people are without electricity all hell breaks loose at the gas stations.
8. And at generator stores.
9. Ice, ironically, is a hot commodity.
10. You will leave the sprinkler running for hours so that everyone can cool off, but you will forget to water your flowers.
11. Friends are great to have when you feel like you have nothing except the permanent splotch of sweat on the back of your neck.
12. There is never enough beer.

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Hey there, Melisa here.

I’m guest-posting for Momo because she is in the dark (literally) due to storms in her area, and the estimate for the restoration of electricity is currently July 7 or 8. (I wish I were joking.)

A little while ago, I was sitting in my living room when I heard my cell phone ringing downstairs. I didn’t run to get it, because I don’t know about you but Every Single Time I do that, it’s the blood center scheduling person wanting to know when I’m coming back in to donate (soon!), or some similarly annoying person.

I took my time going down to get the phone after it stopped ringing, and when I checked to see who it was, it was Momo. Figures. The girl NEVER CALLS ME. EVER. She’s so darn busy that I end up calling her and catching her just before she has a conference call or as she’s on her way out to a doctor’s appointment or…wait, should I be reading some signals here?

But I digress.

I called her back immediately because I knew she was without electricity, AND SHE DIDN’T ANSWER. (Don’t you hate that???)

I left her a message, and she still didn’t call back.
I called her again–and YES, I have friendly-stalker tendencies, thanks for asking–and she didn’t answer AGAIN. I admit I was a little worried.

I sent her a text:
Call me back! I’m here!

Nothing. So then, as I tend to do, I decided to become a thorn in her side. I sent a bunch of rapid-fire texts:

Hello? Did you butt-dial me?

Sigh.

Finally, after an eternity (or seven minutes), she called me back on my home phone. After she told me that I am the funniest person she has ever met (<-----slight exaggeration), she said, "Do you still have the log-in information for my blog, in case I die?" Yikes. I should have hung on to it the last time she gave it to me. I told her that I didn't, and did she need me to do something? "Yes! I need a post to go up! Would you want to write one for me? I can't post from my phone!" This was my moment. "SQUEEEEEEE!" I screamed. Wiping tears from my eyes (not really but I want to make Momo feel really good here), I said, "I'd be happy to!!" So there you have it, a guest post by me on why I'm guest posting. (Does this qualify as "Soooo meta"?) Fingers crossed that the power in Momo's neck of the woods is restored much sooner than they think. Just in case, I'm planning a great post for Tuesday about...aww, I'm not telling. You'll have to wait and see.

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