Meet & Feet

I had about 10 minutes to get ready to meet someone I really admire. Well, I left myself (true Becca Blue fashion!) 10 minutes from walking through our front door to dashing back out the front door to catch the train downtown. Off with the torn jeans, t-shirt and Pumas... on with some capri jeans (not torn) a jaunty little top and sweater! A few hours by myself! A few hours without a baby bjorn or a diaper bag attached to me! Briskly walking to the train station, I was already regretting my shoe choice. (I was channeling, or trying to channel my inner Carrie Bradshaw and wore high heels....) I was going to meet Grace Bonney- founder of Design*Sponge- the very first blog I ever started reading regularly. I still do read it just about everyday, sometimes a few times a day and I am still just as inspired by it now as I was back then. It was a meet and greet to celebrate her new book, and I was quite excited. (It was at Anthropologie...need I say more?)


While I waited in line to have my book signed, of course I was visually shopping. (I love that butterfly dress.)

I found that while waiting in long lines, I am just like the two year old I am constantly scolding...I must touch everything. Here I am, sophisticated sparkling wine in one hand- pawing everything from soaps to skirts with the other.

I know! I think I need that pansy coat too! I start a clever pretend conversation that Grace and I will have with one another when I reach the table she is sitting at... a couple of jokes, she likes my shoes- I say nothing about how my feet are starting to hurt, I say how much I admire her, and inevitably we wind up on what I do for a living and she is just smitten with me and asks me to free-lance on her website, and invites me to have drinks and dessert after all the others leave...(its my pretend conversation, I can have it go however I want....)

Finally arriving at the front of the line-with my book in hand, I said something like, "Its so nice to meet you Grace Bonney...you are such an inspiration...do you need a flower child that represents the midwest?" Ugh. I did. Shameless self-promotion. She, being so nice and as cute as a button said, "You know, I actually could...." (Score!) Followed by, "Could I have your business card?" (OH NO! For those of you that know me, this is my Achilles Heel...I don't have one. I have been making some "homemade-y" type business cards, but not anything I would give to the woman that founded and runs the largest design blog....I mean a DESIGN blog needs something really, well...really. Oh, Becca!) I smile sheepishly and say, "I don't have one...I'm such an a*$hole." (WHAT!!! Again, for those of you that don't know me personally, I really have a mouth akin to a sailor...and I really do type like I speak- I have verbal diarrhea it just keeps running out of my mouth. Sometimes its great and I'm really witty and funny (at least in my head I am) and have very quick comebacks and other times, it really does just keep coming out before I know what I am saying and back to my simile of my verbiage being like an upset stomach and I say things like a$%hole to Grace Bonney. )

She laughed and said, "You aren't an a%&hole...would you mail me your information?" (I exhale.) Her name suits her. I smiled- tried not to say anything else- and went to the Smilebooth and took some pictures of me & my freshly signed book.

Well, I guess she'll remember me. That is a start. The book is just amazing. Design*Sponge filled such a void when all of my favorite shelter magazines started becoming extinct. Having something like the book that I can hold in my lap, pour over and reference to- well, like it feels so good and like I said, its just so inspiring. I can't wait to devour it. I sit on the El platform and cradle my new book like it is a child. My feet officially hurt. Bad.


As I make my way back to the train station a homeless man shouts at me, "Lookin' good Sugar Mama!" So I guess despite the ache in my arch (4 inch heels!) somebody thinks I made a wise choice, at least in shoes.