Guinness in Dublin.

I spent a bookwhorin' day in sunny Dublin yesterday… how bloody cool is Dublin? And Helen the Publicist bought me a Guinness, my very first. Tasted like Vegemite and chocolate. It was lovely, but I only managed to drink an inch of it. I just cannae get beer down, no matter what kind it is.

I really really really want to go back. Ireland has been right next door for nearly five years and I've totally ignored it! And what of WALES!?

In other news, my job is making me mental. The Slowest Computer In The World isn't helping. It took 85 seconds for it to paste a 5k .gif from one folder into another. I ask it to do something, it just lights another fag and smirkss, "I'll do it when I'm good and ready." I've developed a habit of grabbing the monitor and shaking it violently while screaming C'MONNNNN Lleyton Hewitt style.

Happy Haggis Day, comrades! And Happy Australia Day for tomorrow!

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New York – Day Three

Endless wandering through Greenwich Village, a fantastic toasted sandwich, a nae bad cupcake, sleeping on my feet while Gareth pawed through record racks, watching wee dogs scurry about in Halloween costumes at Washington Square Park, dozing off during dinner, almost face down into a pillow of roast lamb and mashed potatoes.

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New York – Day Two

This afternoon we happened along past a bank surrounded by cops and yellow tape. Oh my heart leapt with joy and delicious anticipation, because surely just around the corner lurked Ice-T, wrestling some fella to the ground while grunting, "I got the perp, Chief."

You know what, I am really pished right now. Drunk, steamin, trollied, etc. Another night of gooood food and wine and company. I am bubbling over with good feeling about the world so I am just going to keep tip-tap-typing while the good feeling persists then post this later.

It's 2AM, 7AM back home. Gareth is fast asleep and looks positively angelic.

Today we walked down the road to Central Park in the rain and noted that New York squirrels are considerably leaner and more spritely than the Scottish squirrels doon the park near our house. They mustn't be eating enough chips!

Then we spent the whole darn day in the Museum of Natural History. Delicately stuffed birds and human skulls from throughout the ages. It was overwhelming and exhilarating, just thinking about all the wacky species and history crammed into our wee blue planet. I had to have a sit-down like a little old lady, gawking up at the model of a blue whale.

The dinosaurs were excellent. I love that in this modern age of technology and special effects and tiny attention spans, people are still enthralled and humbled by dinosaur skeletons.

I have a soft spot for the pterodactyls. I had this lever arch folder in high school, that's binder to you Americans. The paper was peeling off and I couldn't resist picking away at it over the term, until all that was left was an abstract, pterodactyl-ish shape. After that I was a bit pterodactyl obsessed and drew cartoons of them all the time, including once on the blackboard while the teacher was out of the room. He caught me with the chalk hovering mid-air and sent me outside. It was just weeks before our graduation. I stood outside the classroom; looking around the block at other bad kids who'd been sent out of other classrooms. They kicked the brick walls and looked sullen but I grinned like a dorkosaurus, wishing I hadn't waited so long to do something stupid. It was that same juvenile giddiness in the Hall o' Dinosaurs today, being somewhere you never thought you'd be.

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New York – Day One

Last night as the airport shuttle bus pootled endlessly through Manhattan, the couple o' Brits sitting behind us has had already formed their verdict of the city. "Can't say my first impressions are good," sniffed Missus, "Nothing special is it?"

"No," said Mister, "And they make it look good on the telly too."

"Why is this bus taking so long!" Missus shrieked suddenly, "I want to go home! I want to go home!"

Well I want you to go home too! I longed to say, But how about I chuck you under a taxi instead?

Yes, the shuttle took ages but that was all part of the charm. I was having a great old time just peering out the window at all the people and pizzas and cops and stupidly famous buildings and crazy car parks where they rack up the vehicles on top of each other like wine. I saw some great signs too, with excellent fonts. Oh yes… few things thrill me more than quality typography.

So Gareth and I had juuuust checked into the hotel and were idly debating Who Was The Most Stinky after eight hours in the air when the phone rang.

"There's somebody here to see you," said the receptionist, "His name is W something?"

It was Witold! Only the one of the most wonderful humans in the universe. After so many years of blogstalking and friendship I'd always planned to be… you know, WASHED… should we ever meet, but now he'd spontaneously dropped by after work to whisk us away into his lovely rainy city. So what could you do but follow, in your grotty unkempt way.

He was like our Mary Poppins, amazingly kind and generous and mega thoughtful.

Except he was a bloke.

And wasn't prone to bursting into song.

And he dished out MetroCards instead of spoonfuls of sugar.

And there was a subway instead of a chalk drawing.

And it was New York, not London.

BUT HE DID HAVE AN UMBRELLA.

So we trailed after him adoringly and hey presto, five minutes later we were in the middle of Times Square, gawking at neon and getting sprayed by taxi puddles.

Then he took us to a Japanese restaurant, the first place he went to when he landed here over a decade ago, so all the restaurant guys lit up when he walked in. The sushi was deeeelicious. The three of us polished off a bottle of sake. It tasted clean and clear like essence of noble Japanese mountain or something.

So it was a great start to our trip and when I drifted off to sleep with a pounding head, I scrawled blog entries in the scratchpad of the brain, trying to describe that giddy feeling when you've imagined something in your head for years and the reality is a thousand times more brilliant; better than the telly, better than the internets.

NB: Am blogging this a day later while drunk again and it's 5.36AM back in Scotchland. Scuse t=ypos!

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How the hell did it get to be October? Gareth and I are going to New York City at the end of this month for a little holiday. We booked the flights way back in March and I'd almost forgotten about it, this year has been so mental. But now it's almost here and the Time Out guide I bought six months ago is gathering dust and we've done no planning at all, save for getting some hockey tickets.

Two years ago your suggestions were invaluable for our Return to Oz tour, so forgive me for picking your brains again. What's good to see in NYC? What's essential viewing and what is highly overrated? Is it chilly towards the end of the month? And most importantly, perhaps… what's good to eat and where do you get it?

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In the tradition of Abandoned Gloves of Scotland, I present another of my failed photo gallery projects today – Crazy Buses of Europe.

It all began in 2003 when Rhi and I embarked on our first continental jaunt, to Paris. We went out to Versailles and instead of being awed by the honking huge palace I was awed by the squadrons of tour coaches parked out the front. They were bold and daggy like 80s album covers, with senior citizens gently tumbling out their doors.

But as we ventured further I soon realised that pretty much all buses look crazy in Europe, so I abandoned my mission.

Palace of Versailles, 2003.

Edinburgh Tattoo, August 2003

Copenhagen, June 2004

John o Groats, July 2004

St Petersburg, June 2004

Druskininkai, Lithuania, September 2004

Stockholm, June 2004

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So I'm a woman, right? I have all the equipment and know how to use it, but sometimes I sort of forget that I'm female. Most of my dearest friends in Scotland have been male, and I've joyously immersed myself in the swearing and smuttiness and talk of sport.

But when I found myself at the BlogHer conference in a big room with 800 other women, all talking about their passions with such contagious enthusiasm, it was a most pleasant slap to the chops. Whoa. I am woman. Hear me roar. Grrrl Power, and all that. I just wanted to climb into platform shoes and a Union Jack frock and strut.

Award for Dodgiest BlogHer Sponsor Gift:
The Nasal Decongestant Spray left on our tables on Saturday lunchtime. Que? Maybe they thought we needed to clear all the excess estrogen from our nasal passages?

Award for Dodgiest BlogHer Snack:
The "Healthy Snack Alternative" provided on Saturday arvo. If you didn't want to eat the hot dogs, pretzels or popcorn you could have a 100 Calorie Curves Chewy Granola Bar. I'd rather scoff down unashamedly unhealthy mustard-drenched cylindrical pig snouts and trotters than eat a bar of self-loathing containing 27 unpronounceable polysyllabic ingredients posing as "health food".

But I do realise that a conference of such spectacular scale needs sponsors. I am enjoying my swanky laptop bag and Butterball Turkey oven glove, yes siree.

. . .

The first session I attended was called "Self Branding And Self Promotion" and I think I should have gone to the panel next door with the sex toy goody bags. I realised I've been clinging on to early Naughties dreamy dreamland notions, where people blogged just because they had a burning need to express themselves, or because they were lonely and wanted to reach across the universe. You know, when people knew all their readers by name. At times the panel had a wee bit of a vibe like, "I've been blogging for two weeks, how come I'm not rich and/or famous yet?"

I know blogging can be big business these days, your blog can be your resume, etc etc. And that is cool, because goodness knows my career has been transformed because of my online babbling. But how about starting off with having something to say? How about taking some time to find your voice and build a body of work and an audience and then start fretting about your lack of revenue/devoted stalkers?

I'm sad I missed the panel called It's Not Your Size But Your Passion That Matters, because I'm so glad to hear that the idea of Blog As Just A Place To Tell A Story And Meet Like-Minded Souls has not been swallowed up by the money thing. Happy days.

. . .

Award for Most S-M-R-T Ladies of BlogHer: There were far too many inspiring, rockin' dames to list them all, but here's a stirling sample –

• Cynthia Samuels and the Sarcastic Journalist on the Media Training Panel, gallantly providing advice for bloggers on what to do when the papers come a callin'.
• Elizabeth Edwards and her gobsmacking intelligence and wisdom during her keynote discussion. I'd vote for her.
• Ariel Meadow Stallings with her sage and hilarious advice on the Blog To Book Panel. Her tips for ego-crushing book signings? "Have your antidepressants in your pocket."
• Our Blessed Conference Founders for kicking off something so deliciously inspiring and energising. I'd sell my granny to go again next year.
• The SJ – I learned so much from her – the joy of being comfortable in your own skin, how to talk to strangers, how to calculate tips. I'm still in awe that I get to be her pal.

(see also: BlogHer photies on my Flickr)

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Oh lordy. It's 1AM here in Chicago, 7AM back home. I'm over for the BlogHer conference thingy and I'm having a bloody great time, despite ongoing jetlag delirium! I keep spontaneously bellowing "SPRING BREAK!" and if I was back home I'd have been clobbered by now.

So much to say, but first and foremost after six years of sterling internet friendship I finally met the foxy vixen SJ of I, Asshole. Actually she is snoozing here beside me, and even though there's nowt but the Powerbook glow in the room, her red red hair is still a glowin'.

I'm com-bloody-pletely overwhelmed by all the bazillions of chicks I've met over the past few days and all the things they write about. I will talk more about those on DG tomorrow. But Blogland just got a whole lot bigger and much wee-er at the same time. I feel so fired up to just write and talk and do more stuff. I've met some real blogging heroes o' mine and some brilliant new people too, such as my other roomate Liz who is typing the night away too. I've never felt so gloriously geeky. Rock n roll.

I miss you Doc!

Oh yeah, just one more thing. Perhaps I am curmudgeonly these days, but when did it become okay to TALK WHILE THE TEACHER IS TALKING? Or in this case, talk while the blog panel people are talking. If you want to chitty chat, that's lovely. But why not do it outwith the panel, and spare the chairs for those who really want to be there in the panel moment. Manners, people!

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