You know you wanna do it too

We all want to do it. We fantasize about it. We wonder what it would be like. We're pretty sure that we'd like it. A lot. That we'd want to do more of it.

But we're a little bit scared to try. What if it's disappointing? What if we're disappointing?

What if - oh god - we walk out there, naked, in all of our real-life glory, and get rejected? Do we really dare come out from behind the screen?

I did. And I want more.

Yesterday, for the very first time, I met a bloggy friend. In real life. In the worldosphere. And it was good.

It was scary, at first. What if she doesn't like me? What if she thinks that I'm not nearly as smart or funny - oh god how we flatter ourselves - as I seem onscreen? What if she thinks that my blog is really only so much false advertising? What if I am disappointing? Will I be disappointing?

Oh god.

But everyone thinks that stuff, right? Jaelithe and Andrea did, before their recent meeting (at which they both discovered that, yes, each is indeed as awesome as the other imagined.) And I can't be the only one that is clutching onto this fear of BlogHer - that I'll arrive and mingle and somebody will say YOU'RE Bad Mother? Really? I thought that you'd be, um, cooler. (Like the time that I stood beside Colin Farrell at Starbucks in Yorkville and thought Dude, you are so short and so not as good-looking as I thought you would be. Bleh.)

(I am so not comparing myself to Colin Farrell. No sex videos, and nowhere near the same tolerance for alcohol.)

And I've been more than a little nervous about this Friday's TO mama-blogger get-together, for the same reasons. Times ten, because I organized it and because I've already gone on record as wanting to do it semi-regularly. What if everybody thinks, um, nice effort, but she's really kind of dull. I'll pass on next time.

I know. I regress.

And I don't really believe any of this - what do we call it? - negative self-talk. Because I know that I'm going to like everybody. I knew that I was going to like MotherBumper. I knew this because I already liked her. I've liked her since I started reading her blog. And I was right. More than right. I liked her just as much in person as I have on the screen and felt totally comfortable and within seconds had stopped worrying about whether she liked me.

It was great. It was companionable. I loved it. It made me even more excited for Friday, and for BlogHer, and many more park perambulations with the Bumpers.

So there you have it. The obligatory I was so scared and excited and scared about meeting other bloggers but OMG I did it and I loved it and when can I gets me more of this blogger-on-blogger action post.

Now, what you really came for: Blogger Baby Kissy-Faced Smackdown!

WonderBaby! C'mere!

For I wish to lick that delicious, hairless, bulbous head of yours!

(Head-licking is how the Lilliputians show affection...)

(Also, they challenge each other to swing races...)

(The hairless ones are more aerodynamic.)

Later, the Lilliputians conferred on how to best achieve world domination, and it was decided that they needed an Alpha Baby street gang. (They represent... the Lilliput Guild, the Lilliput Guild, the Lilliput Guild...)

Hazing rituals for new members begin this coming Friday...

(At the TO Mama-Bloggers Unite and Take Over Get-Together! Full details and directions to be posted here tomorrow, but for now, here's what the plans look like: Friday afternoon all-ages at Withrow Park, 2:30 - 5:30ish, Friday evening adults-only at Chelsea Room, Dundas West, 8pm to ???

Do these times sound okay for everybody? Last chance for voting in changes, final details go up tomorrow...)