so, how are you, anyway?

We did this crazy icebreaker at the BlogHer conference (crazy because it involved 800 conference attendees). We formed two big circles, one inside the other, and introduced ourselves to the person facing us. Every thirty seconds, the two circles moved in opposite directions, so that we were continuously introducing ourselves to someone new.

Since we would always begin with the name of our blog, I told my cancer story, varying only slightly, over and over again - diagnosis, recurrence, remission. By the end of the exercise, I was mightily sick of my own voice. And, with a couple of notable exceptions (hello, Mom2Amara!), I can remember very little of the women I met over those twenty or so minutes.

I also found myself wishing for the first time that I had named my blog something else. I would wish this a few more times over the week end (mostly during social events) but I will elaborate on that in another post.

Last night, I was at a really lovely birthday party for a friend of mine. There were many people there whom I like very much and whom I had not seen for a long time. Most were readers of my blog, so they knew how well I've been doing and wanted to hug and congratulate me. I felt very loved and so glad to be there but left the party feeling that once again, the focus of conversations had been on me and what I am doing.

A friend once said to me that she feels that we have these regular, intimate conversations because she reads my blog. Many others have echoed this sentiment. I love that my blog makes people feel closer to me.

But I still want to be the kind of person who takes interest in the lives of others. I want friends to feel like they can share with me.

So, how have you been? What's new in your life? Are you working on anything interesting? Any interesting plans you'd care to share?

I really do want to know.