Suffice to say, late nights of the party hopping – not nursing/night terrors/accident/illness/etc. – variety happen pretty much never these days. But it’s not the only reason Monday night was remarkable to me.

In stark contrast to the Monday prior, where I was doubled over with splintering abdominal pain (which, by the way, remains a mystery…my labs recently came back normal), on Monday I hit the HP/Staples party co-hosted by the ladies over at Aiming Low. As always, it was fantastic to see my local peeps Sandy, Christina, Tania, Angela, Christy, Jodi, and Jill, as well as connect with new BFFs Barbara, Anissa, Janet, Katie, and Angie. We laughed, we drank pomegranate martinis, we slapped asses (well, that was only me, Barbara, and Tania), we played with gadgets and office supplies, we learned about the altruistic bridge between Boston and Halifax (thanks for the history lesson Katie! I love you Canadians!), we (or rather, I) forgot to take pictures of our awesome friends. It was, in a nutshell, one of those super happy events because after spending so many intimate hours with my laptop, it’s just awesome to not only be out with friends, but to be out with friends who understand the online space. At one point I looked up at our table and all of us were tweeting away TO EACH OTHER, giggling maniacally when our sordid tweets made it up on the #aiminglow thread projected on a giant screen. Where else in life is behavior such as this so fun and not totally weird?

Admittedly, I regret a bit having to duck out early, but thanks to a kind and generous invitation from the lovely Barbara Jones, she, Jodi, and I hopped in a cab and headed up to the Paradise to see Five for Fighting (a way easier to spell name for singer/songwriter John Ondrasik). It was the first live (grownup music) show I have seen since I was pregnant with Laurel (aka. a ridiculously long time ago) and I was, for lack of better words, overwhelmed. And not just by the heady smell of beer, sweat, and talent.

Thing is, I spent 20 some odd years as a performer, initially as a scratchy sounding elementary school violinist, eventually evolving into a semi-professional performer who played solo recitals and got paid to play in symphony orchestras. Live music was a big part of my life - largely as a performer, but I also went to a fair number of concerts. And not just classical. Through middle and high school I saw some pretty cool major shows, such as Billy Joel (where I first saw electric violin live and nearly peed my pants), Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, and Sinead O’Connor.

I’m always utterly moved by live music and the same went for John Ondrasik’s performance, with the notable exception that the emotions seemed further amplified given that: a) it had been so long since I had seen a live show; and b) in an intimate setting like the Paradise, it really feels as if the artist is playing in your living room (albeit a rather large, sticky floored living room).

Anyway, my point is this. In recent months I have been wrestling with Jon over blog trips and becoming increasingly picky about events that I will attend. Obviously a party and a live show are a lot different than a blogger junket, but even with social events, I find that I have to be selective because there are a lot of them and I often really need evening hours to catch up on work. But clearly, in real life interactions make a huge impact on me. When I meet the people behind blogs, I become more committed to reading them. When I hear live artists, I’m more inclined to buy their work. (Note to self: ask Jon to buy the latest Five for Fighting album on iTunes because I have no idea how to do that. And yes, I had already mentally committed to buying his album before I met Ondrasik backstage.)

I spend a lot of time dealing with Boston Mamas business that is sort of tedious and annoying, such as deleting bad pitches and interacting over poor event coordination. But there’s so much awesomeness - all centering around in real life interactions such as those at BlogHer, the Brand About Town retreat, and Monday night’s events that makes me so grateful to be in this space and to have these friends who are even more awesome in real life than they are online.

Me, John Ondrasik, Jodi Grundig, and Barbara Jones backstage.

E-mail inbox notwithstanding, these days I’ve been feeling a bit like a superhero mom. Laurel finally has adjusted to kindergarten, I get lunches made the night before, I’ve managed to squeeze in a lot of work in limited hours (about 20% less hours than when Laurel was in pre-school…), I’ve given up coffee, and I’ve been rocking my running challenge.

And then came Monday.

Actually, it was really Sunday when things started. After dinner I started feeling tightness and discomfort in my abdomen. My initial thought was that I ate one too many quesadilla slices and left it at that. I felt uncomfortable going to bed but eventually fell asleep.

On Monday morning I felt fine. I had a fantastic run (hitting 30 minutes for the first time!). I proceeded through the day with no problems and then in the late afternoon, my stomach started hurting. A lot. Laurel and I were out on errands and I was struggling to keep up with her. By the time we got home I was in a bad way. The next several hours were excruciating. The pain was so intense I couldn’t stand up straight, but I had to go about the business of getting dinner ready and making Laurel’s lunch, so I did all of this slowly, in Hunchback of Notre Dame style. I also needed to assure Laurel I wasn’t dying (I wasn’t totally sure about that one…I especially started to freak out when I read up on appendicitis) while trying to figure out what to do.

Now, I consider myself a reasonably smart person. I have a Ph.D. (though I’ve met complete idiots who managed to go through the hoops to get a Ph.D.) and experience in the medical field (my last stop of traditional employment was a joint appointment for my postdoctoral fellowship at Mass. General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and MIT). Yet I was totally flailing. Since Jon left corporate we now buy our own insurance and I had no idea how much it would cost to go to the ER, much less which ER to go to (i.e., which ones are particularly sucky or awesome). I tried calling our insurance help line but it was closed. I called my mother because that felt like the right thing to do and she suggested I take charcoal tablets (perhaps it was just a really, really bad case of gas). I called my brother Jason (an aspiring doctor), who was absolutely wonderful re: action and ER recommendation (for the record, he said that Mt. Auburn Hospital – which I have bad associations with since that is where my father died – has a stellar ER). I talked to the doctor on call at my PCP’s office for a formal recommendation, which was the same as my brother’s: to stay home because it didn’t sound like appendicitis, to make an appointment to see a doctor the following day, and to go to the ER if my symptoms got worse.

After I got Laurel to bed, I sunk into the couch for the next couple of hours – incapable of finding a comfortable position – trying to find good TV to distract me (fail) while waiting for Jon to return from his trip to Las Vegas. Finally, at about 10:30pm he walked in the door. He was exhausted but immediately responsive and sat and talked about my symptoms and actions while I writhed in pain. Then, at one point he reached out to take my hand while we talked and within about 5-10 minutes, the pain started to melt away.

Now, who knows what affected what. Maybe it was simply time passing. Maybe it was the charcoal tablets kicking in (though of course I realized they were expired right after swallowing a couple). But at the risk of sounding a little crazy hippie, Jon is someone who definitely is more in tune with the universe and its energy flow and all that. I wouldn’t be tremendously surprised if somehow he managed to drain the bad ab mojo out of me. The pain I experienced for most of the afternoon and evening was very real, yet not long after connecting with him, I was able to stand straight up for the first time in several hours and the severe pain in my upper right abdomen subsided to a dull ache.

Clearly, he must be a wizard or something.

However, despite his seeming wizardry and our tendency against medical intervention, Jon (not to mention many of my friends on Facebook…) asked me to book an appointment to see a doctor. I procrastinated all day yesterday since I felt so much better than on Monday. But I’m still experiencing discomfort so I booked an appointment for tomorrow morning. There, done.

To be honest, I’m feeling a bit sad and emotional about this situation. In general, I don’t fear aging or even death, but it feels a little odd that this is happening right after my birthday, and at a time where I have been working more than ever to encourage positive physical change for myself (not just for fitness; one of these days I’d like to get pregnant again…). For lack of better words, it feels like a kick in the stomach.

Jon thinks my body is trying to tell me something through this and he’s probably right. At the moment, I’m not thinking clearly enough to uncover (or face) exactly what that might be. But what is very clear is that I do feel like a mere mortal today.

This past weekend I headed to the Utah desert for a think tank retreat as part of Brand About Town’s inaugural advisory board. I am honored to be in this advisory role alongside some truly smart, funny, and passionate bloggers (Julie Marsh, Kelly Wickham, Gwen Bell, and Amie Adams), and to interface with the impressively thoughtful and forward thinking Brand About Town team.

As I’ve described on this blog, it’s been a rocky year for blogging, particularly if you run in mommy blogging circles. And I’ll admit that I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve felt rather blue about the state of blogging, feeling like an idealist, writing-focused dinosaur amidst a vastly growing sea of bloggers hell bent on “getting something” from blogging (other than community and a forum for self expression) and elbowing their way to the head of the pack (tangibly in a swag line or otherwise).

But this meeting gave me hope. It was inspiring and rejuvenating to talk about blogging, social media, and brands in a constructive, creative way. It was humbling to be in the company of brilliant women who care deeply about the online space and for whom creativity and connection are at the forefront of consciousness. It validated my hope that the act of artful blogging is not, in fact, dead.

Related to this, there was one ironic piece of this weekend. We had the pleasure of sitting down for a fireside chat with Julie Powell (the writer whose blog turned into a book and then the movie Julie & Julia). Julie achieved The Dream that has launched so many starry-eyed blogs. But the fame clearly has brought along many challenges; not only the personal challenges one would expect when your life gets turned upside down and someone offers to buy your story, but also in the sense that with fame, it’s possible to lose the very thing that is so appealing about blogging in the first place: the ability to be raw and open and to trust that people are coming to you because of you and what you have to say, not because of your persona (and possibly what you might do for them…OK, there, I said it).

Yes, Julie Powell has made it to that mythical other side, but what was very clear to me is that it’s the craft that is important to her: the way words can help you through a process, the challenge of creatively assembling words to convey a story engagingly, the connection you can foster when you write about things that matter to you and others.

I’m not saying that all blogging needs to be memoir form, but I do urge people to think about why they are blogging. To get past the obsession with monetization and leveraging and swag and junkets. To look at the occasional sample, trip, or affiliate check as icing on the cake, not the end all be all. To return to the basics of creativity and communication.

You might just be surprised how inspired you will be.