I am making appearances this week. Me! Because I’m a famous author, except none of my star-studded appearances have to do with my books, but rather are promoting Back Fence PDX’s event on the 13th and our corporate storytelling side of things.

First up, I’m giving a little talk at Beer and Blog today about narrative and blogging. Check out this post for one of the most nicely written things I’ve read about myself. It’s so sweet that Beer and Blog invited me to speak and I’m very flattered and starting to get a bit nervous, but I’m pretty sure I know what to say. It’s today at 4 at the Green Dragon. Some beer and food are covered by Teach Street. Cool!

Back Fence PDX will also be guest posting on Silicon Florist today.

Then, tonight, very late, I will be doing the Strange Love live podcast. This is where Rick Turoczy called me BRILLIANT. I’m going to sit on the same couch where my brilliance was declared for the internets to hear and I’m going to be brilliant. Or, I hope, not sound like a douchehole. I hope you’ll tune in, it starts around 11pm. If that’s too late, check the blog tomorrow or Sunday and they’ll post the thing for you to listen to. Or you can subscribe through itunes. But don’t ask me how to do that, just go to the blog and the instructions are there.

Finally, the blog posts are rolling in and I thank all of you! Back Fence PDX was also up on in the Merc’s My What A Busy Week and we should be in the O’s Arts and Entertainment section today. I’d link but I can’t figure out their website in this lifetime so maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not…

WARNING: THE REST OF THIS POST IS ORGANIZED PURELY THE WAY IT IS IN MY BRAIN, WHICH MEANS THERE’S NO SENSE TO THE STORY BUT IT’S IMPORTANT SO BEAR WITH ME

In the past two days, two people who don’t know each other, have told me that I’m starting a new writing scene in Portland. My reactions was, “huh?” I’m an only child, a Gemini, and I think very anti-social. People make me nervous and I’ve never been much of a group person. Nor have I started clubs or groups or whatever.

And then came Malibu and I started a knitting group. I didn’t set out to do it intentionally, but I wrote a story on knitting for the local paper and I got about ten emails from people asking about knitting. And I said, well, I guess I’ll just get everyone together. And so I did. And we met each and every single week for the six months before I moved. For all of us, the knitting group was an oasis in an otherwise isolated life. Because, while Malibu is a beautiful place, it’s extremely isolating. You need friends there. You need to see people regularly or you start to forget that seeing Pamela Anderson every single day and parking lots filled with Bentleys is not real life.

And then I moved to Portland and recently I’ve been informed in no uncertain terms that I am not, in fact, a Portland writer and wouldn’t be considered a player in their games, which is actually fine because after speaking to a writing friend in California, I realized that I don’t want to be a Portland writer and the more I can hang onto my California roots, well it’s simply better for my career.

At the same time, I met with members of the Portland Brain Trust/Sluts the other night. (Believe me, this post will have a point.) The Portland Brain Trust/Sluts is just the name I’ve given to all of my friends. Because all of my friends are women bloggers who are all so damn funny I regularly laugh to point of tears when I’m around them. The Sluts portion of the title was courtesy of Kiala Kazebee.

The point is getting closer…in LA there are these women’s networking groups and you go to them and it’s a bunch of really high-powered women. Like entertainment lawyers and entertainment lawyers (because that’s the only type of lawyer in LA). A woman in my knitting group went to one once and she said it was interesting. And it’s just stuck in my brain as something I’d like to be a part of or organize.

And then two people said to me that I was starting a new writing scene and if I am really doing that, well, I’d like it to be a combination of hanging out over drinks and laughing our asses off and also networking. It would be a combination of no-holds-barred conversation and getting everyone making more money, including me.

So, with all of this attention on me right now, I’m going to trot out the idea that once a month, women bloggers and women in general would meet for a happy hour somewhere with the intention of laughing and relaxing and meeting other people who could help us professionally or personally. The requirements are, you must be female (sorry guys, that’s the way it is, for now) and you must be able to laugh and you must be able to ask for help and be able to offer help.

So, ladies, what do you think? If I get enough interest in it, I’ll look to September for a good date for our first Happy Hour.