Honestly, you should have been TIME Magazine's "Person of the Year"

I’m back in LaLa Land after a quick jaunt to San Francisco to attend the BlogHer 08 conference. BlogHer is a conference for bloggers—mostly females as the “her” in the conference name suggests. The BlogHer website dubs the annual event as “the thrilling diversity of the blogosphere brought to life!” Mostly, it’s like sleep-away summer camp for the 1,000+ women who make the journey West to connect with other women. They hugged. They cried. They learned infant CPR. For me, it was work.

A pleasant side effect of the conference was that I reconnected with a colleague after nearly ten years apart. Let’s call him “Mr. Social” since I’m new to this blogging thing and have a gut feeling that it’s best not use people’s actual names if there’s a chance I may offend them (though, I think this is a flattering story). Mr. Social is the kind of guy you simultaneously love and hate. He’s unrelentingly honest. He teeters between “asshole” and “adorable.” Let me explain. Upon first spying each other, his greeting went something like this: “Julie, it’s so good to see you. What’s it been, 10 years now? Wow, you look great! I heard you’d gotten married and divorced.” Now, this isn’t true. He didn’t tell me that I looked great—I added that bit because it’s simply true. I’d hardly aged two years in the 10 it had actually been. Another thing that never happened was my marriage and subsequent divorce. In fact, I’d hardly claimed a boyfriend since 1998. And, certainly my ex-boyfriend would never claim me after that Page Six incident. Mr. Social’s follow-up? “Oh…that’s right… I remember now… you became a lesbian!” Three categories I cannot checkmark on a Harris survey include Married, Divorced and Homosexual. I don’t have anything against any of these labels. In fact, I even have a few friends who fit squarely into one or more of these boxes, despite what their mothers think (only a “few” because friends are time consuming, with they’re constant nagging to go out and do fun stuff; I find the fewer friends I have, the more time I can spend with my favorite person—myself!). Mr. Social, the honest truth is that I’m simply single. I have no kids. I am in the final year of the enviable “18-34 years old” demographic. Starting next year, the world starts marketing me Depends.

I admire Mr. Social. He’s honest. Not just in his chatter, but in his PR advice. Tell him the sky is an innovative result of hard work and determination by God (who in this case is the client), and Mr. Social will tell you the sky is blue. Not even an adjective. Just “blue.” And should the Earth be plagued by frogs pouring down from said sky? Well, he’ll counsel you that the news belongs on the Weather pages of the newspaper. OK, I’m exaggerating for the sake of editorial entertainment. Mr. Social has matured into one of the finest communications professionals this industry has to offer. He reminds me, and probably a few others, that honesty is the best policy when it comes to PR’ing. If you’re client isn’t worthy of TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year,” then it’s our obligation to tell them as much. With that, I promise to be honest about flacking in this blog. And one of the first things I’ll tell you is a lie—my client really was worthy of TIME’s “Person of the Year.”

PS, this is a photo of me with Jeremy Pepper, aka, Mr. Social