I ditched my 10 year high school reunion this weekend to hang out with my new boyfriend Larry.

We sowed some oats together this weekend in Chicago. Is it weird that he never took off his hat? (Oat-kay, I might be exaggerating, but he is actually nicknamed Larry by the Quaker Oats staff.)

This weekend I had a fantastic time meeting many lovely and lively health and fitness bloggers at the Quaker Oats Living Proof weekend. But let’s speak the truth here: ultimately this weekend came about because Quaker Oats wants to see what the blogosphere and social media can do for them. It’s about commerce. I know it, you know it, Quaker knows it, and now it’s officially out there. I did not go away for the weekend just because Quaker Oats is nice, though they were definitely nice. I got some free swag, free meals, and a free trip and Quaker got people talking about their products and started some relationships that will be to their advantage in the future.

That being said, just because there’s [...]

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I’ll be in Chicago this weekend with several other health and fitness bloggers. As promised we’ve arranged not one, but two meetups. I will definitely be at the brunch on Sunday morning, but I’m not sure if I’ll be at the Saturday night meetup. It will depend on how tired I am and if my headache is bad. I might be there, I might not, but I’ll try to let you know the day of. Here are the details:

Saturday, November 8th

10pm

Hard Rock Hotel Rocks Lounge

230 N. Michigan Ave

Chicago, IL 60601

Sunday, November 9th

9:30am

Panera Bread

635 N. Fairbanks Court

Chicago, IL 60611

Feel free to bring a book if you want it signed. Or just bring yourself. Hope to see you there! I doubt we’ll draw as big of a crowd as Barack Obama did last night, but it should be fun anyway!

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I dispatched a scout (aka my Aunt Lori) to case the New York neighborhood I’ll be staying in next week. After much deliberation (aka a 9-minute phone call), we’ve decided to host a meet up at Swizz, a wine and fondue bar at 310 West 53rd St. between 8th and 9th Avenues. We’ll be hanging around, dipping bread in cheese or chocolate, on Wednesday, July 30th from 7:30pm EST to probably 8:30 or 9:00ish. If you are around, feel free to drop in, say hi, have a drink, or snack on some cheese.

This is a “bring your own book” signing, meaning that if you want a copy of Half-Assed signed to you, you should buy a book at your retailer of choice and bring it yourself. I’ll have a couple of copies available on hand to sell for $15.95, but I can’t guarantee they’ll last. If you want to reserve a copy, contact me at halfofme (at) pastaqueen [dot] com and I’ll give you instructions on how to do so.

You can contact Swizz for directions [...]

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