Fun!

I have been sleeping since I last posted--hence my absence. Ah, sleep, wonderful sleep. Even before the insomnia gripped me, I was tired. Tired from having fun! Yes, as you've heard, bloggy ladies got together in my town on Saturday night and we whooped it up for nearly 10 hours.

Whoop! Whoop!

For one accustomed to going to bed at 10pm, staying up until nearly 2 was something of an anomaly. I felt, though, as if I might have stayed up all night. What fun to drink wine and talk and talk and talk with women I so admire! It was a little odd to finally meet in person women whose lives I have vicariously been privy to--how often do you have to introduce yourself to someone whose inner life you are already so familiar with, who knows so many of your own private thoughts? I opted for an introduction, a handshake ... and then a hug.

I had been anticipating this evening since Mad booked her flight months ago, wondering and wondering what it would be like, what everyone would be like, if we would like each other as much in person as we do online, if we would gel as a group of five. Yes. The talk came easily and happily, and we talked about stuff you can't really get to on the Internet--jobs and family members and how we really feel about our Sitemeter stats. Do our real-life selves match our textual ones? Well, everyone is godawful smart and quick, much as I expected. I am more smitten with them all than I was before. Miss Baby even bestowed smiles on everyone, despite her current fear of most strangers. Surprises? Cinnamon Gurl is just as easy to talk to as she is to read. Mad's poor problem feet were just gorgeous from a new pedicure and she looks far better and far fresher than she would have you believe. Bub and Pie has a Scully-esque quality I hadn't noticed from the photos on her blog. Sage is quieter than I would have imagined but quick to smile--and if you can believe it, we have an acquaintance in common, as do Cin and I. In fact, Cin and I met each other at a party nearly 10 years ago, though I don't recall the details. Mad I knew already, so I'm left to shake my head at the fact that the Internet put me in touch with people I already knew, and people from whom I'm only separated by one degree. Funny.

Funny also is that when we were all five in the same room, the first fact we established was that we were all allowed to blog the experience. Ah, the etiquette of a new social universe!

I had just a wonderful time. Pynchon watched Miss Baby while we talked, went out for dinner, a chattering bloggy parade walking uptown. We drank wine in the rec room, put our feet up and talked about everything under the sun. It's been a long time since I had a night like that, a long time since I've had friends with whom I have such an intimacy, friendships unconnected with work, friendships where I can nurture those other parts of me not covered by discussions of department policy or curricular crises. These wonderful bloggers are mommies, wives, workers, women, thinkers ... Finally toddling off to bed, my mind raced and raced from all the talk such that I could hardly convince myself to sleep.

Now I've got a couple of empty wine bottles and a head full of ideas. I hope we get to do this again. And maybe someday I'll get to meet some more of you.

Hello bloggy ladies! Nice to meet you!