Jimmy Helps Make the Bed - Tuesday 3/25/2008

When I return from my morning ablutions, there's Braveheart's darling, giving me the Kitty Power Glare. "You will rub my belly. You will call in late and you will stay and you will ruuuuuuub my belly."



Momentarily distracted by the usual belly-rub suppliers rustling in their sleep.


Okay. Back to me and my belly.



Oof. That was good.

Why are you still here?



And now for a little more on meeting Los Angelista yesterday. I just wanted to offer her anonymity if she wanted it. Are those of you who have been dragged into my blog with nicknames you had no control over wondering why she gets this option? Braveheart? Tomasina? Hydra? Bells?

I dunno, it just felt like the thing to do at the time.

Anyway, she wrote about it on her blog quite cleverly and I thought I'd share a little more too. On my blog. Because she deals with really important things over there. I have to say that Los Angelista has spurred me to write things in response to her posts that are more challenging and make me think about the world and myself in it more than the stuff I tend to post here. She's already been a good influence on me.

It was great. I was more worried that I wouldn't measure up than that she wouldn't. Although there was that IM conversation with Toronto in which I joked that we were meeting on a trail in the middle of Griffith Park and she said next to a shallow grave in the Angeles National Forest might also be appropriate. Then she said she'd come to my funeral. Aren't my friends sweet!? I think I'd draw a nice crowd. Just watch out for the e-vile blog lurkers... ;)

I have met people from the Internet since the days of the BBS Boards when all we had were words made of green or amber light to connect us. (Got that campfire feeling yet, kiddies?)

I think the first person we met was from rec.pets.birds. She worked at Sea World and took us into the lab behind the penguin house where we met and petted penguin #154. A high-water mark in this bird-fan's life, let me tell you! That was the late 80s.

I met a woman from a Ralph Fiennes fan list a couple of times. We were the ones who told ourselves we were on the list because of the high quality of his films, rather than the high quality of his face. We talked about all kinds of movies, etc. when we met and then she transferred to England to work. Hmm, I never put that together before, but she didn't seem like the stalker type....



People from that same fan list got together to see the premiere of The Avengers in Westwood. I don't know whether it was that the film was so laughably awful or that one of the women at dinner afterward showed off a People or Us magazine article about her being Ralph Fiennes' Biggest Fan (complete with photographs of her in the middle of a room stuffed with memorabilia) but I dropped off the list shortly after. Perhaps it was the sense that this was the shape of things to come!

I've met a couple of other random folks, one of whom seemed a little odd online and turned out to be a little odd in person, but not dangerous.

Last May, a person I met on 43Things hosted Hydra, my mom and I overnight in her home in LaHavre! It was the most amazing thing for her to do for us. A terrific first night in France that will never be forgotten. Sitting up late at her kitchen table, drinking wine after dinner and talking politics with her and her husband.

I think we all have pretty good instincts about each other and that you can't hide long-term, even online, if you write about what is important to you. None of the meet-ups were with people who I'd only exchanged a few lines with.

Another good experience chalked up, thanks to Los Angelista. And an introduction to the Casbah Cafe, too!