I got over my crippling shyness and showed up at the bash. A ton of people showed, and everyone had name tags, with their blog ID on them. I felt like we were strange members of an Up-with-People type group. A couple of laughing conversations were had about walking through the rest of the bar proper, with our goof-ball nametags on. But it was amazing how having those damn name-tags eased the social awkwardness.
The first person I met was GI Jane, one of the hosts of the bash. She was lovely, welcoming … handed me a nametag … took one look at me and exclaimed: “You’re redheaded Sheila!”
Within 2 minutes, Aaron introduced himself. He was talking to somebody else (Mark … please forgive me, I cannot remember your blog name!). I said, “So, how long have you guys known each other?” They said, in unison, “Oh, we just met 5 minutes ago.” It was that kind of night.
Beers were 6 dollars.
We hooked up with Alex, standing with our backs up against the wall. Crushed in a rather unfortunate location, hovering by the stairwell … on the edge of the abyss. There was another guy speaking with us … Jameson is his blog … but I can’t find him since he didn’t RSVP … so again: forgive me for having some names correct and others not … Everybody was very amusing, very interesting. I liked everyone I met. We drank beers. We laughed. We shared blogging tales. Alex is a veteran (been blogging 2 years). We also all laughed about the possibility of all of us blogging about each other’s drunken behavior the next day. “If I tie one on and fall down the stairs, please don’t write about it tomorrow,” said Alex.
Later in the evening, I had a very fun conversation with Ursula, and she said something which rang so true: “I just love to be in a group of people where you don’t have to describe what blogging is!” True, true.
One guy, not a part of our group, stumbled over to me rather drunkenly, held onto my arm a bit inappropriately, and said, (his face a bit too close) “What is this group? Who are you people?”
I said, tentative, “Uh … we’re all bloggers.”
He said, “You’re loggers?”
I burst into laughter. “Yes. I am a lumberjack.” Me with my long red hair and peasant shirt. I am a logger.
The other thing Ursula said which I loved is that the blog community is so diverse, so wide-spread, and you end up hanging out with people and meeting people whom you never would have discovered without the blog world. We come from all walks of life, we have different kinds of blogs, we are from all over the world … but we have this one thing in common. It’s very cool. It makes the world seem like such a smaller place. The connections between all of us …
Others met: Erin, the giggle chick, Brian the 646 guy, (one of the hosts as well) … and a couple of other people whose blog names I do not know . .. therefore I cannot refer to you with any specificity … Bummer!
This is a post full of name drrrrrrops….
I had a wonderful time. I really did.
Oh, and Asparagirl showed up. She is the reason I have a blog. I love her writing. Aaron was talking with her as I was leaving, and he called me. We hugged. Then we all just were laughing boisterously, happy that we had found each other.
It was lovely to meet everybody. It was fantastic.
Thank you all for a beautiful bash … and I look forward to the next one!
