OUTER AND INTERNET
We’re warned about it and yet some of us defy reason and common sense and do it anyway. It was my idea, and I somehow convinced two other adventurers to join me in my latest escapade.
But it’s not all as frivolous and mindless as it may first appear to be.
In the year that I have been blogging I’ve had some surprises.The biggest surprise was forming relationships with other bloggers to whom I never will speak, meet, or see. Yet I am more involved with some of their lives than I am with neighbors in my own town.
I’ve been taken to Oklahoma by a lovely, talented woman, Celi of “kitchensgarden” She describes her gardens, her animals and her recipes. I know all her animals by name.
I’ve been taken to India, where Shaheen writes beautiful poetry on “bloodinkdiary”. And “jakesprinter” of the Philippines creates clever animated scenes.
I love the humor blogs. “Goodhumored” by Paprika Furstenberg, mainstreetmusingsblog by Lisa Tognola and lifeinthe boomerlane are some of my favorites. A clever, enjoyable site is themiddlestsister. The creator of this blog cuts and pastes her characters out of felt, depicting home life with five young daughters. I’ve been reading posts by these talented writers for many months and am delighted with their cleverness and skill.
Through the comments about my stories over time I realized that two of my favorite humor bloggers lived nearby.
Would it be fun for the three of us to meet, or would it be better to enjoy the fantasy of who they were, what they looked like and how they sounded in person?
Reality trumped fantasy and I emailed each of them to suggest a three way meeting. There was definitely some indecision at first; none of us ever planned to meet any of our readers and we were doing just fine moving along on the fantasy track.
Eventually curiosity won out and we set a date to meet for lunch in a town nearby. I was excited about the date. What would happen? Who were these writing whizzes? Would we be quipping and joking all afternoon?
Saturday I made my way to Gillette, New Jersey for the big meeting.
Paprika was there first. When I saw her red hair (paprika) I had a feeling I knew who she was. She greeted us with a warm, genuine smile. We hugged as if we were old buddies. Lisa, whose photo is shown on her blog, curly hair framing her friendly face, had the same instinct.
And there we were, three friends sharing the same involvement of writing and blogging, We enjoyed “talking shop,” exchanging ideas, and discussing some blogger experiences.
“Do you answer all your comments?”
“Have readers responded to your being ‘Freshly Pressed’ stayed on as subscribers?”
“Do you attend writers’ conferences?”
And we gossiped about bloggers we all knew: “He’s funny and entertaining, but he doesn’t know where to draw the line.”
We agreed that the best part of the experience was meeting people from other parts of the country, from other countries, and widely varying life-styles and vocations.
I am so glad that I defied common sense about what we should never do, and followed my instincts to get to know some of these talented, friendly and warm people who are now part of my life.
MorristownMemos 