Two Days Just Isn't Enough

There is something I seem to have to re-learn over and over in my life: Two days just isn't enough time. This was a constant lesson when I still lived in Kentucky, and DS lived here in Wisconsin. We'd have to go an entire month without each other, and then have two days together. It was awful. With a week, you have the wonderful day or two where you're over being so excited to see each other again, but you're not quite worrying about leaving each other. With two days, the whole thing is, "oh god, he's leaving soon." It's just not a fun way to carry on a relationship, hence my moving asap.

This weekend, sweet Janelle flew in from Cali to meet the Madison blogging crew. Naturally, she wanted to meet people other than MT and myself, which meant I had to meet the Madison blogging crew as well. (I should really work on this anti-social thing I have going on. I'm sure my life would be much easier.) As a result of this weekend, I now know, in person, Oscar Madison, B, Tonya, and Janelle Renee.

Anyway, as I was saying, two days just isn't enough. Of course, at first, I thought it would be. You start off a weekend like this, where you sort of know people, but you don't really know people, and you have a mental image in your head of what these people look like, who they are, how they sound. A year of blogging creates a large memory bank of imagined situations. My mind always visualizes the stories read, or the conversations had over IM, so that though I may have never had an actual in person conversation, I know your gestures, your facial expressions, etc.

So now, imagine that you know these people, and then you sit down with them at the Union Terrace for a few beers, only to discover these are not the people you have known, but not known, for a year. There is a moment of disorientation. Who are you? How do you know me? Why am I here? But, having already experienced a similar situation through dating DS, I recognized the issue and firmly told myself to be quite and get to know them all over again.

And let me tell you, rarely have I met someone in person who didn't just lived up to the mental image, but they almost always surpass it. So what had seemed like a nice weekend of meet and greets ended with that frantic feeling of "oh no! when will i see you again!?" Which is both wonderful, and sad, because sweet Janelle is flying back across the country today, where she assures she has a new 1 year lease on an apartment.

This weekend was full of fun times. I mentioned Friday night on the terrace, but that wasn't really the best part. Saturday morning, Janelle, MT and I met for a walkthrough of the farmer's market at the capital, where I was happy to get baby rice popcorn kernels (a first for me!), beef jerky, and 7-year cheddar (holy cow! it's amazing!). Then we met Oscar at a cute little coffee house, where we were treated with a round of iced coffee. Soon, we were joined by Tonya, whom I only knew of through comments on Oscar's site. Come to find out, she is hilarious, says freakin', and is otherwise full of awesomeness. Her biting humor went right to my fuzzy happy place. I always love the "mean" ones. You know, the ones that are actually very nice, but can throw out those stingers that have me rolling in laughter? (I can't explain it any better than that, so I'll stop rambling on the subject.) MT drew several pictures commemorating the event, and Oscar took about 1 million pictures, apologizing excessively for flashing without permission. (It's okay, I laughed too. I keep picturing a professor in a trenchcoat, asking if he can flash me, and then opening it up. Well, not picturing.. never mind.)

An overdose of sugar and caffeine brought on my attractive red eyeshadow look, follow by red splotches, which sent us to the Weary Traveler in search for lunch. There, we were met by B, who has a firecracker of a personality. When we parted, she promised to let me know if she ever heard of a job I could do, which is exciting. People are keeping their eyes open for me! Hooray!

On a whim, Janelle, MT and I drove out to Taliesin, where we chose not to take the $70 per person tour, and instead stalked the grounds from the road yelling "Stop! Back up!" whenever we found a good place for a photograph. We've agreed to start a savings fund just for that tour, and the next time we're all together, we can actually see the house. On the way back, we stopped at Peck's and fed goats, bunnies, deer, and a whole myriad of animals. I can firmly say that turkey's look hilarious when they're running.

Finally, we ended up at my apartment, where we oooh'd and aahh'd over Janelle's portfolio. And of course worked on convincing her to move to Wisconsin. I'm quite sure I would make a great manager of her second furniture showroom. I mean, that's pretty much what I do now!

So there you have it. You can meet your blogging friends and it can turn out to be a most wonderful time. And who knows, I might even have a few more friends here in Madison as well.