That keeps us star gazing

We put on sparkly capes and marched down the main street of town, chanting. We ate dark chocolate and watched the Muppets. We hiked for hours, went skinny dipping in a spring-fed pond, and danced on the table at a local bar. We got kicked out of a karaoke bar for acting too wild, ran through a park at night barefoot, and performed a community service by reporting a rabid raccoon. We took naked photos — amazing, fantastic photos that we intended to sell to a tabloid — but then dropped the camera in the creek so that we have no record of the event.

Well, I might be exaggerating a little. Or maybe even making up stuff altogether.

After more than three years of online friendship, I finally met Phantom Scribbler, the famous and beloved blogger. (Yes, she's still on hiatus. No, she hasn't been hit by a bus. Yes, she's as smart and articulate and warm in real life as she is in writing.)

We planned the weekend in January, shortly after I had made the New Year's pledge that 2008 would finally be the year of our blogger meet-up. We exchanged many emails about what crazy things we might do together. But in reality, what we did: we talked.

We talked for eleven hours straight on Saturday. Sure, we'd pause for a moment to order food or nod to Flaky B&B Woman or look at a map. But otherwise, there were no lulls in the conversation. We talked and talked, ate food and talked, then ate more food and talked some more.

And then in the morning, we opened our eyes, began talking again. And suddenly, another seven hours had gone by, and it was time for us both to go home. We had been so busy talking that we hadn't got around to taking blogger meet-up photos. We hadn't had time to do the usual blogger meet-up ritual of discussing every blogger we'd ever met. We hadn't even watched the Muppets!

But there's always next time ....



Here's the one photo that survived the mostly fictional photo shoot.