Happy Birthday Vortex!

Hippo Birdies Vortex!

Happy birthday, Vortex!

Today? Not great yet. I'm waiting.

Maybe this will help: cephalopod art

when have you met an online friend in face-space for the first time? In what circumstances? How did it work out? Did you keep in touch later?

OK, so now, my answer to my own question, which is quite obvious, but still, for politeness sake, I'm going to give it:

The first online person I met in face space was Allyson. I just flew across an ocean and a continent, didn't sleep for something like 30 hours, made everybody who knows me here freak out about flying to meet strangers from the internet and stay at their place, and my plane landed nearly an hour too early.

Allyson was supposed to come and pick me up from LAX. Now, the plane didn't only land earlier than schedule, its passangers left it to a nearly completely empty airport, so all the lines in which I stood, with stamping the passport and getting my luggage and all that, took nearly no time at all (it filled up right afterwards. The lines were, indeed, long and time-consuming. But they were behind me, too).

So I was alone at the airport of a strange city in a strange land, where all the signs were in a language that is not my mother tongue, waiting to meet a person I've never met before. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure even how she was supposed to look like. I've seen a couple of pictures of her beforehand, but at least one of them was fuzzy and the other was only partial. I pretty much ended up looking around to see if I could spot a woman who was around my height and had some purple in her hair.

So I was walking around the airport, completely peaceful. Later I've found out that Allyson was rushing there, freaking out about me being there all alone and worrying I might feel neglected and cheated. I felt none of these things. I knew I was early, I had people's phone numbers to contact them if the wait had gone too long, I tried to absorb the size of the place and the language. Oh, and I played with myself "will I recognize Allyson before she puts up the sign that she prepared with my name on it?".

As it turned out, I did. And lucky of me, too, otherwise I might have caused an international incident. The minute I spotted the person I assumed had been Allyson, I ran to where she was walking, trying to find a way through the many people that already crowded the place, jumped towards her, and hugged her on the spot. I couldn't see most of her hair, because she was right in front of me, with her hair down her back. I couldn't see either of her hands, so I had no idea if there had been a sign in one of them (there was. I kept it. I carried it with me all throughout the trip and I have it here, still). Looking back, it was a really stupid thing to do. But I was so sure that it was her - she looked like her, just the way I had imagined her expression, her "air", from her posts. And, thankfully, I was right. I even had no idea if she was a hugging sort of person. I just jumped.

And, well, that was just the beginning. I mean, I already even have a huge list in my mind for "next time", and, well, I can hardly wait.

Thanks to Sue, I can show you a picture of the dress dh got me:

[link]

Mine is in burgandy, not blue.

Now, where can I wear it???

Happy Birthday, Vortex!!!

Nilly, thanks for telling that story.

Hapy birthday, Vortex!!

Yay for Nilly Coming to America. I guess my first F2F was meeting NYistas in Fiona's corporate apartment. Fun!

Ooh, Megan, that dress is lovely! Wear it where ever you want!

Megan, that dress is beautiful! It deserves an opportunity to be worn.

Jesse, today you are already a Mast. By Friday you'll get the rest of the letters, too.

Lovely dress. They could use a happier looking model, though.