Oh, these are all such lovely memories!! I'm back home now, so will probably post some more photos on FB, now that I have access.

I started seeing a shrink after joining this board (by which I mean after mostly lurking at TableTalk and delurking at WX and then recloaking and then full-on delurking) and she said "support communities are going to be much more helpful for you than other treatments. We can do the other treatments but a good community will always be there for you even after these issues have passed.

Me: Oh I know.

And I went back to my first delurk and it was to say something to ita, and I remember being so thrilled that she responded. And, you know, tore me a new one.

Raq, that is awesome. Good shrink.

Social workers, in particular, although I think a lot of them are mutants, too, and not the super-powerful kind, a. Don't socialize online and still think it is the way it was when it first came out.

2. Kind of think I do it because I'm crippled and need to take sloppy seconds a lot(Or what a Big Bang Theory fanfic might call "The Glass Menagerie Hypothesis") and maybe it did kind of start that way, but I'm here because I don't find this level of conversation on the street much--if I did "Move!" wouldn't top my fantasies.

I think they also think I have, like, characters I do here(I mean, outside of my writing...they really just don't get it, but they are like that about most activities that don't involve kettle corn and face painting so I don't worry anymore.)

Good shrink, but unclear causality - I needed one for other stuff (father dying, 9/11) not as a result of joining the board.

If life imitated art - as it should - ita's spirit would have passed into her laptop and then into the internet.

I firmly believe this is what happened.

Sail, yes still good. I had to check which one I had in there!

Do any NYCers (past or present) remember who hosted the watching party that ita came to? Not the first one, that was Fiona. This was a guy and maybe in Brooklyn, but not Scola, right? I would have remembered if it was Scola, wouldn't I?

Joe Boucher? David Rothschild? Joey...something? (Not a NYCer, just throwing out names.)

Aillean, I don't really remember you, but your story about your sister's death made me tear up. I am so sorry for your family's loss.

I am so jealous of all the F2F memories. I only ever made it to the first one in Chicago (which was crazy fun!). I met a few other Buffistas here and there, but I never had the pleasure of meeting ita. And now I never will. I hate that.