Thanks, y'all. I'm feeling pretty relieved to be done with her. She was causing me more stress than I realized.

Now that you mention it, Maria, I think I joined just as Nillyfest was kicking off, because I remember being amazed by it.

So Saturday I channeled my rage into cleaning my house and I'm quite pleased about that. Better than punching! Hurts about the same but less risk of jail time.

A coworker pointed me toward Table Talk many years ago, where I found the Buffy threads. I posted occasionally but was much more of a lurker. I lurked my way along to b.org. My first big F2F was the Nillyque in San Francisco with only one small F2F dinner before that.

Y'all have seen me through my kids growing up, my bachelors, my divorce and move to Colorado, my kids and their college experiences, and now me and grad school. I've had the luck to be able to meet folks when traveling, I have been the recipient of your support, and I've tried to pay that forward where I can. There are times I consider dropping a note to the old coworker with a completely random and unexplained "Thank You".

Yeah, Zen, that's beyond ridiculous. Especially since she couldn't understand why it was offensive.

I had to take a wee nap. Con weekend + time zone change + DST weekend + late flight = need for sleeeeeep.

"Please don't touch me, I'm uncomfortable with being touched" is a perfectly fine thing to say and have one's personal bubble respected. Making it about a quality of the other person that's presented as objectionable is where the trouble lies.

Timelies all!

Zen, you are definitely better off without that "friend".

A friend/co-worker (hard to classify, I've spent a lot of weekend shifts with him, but that's the extend of the relationship) is in the hospital with heart issues, he collapsed here at work last weekend. His work/life balance is weird, he works almost straight through from Friday night to Sunday night, I'm not sure what he does during the week. I'm not sure if I know him well enough to go to the hospital, or how long he'll be there. Plus, he's on the cardiac floor. I don't think I can go back there yet, and I'm not sure if it's "Introvert doesn't want to push into a social interaction" or "Dear god, I'm not ready to smell hospital smells yet."

edit: Oh, well, he's getting out in the next couple of days anyway, and I wouldn't be able to see him till the weekend. So there's that.

Connie, I believe that recovering from a loss like yours is its own sort of PTSD, and it's very real. So if, for whatever reason, you imagine going into the hospital and feeling bad or sad or yucky or whatever, you're allowed to take care of yourself first. While I'm sure he would have appreciated the gesture, he'll be okay without.

Zen, I'm sorry this new "friend" turned out to be not so much. And I'm sorry you were hurt or angered or even just inconvenienced by her ignorance, on account of you're awesome and people should therefore be awesome to/with you.

I watched Buffy from Day One. I rented and loved the movie, so I was excited when I heard there would be a show. Though I was nervous when I heard it was going to be darker and more serious because I loved the humor in the movie. Obviously, Joss still delivered the humor, and I've been a believer ever since.

I didn't actually discover the board until Firefly. I was on Buffy and Firefly threads on Wil Wheaton's board, and a user called Shell linked to b.org in the Firefly thread and I've been here ever since. (Shell, if you're still lurking around, I've got your toaster). I know linking to the board is frowned on now, but I'm so glad Shell did it then, because this board is an amazing place and I've been blessed to be a part of it.

As she posted earlier it was Aurelia that led me here.

I was at a conference last week and attended a meeting for alumni from one of my schools where a group of current studsntz were taking about geekdom and letting their geek flag fly. I ended up pretty much winning the night when I said that I met the woman who I eventually married on a Buffy fan board and the topped it off by pulling up my proposal on b.org on my phone so they could see.

This place is part of the fabric that makes me.

I really want to be able to "like" ND's post.

One of the things I enjoyed a lot about my former peripatetic existence was getting to see Buffistas almost anywhere I went!

I found Buffy by randomly surfing channels on my tiny 13" tv in my sister's basement in the spring or summer of 1997. I remember the first episode I saw: it was "The Pack". Somehow I stuck around.

But I didn't find you all until I stumbled across Agnes' first thread on TT, where I had already been posting a bit. I posted under my real name there, and after a few years switched to a pseud when I realized I wanted to talk about fanfiction.

I have a ton of friends I met through fandom -- some Buffy, some XF, some Stargate. Some I can't distinguish. :-)

I watched "Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest" tonight. It's still pretty great, although they all look SO YOUNG.