The Canadian border patrol dude spoke as if he knew me:”So you’re going to Vancouver, eh?” he asked. He spoke congenially, but it still felt as if I was reporting to the principal of my elementary
school circa 1989—after all, he was walking me to the car to retrieve Chelsea so he could safely search our car for illegal drugs.
“Yep.” We’ve only told you that four times, I thought.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know Tim?”
Funny, in this corner of the Internet, everyone knows TimsHead. At the border, he might as well have been a fugitive. “He’s a friend of mine,” I said, trying to skirt the whole ‘I met him online’ awkwardness.
“But how did you meet him? He’s from New York—that’s a far way away.” Insistent is probably the best word I can use to describe this border dude.
“Well, I used to live in New York,” I said, thinking I had cleverly skirted this issue.
Not so much: “Did you work with him in New York?”
“Uh… well… actually… we met because we read each other’s blogs. See, he’s a writer, and I’m a writer”—nice move, right? Making it sound
professional—”so we connected because we were both writers in New York.”
I feared that the b-word (blog) would have sent off an alarm, but BPD (border patrol dude) couldn’t have cared less—he’d already moved on to his next line of questioning: “What kind of writer are you?”
Etc. It went on like this until BPD search our car and found nothing but a smelly dog pillow, a couple of bikes and several bags of clothes. Finally deemed safe enough to travel to Canada, Tim, Asa, Chelsea and I loaded back into the car for our Canadian adventure: hanging out with people we only knew from the Internet.
I can’t think of a creative way to summarize Xanga: The Gathering (to borrow a term from Ed_Kaz), and so I submit for your enjoyment photos from the event:
TimsHead, visitamanda and myself on the beach after a delicious brunch with Asa, rachELLERACHelle and ssunflungspangles, during which we covered many important topics, including the coolness of Canada versus the embarrassment that is the Bush administration.
After brunch, Amanda took us on a beautiful tour of a Vancouver park in her tiny little Geo Metro (as a proud owner of a Geo Tracker, I took mental note that when I finally part ways with Le Tracquer, I would be lucky to find Le Metro as a replacement. For one, it actually has a roof). Amanda—not that this comes as much of a surprise—is totally charming, witty and wonderfully sweet. It’s no surprise that she swept Dean off his feet!
View from the hotel parking lot—you know, part of the charm of our lovely hotel. Nothing says “five star” like graffiti tags, barbed wire and tennis shoes hanging from the telephone wire.
Tim watches with amusement as I attempt to photograph Gabe, who refused to sit still for a picture—and also refused to let any of us pay for our meal. One of the most generous people I have ever met, Gabe exudes thoughtfulness and was as much a pleasure to meet in real life as he is to read on the Internet.
I’ve joked in the past that Terra is my blogger alterego, and meeting her in person only confirmed that theory. And, she brought candy bars—er, chocolate bars, as they say in Canada—to dinner, including my all-time favorite, the Aero Bar. It’s nice to know that the people I value in the blogosphere are also the people I would be hanging out with if they lived right down the street. (Note: if it looks like I am a little sloshed, it probably because I was—two beers will do that do me.)
Here we see Tim, left, in the process of delivering one of his very frequent and unfailingly witty punchline-observations. I use the hyphenate because what I’m referring to really is a combination of both—he’s very good at making a joke while simultaneously making an astute social observation. It’s like a TimsHead blog, live and in person. Tim and I engaged in much hilarious running commentary about the wonders of the Boz (our classy hotel), and it was great to finally meet the blogger behind the writing I admire so much. On the right, Gabe listens intently.
Dinner was yummy! From left: Tim, me, Gabe and Terra.
Proof that I dragged Asa along for the ride.
And Chelsea, too.
The weekend concluded at a lovely housewarming party of a friend of Tim’s, with the following Xangans in attendance, some people I’ve read many a time, others who are new to my Xanga radar: visitamanda, anima_mea, TimsHead, ponder_this, sabrina_locicero, kas_kady, lisalulu, dancin_with_myself and sam_at_large. We didn’t bring the didge, so you’ll just have to imagine what it looked like.
So that’s that. The ultimate nerd vacation: going on a road trip to meet blogger friends. Let’s just say the reactions to the trip among my real life friends have ranged from bewildered and perplexed to “Um, do I know you?” But I, for one, had a fabulous time meeting people I value and respect—okay, so whatever! It’s on the Internet, get over it—and actually getting to know the people I felt like I knew already.
19 responses so far ↓
1 TimsHead // May 16, 2006 at 4:27 pm
A great summary, as expected. I can only reciprocate over how excellent it is to meet one of my favorite bloggers and find her so witty, well-spoken and observant in real life as on Xanga. But I guess we are not actually walking blogs … the blogs are merely extensions of ourselves onto the Internet. Even if BPDs, friends and families don’t understand, many people we met do.It’s great that the one shot shows so many empty beer glasses on the table. A good time was indeed had by all.
2 YOONiverse_Man // May 16, 2006 at 5:44 pm
And nice of my bro to sport his Oswego gear!
3 Boowasborn // May 16, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Great photos and commentary here too! And one of Chelsea! Hey, they don’t stop nerds at the borders. Tell that to anyone who raises some supercilious crap. The time it was well spent and you can see that in your faces. How wonderful to put actual people to the words on the screen. You have a whole new wealth of mannerisms and tones to put with those words now too. Glad you had fun and good weather…and chocolate! That never hurts.
4 mag_the_trout // May 16, 2006 at 9:02 pm
fantastic. i’ve done two xanga blind dates so far, and they both turned out fabulous. those who think it’s weird just haven’t done it so far. oh, and budapest actually was quite like a 1878 postcard.
5 visitamanda // May 16, 2006 at 9:05 pm
a fabulous account. I’ve been awaiting this eagerly because I’ve been too busy to report on it myself, and I knew you’d do a fine job. See a forthcoming email for more thoughts!
6 squiddichino // May 16, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Great photos – looks like beautiful weather. And Chelsea!I hate explaining how I met people online. It’s like it’s just almost as bad as online dating, which I know plenty of people admit to… okay, mostly coworkers.Props to you all for embracing social networking technology and making it a value-added experience… in a non-corporate cheesy jargon sort of way.And if you ever end up in LA, I could probably arrange a visit with gracebug, careytann, keishadawn, evanjellydonut and myself.
7 rubyblue123 // May 17, 2006 at 2:58 am
But did Chelsea have a good time?
8 sunshineboy78 // May 17, 2006 at 4:10 am
You’re so brave, we haven’t actually met any other xangazons yet. Only the ones we already know.
9 sweety8315 // May 17, 2006 at 4:44 am
That’s pretty cool. I think it would be neat to meet some of my fellow Xangazons.
~Hilary~
10 Fredday // May 17, 2006 at 5:52 am
You crazy kids! Never ever met up with anyone that I met on the net. I am way too uptight. Sounded like tonnes of fun and I am jealous that you got to see my good friend anima_mea. But alas I will be seeing him and Ponder_this to clebrate anima_mea’s last days of bachelor-hood. Keep up the great story-telling and the adventures. Peace!
11 sunflungspangles // May 17, 2006 at 5:53 am
It was great to meet you and Asa. Sounds like the rest of your weekend was good, too.
12 fordvigepont // May 17, 2006 at 11:57 am
Sheesh, who doesn’t know Tim! He’s everywhere!
13 StigmataMartyr42 // May 17, 2006 at 6:08 pm
That is so fucking cool. Sounds like a bad ass trip.
Take care.
14 rachELLERACHelle // May 18, 2006 at 11:56 am
It was great to meet you all and all your appreciation and knowledge of canada. you can tell Asa that the website I’m working on for my school has taken a turn in part like the conversations we had about the textile industry and we’ve decided that were interested in the sustainability of local and international designers, organic cottons and new fibres and how it impacts us at home and globally so stay tuned towards the fall.
15 VirtuallySane // May 19, 2006 at 12:43 am
Sounds like you all had an amazing time! Did the BPD actually say ‘eh’?
)
16 keishadawn1 // May 19, 2006 at 5:45 am
Hi! thanks for subscribing… we have a mutual friend.. Tim… he spoke very highly of you so I decided to come by and check out your blog. Luv your writing! Glad you all had a memorable trip
17 natkat // May 20, 2006 at 7:56 am
i am going back to camp. but the stuffed shark is up because peregrine is coming back from italy soon!
18 Ed_Kaz // May 21, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Wow. I had chills reading that. I’m scared to death of Internet People. But it seemed to be quite congenial. Maybe even I’ll come along next time.**but probably not (see: “scared to death of Internet People”)
19 Jay_Galk26 // Jun 13, 2006 at 4:06 pm
If this double posts sorry, bad lag spike. I’ve given up on meeting Xanga people, sorta given up on meeting people in general, than Bill the Drunk came along. Damn him!
Jay {Brad Pitt…in a robe} “Rawr”