A FLOCK OF JOURNALISTS

11 November 2001

The Internet is a strange and wonderful place. You meet people of all types, you get to "know" them, and then occasionally, you actually get to meet them face to face.

It's a phenomenon which is not a new one for me. I've been meeting people from the Internet face to face for many years now, both individually and in groups. Some are passing acquaintances.  Others become lifelong friends.  Our CompuServe group chats together daily in our Women's Issues forum, and meet once a year somewhere in the world to spend a weekend together (as we did in England a couple of months ago).

I'd met some of my fellow journalists before (SecraTerri and Sunshine, and just a week ago, Jan), but I'd never attended a group gathering of journalists. The infamous "cons" have taken place too far for me to get to, and I felt like a stranger anyway.

But when I heard that some of the Northern California journalists were going to get together to meet each other, chat, eat, and read entries from journals, it sounded like a fun idea. There was even a carpool going from this area to the Bay Area, to the home of the Bitter Hag, so I decided to go.

What a wonderful idea!

Jolene showed up in her golden chariot filled with some familiar faces (Jan and Sunshine), and three new ones--Jolene herself, her husband Jake and 18 month old Jessica. We stopped to pick up Jennifer of Full Moon. (the "J's" definitely had it in the car; Sunny and I were the oddballs).

Ironically, Jennifer and I realized we had met before--she and I both work for the same newspaper and she had interviewed me a year ago when I was with a group protesting the Boy Scout discrimination against gays.

Jan and Jennifer

We drove...almost, but not quite...unerringly to the home of the Bitter Hag (boy, is that a misnomer!), nearly running over Lunesse on her motorcycle in the process. We met all the others (I'm sure I'll forget someone): Secra was there with husband David, and then new to me were Travis, Karen (with her son in tow), Lunesse, Rachel with Matthew, Susan, and Jane. Trish arrived late.  The two little kids were incredibly well behaved and did not utter a sound all day long.  Oh that I had had such well-behaved toddlers!

David, Karen & Jeremiah, Terri

As promised, we got to know each other, enjoyed good food, and talked about other journalers (we all talked fondly about Denver Doug, for example, who is Sunny's soon-to-be adopted father-in-law). We also took turns reading an entry from our journals (I shared my story about buying a bra).  The Hag read about her infamous mouse hunt.  David regaled us with his rant about Aquaman.  And everybody else read entries too. Even Rachel's Matthew read one of his guest entries.

Travis and Trish read their selections

Lunesse hadn't brought an entry, but gave a dramatic interpretation of the plot of her upcoming novel.

The time flew by and it was over all too quickly. With only a few wrong turns, we managed to find the freeway and join the throngs fighting traffic and rain to return to this corner of Northern California.

The Hag, Jolene, Jessica