Caught, Said The Spider To The Fly

                                      Caught Said The Spider To The Fly



That may or may not be from a book, I have no idea. I bet I have you stumped on what the blog topic is about don’t I? I am debating on telling you.  I guess since it is the first paragraph I am supposed to tell you what the goal of this blog is, or something like that, I think.  Fine, I will tell you about today’s blog. It is about friendships via the internet.  Do you get it???  I thought it was funny.

Now, as many of you know I am technology challenged to say the least. I have only owned a computer for about five years. I know, you are probably wondering how I functioned. Believe it or not there was life before computers. I know, it is shocking for you young pups, as my Momma used to say.  Hell, I remember only having three television stations and on a really good day if the stars aligned you would be able to get pbs too. Yes, I know I am off topic already but you should be used to it by now.

Back to the whole computer thing, I never thought I would use my computer for anything but research. I stayed at my nieces one weekend and was looking up Sherrilyn Kenyon’s website to check on some release dates when I found her bulletin boards. I joined and roamed around looking at all the things that was on the site and was very intrigued.  So, when I bought my computer I went back and started to lurk in the game part of it. I would make some random comments and people would actually talk back to me. I mostly played the games for the first few weeks but then someone invited me into one of the conversations and I slowly started to get seduced into chatting with the people there. One of the first people to talk to me was Luna Wildwood.  She was so witty and easy to chat with, it made it fun. I met several other people including Christie Von Ditter, Tara Pelfrey Clegg, Whitney Stambler, Bonnie Hoffmaster, Marcy Barr McDermott and Laura Evans, and so many more.  I found that I spent more and more time hanging out with these ladies and many, many others and less time doing research or reading articles.  I also met another Midwesterner, Debs. We hit it off and started to chat all the time not only on the bbs but on yahoo as well. We became good friends and as you know (if you have read my other blogs) I went to visit her.  I had a good time but as the weeks went on we started to drift apart. By this time the bbs had shut down and most of us had moved to Facebook.

When I joined Facebook the only people I had as friends were people from the bbs.  We still chatted and had a good time but it seemed to be lacking some of the fun. Then Bonnie suggested going to one of Kris Cook’s chats and the rest is history. And if you would like to know that history I guess you should be following this blog so you can keep up.

Anyway, from that chat site I met even more amazing women and Kris. I am happy to call them all friends but there are a few that I classify as best friends.  We bonded over our love of books but as the weeks went by we found ourselves sharing not just superficial things but deeply personal trials and even better the joy of our lives.  We have been there for each other through some of the worst things in life like the passing of family and friends to the best things in life like finding love, the birth of children and grandchildren.

I have been lucky enough to have met a few of these ladies in person.  The first time I met anyone from the chat group was almost two years ago and it was the lovely, kind and gracious Dawn Gore Meador.  I was nervous as hell and almost turned around and headed home several times. She only lives about five hours from me and we talked everyday on the phone. It took her a long, long time to convince me that we should meet up. I am so glad I stuck it out because it became a day I will remember forever.

When the opportunity came up to go to Authors After Dark in Philadelphia, I was almost too chicken to do it. Dawn convinced me to put on my big girl panties and board that plane. I am so, so glad I did.  I had a wonderful time and I finally met the man who brought me together with so many wonderful people and some of my best friends. What to say about Kris Cook??? I am not sure. Besides being a wonderful author he is one of the most genuine, kind and loving people you will ever meet. He took me under his wing and refused to let me be the lurker that I love to be. He along with Bonnie, Christie, and Marcy made AAD so much fun that I couldn’t wait to go to another convention.

Since that May in 2011, I met up with even more wonderful women in Chicago, for the Romantic Times Convention. I shared a room with Mia Ashlinn, Sheri Vidal, Mikey Vidal and Dawn Gore Meador.  Wow what a wonderful weekend. Then there was FigFest which is a whole other blog.

I know I ramble but I wanted to show you that even though there are a lot of crazies that you can meet on the internet.  Sometimes if you just take the chance you will meet some of the most important people in your life there as well. I know that if I called these women they would be on a plane or in a car asap to help me hide the bodies. Hell,most of them would even bring their own shovels.

Sinfully Sarcastic,
Shmuttmeister