Fake eyelashes and imaginary friends

I have friends on the internet. It's 2013. Can we just accept that? Yes? Good!

I spent the weekend with my friends from the internet. Most of them I'd met before. It was the first time I'd been away from my baby for more than 12 hours, so that was a little daunting, but it went really well. My flight out was on time and uneventful. I was picked up at the airport by a couple of Amazons from the Far North and Kammah. We had lunch where our waiter, Francisco, was easily 6'7" tall.

We went to the party house, where I waved at and hugged some people, then hung out and put out snacks for folks to eat when the "official" party got started at 4.

Then I hung out some more, hugged and waved at more people, ate more snacks and went to bed after midnight, which, you know, never really happens to me. Or hasn't happened in many, many months. It's hard to describe how wonderful it was, because we didn't really... DO anything. We just moved around and talked. But that's sort of the beauty of it. You could walk up to any conversation in progress, sit down, and join in eventually. Kelly did live book reviews that had us all laughing. There was an edible fruit arrangement, which was delicious except for one thing. There were marshmallow-looking things that were in fact white chocolate covered bananas. Stealth bananas. Thankfully the deception would crumble as soon as you touched one, but then you touched it and who wants to eat the thing you already put your grimy paws on, so you've wasted a perfectly edible something that someone else might have wanted to eat, all because you thought it was a marshmallow. It wasn't a marshmallow, but I didn't pick it up, so I guess none of that really matters. There were plenty of marshmallows on Saturday, and I ate them.

I slept nearly 7 whole hours without disturbance, so that's sort of the highlight of my trip right there. Breakfast was had, then I put on real pants and went in search of a salad with Noemi and the Amazons. This is where Apple maps screwed us over, and somehow I had the data settings on my map all wonky and couldn't get Google to help. Anyway, we drove, following the directions provided to two completely useless locations before finally finding the Chili's we were searching for, and then I had a trio of tiny margaritas. And went to Target and bought a pair of yoga lounge pants on clearance. Exciting, right?

We en-purpled the house. I stopped mid-application of some truly ridiculous eye makeup (teal smokey-esque eye with fake eyelashes! for no reason other than I could! Fun!) to learn how to make the crack dip. It was as delicious as I remembered. People arrived in their pajamas. Kelly revealed the amazing cake. We sat around and talked some more until the wee hours of morning. I want to mention everyone, because I got to talk to everyone (the beauty of a small gathering) and it was nice. I spent a lot of time stealing kisses from Louis, Lynnette's beautiful baby boy, and hearing horrible dating stories from Julia. Erica and I talked about Wheel of Time & Game of Thrones and we may not be book buddies, but we're gonna give it a shot. I met Amanda, who is the new target of my "move to Texas because I like you" mind beams. Seriously Amanda. Move to Texas. Your people are here. We teased the Canadian. We were reasonable ladies having a good time in a low-pressure high-fun setting. Pjs really is a breeze to attend. Kelly is a great hostess who puts so much thought and effort into throwing a great party and makes it seem like it all just happens like magic.

I have more pictures on my actual camera, but I out-smarted myself. I didn't bring the cord that lets me get the pictures to a computer, because I knew I wasn't going to have a computer in AZ, but now I don't know where it is, so enjoy this thingamajigger for now.

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