3:24 AM:

This past Sunday, I finally met two long-time correspondents, Chris Bridges and Columbine. It was a very enjoyable afternoon.

...what, you want details? Fine, then. Let's see what I can do.

Perhaps because we've managed to avoid meeting each other on too many occasions in the past, Columbine and I managed to do some advance planning on our meeting, settling on a time and place to meet: her hotel, at 1:30 PM.

Chris's timetable was rather more fluid. All we ended up settling on before he left for New York was that we'd get together sometime around 11:00, and that he'd give me a call once he figured out the particulars.

Cut to Sunday morning, a bit past 9:00, I think. I still hadn't heard a word from him; I had gotten only voice mail when calling his cell phone, and wasn't sure it was working at all; and I was on the verge of trying to call Columbine at her hotel in the hope that she'd have some idea of where Chris would be. Fortunately, he called a few minutes before I hit the point of doing so.

We ended up meeting around noon at a rather nice coffee shop that Jen had introduced me to some time back. I know Chris, I should perhaps say, primarily from Clean Sheets, for which both of us used to work at one point. There was a period of a few months in which he hosted the Webzine's weekly chats, and I was often the only other staff member in attendance. The two of us proved to be a lethal combination in the chatroom, as every conversation invariably and immediately descended into a series of increasingly atrocious puns. The question was whether the universe could survive us meeting in Real Life, and if so, whether everybody within earshot would spontaneously rise up and lynch us.

The answers (obviously, because you're reading this), were yes and no, respectively. We talked, drank some tea, and did trade a few puns, but not quite as many as one might expect; neither of us is exactly a morning person, and I define "morning" much more broadly than anybody has a right to. My offerings were perhaps more numerous, but nothing special; his were absolutely devastating. Not that anybody was keeping track, of course; it was a laid-back conversation, not a competition.

Eventually, we headed uptown to the hotel, where he and Columbine switched partners, and I went off with the latter.

(Chris's very amusing account of the visit can be found here; please note that the site in general is for adults only, and that at least one banner ad on that page in particular contains nudity. Or did, when I stopped by.)

And I'm about ready to go to sleep now, so the rest of the afternoon will have to wait for the next installment.

I oughta be asleep right now, but it's been weeks since my last real update. And I've had plenty of things I've wanted to write about, but the time, the inclination, and the Internet connection never seem to be present at the same time these days. But here goes.

Let's see... a couple of weeks ago, I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time, in the company of Elaine. It wasn't quite what I'd expected -- there were lots of people making the same trip, which perhaps shouldn't have surprised me, but did -- but it was pretty nice once we hit the bridge proper and got above the actual traffic.

We're going to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Tuesday. I've been wanting to see this film ever since I heard John Cameron Mitchell was working on it, perhaps a year ago, mostly because I've seen the play at the Jane Street Theatre (with Mitchell in the title role).

This is not, I should add, because I was particularly a fan of the play; my reaction was more of a combination of ambivalence, shell-shock, and temporary deafness. I hadn't ever seen a "real" play before. For that matter, the person I saw it with (another editor from the college paper; we'd gotten complementary tickets) claimed it was as much a rock concert as a play, and I'd never seen a rock concert before. All in all, I didn't have much to compare it to. Add to this the general disorienting effect to be had by wandering through the Village without knowing that it was Gay Pride Day, and... well, it was an interesting experience.

But I digress. The point I was about to get to was that the play was so tightly connected to the space in which it was performed that any film version would have to be substantially different, and I'm extremely curious to see how Mitchell dealt with the challenge. Besides, I liked the songs a lot more once I heard them on the radio and was able to make out the lyrics, and I'm hoping they'll be clearer in the film, too.

I guess I'll find out next week.