Weekend in Nashville - part 1 !

"I'm going to Nashville!" I declared.

"Who with?" asked my parents, my friends, well, everyone.

"Some girls."

"Which group of girl-friends?"

"Some girls I met online, and some I don't know."

* silence *

Then the questions. "You met them ONLINE? How do you know them? Are you going to get along? What if you don't? How many friends do you have, anyway? What are you going to do?"

My answers:

1. Yes, I met them online. I met Jen and Michelle in real life at BlogHer last summer. They invited me to come to Nashville a couple of weeks ago and I said, why the hell not?  Never been.

2. PeevedMichelle and Jen14221 are part of this group blog.

3. I think we'll get along. We have similar senses of humor and are similarly wired.

4. We're grown-ups. If we don't get along, we'll know why.

5. I have lots of friends. I'm very very lucky. Some friends are silver and the others gold. There's always room for new friends even if it's hard to keep up with everyone's news.

6. What do you do in Nashville for 40 hours?  You party, eat, drink, dance, eat, drink, shop and go to the Country Music Hall of Fame!  Hell yeah.

My dad became perplexed. How did this activity of mine come about?  As someone who is set in his ways, he doesn't get how you can keep meeting new friends, especially online.

I had to explain, "Dad, it's this girl from Buffalo, who used to live in Boston, and a few chicks from the Boston area, and one of them moved to Tennessee, and she brought her friend, and this Buffalo girl's sister is coming too, and this other chick from California who runs a blog and I met her in Chicago..." He just laughed. "Well. I guess you know what you're doing. Cool! heh heh heh"

Which, in dad-speak, means "Not cool! - You're making me nervous."

While I was taking a disco-nap (or I guess in Nashville a honky-tonk-nap,) in my hotel room while roomie Michelle was engrossed in her Kindle, I talked to my parents.

I'm 42, and Dad is worrying about me like I'm a kid at summer camp.

"So...how's it going?  Are you all getting along? How is it that you know these girls again?  Is there anyone who is, you know, weird? Are you rooming with the girl from Buffalo? No? The girl from L.A.? What's her name? Michelle? HI MICHELLE!  HA HA HA HA! HI MICHELLE!"

So Michelle was the lucky one.

I think he was fascinated. I then put together this map below to show how we converged on Music City. All my talking with him about mobile communications and online communities and the fact that geography doesn't need to be an obstacle to getting shit done doesn't seem to change his opinion that my weekend with "stranger-girls I met online" was odd. It felt right to me, though. 

Want to know what we did? I'll share that next. The wacky pillow-fights in our p.j.'s, the naked karaoke...

Comments

[Lauren (the girl who moved to Tennessee)]

I remember getting your email to me, Michelle and Jen saying "I'm in. What hotel are you staying at" and I emailed Jen and Michelle and said who the hell is Laura? Little did I know how cool you would be! hehe

[joanne]

I just think it is funny that with the whole global community blah blah blah thing that's a hand annotated map. :)

[Peeved Michelle]

It didn't strike me as odd at all until I was saying good-bye to you and said, "See you in New York." Then I wondered if my new thing is going to be having friends that I only see once or twice a year, but never in our home states.

[maria rodale]

Hey Laura! We're going to Nashville for our vacation this summer! Let me know what's good...I can't wait!!!!

Maria(farm country kitchen)

[blaugra]

Lauren: I think you're cool too. And your friends are fun. Can we date now?

Joanne: I know! But regardless of any technological advances, SHARPIES RULE!

PM: I didn't think it was too odd either, except when I said "I would hug you goodbye but I'm only wearing a towel and that would be really gay."

Maria: You're going to have a blast! I'll share with you what I found to be good in my short stay. I'm definitely going back someday with the husband!