Ok, the majority of this entry was actually written last Wednesday, but I never got to finish it because I was at a meeting in Phoenix. I was going to just start over, but I REALLY want to talk about my visit with Erika. So.... here goes....

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My, oh my. So much to talk about.... this entry is probably going to seem a bit discombobulated (dontcha just love that word?), because I'll be jumping around. But, the way I figure it, if I lose some people somewhere mid-entry, I don't want them to miss out on the most important thing in the whole entry....

Erika is a MAN,

baby!

Hee Hee!

Yes, that's right! I finally got to meet THE Erika, of Peytons Place fame. It was difficult getting a moment of her time, what with her fan following and all, but she finally graced me with a few hours of her time (and allowed me to finally get some peaceful sleep at night).

Ok, um.... I'm lying. It was I that was the complete lame-o and almost blew my chance of meeting her.

I was going to be attending a surgeon course/meeting in Fort Lauderdale this past Friday, and Erika and I talked several months ago about getting together Friday night for some drinking, butt grabbing, and general tom-foolery. Now, normally my role at a meeting like this is marketing/product support, help out in the cadaver lab, and try to build a relationship with the surgeon attendees and faculty.

However, somewhere along the line, this particular meeting went to Hades.

About three weeks ago, a got a call on my cell phone from the surgeon who owns the clinic where the meeting was being held. He basically told me that he flat-out refused to work with our meeting planner. Ever. End of story.

"She's negative, she's putting up nothing but roadblocks, and is Impossible to work with."

My response?

"Uhhhhh."

To make a long story short, Carl (who is her manager as well as mine) ended up taking her off the meeting completely, and handed the entire thing to me. This meant in addition to my normal job responsibilities and traveling, I had to get the attendees registered, book hotel rooms for 40-something people, plan a dinner reception for the evening before, organize shuttle service to and from two hotels to the clinic, and generally kiss everybody's ass and make sure everyone has the king-size suite or whatever the fuck else they may desire.

God.

Never. Again.

I don't care if someone says, "Paige, the company is down-sizing and the only position we have for you is Meeting Planner."

I'd say, "Thank you, but I'd rather jam this ice pick into my eye socket and out my ear. I'll just pump gas, thank you very much."

Anyway, so instead of talking with Erika and planning which bars we'll be hitting and at what time, I'm running around like a crazy person and not able to return her phone calls.

FINALLY on Friday I got a chance to speak to her. The meeting was winding up, and everything was seemingly going ok.

Oh, except I forget that the REST of the universe was plotting against me as well, and Mother Nature decided to start dropping 15 inches of snow on New York/New Jersey. Why did this affect me? All the way down in Florida? Well, this meant that all of my coworkers who were supposed to stay and help me clean up the lab had to high-tail it out of there so they wouldn't risk getting stranded the next morning.

No, seriously.

Everyone split, leaving no one to take out the faculty surgeons who had already planned to stay another night because of the weather.

I called Erika, and asked if she would mind meeting me after dinner.

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- Back to the present -

Ok, seriously folks. How do you read this stuff? Could I make a story ANY longer???

Long story short. I realized it was going to be way too late to meet Erika after dinner, so I invited her to join us. Which, to my complete and total shock, she accepted! It ended up being she and I, four surgeons, and three sales reps. Whatever else you guys may say about Erika, the girl does have some balls on her! (And also a nice set of.... oh.... sorry!)

Ahem.

It was actually pretty funny, because while the rest of the table was seated, I waited outside for Erika to arrive. After our initial hugs and kisses, I asked her where we should say we know each other from. Not that I'm embarrassed to know her from the internet, but some people do think it's a bit strange. Or creepy. Or both. Also I wasn't sure I wanted people in my professional life to know I kept a journal.

Anyway, she had been wondering the same thing, but we decided that if anyone asked, we would just say that we met online but not really give any details. Let 'em wonder!

Sure enough, not two minutes passed before the guy to the right of me asked where we knew each other from. Of course, the guy to Erika's left was in the middle of his own conversation, so half an hour later HE had to ask. I'd say by the end of the night we got asked that at least four or five times.

Heh. By the final time, I was like "fuck it".

"We both keep a diary online, and she's my secret internet lover."

"Really? Cool."

Here's a picture taken of the two of us at dinner.

Isn't she lovely?

** sidenote: Erika and I both decided that when one of the surgeons wanted to fix me up with a guy HE described as "lovely", it sounded kinda gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. **

Erika is a lovely, lovely person. Very funny and talkative, and of course not too bad on the eyes.

The two of us went to get a couple of drinks after dinner, but I had a 7am flight the next morning so I couldn't stay that late. All that talk of us drinking and carousing and dancing kinda fell through the wayside, but - all in all - it was a great night, way too short, but a promise of things to come.

Hee!

I learned a lot more about her, most importantly being the fact that she didn't actually win a date with Uncle Bob. Heh. I swear, I've believed that this entire time, and that's the whole reason I found her diary to begin with. I was like, "Who's this chick that could beat out every other psycho Uncle Bob fan??"

I checked her out, and the rest - as they say - is History.

I have lots of other things to talk about, but that's actually good.... maybe I can force myself to write more than one entry a month for a while. Seriously, my apologies, but things have just been absolutely crazy. I promise things are ok - I'm not slow-roasting my head in the oven or anything. Just trying to stay on top of work. Last week was my last trip for the year (YAY!!), so I'm going to be able to write and read a bit more. (And when I say "a bit more", I mean "at all").

Ok, I'm gonna post this because I have to catch a ride home from Kristine... my car died today. Have a good one, and go tell Erika "hi"!

feeling... all squishy inside
listening to... the new pete yorn cd
miss something?
goodbye my friend - 2005-04-29
out of the loop - 2005-04-09
a quest for clarity - part 1 - 2004-08-30
no plan for a sequel - 2004-08-27
slacker of the month - 2004-08-26