Reminiscing

Sara here from Suburban Oblivion!

      Posting on Megan's blog is a really big deal to me, in an intimidating kind of way. The girl is smart, like 'uses a lot of 5 dollar words' smart. I'm pretty sure she majored in anthropological theories of the physical universal philosophies of medicine or something. Ok, I exaggerate, but not much. So here I am feeling like the cute but dumb girl who got invited to the MENSA banquet because someone needed a date. I'll play along, but don't expect me to put out tonight.
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    I met Megan this past winter on an online site. We really didn't talk much beforehand, but she came highly recommended by a few other people there, so when she said she'd be in town and wanted to meet up, I said sure.  We met at a coffee shop, and probably spent the first five minutes doing nothing but reveling in being away from our children. She had a really cute bag, and even cuter hair, and something about her face I just totally fell in love with right away. 
   The conversation...I still laugh to think about it. Total hodgepodge of things about our backgrounds, our children, our husbands, and our writing. It went every which way, but once we hit on the writing part, boy did the tide change.
   You probably won't be surprised, but Megan is a deep thinker. So deep I seriously wonder how her head doesn't explode with some of it. Not realizing this, she blindsided me when she started asking me about why I blog, and who I blog for, and where I hoped to go with it. Until that point I hadn't given it much thought, I was just kind of rolling along.  We discussed all kinds of deep stuff like the merits of pen vs. computer (she's a total pen and paper girl, I am not), writing for an audience, and if sharing your work threatens its purity. Deep shit I tell you.  Deep, but had a really profound effect on me, and after meeting her I went home with so much on my mind for the first time ever I had to grab a piece of paper and write it all down to explore later on. She not only has these deep thoughts going on, but has a way of drawing you into it and pulling that kind of thought process out of you as well. The girl would make an amazing teacher if she ever decided to go that way.

Just for the entertainment value I dug up the posts we made on that message board reporting back on the meetup, it’s neat to look back on it now from the middle of a much more evolved relationship.

I got to meet Meghan last night!

She and her family were in town, so we met up for coffee withOUT the kids!!

Let me tell you, she is one of the most awesome people I have met in a loooong time! I was afraid we might not have much to talk about, boy was I wrong! We totally lost track of time and after 2 1/2 hours both kinda went "Omg, is it really 10:30??" Some randon things about her..

She has the cutest pink bag.

She's very down to earth, not a Gapmom at all *whew*.

She is a VERY dedicated writer.

She is absolutely brilliant. Seriously. We must have talked for over an hour about our writing/blogging, and she asked a lot of questions that truly I never would have even thought of. I think she missed her calling as a creative writing teacher.

She has the prettiest hair.

I wish she lived in

Mobile, because I'd love to see her often.

She WILL start blogging regularly; I'm totally pushing her on it! She's got a lot of talent.

I had this picture in my head of her having a heavy accent living in

Mississippi, but turns out she lived in Illinois her first 10 or 11 years, so I was wrong.

We are completely opposite in that she is VERY much a pen and paper person, and I don't write anything down, I type it into my laptop, even random phone numbers.

That’s all I can think of right now, honestly our blogging conversation dominated the night, and it made me think so hard I actually came home and jotted down a few notes about it to further think on and blog about. (On paper M, are you proud?? LOL)

If you ever get the chance to meet her, DO!

 And Megan’s thoughts-

 Aah, such sweet stuff from SuburbanOblivian... too bad Sara turned out to be a total Gap Mom. All talk about how much she loves her SUV and how cute her tennis coach is.

Okay, I kid. Sara was freakin' awesome, girls. Just as you would expect.

First impressions:

She is naturally pretty, which is delightful because I can always use a pretty friend. Slender and approachable, which immediately puts you at ease.

Does not like to carry a purse. Does not like coffee. I was thinking, at this point, that I would have to just leave her there with her little cup of cider and no-purse-carrying self, but then remembered that purses (and, thank you, I do love my pink bag!) and espresso (and, yes, I do like 'em big, but decaf for the baby) do not define me. So on we pressed...

Her conversations are sort of like a labyrinth of information. She starts out at point A, and you know she's headed for point B, but she enthusiastically explores every nook and cranny of memory along the way. By the time she makes her original point, you have learned far more about her than what that original point would have relayed. The best part is, she does it coherently. She's not one of those people that you have to sort of remember their point for them, as about half way through they say, "What was I talking about?" It's fun to listen to her.

Probably most interesting, though, is that she is not simply agreeable for the sake of being polite with a new friend. She disagreed with the way I phrased something a couple of times and it was really refreshing to recognize that she was actually listening to and thinking about what I was saying. I sometimes wonder that about my husband.

I did ask her about her blog, rather extensively. I just haven't been able to commit to blogging because I am such a pen and paper kind of girl. As I told Sara, I kept journals for 17 years, losing close to 50 of them in total in the hurricane. It's been tough to embrace a new medium, let alone committing to writing again after such a loss. She was a virtual wealth of information. So much fun. A whole new level of encouragement to explore the platform.

Having said that, I promised Sara that I wouldn't make our chat so damn literary next time. I expected much more gossip, much less theory!

After more than a year of no other (other site) mama's down here, I am awfully grateful for our Sara's arrival. Had a ball and we will definitely do it again! We may even bring our kids... someday.

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So there ya have it, the real dirt on Velveteen Mind and how we came to meet. Something of a meeting of the minds, albeit her genius one to my shallow one. She's the deep thinker, I'm the one with the hooker heels. Somehow it all works ;)  If you want to check me out, head over to Suburban Oblivion, and be sure to check both of us(plus the Queen and the Playgroupie) on Blogtalk Radio!