When all the relatives had gone, when all the family had dissipated, when every last crumb had been carefully gathered and swept away, we sighed and smiled and popped some leftovers now two days old into the oven. What had been a successful Thanksgiving for twenty of our closest family, everyone marveling at the wind and the sun and the snow of southern Vermont, ended two days later as a quiet lunch for Greg and me.

Here's to our two families finally really meeting and getting to spend some quality time together. We have much to be thankful for.

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On a morning drenched in stress and unmitigated tension, the overly jovial and bubbly man from Office Services and the attractive administrative assistant walked by our desks.

And as the dollar signs from a harassment suit vanished from her mind, my colleagues and I looked at each other. "I thought he said, you know, I thought he meant... We're such perverts," we said to one another.

I love bad jokes fraught with sexual misunderstanding.

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The very demure Japanese girl next to me nodded as her dinner partner, a gay forty-something Puerto Rican man with hands as animated as his face, talked. She giggled occasionally, a lovely high-pitched girlish laugh that made her eyes laugh merrily along with her. I ordered my dinner and tried to politely ignore them.

The three of us sat together tonight at a Cuban restaurant on Christopher Street--away from the cold winds outside that swirled playfully about, snatching at scarves and tugging at skirts, swooping down every once in a while to play catch-me-if-you-can with the too-loose hat of some hapless passer-by. The man and the girl traded sentences, first in English and then in Japanese, practicing each other's language as he waved about and she giggled. I munched on my rice and beans, trying unsuccessfully to not eavesdrop, my mind smiling along with the wonderfully infectious laugh and the overzealous eagerness of my neighbours. They were enjoying each other, and I was enjoying being near them.

"You know what?" the girl said, tentatively. "When I had dinner last time with you, and you said you enjoyed my company?" The man nodded. "I went home and looked up company in my dictionary."

"Yes, of course," he said.

"And I wondered for so long why you had told me that you enjoyed my corporation." She covered her mouth and giggled. "I was confused why you said you had enjoyed my firm, my business, because I don't have one." She giggled again. "Only tonight before coming here, my friend told me what you had meant." The man laughed. "I was going to tell you tonight that you were mistaken, that I didn't have a company for you to enjoy."

They both laughed. "Well, now that you know what I meant," the man said, "I want to say again that I enjoy your company."

"And I enjoy your company, too."

And while they were busy enjoying each other's companies, I secretly laughed along with them. It was just the three of us, having a pleasant dinner on Christopher Street, the man enjoying the girl's company, the girl enjoying the man's, and me, munching on rice and beans and enjoying them both.

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In the two years that I've been writing here, the closest I'd ever come to meeting another blogger was when Bruce and I were in Thailand in June of last year. That changed yesterday evening when, after a tremendously stressful few months and weekends at work, Matt and I decided on a whim to meet up for a couple of beers and cocktails. We met at the steps of a darkening St. Patrick's Cathedral, cold November winds whipping wickedly around us, and headed over to a bar across town.

It's quite interesting to meet another blogger, and perhaps more so the first time than subsequent times, I would suppose. You feel like you somehow know each other, having read each other's writing. You feel like you should know each other, that you're just meeting an old friend up for coffee or something. This shouldn't be a big deal.

Then you realize that perhaps you're not really all too sure what this person would be like, what he even looks like in real life. This guy could be a psychopathic killer, you think. A total nutcase.

I'm happy to report that my first experience meeting another blogger was nothing of the sort. Matt is a beautiful man, a wonderfully funny and agreeable chap, an adorable creature with whom I felt an immediate ease.

And, perhaps more importantly, most decidedly not a psychopathic killer.

Remember kids, that's important.

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Overheard while crossing the street, on a trip to forage for lunch:

Young urban professionals. Gotta love 'em.

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Work Rant.

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Motherfucking shit. Fucker, fucker, fucking fuckers.

Mother of all fucking shits.

If such brilliant bullshit is what the corporate rat race is all about, then I want no part of this American dream.

End Rant.

You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled program.

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There is a tree outside my window that refuses to let autumn take her leaves. The others around her have long changed their wardrobes to more appropriately subdued palettes of rusts and burnt siennas, but the single lonesome tree, she still celebrates in vibrant gold. On early mornings like today, when the sun shines through at just the right angle, she is at her best, dancing and shimmering in the brilliant light. Winter won't have me yet, she seems to laugh, not until I have one last dance.

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