kirk and i had a wonderful evening last night with our mortgage broker from chase, dinika, and her friend luigi. it had been a long day, and i was a bit tired and slightly cranky, but thankfully kirk was sparkling and witty and carried the day for both of us. we met at the black pearl, had a few drinks (me: newcastle brown; kirk: espresso martinis), finally ordered the much-vaunted lobster roll which was indeed quite yummy, and talked about a wide range of subjects: shanatram, the book dinika loaned us and that we both love; movies; new york living; past and present loves; our lifelines (dinika reads palms).

and kirk and i told the story of how we met. short version: me in south florida, kirk in nyc, i see hedwig in nyc, i leave message on hedwig.com message board, kirk the webmaster responds, the rest is history.

except that apparently wasn’t it. kirk has put his old design for the hedwig.com site up on his site, thestagingarea.com, and after the events of last night, i was poking around that site this morning and found this:

Name: Jamie
E-Mail: picaman_AT_csi_DoT_com
City/State: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Home Page: https://www.queerspace.com
Date: Mon Mar 22 14:50:12 1999
How you found us: Too much Grain and Brita; I don’t remember
Wrote…
HATAI was the last of 7 shows i saw on my just-ended NYC trip and DAMN i’m pissed cuz if i’d seen it first i would have just seen it again and again. it’s the most amazingly well-done show i have EVER seen….i’m a complete hedwig convert

so apparently i didn’t initially find the message board — i just left a brief message in the guestbook. and truly, if kirk hadn’t been so diligent in emailing everyone who posted on the site, and hadn’t taken the time to make it more than a cursory email, we might never have met.

i wish i had that email, but i don’t. it must have been a great email, though, for me to bother to reply with something thoughtful that kirk then in turn responded to.

and so on.

thanks, kirk, for taking that moment. it changed my life, and all for the better.