Ok... so I can tell now... my cool invitation was to go to dinner at my favorite New Orleans restaurant, Marisol, with Poppy Z, another friend of hers and a writer for Entertainment Weekly, who was in town doing an article on her for an upcoming issue. I've been dying to eat there recently, but I've been way too broke, so the invitation to dine on someone else's expense account was splendid.

I was a bit nervous going into the dinner, cuz I'm not generally big on social situations where I don't know people very well and I was going to be dining with two people I didn't know and another who I've had a very casual friendship with (more on that in a bit). But, it turned out great. Poppy did an excellent job of putting together a good party for conversation. Troy, the reporter, was a handsome shy intellectual New Yorker and he reports on books, so we had ready built conversation. And Laura, Poppy's other friend, was a quintessential New Orleans girl who I loved from the second I met her.

So, dinner basically rocked along. We all ate rather hedonistic fare... well, I did anyway... You can read what everyone had over at Poppy's journal. My meal consisted of foie gras en bocal for an appetizer and sesame crusted hebi on red cooked porkbelly and haricots vert (sp?) with a citrus sauce. Poppy blogged that it was a soy-sesame sauce... but I'm pretty sure I remember it being citrus... The foie gras was insanely decadent, flavored with black truffles and cognac, with coarse sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper. We also were served oysters on the half shell, but I don't remember exactly what was special about them... but they were quite special.. oh yeah... and the amuse bouche had really yummy caviar in it...

After dinner, we headed down the street to the Spotted Cat for a while for more drinks and jazz. It was just the right amount of crowded with a pretty eclectic crowd. One of my favorite parts of the night was a brief conversation I had with an elderly gent who turned out to be the former curator of the Jazz Museum. Poppy and Troy headed out after a bit, due to his early flight today, but Laura and I stayed and yakked it up for quite a bit. We totally bonded and discovered we knew a couple of people in common. She owns a groovy little shop in the Quarter called Little Shop of Fantasy that sells masks and such.

Anyways, I'm totally indebted to Poppy for a great nite. And a nice upshot from the evening is that I'm finally comfortable referring to her as my friend. I've known her to varying degrees for several years now and it's been a strange progression from fan to internet interaction to a professional relationship. We've communicated and run into each other for quite a while. A moment from my life turned into a minor event in one of her short stories. She gave me her phone number a couple of years ago. She let me read her new novel months before it was published. But, when her name has come up and anyone has asked me, "oh... you're friends with her?", I've always replied, "well, um... sort of."

Fame is an odd beast. I can't quite imagine what it must be to have it. But it sure must complicate things sometimes.

Anyways, I think last nite I finally passed a point where I don't think of this adorable goofy little woman as "Poppy Z. Brite" anymore... now she's Poppy. And yes, damn it, she's my friend. Also, she doesn't know it yet, but Laura and I have plotted more nights of drinking with her in the near future...

Ugh... I'm so weirded out about posting this on some level even... that 'fame' thing...