Yay! She's back, she's back, she's back!
But don't you want to bake a zillion cookies? Is terribly fun.
I do the same referring to blog thing and then get all vague about how I know someone 
Can't help it ... there are some darn interesting and worthwhile folks who live miles away but as close as the keyboard.
Ha! Pilgrim/Heretic and I were just having the exact same conversation about referring vaguely to "I have a friend who..." when relaying stories about blog people. I just do talk that way - she said, "and then they ask you where this friend works and what they teach and you can't answer!" (Thankfully no one has yet.)
One of the ways I've been dealing with it is to say, "I've been reading online that..." But it's really dissatisfying to reduce my blogging friends to a random Internet discussion. Maybe "Someone I talk to on line"? and that would leave it open to whether it's a listserv, chatroom, etc.? But even that feels awful.
I've totally been saying "I have a friend who..." all fall! At first I thought it was weird and was censoring myself in these comments, and then I thought, "What the hell! Fellow bloggers really are my friends, just in a different way that other folks are my friends." So now I do it with impunity...although no one has yet asked me how I know this friend, and I'm not entirely sure what I'd say, since I'm careful not to mention blogs at work.
I'm glad you had such a good trip! I too have started catching up on the basics of life now that grades are in. I often wonder how folks who work in a "normal" job that goes year-round handle these basics of life.
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