my very first gallery opening

Wow. So that was pretty amazing. Exhilarating. Exhausting. Empowering. Humbling.

I'm still sort of dazed from the whole experience, so I can't promise a whole lot of lucidity, here. But at one point during the evening, I found myself in conversation with one of the other photographers whose work was also being shown (a great guy named Eric Purtee), and we were both marveling that we were each actually attending our very first gallery opening. And we were both using words like "amazing." "Exhilarating." "Exhausting." "Empowering." "Humbling."

At one point, I turned to Eric and said, "Actually, you know what this feels like?"

"What?"

"It feels like my wedding day. You know how you're really happy, but you're sort of dazed, because you keep turning to greet people, and thank them for coming, and you're amazed that all these people showed, and really moved by their kindness? It's like that."

Eric has never been married, but I think he sort of saw my point.

It was really, really lovely. My parents came, which was great. Many friends came -- even some friends who I haven't seen in, literally, years. Many people who I used to work with in my previous lawyer life came -- people who I didn't even know knew that I was having an exhibit. "I keep up with you on your blog," said one. "I'm a ... what's it called? Lurker?" Even several blog readers and people who follow me on Twitter came, and made a point of coming up to me and introducing themselves.

And as a result, I was so, so touched.

So thank you -- really, sincere, heartfelt thanks to those of you who came out tonight. I'm really rather overwhelmed by your kindness.