Absolutely! Or she'll come poke at him when she notices a new person: she's nosy like that and doesn't sleep anyway. :)

Plurk is pretty handy, a lot of chatter tends to go on there. You can do without it, but a lot of casual planning happens there so it's definitely handy. Most everyone here is friendly, though, so in general you can pretty much jump into anything open, or private message if you aren't sure. :)