newlifeinstpaul | Oct. 13th, 2009

An Open Letter to a Person I Won't Name

Ever have a total stranger treat you like you were some sort of skeezy creep? And it was TOTALLY unwarranted? You tend to get that now and then when you're a guy and perhaps a twitch more often than not when you're a minority guy.

Of course, when you realize what it really is--mostly the product of the insecure and fully-aware-they're-fug desperately clawing to establish some semblance of a pecking order beneath themselves--it's kinda funny. Actually more than a little funny most of the time. But sometimes it bounces a bit weird and makes you wonder What The (Bleep)? One of my good buds who lives in town with me now? Did something to me years ago online - completely unaware it came across that way - and it took years and an intervening friend to straighten it out. And I'm glad they went through the trouble, cuz that friend is like TOTALLY cool.

Anyway, I kinda randomly-added somebody a week or so back...which I almost never do...and got a Ew-Random-Creepy-Guy-Who-Are-YOU? message. Which, as you might expect, bounced at me weird. I mean, anyone who'd glance at my page would know I'm not a spammer, I'm freshly married and not looking for dates and might even be fun to read. But I was BUSY so I didn't respond. Not that my response was gonna be all that nice to begin with.

But once I did bother taking the time and hit 'send?' Oh Noooo! I've been blocked or banned or something you do to skeery skeery stalkers or whatever. SOOO since I stole time from you guys that I could have spent writing about (go on, go on, chime in all of youse with your requests/demands/same ol' thing I didn't write back last year or in 2003 or whenever) and wasted it with them? I figured I'd at least leave it here for you to read, too.

So here goes. I left it as I wrote it, except where it would identify individuals.
We'll pick up where the question on the table was WHO'RE YOU MISTER CREEPY STALKER MAN??

Well, let's see.

First of all, sorry it's taken me so long to respond. As the blog says, I'm working 12 hour days and when I take a lunch, it's not to eat--it's to knock off 2-3 miles on the track at the health club. Then my weekends have stayed awfully busy since my wedding and honeymoon on the 19th. When I have a day off between the job, OT on the job and the sliver of a second job, I'm training for a half-marathon at the end of this month.

I've posted almost nothing of the 500 wedding pics and 1700 honeymoon pics my people wanna see because I've been so short on time. Well, the folks on my friends list and the hidden list of folk who I haven't of yet friended back. Some of them have been waiting for a year or better. Some of them on the list now have waited upwards of two years for an add-back without complaining...at least out loud. And a few of those are folks I've actually known personally.

So why'd I jump you to the front of the line past them? Honest truth...I really don't know. I was feeling a bit chipper and you agreed with me on something in someone else's blog and I said, Oh Why Not? And click. There we went.

I suppose some of my readers who added me that were friends of my friends (for which I ALWAYS ask a 'reference' from the friend first--otherwise, they can tell you anything) and even a couple who added me out of the blue (for which I'll check their blog for 'authenticity' before deciding...or letting them wait) have been really great people and we've meshed rather well as of late. Even if the interaction is less than absolutely exceptional, they tend to stick around anyway cuz perhaps I'm a half-decent read. Or view. Some of the video clips I casually produce wind up embedded on well-known authors blogs, or on G4's Attack of the Show online alongside Blame Society's pieces or just get me hate mail in foreign languages I can't read. And then they learn just enough four-letter English words to write again and tell me how they REALLY feel. Either way, I s'pose I arouse passions. *shrug*

Or sometimes I add folks because they're the good read themselves but uhhhh, that's a rather high standard these days. One of my f-listers is a voiceover artist with an IMDB listing. Another's busy writing his fifth (sixth?) novel and yes, I'm only speaking of his published works. Another is a staff writer for a show on the idiot box I can't name. Another's a young artist working on her second album...and we were tight long before she released her first one and got invited to perform at SXSW. Another is a syndicated columnist these days and of course, I knew her before that, too. Another isn't just a poetry author, she's a professor. And then there's absolutely adorable folks like (common friend's particular username deleted), who would have certainly said nice things about me had she simply been asked who the hell I was. Cuz she likes me. And she likes my wife. And my wife likes her, too.

Anyway, don't worry about my 'friending' you or wishing for it in return. It's been retracted. I think I'm already amongst exceptionally good company.

-S.