I’ve been Googled!

Champlain Mountain

I used to perceive webloggers as introverted, awkward geeks who never leave the house. After starting Good Grief!, however, I found the opposite to be true and met a lot of interesting, like-minded people, got Blankbabied (i.e., got a job lead based on this site), and met the guy I’m currently dating.

The job story is here, and the guy story is below. After this post, I’m done with the super personal stuff and Good Grief! will return to stupid art posts and doll suicides and Max Raabe.

Last year, I posted several entries about the Philadelphia City Paper’s I Love You/I Hate You section, a place for readers to submit rants and love letters. In December, I received the following e-mail:

Hey Becky S –

I do the I Love You, I Hate You section for City Paper, and we’re trying to put
together a book, a best-of sort of thing, so I was just searching around to see
what was on the net about the section. I found your blog, and am intrigued.
About you, that is. Your blog rocks. It may have even restored my faith in the
medium. There’s so much stuff on there.

I mean, I just kind of looked through it. It would be cool to talk to you, I
think. Even though you know nothing about me.

I’ve only been to Utah once. But it was cool. For some reason, most of the cars
were pick-up trucks carrying wood. Is that their currency?

I live in center city but retained my most excellent
cell phone number from New Jersey:  xxx-xxx-xxxx. Call anytime.

Obviously, the guy is either a complete whack-job or so ultra-sincere that he doesn’t know it’s weird to e-mail your phone number to a total stranger. Something about the tone of the note swayed me towards the latter opinion, so I wrote back.

In January we met for a drink at Doobies, and Type E, as he is known around here, became a steady, behind-the-scenes presence on Good Grief! Thanks, Google!

PS Type E got a new job, so if you’re one of those freaks who sends hate mail to the City Paper when your love/hate submission isn’t published, don’t bother to e-mail him.