Julian read the latest installment of \u201cAmy Tells All\u201d as he sat on his couch, drink in hand. He glanced over at Dana, on her couch; furiously typing away on Facebook, drink half finished. His wife\u2019s furrowed brow soon un-creased into a smile. Then, in another beat, she burst out laughing.
\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s so funny, Dana?\u201d
\n\t\u201cOh. It\u2019s just this stupid asshole in the gardener\u2019s going on about stuff he does in the winter months to keep from going stir crazy\u2026\u201d
\nJulian didn\u2019t garden. He had a brown thumb, which was kind of a joke between them. He turned back to his laptop, and looked again at the last sentence of Amy\u2019s post. He absentmindedly typed the name \u2018Amy Lissa\u2019 into that little Google window on the World Wide Web, and hit return. He had done this countless times before, caught in the web of a compulsion he thought was dubious, not only because it never bore fruit, but also because he questioned its ethics. This time, the search went differently. Now instead of the usual non-relevant Amys and Lissae, there was an entry for \u201cConnections.\u201d He clicked. Lo and behold, there was a familiar picture of the full throttle Amy, but above another woman\u2019s name in the by-line. \u201cLana M. Andersen.\u201d He looked at the post. With minor variations, such as the lack of any biblical references, it was identical to the one he\u2019d seen on \u201cTells All.\u201d Moreover, there was a place where a reader could comment. The text that had caught the crawler\u2019s attention was in the bio, \u201cYou might enjoy her blog, \u2018Amy Tells All.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Oh. My. God. Oh, his god had hit one out of the park for once. <\/p>\n
His typing fingers flew into the text box where a comment could be posted. He wrote,
\n\u201cHi, Lana. I\u2019m a follower of \u2018Amy\u2019 and have got to say, I find your writing most captivating. I\u2019m teaching English Literature at a small college over here in Virginia, and your post on the \u2018off duty Professor\u2019 really cracked me up. Keep up the good work!\u201d
\nHaving typed this his fingers refused to hit send. He captured the text, pasted it elsewhere for possible drafting, and deleted it. <\/p>\n
There was no possibility that Julian would muster the self-discipline to withhold some sort of comment. He hesitated because he did realize that by communicating with Amy\/Lana, the experience he had had with the words alone, and the character that the words represented would change. He also hesitated because he wanted his approach to be the right approach. It was, for him a weighty matter. His fantasies had been invigorating and beautiful. He was reluctant to part with them in face of too much reality. He did not want to seem overly forward. He wanted his words in the comment box to be enthusiastic and professional. He wanted to convey respect. <\/p>\n
His hesitation amounted to three days, during which he composed upwards of thirty drafts of a comment on an article in \u201cConnections.\u201d When he finally had something, he pasted it in. There was a slight hitch at this point. To comment, he had to join the Connections enterprise. \u201cConnections\u2019 was some sort of a local web zine that was part of a national franchise. This version of connections was the \u201cMarietta Connection,\u201d since Marietta was the town in the Parkersburg vicinity where the local doings were focused. There were Connections sites all over the country, but of course, Stephens City was unconnected. This, as it turned out, didn\u2019t matter a rat\u2019s ass. Furthermore, it was free. He joined. His text read:<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a Professor of English, both off duty and on, I enjoy your work both here and on \u201cAmy Tells All.\u201d I shared the latter with my Literature 1 class, and they were delighted. You captivated them in a way the \u201cMoby Dick\u201d could not. You\u2019re Amy-licious. Kudos.\u201d
\nHe felt this was suitably professional, enthusiastic, and suggestive of the fact of his knowledge of her content.<\/p>\n
Having pasted it, he muttered nom mio ho rengay kio and hit send. Irrevocable.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, back in New York, the \u201cHarper\u2019s\u201d editorial staff was meeting regarding content for the upcoming issue\u2019s Readings segment. Ralph the intern had pigeonholed his supervisor, Genevieve, and showed her the \u201cM Word\u201d post in hard copy. For once, Genevieve didn\u2019t yell at him. Instead, she laughed. After a few minutes, she was howling. The thing really hit her funny bone.
\n\u201cOh my. \u2018Find your own G spot.\u2019\u201d This is delightful. I\u2019ll pitch it! Thanks so much for this one, Ralph. We\u2019re gonna make a useful team member of you yet!\u201d
\nRalph was beaming.
\n\u201cIf they give you a lot of static about it, tell them that it\u2019s getting thousands of hits on Facebook. People are sharing this stuff like crazy. That means it\u2019s got the youth vote.\u201d
\nIn the circle, it indeed met with some resistance. All of the men, and some of the women felt that it lacked \u201cHarper\u2019s\u201d worthy gravitas. Genevieve shrugged.
\n\u201cThe intern that dug this up said it was viral on Facebook. If you want to sell some magazines, you might get something the under thirty set might care to read. For a change.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s a good point.\u201d
\n\u201cI say run it.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat have we got to lose.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah. It\u2019s not like it\u2019s an essay. It\u2019s something people are reading.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd,\u201d said Genevieve, urging her pony along, \u201cit\u2019s darned funny. In my opinion.\u201d
\n\u201cSo, do we have an email address for\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cAmy. Amy Lissa.\u201d
\n\u201cThat sounds like a pseudonym.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, it does. Let me see what Ralph\u2019s got\u2026\u201d
\nRalph had nothing. He was embarrassed to find that Amy Lissa did not allow comments or contact on the blog. Did she even have a Facebook presence? It was not connected with that name, if she did. Damn. Ralph got yelled at again.<\/p>\n
But Amy was working her way up. Amy was getting famous. There was a buzz like a buzz saw. She really had no clue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Julian read the latest installment of \u201cAmy Tells All\u201d as he sat on his couch, drink in hand. He glanced over at Dana, on her couch; furiously typing away on Facebook, drink half finished. His wife\u2019s furrowed brow soon un-creased into a smile. Then, in another beat, she burst out laughing. \u201cWhat\u2019s so funny, Dana?\u201d \u201cOh. It\u2019s just this stupid asshole in the gardener\u2019s going on about stuff he does in the winter months to keep from going stir crazy\u2026\u201d Julian didn\u2019t garden. He had a brown thumb, which was kind of a joke between them. He turned back to his laptop, and looked again at the last sentence of Amy\u2019s post. He absentmindedly typed the name \u2018Amy Lissa\u2019 into that little Google window on the World Wide Web, and hit return. He had done this countless times before, caught in the web of a compulsion he thought was dubious, not only because it never bore fruit, but also because he questioned its ethics. This time, the search went differently. Now instead of the usual non-relevant Amys and Lissae, there was an entry for \u201cConnections.\u201d He clicked. Lo and behold, there was a familiar picture of the full throttle Amy,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapters","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}