My Jacob Marleys

Life is a precarious balance between "Learning from your Past" and "Living in the Now." If you can do both, you're set. You've got experience behind you, but you can enjoy the moment you're in.

I've been thrown out of balance lately.

In a kind of happy accident kind of way, I have come into contact with tons of people from my past. At this point, I've got each level of school covered--some from elementary, some middle school, one from high school, and another from college. None of it would have been possible witout the internet...god bless it.

The funny thing that they all have in common is that when these cherished friends of old write, they are touting me as the "wild/crazy/cool" girl from Denver. Now, one of them knew me best when I was 12. Was I really wild and crazy then?

I could understand my college buddy making that call...Back in good ole Austin, it might have been the topless parties on the sundeck or constant wig-wearing sans irony that made me Wild. I'll buy that for a dollar. But back when I was a wee pre-teen, what did I do that made me Crazy? Was it the abundance of leg-warmers in my wardrobe or the fact that I watched a lot of Bewitched re-runs on TV? Was I just naturally less lame than the other kids, therefore making me the Mayor of Cooltown?

Whatever it is, I'll take it.

Some people have found me on everyone's fav networking site, Myspace. My profile image that you see above really makes those introductory emails more interesting. The common question of "What have you been up to?" becomes kind of difficult to answer, because "I'm a girl in Los Angeles trying to make a living as en editor," sounds like a filthy lie when you look at my photos.

The photo makes it seem more like..."I live in Berlin, and am a professional dominatrix. I spend alternating weeknights impersonating Annie Lennox and Nell from the Rocky Horror Picture Show (when I can borrow the gold sequined hot pants from my transvestite neighbor). Also, I enjoy fucking stand-up comics...and anyone else for that matter, occasionally at the same time--as long as the comic thinks the other one is funny enough to get naked with. If you're interested in illegal activities such as fencing stolen goods, writing communist manifestos on Big Chief tablets, golden showers, dying animal fur bright pink or piercing a baby's ears without parental consent, call me."

I figure that I should rejoice in the way I present myself to the general public, and cross my fingers that they're not fundamentalist Christians who have access to my home address.

It's kind of fun living in those memories for a bit. I'm dredging up all the things those folks would say about me. We shared afternoons at the skating rink, long talks about boys, concerts, school recitals, boredom, homework, and their suitemate seeing me without a shirt on when I went to use the restroom...

This has been a pretty wild life, so far. Is mine really that much more crazy than yours? I don't think so. The difference might just be that I take the time to notice. Say, for instance, that this is the second mention of golden showers in the blog in the last week.

Truly, truly, truly outrageous. g