Who Do You Think You Are?

In recent days, my inbox has been filled to the gills with returned SPAM. Apparently I have been very busy sending out those obnoxious BUY BUY BUY!!! IT WILL GO THROUGH THE ROOF!!!!!! stock emails. Given the number of Make you girll happy emails I've been receiving, I may be contemplating branching out in the coming weeks.

I also received a very humble response to my latest email marketing campaign from someone in Texas imploring me with no capitalization please stop sending me your emails i am getting very tired of them.

Needless to say, the whole thing is a bit disturbing. Someone trolling around the web looking for a new disguise has found my url and is having a field day with it. I've contacted my internet folks, and there is already an authentication piece in place so that theoretically other servers know it isn't really me.

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Assuming Identities

I guess that's one of the "great appeals" of the internet-- and its achilles heel-- is the ability to be anyone, anywhere. To construct a representation of oneself in an almost automated way by filling in blanks and uploading artsy pictures. Then using our representations of ourselves to make "friends" on MySpace and find "partners" on match.com

The temptation is to actually believe that we are who we say we are, and others are who they say they are.

Stress gets put on representation rather than experience.

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I live a block away from a 3-year-old suburb of McMansions. I was talking to our real estate agent about that neighborhood, and she told me that the majority of the houses there she's been in have not a stick of furniture in the downstairs.

In some sense, that's understandable-- it takes a boatload of furniture to fill one of those places. In another sense, what? huh?

See, it's all a matter of projection. Here in my house I look real big. The latest jeans make my ass look small. Visit my blog. GET ON BEFOR IT GOS THROUGH THE ROOF!!!!!