The One You're Sleeping With

Monday, Jun. 09, 2003 - 3:33 a.m.

Heh. Yeah, right. Sleep.

I went into the Pagan Chat area of AOL a couple of hours ago, and as soon as I got in there, I began to be trashed by --- guess who -- Illinois Andy.

I said hello to the room, and loads of them greeted me back, and asked what I'd been up to. Well, my regular readers know that would take approximately eighty screens' worth of text to fully impart to the chat room, so I said a bit of this and a bit of that... and mentioned that I wanted to head east on a train and visit all of my friends across the country, including Paul in Utah, and Bob in Illinois, but that I'd eventually end up in New York visiting my 'gay boyfriend' Jamie, and his husband Nelson. Illinois Andy then piped up to the room, "Oh, the one you're SLEEPING WITH?"

Whereupon the room stopped moving. And somebody asked "Who is Jamie?"

And my response was "Jamie is the man who told me that Illinois Andy is not the lead singer of Erasure."

Then Illinois Andy became kind of quiet after that. But only for awhile. Then he cranked up again with the sleeping with Jamie thing.

So I just plain old told the chat room that Jamie is a dear friend that I am very close to, and last month after we both had something to drink, we had exactly ONE very sweet, very innocent 'What-if' conversation. Since then, there have been no misunderstandings, and no crossed wires, and no plans to change our current sleeping arrangements. I figured, the truth can't hurt me, and I've done nothing wrong, so I don't mind mentioning what Jamie means to me in this chat room. I love him dearly. If he hadn't confirmed my suspicions about Illinois Andy, I don't know if I would still be alive.

Then, Illinois Andy switched tactics and said that he was logging the chat, and that he was hiring 'solicitors' and telling me things like, enjoy your account while you have it, etc etc....

Then my friend William Glenn Malmskog piped up. "The real Andy Bell does videos in the USA all the time," he said. "That means, Andy -has- to have a SAG card in order to do that in the United States because he's a British citizen. Andy, what color is the SAG card this year?"

Illinois Andy grew silent. And he stayed silent for about twenty minutes. This is usually the lag time we would all be presented with in the Before Time, when we would be in chat with him and ask him a difficult Erasure question. ("Isn't it funny how he goes silent at the most inconvenient moment" a friend of Jamie's and mine once mused to us in IMs when Illinois Andy was chatting with us.)

I said to the chat room, "If a celebrity is so paralytically protective of their privacy, then what are they doing using their real name in an AOL chat room?"

Then, Illinois Andy threw one final punch. He came back and stated he didn't have to listen to this nonsense and that his solicitors would be in touch, and swore vengeance and goddess only knows what else -- and made a Grand Trampling exit that was neither.

After he left, I apologized to the chat room.

Lots of the people who had seen his behavior said I had nothing to apologize for. They know me by the reputation I have built in the online Pagan community, and thankfully, it holds true across the board -- the truth shall set you free.:)

Thank you again, Glenn. You rock.

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So. I also AIMed with Paul early this morning. He was livid when I relayed what Illinois Andy had said about me.

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It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood... :-P

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