Good Skeletons

Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007 - 12:13 a.m.

Yesterday was a day of skeletons past.

But in a good and strong way.

Toren Smith -- who, bless his heart, keeps coming back and reading my diary despite the fact that more than once in awhile I say something that manages to set his teeth on edge -- dropped me an email that almost literally made my head spin.

Somewhere out in this nutso world of internet impostors, celebrity or otherwise -- I apparently have at least one 'impostor sister.'

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There was an article published in The Los Angeles Weekly written by a man who had this happen to a friend of his.

Bravo for doing this, and kudos for believing in the old adage about Shit Decomposing When It's Exposed To Sunshine.

The person in question has a blog that contains the same feelings I had, at about the same level of intensity.

She's about three-fourths of a year into her recovery, and doing wonderfully well, which is only my opinion and based only on my experience.

I'd sure be interested to see a followup article about this subject, regardless of whether anything that happened to me ever sees the light of day in a larger forum. In fact, I don't really care about that aspect because I'm satisfied to know that facts are facts and lies are lies and that my impostor was lousy at one and great at the other -- and that every thing he did to me was reported by me to you as factually and frankly as I could stand to write. To the best of my knowledge and recollection, I didn't leave anything out. Nevertheless, a followup might be nice.

What I'm concerned for in the other woman's blog and in the original story, are the similarities. Is this MY impostor, still at large, in a new set of duds?

Metaphorically speaking, my heart is falling all the way into my shoes at the thought that the impostor may have honed its skills on goobs like me, and decided that it is more convenient to make up a character than to imitate an existing celebrity because a made-up character is more easily disposed of.

It makes me wonder about that decision to cancel the impostor's trip out here, and whether that was the right thing to do, versus coaxing him out to San Francisco and into the car and taking him straight to the police station, which is what I now fervently wish I'd done. Did he or she it remain at large and then hurt the aformentioned lady?

Impossible to say.

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And yet again, I ponder the question of how vulnerable we are when we log on. The graphic user interfaces for chat programs and internet diaries and usenet newsgroups sometimes make it impossible to remember that there are bad people out there who are able to manipulate the ones and zeroes in ways they see fit.

It's a hard row to hoe to keep trying to believe people are mostly good out there, too.

But I'm still willing to err on the side of trust, because if I do not -- the impostor wins.

Okay, there ye go. Have a good Sunday. I begin packing this week for another sojourn to Anaheim to see and hear Old Buddy Dave and his gaggle of usual suspects.

I even get to meet more of them this time because the Mark & Brian newsgroup is having a meet!

Putting faces to the writing I have seen over in that newsgroup is something I've been wanting to do for quite awhile now.

Take care, and see you tomorrow.

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