Gwen's blog

Current Events

May 3, Houston: The big one -- the Inprint reading -- occurs at the Alley Theatre on Monday, May 3. Do not miss it or you'll be sorry. I'm not kidding -- I'm going to say the craziest, most intellectual yet hilarious stuff I can think of, and I'll be sharing the stage with the ultra sexy Oscar Casares, too.

June 24, Houston: I'm one of the peeps scheduled to read at Poison Pen, at Houston's famous Poison Girl bar. Besides me, everyone there will be ultra, *super* sexy. Come see me and drink!

June 26, Washington, DC: I'll be reading at the American Library Association conference. Come on down.

My other blog: Go read my the Houston Chronicle parenting blog (or my ChronMomBlog, as I like to call it) and make sure my kids won't resent me more than other kids resent their own parents.

Buy my new novel, Lone Star Legend. Already did? Well, buy a few more for your friends, then. :)

Monday, May 21, 2007
Dead Bird O Rama

Lately there are more and more dead birds on the plaza around our office building. Last time I walked through the glass-encased walkway, there were three. A couple of weeks ago there was one wedged into one of the benches where the smokers hang out. They usually end up in weird positions. Upside-down and twisted, feathers still bright. It makes me sad. I went online to see if there was something strange going on. But no... a single skyscraper causes the deaths of 200 birds per day, I read.

Bad Timing

The other day I was in my mini-van listening to the radio, and a local news station's daily terror-mongering teaser was on. Every day they tell us something new and horrible that we have to tune in at 5 PM to get the details on.

I live in Houston, Texas. As some of you know, a lot of Hurricane Katrina evacuees moved here a couple of years ago. As I mentioned at the time, some Houston residents were bitter about that. So, of course, the local media jumped on that, and they've been jumping on it ever since.

So I'm listening to the radio the other day, and the local news station runs this promo that can be paraphrased like so:
[Ominous music.] Your tax dollars... WASTED. Two years ago, Houston took in New Orlean's poorest citizens when they needed help. Some say they've repaid us with crime, violence, and LEECHING THE SYSTEM. Last week Hurricane Katrina victims left FEMA trailers in shambles. Furniture was stolen and rooms were FILLED WITH HUMAN WASTE. Tonight! On Watchdog TerrorAlert HateMonger News!

I heard all that and thought, "Man, that's kind of cold."

Then, immediately after, kooky, carefree Zydeco music flows from my stereo. It's another commercial, in which a Cajun-esque voice invites me to come on down to New Orleans and enjoy the (newly restored) atmosphere for which it's famous.

Hmm. I bet that if the people who paid for that ad heard the one that immediately preceded it, they wished for a refund.

Meanwhile, they prevailing belief among my set is that all the rich people in New Orleans are probably happy that all their poor people are gone now. They're gone, and they can't afford to come back.

I don't regret that Houston spent money on and made space for the evacuees that we took in. It was the right thing to do, and I'm proud that my hometown did it. However, I think rich people from New Orleans should consider visitng us and spending some tourism money here, instead of the other way around.

Or, you know--someone should plan the commercials better, at the very least.

Big, Wrinkled, Teenaged Girls

I hate it when supposed adults act like immature children. Especially when those adults are older than me. It makes me uncomfortable, and makes me embarrassed for them. Especially when their immature behavior takes place in a professional setting.

No specific story behind this--just a general weariness.

Big, Mean, Passive-Aggressive Public Service Announcement (Because, Apparently, That's the Kind of Person I Am)

If you've semi-recently stopped being my friend (maybe because I told you I didn't want to hang out with you anymore), then please, please, please don't email me. Don't leave me voicemails, and don't write about me on your blog. Or, if you do choose to write about me on your blog, don't take my reading it as a sign that I "can't let go," or that I want to have contact with you. I'm a human being. It's human nature to be unable to resist reading blogs about oneself. Especially when the entries are completely deluded and disjointed from reality. You may check your referrer logs and see that I've been reading, yes. But it doesn't mean I'm obsessed with you. It mostly means that I'm trying to gauge how psycho you're likely to become.

I know that posting this here is passive-aggressive. Why post this for everyone to see and wonder about, instead of just telling the offender directly?

Because I don't want to talk to her. Because I know she's dying for me to talk to her. Hence the constant crazy blog entries, then contradictory, fake-friendly phone calls and emails. I've been through this before and know the routine. She will say or do whatever she can to make me speak to her, and then she'll twist whatever I say into something bizarre that she wants to believe. Actually, in fact, I'm pretty sure that if the psycho is reading this right now, she doesn't even think it's about her. That's how deluded she is.

So let me start again. New open letter: If you are the friend or spouse of someone who stopped being my friend, but who won't stop talking about me, then please, please exert all your influence to keep her from contacting me anymore. Take everything she's told you about me for the last five months, and apply your common sense to it. When she tells you that I used to like her very much, but something mysterious made me stop liking her, know that it was her creepy behavior. When she tells you that I'm a horrible, passive-aggressive, cowardly person because I "made lame excuses" for not wanting to hang out with her anymore, know that I tried to get away from her as politely as I could, with as few of her angry outbursts and veiled suicide threats as possible. When she tells you that I'm obviously disturbed, and that I "just can't let go," go back and read her blog entries about me from the last five months. And then check her cell phone records to see how often she's called me since she first told everyone I was a crazy, mean bitch... even though I never call her. And then check her email and see that she emailed me just the other day, as if we were friends. As if she hadn't spent the last five months publicly disparaging me and thanking God that she's on antidepressants that help her cope with my evil, hateful behavior.

I've been waiting for this to be over for five freaking months now. That's longer than our friendship lasted. How long do I have to wait?

Please, I'm begging you--tell her to leave me alone. If you can't make her stop doing this--to me and probably to every friend she's ever had--and if you can't make her go to counseling, then please, at least make her stop emailing me. Whatever else you may think I deserve, I don't deserve this. I don't like constantly wondering, in the back of my mind, what she's going to do next. I don't like being unable to go places where she lives/works/eats without worrying at least a little that she'll turn up and do something strange.

All I want is to be left alone. In exchange, I will continue not to tell mutual associates what your friend/spouse has been doing, and how effing crazy she is. Thank you.

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5:58 AM #

Comments:

 Yowza.
I had been thinking it might be fun to start a blog too, but these kinds of stories fill me with prickly cold fear. Was this a short-term frioend met thru the internet, or more conventional means? Any words of caution, maybe with hindsight, how to see this sort of thing coming?


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 12:54 PM  

 You have to know that I've been Googling trying to find the crazy person so I can read her craziness. Good for you for not linking, but it sure is making it hard to find her.


# posted by Blogger Jenna : 3:43 PM  

 (cue assvice..)

I hate to ask but...why don't you just block her email?

Over at the defunct mathplusone forums, we developed a philosophy called Dead to Me, wherein all exes were thought of as zombies (because they were dead! to us!), who must not be contacted or interacted with except as absolutely necessary. Talking to zombies is bad for you. They reel you in and get their zombie-goo all over your nice clothes. They stink. They are unpleasant. They drop fingers in your soup. Etc.

You might need to practice this with your non-friend, too. Sounds like she will take any interaction over none, no matter how twisted. But her zombie mail and blogging is getting you down.


# posted by Blogger emjaybee : 10:47 PM  

 Sounds like she is in love with you in some sort of twisted, demented way!! Veiled suicide threats?!! Now that is messed up!! Be careful that she doesnt hold you hostage somewhere in her basement...kind of like the movie "Misery".


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 11:53 PM  

 I don't know how many rich New Orleanians the folks in your set know, but the (soon-to-be formerly) rich New Orleanians I'm close with very much wish the displaced people back home (and yes, that means all of them). Crime in NOLA has skyrocketed since Katrina; the idea that the city's wealthy are any better off for the disaster is a myth. Add to that the recently-broken news that most of the foreign aid pledged never reached New Orleans, plus the twin facts that New Orleans's economy relies heavily on tourism and that said economy is not recovering easily from Katrina, and you've got yourself one aching city. The two wealthiest New Orleanians I know are making no money (they are both in the real estate business); believe me, when the day comes that they can afford to travel again, I am sure they will be more than happy to visit Houston. But right now they're trying to take care of things on the home front, and that home front needs a whole lot of care.


# posted by Anonymous Elizabeth : 1:26 AM  

 Ever heard of Borderline Personality Disorder? Sounds like the freak ex-friend you're dealing with is BPD. You might want to look into it because the more you ignore them, the more persistently they stalk you....be wary!


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 2:01 PM  

 Anon 12:54: It was a short-term friend met through the Internet. I've met some really awesome people via the Internets, and I try to be careful, but I admit that I have bad psycho-radar.
In hindsight, my first warning should have been her attempts to make me responsible for her feelings. Like, she'd say, "I *really* like you, and if I found out you liked me less than I like you, I'd be devastated." Then, when I told her (jokingly, lightly) that made me uncomfortable, she said, "I feel like I just made myself really vulnerable to you, and now I wonder if I shouldn't have." Then, later, she'd get on her blog and say some shit like, "I've noticed that when you make yourself vulnerable to people, they treat you badly."
In retrospect, I am retarded for not having realized right off the bat that befriending her was a bad idea.

(In my own defense, I'd never come across that kind of crazy before. Apparently, though, it's common among female friendships. From what I gather, after the fact.)


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 6:41 PM  

 Jenna: She took her blog offline, I see now. She even removed those particular entries from the Wayback Machine, looks like.
Not before I screenshotted the worst of it for my own protection, though, and I have it saved along with her voicemails and emails. But I wouldn't send those out to anyone... UNLESS SHE CONTINUES TO CONTACT ME. Oh, and you probably wouldn't have found it, anyway, because she never said my name. Strangely, she had a link to my blog up the whole time. Then, if commenters asked her who she was talking about in great detail, non-stop, she'd say, "Oh, I'm trying to respect her privacy."

Emjaybee: I agree with you and the whole Dead to Me zombie plan, in general. (Funny.) I'd stopped reading her blog a while back, actually, because that was the only psuedo-contact I had with her at that point. There'd been no need to block email since I'd ignored her last few, several months ago. But then, when she emailed me the other day, it pissed me off. Like you said, obviously any interaction is better than none, for her. In fact, she emailed me today, in response to this blog entry. And I will block her email from now on. But, I realized that there's no use being a gentleman about it anymore by not talking about it on my blog. Obviously, she's determined to bother me no matter how much I ignore her. At least, this way, my experience can serve as a PSA for others.

Anon 11:53: God forbid. Knock on wood, you dirty birdie. :)

Elizabeth: Thank you for the info. I should probably go see New Orleans for myself instead of just making assumptions.

Anon 2:01: Scary. I will look into it, because the ignoring isn't working and I need another answer.

Actually, I had another uncomfortable experience with someone else a while back, and while I might have pegged him/her as BPD, I had this current case diagnosed as Inverted Narcissism, in my mind. She fits the profile to a tee.

I know she's reading all this. I know she's enjoying it, actually, in a masochistic, masturbatory, negative-attention-begging way. But I don't care, as long as she doesn't call me or email me ever again. Because, if she does, I will give all the screenshots and emails and voicemail to someone who can do something about it.


# posted by Blogger Gwen : 6:58 PM  

 Ugh. Sorry about the crazy person. Since I've started a blog I've had a few crazies email me to tell me things like, how much I suck as a parent.

Maybe I do, but they don't need to tell me about it. Damn them.


# posted by Blogger That Chick Over There : 7:13 PM  

 Sorry to hear about the spate dead birds. It is so sad to see them. I always think they are a mystical, evil sign, or an evil ecological sign. Either way, not good.

However, the episode of The Office where Michael found the dead bird was very funny. I really loved Dwight's recorder version of "On The Wings of Love" during the bird funeral.

- maggie


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 8:02 PM  

 About the dead birds:

Here on my college campus (in SC), there are certain trees that produce berries. These berries somehow ferment on the tree (sadly, I can't remember what kind of tree it is). When birds eat these berries, they have been known to drunkenly fly straight into plate glass windows and eventually kill themselves. It's pretty bizarre to watch, and a little heartbreaking. Maybe this is what is happening to your birds?


# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 8:39 PM  

 Gwen, I hope this person focuses her energy on something productive in the future. You're smart to keep documentation of everything, and to publicly state that you're doing so. Good luck with this.


# posted by Blogger Kaijsa : 2:57 AM  

 YIKES. I had a former obsessed "friend" send me hate mail via my parents a few years back b/c I moved to another state and didn't bother to give her my forwarding address or try to keep in touch.

I laugh now when I think of the letter's closing line, "Hell will freeze over before I burden you again." But the saddest thing was her clain that my not staying in touch was worse for her than the death of her brother. GACK.


# posted by Anonymous ZooterToot : 7:07 PM  

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