I just finished the book "Why Girls Are Weird" by our former Austinite and fellow journal writer Pamela Ribon. What a great novel! I read a lot of books and hers was so close to perfect. There was nothing extraneous, the characters were wonderful, and, no, I don't relate to this character as if she were a clone of me, but I enjoyed her story so much. In only met Pamie once, at that first journal get-together, but I'm glad I had that experience. She's an amazing storyteller.

Pam's book made me realize many things about myself. I have watched this past few months as my sister has gotten started with her own online journal and she has gleefully regaled me with every fan letter and link she has received. Over and over I have said I have written my journal for me and not for the audience (ha, but of course I want a HUGE audience). Reading Pamie's book made me realize that I've had so many of these experiences that journal writers have with listeners on the radio over these past 25 years. I get that sort of attention and audience daily and really, the journal is there so that I can let it all out without having to hear back about it.

An example.... I had a caller back in the 70s that started phoning in on a regular basis. He sounded like a neat guy. He loved my show. He liked Texas music. He went to college with me. The only drawback I could find to the guy was that he had grown up in an "orphanage." By where he grew up I perceived him to be troubled or from a broken home. That didn't interest me. I didn't yearn to meet him. But he wanted to meet me. One day he came to meet me at the college radio station (he had been calling me at a "real" radio station). Good LORD, this was a handsome handsome hunk. I melted. THEN, I learned that his father was the principal of the school at this "orphanage." He came from a perfectly fine complete family and had no troubled background. Okay, now I was ready to date this guy. Sadly, he had a girlfriend and we just mostly ended up being good friends. I still was ready to jump when he said jump, he was just too good and wholesome to know what he could get out of that! One time, he did call and ask if I knew anyone who typed. Well, of course, cutie, I know someone who can type! I can type incredibly well! What he needed was a project for his ag class to be typed. Trouble was, it wasn't a paper or simple report, it was columns and columns of numbers of market prices that had to be transcribed. Keep in mind, this was before the days of computers (I know it is hard to imagine what life was like back in the early 80s) so I really was typing and White-Out-ing (at least I think White-Out had been invented by then). Bless his poor sweet heart, he sent me a pretty little mug of flowers that looked like a soda/ice cream float and he took me to see Rich Man, Poor Man and maybe even for a meal as payment for all that work (and it was a TON of work). Okay, that was the beginning of this weird relationship between a listener and a disc jockey. Not too weird, we were also in college together.

Flash forward 20 years. I'm on the air in Dallas on the nationwide radio network with an very plain alphabetic name. A call one night with a listener saying "Hello.... (insert full real name here that I only hear from parents and long-time friend). "Who is this?" I squeal in all-too-girlish glee. "Can you play Black Hat Saloon for me?" Now, Black Hat Saloon is an old Rusty Weir song I played in those long-ago days so I knew it was someone from those old days and he was about the only one it could have been. Now I was in Dallas and he was in Jackson, Mississippi. It was really neat to hear from him and catch up.

Yes, he had married his college sweetheart, kind of a horse-faced girl, but very nice, and he heard me on the radio and called. We caught up. It wasn't long until he came through town and wanted to see me. Don't get ahead of the story. He brought the wife and we all went to Chili's and reminisced about college days. Except that our college experiences were very different. She was a sorority girl that I only knew by reputation (a very PURE reputation, don't get carried away) and he and I only knew each other through our phone calls. Bottom line: We didn't have a lot in common! It was weird. And he had this weird blinking habit I hadn't notice before. And despite his wife sitting by his side, I got a weird vibe.

He continued to call sometimes and e-mail sometimes and finally he dropped the relationship, which was fine with me. It was one of those many many relationships that pop up whether it is an online diary or a radio relationship, but someone thinks they know you much much better than they do. Whatever you hear on the radio, whatever you read here in the journal, it is only a ethereal representation of me. I believe in chemistry, I believe in face-to-face. I am glad I met my husband before the days of e-mail. How old-fashioned does that sound now!!??

Anyway, that's just one of many stories of relationships (with both friends and "lovers", both male and female) that grew from an unsound basis and then fizzled. I'm thinking about a lot of them tonight and might try to put some of them down in the future.