“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
—Oscar Wilde
I started referring to J and the kids by first initials because I thought, once, Oh crap what if they search for their names or someone else does, someday, for some reason, and this is what pops up?
These meandering unedited remembrances.
Maybe J’s applying for a job and the hiring manager googles him and finds his ex-wife’s litany of woes and wailings. Doesn’t matter if they have zero to do with his ability to function in the role, it’s gonna be a weird thing to turn up.
I don’t want that to happen. I’m not trying to ruin the man’s future, I just gotta work out my own past.
Or what if that scenario happens for the kids, with a job or college recruiter or some other scenario I haven’t imagined. I don’t feel it’s fair for me to take up space with their name, to make a mark for them. They should make their own bizarre Internet footprint with their own weird history of online existence.
Do the kids these days even google themselves? Probably not.
I google myself on a fairly regular basis because it’s still the easiest way to grab links if I want to send clips to a new editor. It’s a grab bag, mostly me along with an Annie Mueller who plays softball for Missouri State and is from Pacific. I find that amusing. At some point we both lived in Pacific, MO… and it looks like we both made it out.
There’s also an Annie Mueller who dances in the Portland Ballet and an Annie Mueller who did visual effects. Maybe she still does but her IMDb profile doesn’t have anything new since 2008. So I don’t know, but I do know from her IMDb profile that she’s been a tap dancer since the age of 3. Love that for her.
It feels like these are alternate versions of me, out there living their own lives, having an entirely different existence, and I like that.
Or I guess I’m an alternate version of them.
Who’s the original? Does it matter? No.
My favorite alternate Annie Mueller is this one. We have the same hobbies and maybe she could teach me how to juggle.
Long ago I exchanged a couple of emails with my gmail alternate (the annie DOT mueller to my mueller DOT annie). I think J sent her some tax returns or something by mistake. I hope she’s doing well.
There’s another Annie Mueller subscribed to this very newsletter and that’s all I know about her. Does she ever read it? (Hello, if you are!) Sometimes I wonder about her. How’d she find her way here and what does she think? Is she rooting for me? Is she appalled? Bored? No idea. Mostly I don’t wonder because my own reality keeps me too busy to contemplate someone else’s. I hope she’s doing well, too.
I like that each one of us contains and experiences a whole reality different than anyone else’s.
It could be a lonely thought but I feel like it’s a beautiful thought. There are spaces between us, yes, and some gaps we can never cross. But there are also infinite points of connection.
🎧 Holy shit I like this song. And if you’ve ever thought, Hmm it really does seem like the US govt kind of hates women, here’s some confirmation. ❌🚺❌ What the actual fuck. I have to go scream now.