25th
IM With Julia Allison
Julia Allison: OMG Nick I have a stalker! A blog stalker!
Me: Yes. And?
Julia Allison: Nick, how could you be so callous? This is serious! I’m scared of this person! I mean, they’re posting stuff about me that isn’t fed to them directly by me or through the two dozen or so email addresses that I use to submit things about myself “anonymously” to Gawker Media editors after they’ve ignored my direct solicitations via email and IM. Besides, Gawker Media editors are my friends, Nick. Or at least they’re foolish enough to think that they’re my friend because I suck up to them so effectively from the day that they come on board. I ask them for relationship advice, or about their girlfriends and boyfriends, then I pretend to actually listen to them, and before you know it I’ve got them right in the palm of my hand. Look at Emily, she was all “ew vomit” towards me at first, but then I just kept showing up in her world and eventually won her over by beating her into submission through zeroing in on her vulnerabilities and insecurities, to the point that she was spiking stories about me, dogsitting Lilly, and roadtriping with me to see Staten Island psychics. You see Nick, my emotional intelligence is, despite my profound inability to understand myself, off the charts when it comes to others, and that helps me to read people very effectively, to the point that I can control and manipulate them, but this Baugher is someone I can’t control and manipulate, and it’s scary Nick, scary I tell you!
Me: Yawn.
Julia Allison: What? “Yawn?” But Nick, I thought we were in this together! I thought we were a team! You know, you and I working side by side to carefully craft this “Julia Allison” persona. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last two years. How else would anyone even know my fucking name? How else would I have this job at Star? How else would Bravo even give me the time of day, much less my own television show? Gawker posts things about me, things that are carefully vetted and planted by me of course, I get famous along the way, you get to play kingmaker, so it all works out and we both get what we want; I get the fame and you get the power. Now, you’ve GOT to help me ferret out this Baugher person and shame them publicly! They’re digging up all the things that I never wanted to come out about myself, which is why I changed my name mind you, and publishing everything on this vicious blog.
Me: Frankly Julia, I’m both bored and disappointed by you. You’ve turned into something so clownish, so over the top foolish, that even I find you to be an abomination. I wish that you would just go away. You’re an embarrassment to me, the person who, metaphorically speaking, gave birth to “Julia Allison,” just as you’re an embarrassment to the person from whose loins you actually sprung. I’ve found other means to manufacture pageviews, so I really don’t need you any longer. I’m one of the few people around here who wasn’t foolish enough to fall for your “friendship” charms and saw you merely as something to be used, like a condom, a condom that I’ve already blown my load in and can now discard as rubbish. However, I’ll do you this favor and post something as an aside, as long as you promise to just go away. I’d really like nothing more than to divorce myself from you. Now what would you like for me to say?
Julia Allison: Well, okay. Mention that Baugher’s a woman, an old menopausal woman, like forty or something, who lives in someplace dreary and depressing like Seattle. And say that she does something gross for a living, like lawyering. And oh, mention that she’s a lonely divorcee who has like, five cats. And of course, she HAS to be the worst form of subhuman in the history of the world, a Gawker commenter!
Nick: Very well. Consider it done. But really Julia, what’s so bad about having a blog “stalker” anyway? Between you and me, I kind of secretly wish that I had one.
