Who are you? Who? Who?

Lately, I've been receiving Friend requests on Facebook from people I went to high school with. That's all well and good but here's the kicker: I don't REMEMBER these people!

Which reminds me of a story. The facts are true but the names have been changed.

I had been out of high school for about 10, 15 years when my friend "Jimmy" came over. Jimmy had recently returned from a 28 day R & R (Rehab and Recovery) and figured he'd come by and say "Hey" and tell me about his new girlfriend, who he met while R&Ring.

The reason he wanted to tell me about his girlfriend, "Kathy," is because when Kathy found out what high school he went to, she asked him if he knew me. When Jimmy acknowledge that yes, he and I went to school together, Kathy told him that she and I were good friends and told him all about our adventures together and how crazyfun I was and what great parties I used to have and that time at the River and all sorts of things. So Jimmy couldn't wait to tell me that my BFF was now his girlfriend and he couldn't wait to bring her over and reunite us so we could walk down memory lane together. Disclaimer: even though Jimmy and I hung out in the same crowd, he DID do enough drugs to require R & R which is why he didn't recall Kathy from high school.

But get this. I had absolutely NO IDEA who this Kathy person was. I didn't even KNOW anybody named Kathy. I mentioned to Jimmy that perhaps Kathy had mistaken me for someone else but no, the stories she told him that he related back to me were all true. At this point, I started thinking that last concussion had given me amnesia because I just could not, did not remember anyone named Kathy. So I tell Jimmy to bring Kathy over for dinner one night and hopefully, I would remember her. It's a little disconcerting when someone claims to know so much about you and you know absolutely nothing about them.

So a couple of weeks later, Jimmy and Kathy come over for dinner and Hand to God, she is a total stranger. Didn't even look vaguely familiar to me. I mean, I know I partied a bit in high school but it was mostly Wacky Tobaccy, not enough to scramble my brains (the hallucinogenics came after high school) so I was at a complete loss as to how I had no recollection of this person, let alone a "friendship" with her.

After some gentle questioning on my part ("WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU THAT YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT ME AND CLAIM WE'RE FRIENDS WHEN I HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE!!"), I got some answers. And was relieved to discover that I wasn't suffering a drug-induced amnesiac episode addled by a concussion I got in an off-road incident which is a story in itself.

Turns out that Kathy didn't "know" me; she knew OF me. We never hung out, we never had adventures together. If she came to one of the famous parties at 3521 Farnham Avenue, she was one of many faceless, nameless people who also attended the soirees at the house. But since she was several years behind me in school, of course I wouldn't have remembered her.

And then she mentioned her older brother. Ok, now it makes sense albeit in a creepy, stalker sort of way on her part. One night, her brother (who was HOT) had a party at their house. And he and I hooked up at the party. And by "hooked up" I mean that we were joined at the hips and lips all night. Until the party got busted by the cops and I bailed. But somehow, that night, Kathy decided that I was some sort of Goddess and developed a fixation about me. Which was flattering in a disturbing, creepy way. And kinda explains why she ended up in rehab several years later. And her relationship with Jimmy ended shortly after.

So the next time you can't remember a "friend" it might not be the beginnings of dementia after all. It just might be some crazy, obsessed stalker. So rest assured and sleep tight.

Busy Busy Busy

Yeah, I know I've been slacking here but I have some good excuses! Really! In case you didn't know I've been in the process of starting a new bidness. I'z a Impotent Bidness Person now. Don't ask me why I'm speaking (typing) like Eddie Murphy's Buckwheat character. I just like saying "Bidness." Adds a touch of professionalism, doesn't it? ANYWAY. TheManTheMyth and I have started DeJongh Racing. We've got a business license and everything! Actually, what we have is a business license that says "DeJough Racing" whoever THEY are and I am impatiently waiting our corrected business license from the City of Long Beach which will probably NOT happen any time soon even though I called them the instant I opened the envelope and saw the WRONG NAME and after they stopped laughing about someone screwing up the data entry which wasn't on account of my copperplate writing they promised to reissue a new license with the correct name on it.

There's lot of paperwork involved with starting your own business. We had to make a jillion trips to the State Board of Equalization to obtain our Seller's Permit and then go back and file our Fictitious Name paperwork and then place the ad in the paper so that everyone knows that DeJongh (NOT DeJough. Idiots) Racing is the Real Deal. And then I had to set up a PayPal Bidness account, bank accounts, verify that the bank account is legit and that's not even including getting our website up and running.

So, what KIND of business is this here DeJongh Racing you ask? Well, I could tell you OR you could just go HERE and see for yourself. Just keep in mind that this is a work in progress. Our web-site guy is well-connected in the motorcycle industry and our site will be linked to motorcycle shops across the country. We've been told to give it about 3 months and then we should be making some $$. I've been asked what I'm going to do with my extra coin but I'll tell you what I WON'T be spending my money on: renting a clown, Bobo. Because unlike SOME people, I don't underestimate the creepiness of it. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, just look Here. Cracks me up Every. Single. Time.

So yesterday (Left turn, no signal), when my alarm went off at the alarming hour of Dark Thirty, I get up and stumble out to the living room so I could wake up while watching the KTLA Morning News (the BEST!). Except the TV would not turn on. I'm all "Huh?" Check the connections, FIOS box, etc. Nope. Nothing. The only thing that happens is the "Standby" light blinks several times. And I'm all "Great." And of course we can't find the owner's manual. So I have the brilliant idea to go online and see if I can either download a copy of the owner's manual or figure out what's wrong with my TV. And I did. Figure out what was wrong, I mean. It wuz D-E-D Dead. There was mentions of circuit board malfunction and soldering and yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah. And repairs would involve taking the TV out of it's specially constructed cabinet that was constructed specially to hold this TV (another Project by TheManTheMyth). At which point TheManTheMyth pointed out that if our TV was going to have to be removed from its niche, it would be a One Way Ride for said TV. Because it practically took a crane to just get it into the house when we bought it back in 2003. Seriously, it had to have weighed at least 400lbs. And was about 3 feet deep. We're talking Big and Heavy.

To make a long story short (too late!) we are now the proud owners of a 46" LCD TV which was purchased on the "small payments stretched out over many years" plan.

Once we got the TV hooked up, I immediately turned on the Ducks/Wild hockey game and Oh.My.God! The picture quality was like the game was being played in my living room! It was so beautiful I got a bit teary-eyed. Oh and get this: the Owner's Manual? It's on one of these:

I kept looking all over the place for a booklet and was ready to call the store and complain that we didn't get an Owner's Manual when I saw this little thingy and decided to plug it in to my laptop. Who knew? Ain't technology wunnerful?!

Oh and guess what just arrived in the mail? Yep, my correct business license! Woo-hoo!

I'm Disappointed

I love to read and lately, I've been on a roll reading biographies and memoirs. Especially if they're humorous. Because I love humor. Just ask me; I'll tell you how much I love humor. So I hear about this book, "I'm Down" by Mishna Wolff that is supposed to be huh-larious. It's about a white girl who grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father who truly believed he was black.

This sparked my interest because for a period of time back in the '70's, my dad, who was of Eastern European descent, seemed to think he was black. His best friend was a black guy we called "Brutha Taylor." Brutha Taylor was a former football player from USC and he had the requisite 'fro with the hair pick sticking out of it so of course my dad had to get a perm so that he too could have a 'fro. My dad would wear dashikis and whenever Brutha Taylor was around, my dad would start speaking "jive." Unfortunately, his "jive" was on the level of the "Slap my hand, black soul man!" variety. It was pretty hilarious. I'm sure if he could have, my dad would have been driving a 1975 convertible Cadillac El Dorado instead of a Datsun. But thems the breaks.

So when I heard about "I'm Down" I thought to myself, "Self, you are so going to relate to this!" Plus, the description on the book jacket claimed that the story was "hip" and "hysterical" and would have you "howling with laughter!"

Well I guess MY version of "hysterical" is something completely different from THEIR description of hysterical. While "I'm Down" is a very good book, hysterical it ain't. I just don't find myself "howling with laughter" when I'm reading about a girl who is desperate for her cuckoo-pants father's love and approval, even as he's treating her like crap because she's not "down" enough despite his efforts to force her to be more, I dunno, black. And whack-job dad publicly announces that he prefers his younger daughter which only makes the author even more desperate to earn his approval. At 14, the author finally reaches her breaking point and runs away to live with her "super needy" (also weak and spineless) mother so that she could have a semblance of a normal life. Yep, HUH-larious! A real knee-slapper!

After reading "I'm Down" all I could think was, "I'm Disappointed." Not because it wasn't a good book; it was. It was also bittersweet, tragic and painful to read what the author experienced as someone who was too black for the white world and and too white for the black world and so she fit in with neither.

I dunno, maybe I've lost my sense of humor since I didn't find reading about such a dysfunctional and sad upbringing funny.

Or maybe, I'm just not "down" with it.