A few months back, my friend Andy took me aside one night when we were hanging out with friends. I could tell he was gathering up the courage to say something important. "Jess, there's something I've been meaning to tell you." he said.
I was immediately nervous. Ever since JP took me aside that morning in 2000 and gave me a frank talk about the necessity of wearing a bra, I get a bit anxious out when my friends have something the've been meaning to tell me. My mind was scanning through possible manners faux pas, misbehaviors or misdeeds I might have committed. Was I being mean to someone? Was I dressing slutty? Did I have really bad B.O.?
"Don't take this the wrong way..." he continued and then paused.
You probably already know this but "Don't take this the wrong way" is a good indicator that you really don't want to hear what's going to be said next.
Andy looked at me -- I swear almost pityingly. "Some of your other friends and I were talking and we all agree that..." he trailed off again, trying to make sure through careful wording, perhaps, that what he was about to reveal would not excessively hurt my feelings.
I tried to appear as calmly curious possible, so that I could entice him to come out with it and end my painful suspense. "Yes? What is it? You can tell me. Don't worry." I felt like I was encouraging him to stab me or something.
"Well, it's just that..." he almost paused again, but thankfully continued after a moment. "You really, really need to get an RSS feed for your blog." I could tell he was embarassed for me. It was true that my personal website had remained stuck in 1997 or 1998 -- I still handcoded the HTML, I didn't have a way for readers to add comments, and I didn't have an RSS feed. Yes, I felt a little bit sad when Andy hit me with the harsh reality of the sad, outdated state of my long neglected but much-loved website. But I was sure glad I didn't have really bad B.O. that all my friends were talking about.
Andy, this RSS feed is dedicated to you and our brave, frank chat a few months back.
You can now easily add my blog to your My Yahoo! page (or your favorite RSS reader).
Anyone else -- if there's some flaw with my real-life person or my website that you need to bring to my attention, there's always email. And now, comments. You can thank Andy (and Allyson and others) for bringing that to my attention too.
posted by Jess at 12:25 PM
