The little things

   Things are pretty rough and bumpy right now in my world, so any little laugh is definitely appreciated. This morning before my first client arrived at the salon, I was going to get a seldom enjoyed caramel macchiato at the Starbucks inside the Fred Meyer's. On my way, I passed a boy about seven or eight years old, walking in front of an elderly woman. He caught my eye specifically because he was barefoot. 

   Just as I was passing them, I heard him say to her "Grandma, who do you think would win in a fight? My dad or a coyote?"

  "What?" She didn't even catch my eye when we passed, but I had to laugh. The best laugh I've had all day. 

Whatever happened to FictionLyn?

In Spring of 2000, my friend Aja sent me an email with a link to a website. It was my introduction to fan fiction and more specifically N'SYNC fan fiction. I began to read a chapter of a story about an ordinary girl who somehow met the group and one fo the guys fell for her and she for him and things happened. Drama and hilarity and romance ensued. Initally, I wasn't impressed. It seemed so contrived, so formulamatic, so ridiculous. I can remember sitting my/Garry's bedroom in Moraga, writing Aja a resonse that somewhat expressed that. And then I promptly forgot about FictionLyn.

About a month later, Aja came to visit me in CA and "No Strings Attached" dropped and we both went from N'SYNC fans to some form of fanatics, as did a large chunk of the 12-24 year old women of America. We bought tickets to their tour stop mid-June in Portland and by summer, I'd moved back to Vancouver and we were reunited. The summer of 2000 (Summer of N'SYNC Lovin' as I will forever think of it as) began. Aja met this girl online named Lauren and soon she became our third leg in our pop music loving tripod. When I asked Aja how she'd met Lauren online, she told me again about FictionLyn and this entire discussion forum linked from her website. All of these N'SYNC/fan fiction people hung out there and chatted about stories, pop culture, shared pictures of the guys and other various pop/celebutants, as well as their own personal lives and such. It was there that Aja and Lauren had connected and made plans to meet offline. Lauren was awesome, so I was quick to log on, sign up and discover that the world of fan fiction wasn't just this one chick who called herself FictionLyn. There were so many websites with all these people trying their hand at writing and living out a fantasy on paper - or rather, on the computer screen.

Of course, I had to try my own hand at it. I mean, I was in college to become a novelist. It was so up my alley. Yes, I had a website. Yes, it is still online (why, I don't know. I'm lazy.) No, I will not link it. And while it may not have had the following that FictionLyn did, where hundreds of girls waited with baited breath for the next chapter to be posted, I'd say my stories were pretty damn good. And at least five people were on my update email list.

The thing about FictionLyn was that she hid behind her pseudonym. Sure, she'd post on the forum, she'd respond to people's questions and comments, she'd even got as fas as to personally email you and if you struck her right, she'd even name a (minor) character after you (ME), but no one really knew her. Lauren not only was a fan and a phenominal writer herself, but she was also a moderator on the FictionLyn forum. She knew FL better than anyone that I knew and she still didn't know all that much. You have to remember that this was 2000. It was before 9/11, before Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, before camera phones, iTunes and iPods and everyone having their own digital camera. It was a time for avatars and homemade graphics, Napster was in it's hayday, and a whole lot of Photoshop love. We all hid, to a certain extent, behind our screen names, mostly because we didn't have the courage or the means to post pictures of ourselves. But she was FictionLyn. If anyone I knew should be posting at least one picture of herself on her page, it was her. And she did, occasionally, but they were generally pictures from her childhood - brown and faded and fuzzy - just how I imagine the 1970's were.

She was a mystery, which definitely added to her allure, but also made it easy for her to walk away when she was done. It also helped to support the fantastical world that her sagas (because, truly, that was what they were) created. Her stories, like all the really good ff stories, took these unobtainable, unreachable celebrities that we drooled over, dreamt of and dedicated hours of ourselves to and made them a bit more tangible. Well-built imagery could put you in that room with JC as he leaned it for that ever-so-sweet first kiss and make nearly grown women swoon.

FictionLyn wrote four or five stories. Painstakingly perfected sagas that she wrote drafts of and edited and typed up herself and posted. And then, she was done. She tried to move from fan fiction stories that included our beloved boyband to stories based entirely on the fictional characters she'd created to support her stories. I don't know if she ever finished that story. Her stories remained online for awhile, but they were taken down. FictionLyn faded away, as did the group of N'SYNC and the FictionLyn forum turned into a community sounding board for the diehards that never left and the newbies who caught on at the tailend of it all. I personally was sucked into my sophomore year of college and my relationship with Z and drifted away myself. I can't even remember how to find the forum.

I started reading Twilight this week and though I am only a handful of chapters in so far, I am enthralled. The feelings the author stirs up with her imagery and first person narration already has me twitterpatted and last night, as lounged in my bubble bath, I was there. I could feel what Bella was feeling and blush at the idea of a devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful boy staring at me. Rescuing me. Suddenly making an unbearable place interesting and somewhat worthwhile. Three chapters in and I am already sad there are only four books.

I feel that an amazing author is someone who can create a world that I would want to live in. And my favorites have all done that. I tried to explain this sensation once to Aja, but she didn't grasp what I was trying to tell her. And though I fancy myself a writer, I still to this day, have yet to be able to describe it. But between the imagery and the storyline and the setting itself, my favorites are the ones that make me want move in. Envelope myself inside it's world - regardless of what sorts my personal life is in. Lisa Carey does this nearly every novel of her's she's written. Judy Blume did it in Summer Sisters. And Stephenie Meyer is totally doing it with her Twilight series.

I never knew FL's full name. For all I know, she has a Facebook or a Myspace page. She could be married now, with kids and a dog or she could still be living with her cats, teaching school and hopefully looking for "Mr. Right". Does anyone know whatever happened to FictionLyn?

Clever Euphemism

The following is Inspired by Jennie and her idea to offer writing prompts every Wednesday for interested bloggers. Here's my response to her call to "Start any story with, 'I wouldn't say it was my best idea,' and go from there."

I wouldn't say it was my best idea, but being 16 and the most "sexually experienced" of my friends, I felt it was my duty to pass along the knowledge I had gained in having my first serious boyfriend. When I say sexually experienced, I mean soared past first and second base, hoovering on third and eyeing home. Because you know, it was very important to help usher my friends into the game. There had been timid chatter around the rally room about bj's and how to give them, how to end them and what do with the stuff after it was all over. Spit? Swallow? Cry?

I had no business sharing what little information I had, but we were honor students, overachievers and despite the fact I wasn't on the school newspaper staff, I felt maybe a phamplet would be the perfect way to discreetly pass on my knowledge to my eager, yet naive, friends. I started laying out the tips I had to share on a tri-fold piece of yellow notebook paper. I was even contemplating a logo . . . it was all perfect. I had no idea how or where I would photocopy the brochure of sophomoric tip-of-sexual-iceburg tips, but then, I hadn't even thought that far ahead.

Whether it is something to be proud or ashamed of, I was definitely the most precocious of my friends and naturally, since I was the first to try everything, I was also the first most of my friends shared their sordid secrets with. To be entrusted with their blushing transgressions was an honor and now being the first to marry, I'll be the one to help usher them all into marriage too. Tear!

But I digress. The phamplet wasn't anything seedy enough to end up on Nerve.com, but it was definitely not something that I would ever want to fall into the wrong hands. Like say . . . a parent's. And it did. My own. Whether my mother was snooping or putting away laundry or snooping while putting away laundry, she did find it in my room. I didn't really attempt to hide it; I didn't think it would be in danger of being found sitting out in plain sight.

My mom, for all the crap and grief I've put her through in my adolescent years, is awesome. She didn't run to my father and pull him into the conversation. She quietly sat me down and discussed what it all meant about my sexuality and why making something like this was a terribly awful idea.

She was right. That same year, my friend Kate had become friends with this girl Dehne and somewhere they came up with a Lil' Kim album. Being the hardcore white girl thugs we were, they would bump up and down the streets of Vancouver, blaring songs talking about guys going "downtown" and other less than appropriate topics. At some point, Kate made me a copy of one of the songs and even I drove around in my Nissan 240X, feeling quite empowered and hot. But when Dehne's mother found the cd, she squealed, blaming the cd purchase on Kate and naturally, her parents were called.

It was something external, it didn't involve any of us girls, except for whoever acutally purchased the cd in the first place. I can only imagine what my handmade with love phamplet would have done to all of our freedom and independence and budding love lives.

I never mentioned the incident to my friends. Actually, this is the first I have pretty much mentioned it to anyone. Butecause it did start out, one day, probably in Algebra, as a good idea.

The Story of Dolly Dooz

Dolly Dooz is nothing more than the childhood nickname my parents gave me as a small girl that despite my shedding my little girl looks, simplicity and innocence has stuck with me. As recent as earlier this week, my mother responded to a blog entry on Myspace, in which she referred to me as "DD". That was not because of my ample chest, folks. It was Dolly Dooz. But my husband likes to think it is all about the "Double D's".

You would think that a couple who names their daughter Elizabeth but calls her Betsy would have no need for other nicknames, but I come from a family who name their cars, so naturally Betsy would never be enough. And even building on it, my nickname was often shortened to "Dolly" "Dooz" or my favorite "Doozer".

You would be right to wonder where such a nickname like this even came from. Years ago, my great-aunt Girlie (yup, that's what we called her) had a lullaby she'd sing to her grandkids and such. "Lolly Lu" was what it was called, but I couldn't tell you what the world the lyrics were now. I'm sure my cousin Jennifer was serenaded to it a million times. After she'd sang it to me one day, my parents started calling me Dolly and the "Dooz" wasn't far behind.

I can be thankful that my brother was not spared to this naming ritual and he has always been "Buddy Bar" (a.k.a. "Buddy", "Bud" and "Bar"). Yup, a happy family with Dolly Dooz and Buddy Bar - we sound like a family of drag queens.

Obviously, we are not the first and only family to have nicknames beyond "Baby", "Sweetie" and "Honey". In fact, Miley Cyrus is actually (for now) Destiny Hope Cyrus, but since she was so happy as a child, her family called her "Smiley" and somewhere along the way, she became Miley.

As I have gotten older, I have come to accept that no matter how much I protest my parents will neer be fully able to stop calling me by my nickname and I suppose I wouldn't want them to.

So after years of testing what felt like a perfect blog title embracing an essence of me, so to speak, I finally realized that I, Dolly Dooz, had to accept it. I am what I am.

Now I just need to design who that is.

What strange/funny nicknames did you have growing up?