I’m squarely mainstream. So says the New York Times, in a recent article headlined “Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It”.
It’s a tremendous relief to know that this “once marginal” activity is now socially acceptable. In fact, I would like to make an announcement: Adam Stein is not my real name. Adam Stein is just an alias, a fiction I hide behind, a veil to draw across my shame.
But I am ashamed no longer. I’m proud to say that my real name is Chester Fleance Balustrade. Chester Fleance Balustrade! I will shout it from the rooftops! I will cry it to the mountains!
To my friends who have known me as Adam Stein for the last ten or twenty years, all I can do is apologize and beg your forgiveness and understanding.
I love lifestyle pieces in the New York Times, because they give the newspaper an opportunity to reach almost breathtaking heights of effeteness and self-parody. This particular article appeared in the Sunday Styles section, alongside an article on Dadaist teacups (wtf?) and an article on trucker hats, which apparently have gone from unknown to hip to lame in the short time I’ve been away from the States.
I particularly love when the NYT writes pieces about my lifestyle, because they give me the opportunity to learn things I never knew about myself. For example, the fact that bloggers actually go on dates is a bit of a revelation. Also, apparently blogging is “thrilling and sometimes perilous.” And here I’ve been wasting my time biking across the Tibetan plateau.
The blogging article even has a link to a forum where you can weigh in on your favorite blog. Actually, the forum has moved onto more pressing issues. I think the current question under discussion is “What kinds of belts are you wearing, or eyeing, these days?”
Anyway, it would really please me if people would log into the forum and say that they’d been eyeing former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s belt until they were detained by the Secret Service. Then casually mention that you can’t get enough of adamstein.org.
The article also offered some handy tips for newly-respectable bloggers. For example, mining the embarrassing details of my own and my friends’ personal lives for “saucy internet fare” is an effective way to build readership.
In that spirit, I’d like to share with you the story of a dinner party gone awry, a clogged urethra, and my ensuing revelation about love, loss, and the nature of true friendship. It all started when my friend Nik, who has a penchant for wearing man-sized diapers in crowded public venues…
