Nigh two years later, a blog idol comes to live with me

One of the very first blogs I read religiously was Jezebel, starting in August of 2008 when my then-boyf now-ex sent me a link and told me I would probaby love it. He was right - and, as a side note, we proceeded to get into myriad fights about feminism based on posts written on Jez, at which he always balked and claimed I was attacking his manhood, though he would totally deny this now - and I began reading the blog obsessively at work, and even sent in my information numerous  times to try to write for them. I was always rejected, because there was never any money of course. The first writer at Jez that I really latched onto was Tracie Egan, who wrote for a long time under the moniker "Slut Machine" - though the slut got married and is now Tracie Egan Morrissey - and whose personal blog, One D At A Time, I discovered soon after.

I remember staying up late one night just reading reading reading her blog until I passed out. She wrote candidly about her sexual escapades in New York, including her encounter with multiple STDs, her cocaine and alcohol habits, and her unabashed love for a (ahem) well-endowed man. I found her writing so incredibly, um, stimulating because I could tell it was real, and naturally - as a sexually adventurous person - I related to it. I saw something of myself in her, and I had tremendous respect for her balls at putting it all out there. She is also how I got introduced to Rich over at Four Four, her best friend and another one of my blog idols who I had the pleasure of serendipitously encountering on the L train recently.


ANYWAY. Through a really random and mostly boring story centered on my online dating escapades, I got introduced to Nic Rad about six months ago. He's a Brooklyn-based painter whose most recent project, People Matter, is a collection of 100 paintings of Internet and media celebrities. As part of the social experiment aspect of his project, he's giving away for free for absolutely no money whatsoever all 100 paintings to whoever reserves them. And yep, you guessed it, he painted Tracie.

It's so fucking beautiful, isn't it? Naturally I sent him a friendly "remember meeee?" e-mail, to which he responded that he had indeed not forgotten me. He asked me for a couple paragraphs explaining why I wanted the painting of Tracie, and told me that my writing, as well as my blog link and Twitter info, etc. would appear on his site next to the painting. I did as he wished, and he wrote me back today officially reserving the painting for me.


So nearly two years after I discovered her, Tracie will hang in my house. My life tends to work in these incredible serendipitous cycles. Nic's show opens this weekend, so if any of you are in the New York area, go to Rare Gallery on Saturday night. I'll be there trying not to fondle my new - and first legitimate - art possession.