Oh Dog, you Sleuth!

My Sexy Stalker

I had my Instant Messenger on today and I got this invite to talk to ‘Sylvia Duchamp’. I had no idea who this was, but I thought what the heck. Last night walking home from work I was flagged down by somebody on 23rd street screaming my name. It turns out he worked at my old company in LA (after I left?) and he knew all this stuff about me and frankly it was really weird. Like, what the fuck?, did they make big mural of me in the lobby that someone would recognize me 20 yards away???
So this is the IM conversation that follows:

Sylvia Duchamp:hey
Sylvia Duchamp:hows it going?
scottysouling:who are you?
Sylvia Duchamp:who is anybody really?
Sylvia Duchamp:so, hows it goin?
Sylvia Duchamp:hello!
Sylvia Duchamp:i love that scotty souling song
Sylvia Duchamp:i think its ike and tina
scottysouling:it is! it’s an Ike Turner song.
Sylvia Duchamp:so scotty souling, do
you live in LA?
scottysouling:no, sorry
Sylvia Duchamp:well dont be sorry. we
cant all live in LA
Sylvia Duchamp:so what do you do?
scottysouling:i’m an editor
Sylvia Duchamp:is that to say a film editor?
Sylvia Duchamp:or a publishing editor?
scottysouling:film
Sylvia Duchamp:really? anything i might have seen?
Sylvia Duchamp:you know, im something of an actress
myself.
Sylvia Duchamp:well, actress/model/photographer
really.
Sylvia Duchamp:here’s a pic of me and
my sister:
http://www.twinsworld.com/headshots/susan-sylvia-headshot-med.jpg
Sylvia Duchamp:well, you’re not very
talkative, scotty souling. so i guess ill go now.
Sylvia Duchamp:bye.

Okay. I was pretty freaked out the whole time. I forwarded this to Katherine and Chevy, who thought I was the subject of some prank. But Jeremy suggested this was a real person, like a complicated (new?) version of personalized spam. Like there’s some person in an internet spamming sweatshop (I used to work above one of these offices last year - these guys all had the requisite messenger bags and whatnot, but we all knew they were the lowest form of scum) where somebody is at their cubicle trying to lure me to their site to check out their sexy internet pix, for a price. Gross! I tend to think Jeremy is correct here and now wish I wasn’t so freaked out earlier and would have played along to find out what this was really about. But maybe this was just somebody who happened across my user name. I mean the opening was so strange. “Scottysouling” is the name of an incredibly obscure Ike Turner song, the specificity of that is kind of impressive and seems like a lot of work for somebody luring me to their sex site. But the picture attached totally makes me think sex site. Plus I have received sex-solicitation IM chat invites before. Has this happened to anybody else? I have to know.

Sylvia! Write back! All is forgiven!