Busted!

Casey Serin's little media spree this week has had some funny consequences all around. On Monday, for example, his technical (in)abilities were on full display, as C|net readers found, alternately, a "File Not Found" page or even better, a search engine list of related "hater" sites.

I got my own taste of it this morning, when I was woken up by a phone call from an ex, suspiciously chipper considering the ungodly time of day.

"I just read a quote of yours on MSN!" the ex giggled. At any other time, this would not be cause for hilarity. After all, I've given plenty of interviews and been quoted countless times. I could smell the ex had an agenda...I waited through the interminable pause before the one-two punch was delivered.

"Nice fucking mouth on you!"

Aaaargh!!! I knew instantly.... "So I'm reading this article about the world's most hated blogger, on some level fully expecting the article to have something to do with you. After all, you're so precious!" The ex stops to gasp for air through the laughter.

"Then I read this: '"Casey and Galina Serin's story isn't one of 'Young couple tries to make it in the cold, cruel world,' one critic wrote. 'These two are f****g Bonnie and Clyde. What they're doing is bank robbery, without the gun.'" Before I even clicked on the link, I knew it was you who had said that! I shot coffee through my nose!"

So before the ex (who is still a close friend, although skating on thin ice after this morning's call) can crow to our mutual friends that I'm now the girl being shot around the internet for saying "fuck" in international media outlets, I'm going to put the opening shot out there.

I will say that, for as humorous as I find Twelve Years' inclusion in the Casey Serin, World's Most Hated Blogger story, I do cringe a bit about the quote. I say a lot of things in these pages that I wouldn't utter in a more, say, professional environment. And now I'm the chick screaming "fuck" in the media.

I said some semblance of that through the phone this morning, as my coffee-deprived brain waited for the drip to brew and fog to lift. Sensing that a nerve had been struck, the antagonistic ex dialed it down a notch. "Hey, that's cool...you're like Erica Jong this way. She got a lot of attention for taking that word and shining a spotlight on other things. Plus, she was dirty!" the ex leered.

Yeah, I'm the Erica Jong of the blogosphere. Hardly.

Erica Jong's mastery of the English language produced lines and phrases so buttery that readers chewed over her words, letting them melt in their mouths like caramel. As readers rode that happy high, she punctuated her creamy prose with the hard consonants of the word "fuck."

Her writing is as sensual as the topics she covers, as you can see from her poem "We Learned". Jong's writing in the groundbreaking book Fear of Flying produced the indomitable phrase Zipless Fuck, which changed the way American women thought and spoke of sex.

The woman even turned cooking into a food fetish that has never quite been duplicated...although Nigella might come close.

I'm absolutely certain that nothing produced within these pages achieves a similar excitement. Nor as lofty a circumstance. In other words, I don't know that my fuck had a purpose (making it "zipless" in its own right, I suppose.) Certainly, had I known that it would be reprinted for thousands to consume, I would have found more apt language.

I fully expect, over the course of the coming weeks, that as I speak to and go out with friends that, just as I am comfortable, someone will slide a one-liner into the conversation. No one will ask about a recent major coup on the professional front, or the unexpected holiday on powdery white sand beaches and turquoise waters.

No. What they'll say is "So you're the one who basically shouted FUCK in a crowded theatre, huh?"

Yep. (sighs) That's me.