Alright! I have a question and I'm being demanding and uh, demanding answers, y'all.

So I read just about every journal of everyone who posts here regularly. And I'm especially intrigued with this Texas contingent dealio. I've tried my hardest, but I just can't figure out who knows who from HS, who met so-and-so at college, who took baths with you when y'all were 2 and who met through the person they both knew from college and HS, respectively. See how confusing it all is? It's a big web of confusingness! But, y'all, I love reading your stories and I want to make.the.connection. So help me out.

This is what I understand: I know the illustrious Pineapple met AB and Omar through journals, right? Okay, well. That's about it. How did MATH come to be? And then the +1? And..where does Ohio Hannah fit in here and Pamie and Al (I know the story of Pamie setting up Chris and Al, I think) and T and Naked Hannah and ...I know I'm leaving some people out, but it's all just mixed up, alright? Help?

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001

Answers

Ali, you know I already have the love for you. And, I think that, particularly here, this is a great question. So, I don't even need to get your back when I say...

ditto.

Just to clarify on the Hannahs -

Hannah Beth (the H in MATH+1) is Ohio Hannah, and Naked Sometimes (or "Other," which I don't like, because she is way cool on her own) Hannah is now in L.A. And both are blonde Republicans - for which I won't fault them...

And, in re: "Texas contingent," we're all fucked up, as Omar and AB and I are currently here, but Allison and MOC and Pamie used to be here, but so did T and both Hannahs at one point - and Mike has visited (which doesn't count). And, I know AB and T and Allison aren't from here originally, and I think Omar is from OK and I don't know any Hannah origin, AB has given me some background, and I have picked some stuff up on my own... like, I think MATH+1 and Omar and WG all met through Squishy forums. And I know for sure that T and HB are dear VBFs from school. But I also am pretty sure that Naked Hannah is from Houston-area too....

so, yeah. Halp. An official full-on connection would be a benefit to the journal-community-at-large. If y'all could do it in chronological order, that would be super.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Okay.

T and I have been VBFs, as PG pointed out, since elementary school. We both left Houston, Texas when we went off to college - me to Ohio, her to GA, where we both still currently reside. I'm a native Texan, and T was born in New Orleans. (Here's a weird 'we were meant to meet thing': my older brother and T were born in the same hospital to the same doctor, and my father and her father both worked for the same oil company, in the New Orleans office, where T's dad met T's mom. HowEVER, my father [already married by this point, thank you] knew T's mom before T's dad did, as she was the receptionist on his floor.) So there's OUR Texas connection.

I think PG is the only other Texas native. Al is from Alabama, and AB is also from Louisiana, but both live(d) in Dallas. Al (and the Meat of Cheese, her boyfriend,) are now in Atlanta, where T is as well. (Here's their MATH was created in the cosmos connection: T's aunt and uncle and Al's parents were great friends way back in the day [they shared an employer]and Al and one of T's cousins are the same age and would run around in their diapers together.) Naked Hannah spent a great deal of her childhood/adolescence in Texas, but only part of it in Houston, where she did, in fact, live in the subdivision next to T and me. (Her siblings do now, in fact, attend our alma mater.) When she posted this on the Squishy forum, I began to read her journal, and then we began emailing and history was born.

Now, for MATH+1, it's a little more complicated. Yes, we all posted on Squishy forum, but we became friends outside of it, if that makes sense. I can't remember if Al emailed me after something I wrote on the forum, on in my journal, but once she did we became emailing FOOLS and one day we all were emailing each other, and realized that we were all emailing the other separtately, so why not do it all at once? And MATH was born. The integer, AB, joined the group after Al met her at DFW Cool Girls meeting and, of course, loved her instantly.

That's pretty much the scoop.

I think.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Allison: Thank you so much for asking that question.. That's actually what I meant yesterday when I asked if other people are allowed to comment in the "secret-club",because it feels as if everyone here grew up together or atleast went to the same kindergarten,especially to a Quirky woman who lives outside the USA and always confuses her north with her south.Or west.I have been reading the diaries of most of the people that post regularly here,even the small print,and found MATH+1 through HateYourDaddy.I'm enjoying it a little too much for my own good,the fantastic diaries/writers and the forum.So thanks for demanding,whatever it was you were demanding (ah,just answers??) and thanks for the replies,although,um,it may take me a few hours to make sense of the complicated cobweb of ,how did you phrase it.."confusingness"?

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Good job, H.

Well, there it is.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Am I the only one that really needs a visual diagram for all of this?

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

I was thinking about putting it together in a PowerPoint presentation.

Head. Spinning.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Can't you do the same,only in lego ? I think I may be a little too old for this."a Little " being the keyword of course. Power point? How about colored beads?

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Oh, it's so much more complicated than all of that, even. But it's all very fun.

If I stacked all the e-mails I have received from M-TH+1, they would reach to the moon.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Hey..Al..Al is mighty good at explaining complicated stuff. Al? Do you really want to make a grown woman beg?

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Am I the only one that really needs a visual diagram for all of this?

I had a flow chart prepared, but my computer crashed and I lost it all.

Or not. Hah!

To make the long MATH+1 story very short, Allison, Teri, Hannah and I were all on the old squishy forum, posting on all the same topics all the time. We started e-mailing each other, and the rest is history.

Anna Beth got to join later because -- as we all know -- any party without AB really isn't a party at all.

Assorted craziness followed, and here we are.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

And as Lin Chao would say, "That's all to it."

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

and the DFW coolgirls hang around because we met at squishy and, y''know, we're cool.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Anna Beth got to join later because -- as we all know -- any party without AB really isn't a party at all.

Glory hallelujiah and amen to that.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

If y'all read through Hannah Beth's archives, you'll see pictures of us from waaaaaaaay back in the fourth grade day.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

But they aren't as much fun as the hair in the junior- and senior-high school pictures, yo.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

I think PG is the only other Texas native.... But y'all, I did move there when I was only three months old.

-- Anonymous, December 03, 2001

I'm from Texas originally, but moved around a lot because my dad was i the Air Force. I ended up going to high school and college in Oklahoma, but booked it to Austin the moment I graduated.

When I got here, I got involved in a comedy group, and through that I met Pamie and her crew. I started reading Squishy right after I met her the first time. I already knew Greg (musicwhore.org) because I worked with him at my newspaper when we were both hired as interns (he worked online, I worked on the newspaper side).

Here's where it gets weird. I got addicted to squishy, and through that I got involved with mightybigtv and eventually decided to start my own journal, through which i met Pineapple and a lot of others. I met Anna Beth and Allison through pamie and the squishy forums. Before I started terribly happy, Pamie started writing for my newspaper's tech section, and eventually I became editor of that section, so in effect, I was Pamie's editor for about a year. I also worked with Heather (Heathen) at my paper, who ALSO got hired by mightybigtv and now lives in L.A. working for MTV.

Whew... lotta connections.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001