Dear Facebook Friend…
Hi! How fabulous to be in touch with you after 10/20/30 years. Let’s just ignore the fact that we’re old enough to have known anyone at all for that long, shall we?
It’s so nice we connected via Facebook. Which, by the way, I hate – but mostly because answering the “So, what have you been up to?” question gets tedious after the first hundred times.
Possibly you’re just more patient than I am. Anyway:
- I started at Calhoun at age four, then went to Riverdale, and finally ended up at The Lenox School.
- I went to the University of Rhode Island in a teenage dramafest bid to follow my high school boyfriend around the nation. (I was 18 and a moron.) That predictably fell apart by Thanksgiving, but I loved Rhode Island and ended up happy at Providence College.
- My college boyfriend actually did end up marrying a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey.
- I worked for a non-for-profit music school in Providence for a couple of years during and after college, which was great training in doing everything.
- I discovered the internet in 1995, and went to work at Microsoft in online community building. And got fired. With a cease and desist order.
- I started a successful adult website for women back in the day, which was a blast. I also got to write advice columns for dirty magazines, which was fun.
- In 1997, I moved to London because I’d fallen for a Brit. I went to work for a dot come start up, went dot bust, and eventually found myself as the Director of Online Services for a new media company. The new media company lasted longer than the relationship, which broke up in 2002.
- An indecently short time later, I met my now-husband on New Years Eve 2002/3. He’s brilliant. We got married in September (and November, but that’s a long story) of 2004. He’s in radio, with a helping of political rabble rousing on the side. We live and work together all day and we’re very happy that way.
- I didn’t change my name, we have no children and, since you are too polite to ask, probably won’t.
- In 2005 we moved from London to Cork, Ireland in an effort to depart from the rat race. I worked as the Director of Marketing for a telecoms company for a while, and then went freelance here.
- In 2006, we got a dog. She’s a boxer, she’s six, and her name is Eimear. (Eee-mer.) She likes to sleep holding hands.
- I run a small web development and online marketing company. I do not suck at what I do, and have won some nice awards. I work almost exclusively with small businesses, start-ups and founders. I work crazy hours but I am happy for almost all of them.
- In 2008, we bought our first (and only) house, which is undergoing continual renovations. Around us. We are never moving out of this house, ever.
Other things you may want to know:
- I am still shorter than you think I am.
- If I slept with your boyfriend, I’m sorry.
- Yes, I’m still a left wing screaming hippy liberal. Bite me.
- My sisters are both well. Frankie is on hiatus from law school and Samantha just got her masters and is teaching grade school in Brooklyn. They both still live in New York.
- My parents are both great. After raising three kids in a 3 bedroom apartment in NYC, they bought a seven bedroom house in New Jersey as soon as we’d left for college. Which made no sense, but whatever. My mum is semi-retired from publishing now and my dad is still an active partner at Lowenstein Sandler.
- My other dad is still in Toronto and probably still drunk, but we have not spoken since 2005. He’s still with Leo and still an affable asshat.
- Joe and Jim are great, thank you for asking. They are still in NYC and recently completed a massive renovation on the house on Vandam Street. The Water Island house is still standing, too!
So, what about you?
Tara says:
You slept with my boyfriend? You SLUT! I’m never speaking to you again!!!
I mean, really, why didn’t you sleep with me first? ;-)
Learned more about your life from your quasi-official bio then I thought I could. Love you to bits!
Monday, 27 October, 2008, 10:48 pmSabrina Dent says:
DID I sleep with your boyfriend?! It depends what decade we’re on, but yeah, probably. As to why I didn’t sleep with you – ladies first. You never asked! :)
Tuesday, 28 October, 2008, 12:53 amSinéad says:
This is also great for people that have just met you :)
Tuesday, 28 October, 2008, 9:48 amPeter K says:
As a long time reader, this truely was an ingenious and funny post. Post bank holiday blues have been lifted by something this simple
Tuesday, 28 October, 2008, 10:02 amDermot Canniffe says:
I don’t think you slept with my boyfriend…
Tuesday, 28 October, 2008, 5:09 pmDeborah says:
Was just about to mark my entire reader as read because I just couldn’t face 3000+ posts. Then I saw Sabrina. Glad I didn’t, this was great craic.
This should be a Facebook requirement. For sure. But you make an excellent point, even the dreaded MySpace has better info than facebook. :D
Wednesday, 29 October, 2008, 12:03 amDarragh says:
See, this is why I love you Missus!
So so many questions. Esp re the Cease and Desist. Coffee some time? :-P
Saturday, 1 November, 2008, 1:47 pmElfinamsterdam says:
Boxers are amazing dogs, but not as fantastic as your website which I love.
Beautiful to look at and fantastic to read.
I met Deborah today and she spoke of you so when your post turned up on my reader I said I would stop lurking and say hi.
Saturday, 1 November, 2008, 11:33 pmNosey Nick says:
Grew up in approximately Guildford, Surrey, UK, and also on a 5-star floating hotel on the river Thames. Went to “Egham university of London” (then rhbnc.ac.uk now rhul.ac.uk), where I met Estelle. First real job as code monkey and sysadmin for a CAD/CAM software company, then commuted across London to LEOnet where I met many interesting people including “Sabrina the teenage webmistress” [cough]. Married Estelle. Went to work for Sony (mostly to reduce the ridiculous commute) where I refunded a disturbing amount of my salary through the staff sales system. Daughter Kathryn. Made redundant by Sony in a sorta delayed internal dot-bomb. Went to work for RIM (back in Egham again) who make that BlackBerry gadget which was almost unheard-of at the time and has since taken over the world. About 6 years later RIM “ran out of ways to promote me” in Egham and relocated me and the family to head office in south Ontario – “the family” by then being Estelle, Kathryn, and twin sons Mark and Aiden. Now designing the next generation of RIM’s email routing infrastructure. Now “permanent” Canadian residents, enjoying space and reasonable house-prices and tolerating Canadian winters.
Might have to c+p that back into facebook now, to save anyone else the hassle ;-)
Sunday, 2 November, 2008, 12:18 amJoe Scanlon says:
Great post – My first time using Google Reader “Top Recommendations” had worked out well. Looking forward to reading more of your stuff, really getting into this blog / blog following lark!
Wednesday, 5 November, 2008, 2:56 pmJoe
dahamsta says:
I hate Facebook too. Sorry, that’s as far as I read. Attention span of a gnat.
Friday, 21 November, 2008, 3:26 amKaren says:
This is strange – I ended up on your site (beautiful site, btw) after following a link in a comment on another blog I regularly read. From reading this post, I discovered we went to the same college (PC). How random!
Tuesday, 9 December, 2008, 8:59 pmSamantha Skolnik says:
Love you and your version of life. Correction: I live in Brooklyn, (maybe not for long, but not really necessary to get into that detail on YOUR webpage) however, I work/teach in Manhattan, not Brooklyn. OK, so whatever. And when did dad and nik move outta that 7 bedroom?? but shhhh! shout out from Brooklyn! with kisses! Love, Not an Asshat
Sunday, 1 February, 2009, 2:18 pmBobolink says:
I don’t have a boyfriend so we can rule that out. Perhaps you slept with my first wife. ;)
Saturday, 13 June, 2009, 3:30 amneuro says:
I eat pies.
Monday, 20 July, 2009, 1:54 pmkopje says:
How very impersonal.
Tuesday, 11 August, 2009, 11:03 pm