IN RE SEDALINA: I just don't think I buy it.

Hey, let's look at the bright side: The girl is an enormously gifted writer with a very, very fertile imagination, and she's fun to read. As one of her many frequent posters alludes: "I always start my day with coffee and Sedalina."

But unlike, say, Halley Suitt―who also leads a frantic life that would drive me nuts―some things about Sedalina's existence seem suspiciously contrived. F'rinstance: Yeah, most of us can think of one or two people who "switched" their sexual orientation, usually later on in life following a divorce. That sort of thing isn't too hard to understand; obviously the person was living a lie their whole life and finally confronted it. But Sedalina has careened, in the space of little more than a year, from a highly charged hetero who lusted after many a man to an equally highly charged lesbian whose fondest dream is to run away with her girlfriend to Canada and get―married?!? Whoaaa.

And then there's the "Minicorp" thing. Again, this doesn't quite add up. Young Women's Studies graduate runs off to live with her boyfriend in Mexico, comes back to Minnesota, grabs onto a dotcom job just in time for the bust, and waits tables (so far so good). Then, bolt from the blue: She is swept out of waitressing land like Cinderella by a former project manager she banged a few times, and (get this) within a year is a Big Manager at the huge multinational "Minicorp" (that name must be an attempt at cute humor, since we seem to be talking about a company at least as large as 3M). My experience with huge corporations has been largely that they don't tend to put fresh-out-of-college-with-next-to-no-work-experience kids in managerial slots that have "teams" reporting to them. But maybe that's just me.

We're still not to what bothers me the most, though.

Let's say that Sedalina really does believe that she's become a total lesbian in a year's time. And that her former dotcom PM really did give her a high-powered gig based on little more than a hunch, and that she's performing splendidly in said gig. And that she really is caring for her cousin's ex-girlfriend and her little baby too. Let's say all of it is true.

Now understand this: Sedalina is a star in the blogosphere. Everybody links to her, and not only that, we even know what she looks like and where she lives. And yet, this superstar blogger expects us to believe that no one in her "other life" seems to know that she is Sedalina the superstar blogger. Yes, most of us remember back when her blog was called "Plain Layne" and was written up all over the place (that's how I discovered her). Layne is apparently her real name―and how many girls share that name? As recently as a couple of months ago, merely Googling her first name would have outed her immediately to anyone interested.

But I guess nobody was. Either that, or they're all having the time of their lives every morning, reading entries such as "Minicorp can suck my strap-on". And getting every single last sordid detail of Sedalina and Laurel's last roll in the hay, devices and oils included.

Mitch Berg thinks she's for real, and not only that, he's a frequent commenter. Sorry, Mitch, but I think that's where you and I part company.

UPDATE 06/14/04: Many, many readers following the recent Disappearance o' Layne have found their way to this entry in recent days, so I will direct you as well to the followups I posted here and here.

Posted by Alois on

Comments

[Quiplash]

Oh and I would suggest that we actually create a space where we can continue to discuss this until (if) Plain Layne's comment box comes back. I am quite willing to set up an Orkut community, and send invitations out to everyone who isn't yet a member of Orkut (by the way, Layne Johnson has an Orkut profile, but there's not much in it, and she only has links to three friends).

So, if you want an invite to the brand-new Plain Layne Comment Box community on Orkut, send me an email at ryanwinnnipeg@yahoo.ca and I will invite you in.

--Ryan Schultz (Quiplash).

[Johnny Huh?]

I prefer to think she's real but am finding that my convictions are rather dubious.

Its like an internet game of Where's Waldo?!

[Johnny Huh?]

By the way, there have been numerous collisions of her offline life with her online life. Remember when she confessed to Lauren and Cassie that she had a blog and it became Sedalina until Lauren left?

Heather, her latest crush, reads the blog. Lauren read it for a while too.

This isn't the first disappearance but it might just be the last.

[Pete (Alois)]

Well, well, I never thought I'd see the day when Johnny Huh? posted on my blog! Welcome. I knew you well from your Plain Layne-advising days.

I got suspicious back when I first tried Googling her. I just went out and typed "Layne" and she was, like, the second hit (the first was some corporation, I think); most of the entries on the first page had to do with her and/or her blog. And then I thought, "How the hell does she get away with this, especially at work?" As if no one from "Minicorp" would ever Google her out of sheer curiosity? Sheh, right--and monkeys might fly out my butt [/WAYNE].

Hey, Johnny, you tried to "help" her, and got some great chances to hone your writing (and advice) skills, so what the hey. I admired your patience with "Layne" (and it's good to hear that you wanted occasionally to "smack some sense into her"--boy, so did I, during that initial month or two before I started to doubt her existence).

And no, I don't really think she's a Polish engineer. I think the readers who posited that she's a joint writing project are probably closest to the truth.

I agree with you that "she" may not be back, except for some VERY DRAMATIC! sign-off post. She's been outed and I'm sure that word has gotten back to her by now. Maybe the sign-off post will be more along the lines of "SUCKAZ!"

You know what I'd really like to know, though? Who the girl is who posed for the "Layne" pictures. She could get those teeth fixed for a couple thousand dollars (which "Layne" certainly seemed to have) and be quite the kewpie doll.

[Raul Mikel]

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[Pete (Alois)]

Well, Mr. Raul Mikel... all I can say, as a fellow Christian, is that I thought there had been fascinating *NEW* *DEVELOPMENTS* in the Sedalina / Plain Layne case... but now, instead I see that I've only won the Nigerian lottery!

Sob.