Alive was how I felt when I discovered the world of internet message board and chat rooms! After spending months and months surfing the internet for Pearl Jam news and information what I really wanted was someone to talk to. Someone who felt like I did about Pearl Jam and their music. It was 2002 dammit! I was ready to put myself out there. I was ready to meet those other Pearl Jam fans I knew existed somewhere.
I found a site called "The Sky I Scrape", which is a lyric from this Pearl Jam song. It was an awesome site that had all kinds of information. It also had a little link in the side bar called message board. With much fear, anxiety and excitement I clicked on that link and a whole new world opened up to me. First I had to make an account and that required a username and password. What user name was going to fit me? All I could think of was that I was a mom, in more ways than one since I had a home day care, and I loved Pearl Jam. It made sense that I would be pjmom. I made an account and had access to the message board. This was the spring of 2002.
It didn't take me long to spar with the board asshole. His nickname was peeps and he was the biggest, meanest ass I've ever met on the internet. We got in a big debate over homeschooling. What does this have to do with Pearl Jam you ask? Absolutely nothing. I was homeschooling my kids at the time and questions about homeschooling came up in the general discussion forum and since I had some experience with the topic I spoke up. This guy peeps (who did NOT have kids) came after me. I was really "green" when it came to message boards and took the guy too seriously. I almost left the board and never came back. But a really nice woman called crow sent me a private message as did the site owner, Scott. They both told me to ignore peeps, he was an ass and was just trying to stir things up. Crow invited me to a chat room. I was really nervous and apprehensive. I had heard stories about chat rooms and perverts, but I put aside my preconceived notions and logged on. I can be completely honest when I say my humdrum life has never been the same since.
I was doing home day care at the time and didn't have much contact with the outside world. I was craving adult conversation. The people I met in the chat room really saved my sanity at a time when it needed saving. I formed friendships I still have today. There were others I had short friendships with then they moved on and still others that moved on, but came back years later. This list isn't going to mean anything to you unless you were part of the chat, so please bear with me as I list the nicknames of people who were very important in my life. Honestly they probably don't even know how important they were to me. One star means we've met in real life, two means I look forward to meeting them one day.
- crow- Pennsylvania
- chrissyb* - Massechusettes
- buby* - Mexico
- deanq4* - Oregon
- speculare** - Portugal
- zutmon* - Colorado
- cee** - Illinois
- bty1972** - Philipinnes
- stonecrest
- Ced Bateman** - France
- hinny - Japan
- jerometurner* - Massechusettes
- jan* - Washington
- bettatest* - Germany
- 3 crooked hearts* - Florida
- yeildgirl* - Kentucky
- jeremy durbin
- blueroo* - Washington
- dirtbird* - Washington
- bigmama - England?
- nicole - England?
- peeps - Pennsylvania
- koppain** - Norway
- LostTraveler
- LycoDave - Pennsylvania?
- phil* - California
- ledbetter
- TSEd - Ireland
I know there are a ton of others I'm forgetting and I apologize. If you are reading this and remember others I forgot, please put the names in the comments section! This list reflects people who were there early on. People who chat come and go. The ones I've listed were the ones I remember being around for a while. I was fascinated with how relationships formed or didn't form. It kind of reminded me of high school when you'd walk into the cafeteria and look around to see who was there. Same thing in the chat, you'd log on and look around to see who was there. Sometimes you'd be so excited to see your best friend, other times you'd groan "Oh no, not him/her." It was a blast. I laughed every single day.
The message board was fun too. I posted every single day back then, like blogging only one sentence at a time multiple times a day. The anticipation was thick. Rumored song titles were being thrown around like baseballs during batting practice. Then the questions came up...If the albums gets leaked will you download and listen to it? There was very entertaining debate on this topic. People who fancied themselves as "purist" said no way. I had no plans to listen to a leaked album. I didn't know how to download music and if I did I didn't know how to convert it to something I could listen too. The album did end up leaking and one day a CD arrived in the mail from an anonymous sender. I struggled for about 30 seconds over whether I should listen to it or not. There is nothing like a new album from your favorite band. Part of my music experience was opening the album, putting it on and looking at the booklet while listening. Who wrote what song? Who is the band thanking? Were there any guest musicians? What pictures and/or art did the band include? Yes I listened to that leaked album, I also bought the official one the day it was released in fact I went to the midnight sale at the local independent record store!
There were other rumors being thrown around too. The album was due out in the fall then Pearl Jam was rumored to tour. The rumor I kept hearing was they would be performing in Seattle on or around December 8. Guess what?! December 8, 2002 was my 40th birthday. I couldn't hope for it. I had to take it all in as rumor. I couldn't even begin to think about spending my 40th birthday with Pearl Jam...
