"You said that my MySpace friends weren't my real friends," she complained.
"That's not true," I replied. "I said that your MySpace friends were far more likely to actually be your friends than mine were."
She was over at Gram Ponante Towers, Helipad, Aviary, and Bleaching Pond and we had just finished playing Battleship in the tub. "I mean, seriously," I said. "Look at this guy. Do you think he's really my friend? He just showed up one day."
"Maybe?" she said. At that moment a reporter came by to ask her the correct spelling of her name. She complied, and then said: "You can check it on the Internet."
Maybe DeArmond's sunny outlook is the reason the Internet has not been cruel to her like it has been to me. Can I ever love again?
"You need to help me," I said. "I need to bring MySpace down from within. How do I do it?"
DeArmond has over 218,000 MySpace friends. I have 142.
"You need to post a picture of a girl as your profile," she said.
"Not my own face?" I asked.
"No, a girl."
"What about me with a girl?"
"JUST A GIRL."
"Fine."
"OK then."
"Good."
"What else?"
"What bands do you like?" she asked.
"I really like Gordon Lightfoot."
She sighed. "I like Fugazi and Jawbreaker and Elvis Costello. You put up bands and people want to link to you."
"I like those concerns as well," I said.
Dana gets MySpace messages like, "Thanks for being you." I get messages like, "Can I smell your fingers?"
I asked her how much time she spends on MySpace.
"Hours," she said.
"Seven? Eight?"
"Sometimes."
"A day?"
"Yes."
"What should I not do in trying to win MySpace friends and influence their adding me?"
"Don't message people and ask 'What's up?" or "What are you doing?' The answer is 'I'm reading e-mail. What do you think I'm doing?' and then I hit Delete."
Despite her Disney-dancing background, talk of poor MySpace etiquette caused a shadow to cross her face.
"And don't send chain letters to people," she said. "Don't get on that whore train."
"I don't know, Dana. It all seems like so much. I worry about Elvis Costello now that he's remarried. Might everything go south again?"
"Just don't put Gordon Lightfoot," she said.
