History of the Weekly
by Laura "roomanaut" Bentley

"So, uh, what's the weekly?"

Maybe you've asked yourself. Maybe someone has asked you. But how do you answer? How can you describe what cannot be defined, quantified, christened nor characterized? Pretty simple, really. You can't; move on.

If you're like some people (read: most people), you can't let it go at this. Especially if you're male. "What? It can't be done? Let me try." Oh, bother, I see what's coming. Somewhere in this History of the Weekly, I'm going to end up trying to describe what I have already described as indescribable. Rats.

When you feel you cannot adequately answer what something is, you may find yourself willing to settle for how it began. In the summer of 1999, Vineyard Gadsden was having a meeting called friday@seven. Around the middle of the week, I'd send out an e-mail to those who came (or those who had been or had thought of coming, etc.) telling everybody who was playing, who was speaking, what the snack was going to be, what you missed last time… you get the idea. Then came a week when I knew I didn't have time to write the e-mail. So I asked Jaimie (probably ICQ-ed her since this was before we were roomies) if she could send one that week. She did, and in her ever Jaimie-ness, she made the dry details, well, funny.

You can guess what happened next (and if Jaimie herself could have guessed this was going to happen, I daresay she might have put more effort into making the dry details a little drier): I asked her if she'd write the friday@seven e-mail every week. And she (albeit reluctantly) agreed. What happened then was that people who didn't even come to friday@seven began talking about the e-mails. They wanted on the list whether they planned to attend or not. It was a little something in their Inbox every week to look forward to.

Then came the news: friday@seven was being called off. No more need for Jaimie's weekly e-mails. But, gosh, we sure were gonna miss them. We were going to miss her weekly communiqué way more than friday@seven itself. "Hang on a minute," we said. "Do you think we could talk Jaimie into sending us an e-mail once a week anyway? She could just talk about whatever…" So we asked. And she (albeit reluctantly) agreed.

We on the original e-mail list had been hooked. On the one hand, she's got this flair for starting her own trends (witness her shorthand of f@7 for friday@seven) and creating her own vernacular (wickets = anything she doesn't want to name). But that's not the thing that made her e-mails a thing to look forward to… it was that she made information amusing. With a random juxtaposition of useless facts here and a uniquely Jaimie spin there, voila! People start talking (but not at the water cooler, because who has those?), and what they're saying is "do you get Jaimie's weekly e-mail? No? Well, remind me to forward you one."

Thus the weekly was born, its humble name often hiding its vast depths. Parafables, prefixes, postmodernism, historical commentary, global interactivity, a list of ten (10) things she's learned about beef jerky… until Tuesday night, you never know what you're gonna get. (Half because before Tuesday afternoon, Jaimie doesn't know yet what she's gonna send.) Mocked by some, misunderstood by others, but a mainstay among many: that's the weekly.

And there I went and did it: tried to put into words something that so very "just is" you can't do it justice with sentences. That brings us up to speed on how it started. Next? How it grew and some of the new people we've met…

Chris Fryer: Who Are You?

Jaimie had been sending out the weekly for awhile (okay, a few weeks, tops) when she did the stealing thing. "What's the stealing thing?" you ask. She "stole" a bunch of e-mail addresses out of an e-mail someone forwarded to her. Come on, you've all thought about doing something similar. Haven't you?

She has no fear about adding people she doesn't know to The List. She's not cruel; she gives them their chance every week to ask for their name to be removed (big babies). Some ask. Some probably delete it like it's spam. And some are new friends.

There are the People You Know That You Didn't Know You Knew like Bruce (who e-mailed Jaimie when he changed his e-mail address so he could still get the weekly, which prompted Jaimie to e-mail me and ask "Who's Bruce?") and Cookie Magoo* (Jaimie was actually the photographer's assistant at Cookie's wedding - still the only time they've "met" in person).

There are the People Cool Enough to E-mail a Stranger with a List About Hippies like Chris Fryer. (Truthfully, only Chris Fryer has e-mailed Jaimie with a list about hippies.) His address was one of the ones she stole. Not only was he brave enough to not ask to be taken off the list, he had the gumption to e-mail Jaimie that list about hippies. Incidentally, when I saw his name on a separate e-mail list that Jaimie & I are on, we started the process of finding out who this Chris Fryer guy was and how he made it on The List. Turns out he's a friend of a friend of a friend.

There are people in fictional places like Argentina & Australia (Yo, Let! Hiya, rowan!) and then there are people in very real places like Montana (Hey, Linda & Rick!). There are people who get the weekly in hard copy from people kind enough to print it out for those without e-mail (their names usually start with "D"). And there are those who made an effort to get connected to this thing called "being online" so they could receive the weekly. We like those people.

Now you have it: the history, the here and now. Where it goes? We wait and see.

* Cookie isn't her real name, y'know.