A Day of Tagging and A Clone's Revolt

Dear Writing About Writing readers,

This is Chris Brecheen.  I am taking today to continue the long and arduous job of tagging all these old entries.

At this point I am also doing this to keep myself busy, so that I don't have to think about two e-mails I got this morning.  The more I work, the more I will not feel tempted to scour writing about writing for the clone of me and do something...dramatic.  I realize we had a fairly reasonable detente just a day ago, (I was even planning on Scott-Pilgrim-style brunch with me later this week, though I doubt we'll keep that rendezvous now) but then...I'm afraid my clone went and did something....rather rash.

I will share.  Not because I want to think about this, or because I have time to spare from this crummy job of tagging over three hundred old entries, but because I have no doubt that in the future of Writing About Writing these things will almost certainly come up.

Email #1

Boss,

SciGuy here.  I think we have a problem.  Someone used the Pretentitron last night.  Besides me and Lt. Lambaste, you're the only one with a handprint that will open our lab.  But that means your clone has the same handprint.  And I don't think it was you because there's a note here that says "I can't live in his shadow.  I have to be my own person.  I know I'm not supposed to get jealous of the fact that he has my life, but I do.  So I need to make my own life.  I need to be my own person.  Tell me I'm sorry."

I thought it was a fairly big clue.

The Pretentitron is way to complex for him to do a whole new personality matrix.  I don't mean to insult...uh...you, but he would need six PhD's in various biological sciences, like I have, to be able to work it at that level.  However...there was a preloaded overlay, and it wouldn't take much to figure out how to upload that to an existing matrix.  So...it's possible that your clone has a strong affinity for something that you find repugnant.  I know what that thing probably is, but I really don't want to mention it over email.  Please call me ASAP.

-Thaddeus Guy


I haven't called him.  I don't need to.  I already know what's going on.  There was a second e-mail in my inbox just after SciGuy's.


Email #2

Dear Chris (or should I say "Dear me" [or should I not say that in light of current events]),

I'm going to do NaNoWriMo!  You can't stop me.  I'm going to write a novel and get big before you ever do.  So screw you and your NaNo hatred.  I wish those ninjas had killed you.  

I will write my novel from your normal desk in box-room five, which is to be kept empty for me.  If these demands are not met, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur.  

See you after I'm a novelist, bitch!

-The Only Chris That Matters


So, it seems I do in fact have something of an evil twin running around.  I am bothered less by his love of NaNo than by the fact that evil twins are such a cliche.  And so I'm going to go back to tagging old entries and try very hard not to think about the pretentious version of me running around and calling himself a novelist while quoting Phantom of the Opera like it wasn't embarrassing 25 years ago.

Anyone have a stress ball I can borrow?