I did a dumb thing recently

by Virginia Montanez

Photo by Laura Petrilla

 

I confused my personal Facebook with my PittGirl Facebook. I don't know if you use Facebook, but when I made this mistake, my real picture and real name showed up next to PittGirl's words for more than 800 people to see. That's right, after four years of hiding and covering my virtual tracks, I temporarily outed myself.

This is the part of the story where I dodge the anvil of irony about to fall on my head. When I realized what I had done and saw my name and my face squatting in cyberspace, glaring at me, mocking me for my mistake, I was unable to do anything but stare at my computer screen and mutter really bad words over and over again.

My brain blew a fuse. I stood up. I sat down. I stood up, spun around (because that's what my brain told my body to do) and then sat down again. I understood wholly where that chicken-with-its-head-cut-off analogy came from because I was doing a darn good impression of one. In between the time I made the mistake and the time my brain finally agreed to tell me how to delete the mistake, perhaps only 10 minutes had passed.

In the end, the damage was minimal, with only a few people learning my identity, but those fretful hours of worrying caused something to shift inside of me just enough to make room to let the exhaustion in. Four years is a long time to hide, and I haven't done a perfect job of it. I've slipped up on more than one occasion. How long until I once again chop off my own head and run around the room flapping my wings screaming, "Delete!"

I was anonymous for professional reasons, but that didn't stop me from taking criticism from some in the mainstream and social media. I was accused of being a coward, or as one journalist hinted at - a cockroach flitting away once the lights were turned on. As much as I value my anonymity, I'm giving it up. It's time.

My name is Virginia Montanez. As I indicated as PittGirl, I am a 35-year-old marketing and communications professional employed by a nonprofit; I work downtown; I hate pigeons; I love Zima; I wear high-heeled boots; I can't carry a tune; I love our sports teams madly. Those things are all true, but there are things about me that I never shared with my readers: I've been married for nine years now and I have two young children. I'm not a celebrity. I'm just a girl who loves Pittsburgh, and if I can, I will spend the rest of my life writing about it.

I'm going to stand beside what I wrote the past four years, and to prove it, I posted my entire blog archives at theburghblog.com. It's all there.

I hope that with the cloak of mystery gone from PittGirl, you will come to see that my words remain just that - my words. I'll continue being snarky and sassy with finger-wagging, fist-shaking indignation. I'll take on anyone who needs to be taken on, including Mayor Luke Ravensthal and his hilarious penchant for saying, "Move forward."

With my identity known, I'll be waiting for that first time I come face to face with Lukey again, wondering if he'll find it all a bit amusing, if he'll be angry, and if he'll try with all of his might to swallow every utterance of "Move forward" that desperately tries to escape his lips.

Tell us what you think about PittGirl's Reveal!

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PittGirl Rants/Raves

Rant:
I couldn't hate Windows Vista more if it reached out of my computer monitor and slapped my face a couple of times before flipping me the bird. Where is the team of trained monkeys that designed an operating system so flawed that you no longer fear, but instead welcome with open arms, the blue screen of death? At least then you'll have a good excuse to beg your boss for a Mac.

Rave:
After paying for my day's parking ($15 - sigh), I accidentally left my paid parking stub in the pay station and didn't realize it until I climbed five floors to my car. I returned to the lobby expecting to find that some 'Burgher likely took the paid ticket to use for him- or herself, but the attendant told me a man turned it in to the office. I don't know who that honest 'Burgher was, but I love him. A lot.