stee called me at work last night. “I just got a forwarded email from your friend Andi… and it’s something you wrote. But your name isn’t on it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s your Don’t Date Actors entry, and according to this email it’s been forwarded everywhere, with Matthew Sturges listed as the writer.”

“Awesome.”

“Yeah. It’s your entry, forwarded like joke spam. You’re joke spam.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“But you kinda want to email anyone who ever got this letter and tell them you wrote it?”

“Kinda.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

I emailed Andi, who apparently had no idea I had written this, even though I know Jeff loves that entry and had to have told her about it at one point, or forwarded it to her in the past. (I’m sure Jeff and Andi can leave their own comments on this at the blog). But she wrote back saying she got it from an actor friend of hers who got it from someone else.

So I’ve become joke spam. And I went searching the internet and found…

Someone stole it here.

And someone reprinted it here.

I am joke spam. I have become “anonymous.”

Here it is again. I’m being reprinted across the Internet. What would you do if this was your essay? One that was cut from your first novel (It was in the first draft; I cut it for length).

I like this one because they printed it on my birthday. Hi, happy birthday, me!

Scroll down to see it reprinted on this site!

Seriously, I have no idea what to do with this information, other than to be flattered.