Ladies and Gentlemen who have read my writing;
I apologize for the extreme circumstances which have forced me to enact this change to the "Ode to the Nice Girls;" however, after freely hosting the "Ode," as it has come to be called, on the Geocities webserver, I finally determined that a permanent move to my personal site on the Pennsylvania State University webserver would be only too appropriate. I've always wanted to thank each and every one of you who have emailed me to thank me for having written the "Ode to the Nice Girls," as well as all of you who have taken some kind of offense to the article and have written me to let me know. You have all made me think and consider long and hard why I originally wrote this article; many of you have been right, I was in the middle of a horrible relationship which had only ended badly. I did not think much of men at the time, nor did I place any of the blame for how the relationship ended on myself; I was thinking only of my friends, whom men would call only while drunk or high, who would nurse a male friend back to health and never receive any thanks, who would wait all night for a phone call which would never come. And I, the worst of them all, allowed myself to be used by someone who only wanted into my bed and into my pants - and I, being the sentimental idiot I was, allowed him both into my heart and into my head. It was a mistake. But for all of you who have read my work, you understand that. You understand those dark nights when all you want is for him to show up at your door, to pull you from your own self-made misery, to wrap his arms around you and tell you that everything will be okay. I appreciate all of you more than you will ever know. However, amongst those I adore, and appreciate, there linger a few whom I do not.

I received an email on Monday, February 13th (nearly fourteen months following the notarization and copyright fulfillment of my work), accusing me of fraud: not for misrepresenting the feminine state during adolescence and young adulthood, but for having stolen the "Ode to the Nice Girls" have having passed it off as my own. My outrage knows no end.

To those of you who would take this work and bastardize it and call it your own, shame upon you. I understand desire, the wanting, the need to write and have many people notice what you have done - but you do not do this; you sit, and you write, and you hope against hope to be recognized. I wanted little more than my friends to be comforted by my writing, and they were. I wrote this piece while on AIM with my best friend Lori, who was the first to read the "Ode" while it was being written; she, drawing on her own experience, suggested the paragraph about going out on the weekends, dressing as a whore, and praying that someone will see through it. I wrote that for her. The paragraph about dropping your male friends hint after hint after hint just to see if he will notice you? I wrote that for my best friend Alaina. The sentences detailing waiting all night for him to come over, and then only receiving a call at three am., when he's drunk and stoned and wants to sleep over? That was written for my best friend Brynn. And the sentences about being the good girl, the one you can take home to Mom, the one who understands that you're not perfect, but that no one really is? That I wrote for me. And somehow, within the jumbled sentences that I arranged at two in the morning, you all found something for yourself as well. And that was all I wanted. I wanted you to find comfort. But the "Ode" took on a life of its own; it went worldwide, and when something touches many people like my work has, there will inevitably be those who seek to steal a bit of that glory, to bask in reflected fame. I enclose the email that I received:

"I believe in �giving credit where credit is due� not only because it is ethical, but because it is truly needed in this world today. As I came across a copyrighted rant, entitled �Ode to the Nice Girls� each line became more and more familiar. My best friend and one of her closest friends sat together and took their wonderful writing skills and combined them together to create this enduring ode, that many girls will continue to post and live by. For it is a tribute to the young ladies. What I don�t appreciate is the fact that you had the audacity to copyright work that is not your own. I frown upon that, knowing that society is corrupted due to people like you that take advantage of other people�s hard work and endeavor. You must learn that these two ladies, the true writers of �Ode to the Nice Girls� are ladies with morals, and respect. Who wouldn�t e-mail you to argue over the fact that you stole their work, but respect themselves to not come down to your level of disgust and argue over something that they will always know is their own. As well as the near and dear who have read the rant a long time ago. To you all I can say is, I do hope in time you learn the true meaning of respect and you help contribute to society and your own true way but not by being a fraud."

I question only these ladies refusal to email me of their own accord; I understand their friend's response - when you have been lied to, and made to think that they have written this work, it is likely that you will feel outrage. I, upon first reading that email, felt anger; however, after speaking with both my editor and lawyer and having been assured that I am well within my rights as author, I decided to reach out to you - because you are the people who have read my work, who have passed it to your friends, and have made it a world-wide phenomenon. All I ask is that you look, but do not touch - in the literary world, touching has severe consequences, and as most of you are young women, I've very little desire to bring a copyright infringement suit against you. As this work is not only certified by a Notary Public, but has been published in my name countless times, any acts of theft are considered copyright infringement. To receive an email as I had simply puts this into perspective: there are people out there who will thieve and lie to make others perceive them as alien to who they really are. As a published author, I would never consider committing such a damning crime as that with which I have been falsely accused; however, it is obvious that these ladies do not understand the literary world. However, as I have said, extreme circumstances have caused the removal of this piece from this webhost, and the placement of it on registered web-space on the Pennsylvania State University webserver. You may find it at the following address:

http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/j/l/jlg421/

In the future, I can only hope that those who read my work, those who admire my work, leave it as such: my work. I encourage all of you to write - write what you know, write what you feel: perhaps, in time, it will replace my "Ode to the Nice Girls" on the internet circuit. If you ever need encouragement, or an author's opinion, please do not hesitate to contact me - in fact, I welcome your emails. Happy days, my friends, and happy writing.

Jessica L. Griffith
Writer of the "Ode to the Nice Girls"
The Pennsylvania State University