coven

no, I only brought it to the Coven for the following reasons:

Vetch made it her business by blocking me, and since people might have wondered why I wasn’t responding to (most) Coven posts because of her action, I felt that gave me the right to respond under that goal: I could address both those who would not know why I was no longer participating, and the person who had blocked me without explanation. After that, of course, I was also responding to Fate, who chose to address me under the Coven goal although she had blocked me and also quit the Coven (interesting, that).

Anyway, I actually do not feel responsible for the downfall of the Coven. Call me crazy (Fate already has, ha). I think it was incredibly mean-spirited of the effective leader of the group to summarily block someone when a) it was none of her business what had happened between me and Fate; b) I had always contributed to the Coven goal in good faith that it wasn’t that kind of organization.

I posted nothing unprovoked, under the Coven goal. Everything I posted was a response to someone else’s Coven post (directed at me) or to Vetch’s block. I do think a block in that situation is something that warrants a response.

So I don’t feel that I was the one who….well, I won’t be as crass as Fate was. Who put the cracks in the Coven, let’s say.

It’s not that I don’t still love this goal – it’s not that I don’t still cherish the treasure trove of posts and comments and wonderful insights and collaborative brainstorms and encouragements and all of it. It’s not that I don’t think the crew still here can’t make something of this space. Or that any member or members who have left had the power to define this space exclusively.

But this space had a special significance to me within a context of relationships that have changed now. The coven feels empty. Maybe some goals have a time and a place. And I feel like the time has passed for this one. So I’m going to call it completed.

I had to leave the Coven—a goal I started, contributed to on a regular basis, a goal that was very dear to me.

I tried to start some hippie commune in the central park, free and open for everyone, and now I have lost it. Madness has moved in and scorched and defiled the ground.

The problem is: one cannot draw a line over here. Blocking a person prevents them from sending PMs to you and commenting on your entries.

It doesn’t prevent them from joining your goals, you can’t kick them out of a team. If you really wanna get rid of a person over here—you can’t do anything but leave the board.

If I knew how to reach any admin I’d do it asap. As it is I would have to ‘walk from door to door’, meaning: sending PMs to each and everyone, begging for support.

As far as I understand the board there is a democratic decision about banning people. You report them (btw, I can’t report K. for some reason), they appear on “Neighborhood Watch” and then everyone who comes by can vote.
Folk who don’t know her crank posts, those who don’t know her at all or only know her bright and funny side will defend her.
Many others who have seen her madness in action will still not ban her.

In the end I have learned something important: I have put much time and energy in the coven-goal, but I realise things like that – things that matter to me and need goodwill and trust – can’t be realized on a board as large as 43T.

I must say, I love 43Ts democratic ways, and I like the Neighborhood Watch. But it has its limits.
I see now a board like that is not a safe place. It is not a cozy community but a large city. I love the city. It is full of life, excitement and diversity. You meet wonderful people. Sometimes though you can see s/o getting abused, kicked, mugged, on the other side of the road, and many just turn their heads and walk by.

As things are I will not start another Coven here. Those who are still interested can PM me though.

What a waste of energy.

um
“purposefully misspelling my surname in a juvenile manner”

you know very well that the way I spelled your name on the envelope was a reference to the nickname you told me you had and its relation to the title/title character of the first (or second?) movie we ever watched together, and when I addressed the envelope several weeks ago, I was still feeling some dregs of affection towards you, and that is why I spelled your name that way. I’m pretty sure you know that. If you would stop being vindictive for five seconds.

It’s so very bizarre that you accuse me of warping things and then turn around and do it yourself.

oh yes, and in response to this laughable yet libellous, hurtful, quite possibly attempting-to-defame-my-character-type statement:

Her behavior continues to escalate and we are seriously concerned that she will show up on our front porch before all is said and done. We are concerned for us, our children, and for her own safety

all I can say, really, is: Fate, you are an idiot. Your husband and I were attracted to each other mind body and soul. You’ve destroyed it, okay? Can’t you be happy with that?

You can’t have the past. It happened.

Sigh. If I were going to show up anywhere uninvited, it wouldn’t have been your front porch, that’s for sure. Thinking probably EM’s office. Don’t worry, EM. You’ve scarred me for life. I don’t really want to see you. Although you should let me know now if I shouldn’t go shopping at the International Food Market say, mid-morning on a weekday (when presumably you’re both occupied with other things??). I’m almost out of garlic pickle.

p.s. Seriously. I’m not a stalker. And since you gave me that martial arts lesson, remember, I know you can beat me up. And you also remember I told you I’m no good at sparring. (let’s just try to forget your comment about me and Fate wrestling in Jell-O … hey, Fate, would you consider that a “physical and sexual advance”?? Oh never mind.)

I never said I disliked verbal sparring, however. Love it, actually.
Peace out

“turned your 43T friends against you” ??? How so? You’re the one who got Vetch to block me. Kind of the pot calling the kettle black, there, aren’t you?

Your self-serving, snivelling, cringing, martyred description of your own behavior during all of this, especially during our phone conversation, is sickening. I don’t think you let me finish a single sentence during that entire conversation. When I asked you to stop interrupting me, you screamed at me that I was criticizing you. When I disagreed with you, you screamed that I criticize everything you say. When I suggested that we stop and resume later when we both were calmer, because all you were doing was screaming at me, your response was, “Oh yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d get to be the victim then, wouldn’t you?” Ah….yes, I’d have liked to have a conversation with you in which you weren’t screaming your head off. And when I replied tiredly, “Fine, then,” and you resumed your screaming, I don’t even know half of what you said, because for about five minutes there I was just holding the telephone away from my head, staring at it as your shrill voice lashed its way out of the receiver, wondering what it was you possibly wanted from me, other than that I suffer.

I guess that’s probably when the friendship ended for me. You apologized for yelling at me? You think that makes it all right?

I only make apologies when I well and truly mean it. I guess that’s why I haven’t apologized for any of this. I did ask you if there was anything you wanted me to say, and you said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Um…concerned? Oh yeah, you were so concerned about me. You know what, Fate? You’re full of it.

And, um, I had both of you blocked when YOUR HUSBAND ADDED ONE OF MY NEW GOALS SO THAT HE COULD TALK TO ME. WHICH IS WHAT GAVE ME THE IDEA TO ADD THAT GOAL SO THAT I COULD ATTEMPT TO ANSWER YOUR UNFAIR TREATMENT. Oh, yes. I do think it’s unfair to profess love to someone and then four days later tell her, in an email, to have a nice life. And I dare anyone to argue that “wailing” about that in all of the ways I have done is “psycho.” Really.

Yes, I responded with my last plea for a phone call (not for EM to apologize, are you out of your mind?) because I wanted and thought I (and well all of us, for that matter) deserved to be able to lay the whole thing to rest at least in a conversation.

Come on, the man said he loved me and then four days later refused to talk to me.

Can’t you just be satisfied with that, Fate? Did you really have to pressure him never to speak to me again, except about cabbage?

One thing I don’t do well is pretend that things haven’t happened. I’ve been asked to swallow too much b.s. in my life for that. Yours is just another clod for the-scrapbook- dungheap.

anyway…

as far as crying for a month goes, and dealing with all your ridiculously callous treatment and insinuations and allegations, do you know why I can take all this crap? Why even if for some reason the lot of you managed to convince the known universe that I really am some kind of crazed psycho and you had the authorities try to cart me away while I was screaming and clinging to the doorjamb?

Because love is love. Even if it only lasts for an instant. And love is what it’s all about, sisters and brothers.

<[; )

and oh yeah, humor in the face of adversity: I highly recommend it.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Hunter Thompson, God rest his weary and immortal soul

oh yeah, um, I was going to mail you back your cds you lent me and that other book, but if that counts as “harassing you through the U.S. Postal Service,” I suppose I can just donate them to Goodwill.

Unless there’s someone on 43T who would like a bunch of lectures on Russian Literature and some middling science fiction.

you also broke my heart and now you lie about it.

You wanted things to go back the way they were??? Um, that’s why you blocked me on 43T and I got an email not from you but from EM that you had decided “for Fate the friendship as far as hanging out is concerned is over” ?

You know that’s what provoked part of my wailing. You know that’s why I wrote on your book, “Nothing I did was ever feigned – no affection, but only indifference, which I failed at.” You know I loved you too, even if I am so flawed as to have still all of a sudden blurted out to EM that I sure did enjoy his company an awful lot more than I was supposed to.

Your husband consulted me before he told you what had transpired (in WORDS) between the two of us. I could have said, “Hell no, don’t tell her! Never mind, I’ll deny everything. Don’t tell her!” But I trusted his judgement better than my own (ha, story of my life). If I’d wanted to sneak around behind your back that much, believe me, I’d have had a better plan than this. I’d have had a plan !

Sorry dear, but this was just pure unmitigated stupid passion boiling over in quite an idiotic way.

Last time I checked, that’s hardly psychotic.

Fate, I can’t help but laugh at your half-truths. There are so many inaccuracies and omissions in your self-righteous account that I hardly know where to begin. If there’s anything I say now you’d rather have kept private, know that it’s provoked by your ridiculous post about me. I’m not a dangerous person. I do abhor lies, though, and attempts to pretend that the past never happened. If the truth hurts you, then I suppose in that sense I am.

As for the poetry, it is the only thing that does keep me from more suffering than I know what to do with. It is what I do with emotional pain. You inflict pain on me, I inflict poetry on you (& this goes for Vetch, too, who seems to think it matters if she unblocks me NOW. Yeah, um, day late, dollar short, coven mama.) Seems to me you still get the better deal, but what do I know. Sure, I could keep the poems to myself, but everybody could have kept many things to themselves and everything would have been much calmer, then , eh?

If repeatedly begging for a phone call instead of just an impersonal email to end a friendship/short-lived bit-more-than-friendship (oh, your inconclusive and deceptively-cordially-ended screaming diatribe at me was supposed to count?) qualifies as harassment and child endangerment, someone ought to notify the authorities, but they’re going to be pretty surprised.

This is hardly fair:
“And in her emails and pms to my husband, she started getting very suggestive, and soon turned to making outright physical and sexual advances.”

Um, I have a pretty clear memory of the email exchange that happened before he told you what was going on and that’s not an accurate description of how it went down. You’ve left out the things EM said to me, but perhaps he doesn’t really tell you everything or perhaps you’ve decided to forget. If it holds your marriage together to rewrite history so that I am some psycho woman, have fun with that.

Yes, I fell in love with EM. My first email to that effect was unpremeditated and pretty damn vague, and although you might not like to think so, your husband responded a couple messages later with more specificity. For example, if he told you everything, then he told you he also told me he “wanted to get me in the sack.” I’m pretty sure nothing I ever said to him would qualify as more of an “outright physical and sexual advance” than that. Which, again, is why on some level all of this is so bizarrely laughable to me. The way you’ve acted, you would think we’d had sex on your bed.

If he told you everything, he told you he also told me that he loved me. And various other things precious only to me, but which made it more painful when because of your vindictiveness (well, tradition is on your side, after all) he realized the only solution was to shut me out, regardless of how much this might summarily hurt me. And did I “wail” at that point? Damn straight I did. I cried every day for a month, too, and counting. I resurrected the whole “soul mate” discussion with my fiance who, long-suffering good man that he is still “just doesn’t get romantic stuff.” He knows how messed up I have been about all of this. He thinks I was incredibly stupid, but he forgave me. He doesn’t like seeing me suffer. I guess that’s one reason I didn’t want to leave him to be a “clone” of you, Fate. One reason. (Jesus Christ, Fate, if you want to befriend someone, for one thing, never assume she’s a bloody clone of yourself).

You two asked me repeatedly in email and chat if I meant to leave my fiance, and I told you repeatedly in as many ways that I did not want or intend to leave him. After you two finally accepted this was when, as far I could tell, your feelings toward me changed. After that chat, EM sent me an impersonal Dear John email which actually contained a phrase similar to, “We wish you the best in life and hope we can find that third person we were looking for and had hoped was you.” Forgive me if it sounded to me like, “Have a nice life.” Forgive me if I fired off an agonized email to him (well he was the one who wrote me, after all) calling him a fool and upbraiding him for emotionally turning on a dime like that.

As far as anything you told me, Fate, your anger at me was because of that angry email I sent, and not because of all this other (granted more predictably traditionally wrath-incurring) supposed transgression.

So get off your high horses, you hypocrites.

.