I apologize for the delay. I wanted to weigh it over long and carefully in my mind before I replied. There's nothing I can say that won't upset your new little "friends"... so I'll simply say I am truly sorry about what happened to you. Perhaps this guy thought you were "in the know" or "one of
those girls", and upon finding you weren't, handled it badly. Try, however, to understand that we are from two
very different worlds. In mine, apparently, falsely accusing someone of a terrible crime like plagiarism, then attempting to murder them when they protest the accusation, followed by arranging to set them up with a barely-legal girl to possibly get them in legal trouble, is
perfectly acceptable. I think a couple of heads clipped from a newspaper photo and pasted onto a pic of two nude Greek statues utterly
pales in comparison, even if your buddies disagree.
In short, I
am a victim, because every time I make a mistake, I lose a little more of my freedom. Someone comes along and decides I don't have what it takes, so they start taking it upon themselves to start controlling my own life The problem is, they don't know what they're doing, so, well-meaning as they may be, they're just making things
worse. Most of the last ten years of my life have been spent trying to recover from others' meddling. Sure, you can say all you want that I didn't build that-- it was
the roads and bridges, and a small ditch in North Tacoma... but at the end of the day,
I'm the one cleaning up the huge mess by the side of those roads. It's all I can do to keep on an even keel, much less move forward.
So if you see me having one of my moments of "clarity", as Holly likes to call them, please, please,
please tell me to stop. Look what was going on in my life in
the summer of 2003* and
the summer of 2008, when I was happily blogging about moving on and not needing ASU anymore, and know that
those are my delusional periods. I'm not following my heart-- I'm listening to someone else's dopey idea about how I should live.
"Oh, forget about that girl you were with--date this one!" "
Oh, forget about going back to school--come work for me! I'll pay you when business picks up and give you your own apartment in back of the store!" When I'm angry and bitter and planning revenge against some past enemy,
that's when I'm the most together and clear-thinking.
*Say what you will about my wanted posters, but it was that one that provided me with the
tip that led me to Dale's current whereabouts after a decade.