A form letter for Kate: the Dump-O-Matic

With our hectic schedules today, we here at Rorybowman.com appreciate how important your time is. Talking to people or dropping a card can be hard, we know, so we’ve developed this new version of Dump-O-Matic 98. In combination with Microsoft’s Pencil Wizard we think you can quickly and sincerely communicate your deepest feelings to those you once loved (or perhaps loved under emulation). Just check the boxes below which apply and drop it in the mail today. A self-addressed, stamped envelope is enclosed for your convenience.

Please note that, for cross-platform compatibility, we have not included punctuation.

___   My best beloved
___   My once-beloved
___   Dear Rory
___   You fucking shithead

___   I am sorry I haven’t written but
___   I’ve been very busy with school
___   I’ve been very busy with work
___   I’ve been busy with new disposable friends
___   I’ve been dealing with emotional issues
___   I just really can’t be bothered
___   I can’t distinguish you from your dead brother
___   I’m afraid of you for reasons I can’t articulate
___   I’m afraid of you for reasons I won’t share
___   Marti told me not to
___   I never really gave a fuck anyway
___   I’m more comfortable with dead people
___   Who the fuck are you to complain that I haven’t written

When months ago I said that I wanted to play “for keeps” I was

___   a naive little twit who didn’t know what I was saying
___   enacting my own gender stereotypes about respectability
___   under the influence of hormones
___   grossly mistaken about who you were
___   suffering from romantic delusions
___   fooling myself
___   just kidding

___   Sorry that you believed me

I think that we should have

___   never slept together
___   never moved in together
___   just kept things as a sweet 3-week fling
___   just kept things at a sweet 3-month fling
___   taken time off after Marcus’ suicide
___   killed Marcus ourselves
___   moved to a different house
___   killed ourselves like in that Shakespeare movie with Leonardo

Right now I need

___   space to figure out my own feelings about Marcus
___   space to figure out what the hell happened to my identity
___   space to process Reed
___   space to figure out my feelings about you
___   time to figure out who I am
___   to find someone who wants to impregnate me
___   time to finish school
___   another dodge

I hope that I can

___   talk in person with you soon
___   send a more detailed letter soon
___   talk by phone with you soon
___   touch base with you around (insert date and year): ____________________
___   see you in some public place or perhaps at a party where we can visit
___   live my life without any further contact with you
___   visit you only at Samhain across an empty plate
___   forget I ever knew you

I would like to

___   see you once or twice a year
___   see you every month or two
___   talk to you by phone every month or two
___   talk with you by phone once or twice a year
___   exchange birthday cards and such once or twice a year
___   forget I ever met you

Right now I need to

___   get this in the mail
___   go to the bathroom
___   other: ___________________________________________________________

___   I love you
___   I’ll be in touch, I promise
___   Fuck off
___   I want you dead
___   I’m so very sorry

Personal journal entry from 19oct98, following the meeting wherein Marti Dell threatened a bogus restraining order and Bowman advised her that involving the legal system was an escalation to lethal force and one that should not be taken unless Carter was at a point where she was ready to kill me or see me killed. The context for this conversation was a June promise by Carter to exchange letters by my birthday in early October, which Dell had apparently discouraged. I had been awaiting Carter’s letter to write and send mine, formally closing the romantic period in our relationship. As part of counseling for depression triggered by the death of my brother Marcus, I was addressing an overwhelming sense of failure, and trying to bring loose ends such as the formal, final exchange with Carter to a close. Most of my other journal entries at this time are very much “one day at a time” about the challenges of simply staying alive within a major depression. SMP is a friend who was caring for me during this time, who had introduced Marti Dell to Kate in the first place.

Your pompous lawyer
threatened me with paper
as if paper could stop me
when I daily pray for death.

Well, it can,
one paper:
your letter.

Met with Marti last night about Kate and she was pompous, heavy-handed and unskilled, getting angry with me and grossly miscalculating where I was and what I was about. Marti is neither a skilled negotiator, nor very smart. Kate has many problems, but they don’t come from me, and Marti had grossly miscalculated where I am.

Marti immediately took issue with my attitude, asking me why I felt I deserved a meeting, then implying that I wouldn’t get one if I didn’t cave and kiss her ass. I explained that I could force a meeting (holding back that it could be at any time and circumstance I chose) and she said she could file a restraining order. I shook my head and chortled, telling her that she had no basis for an order and asking her where she thought such an action would go. I told her that false accusations to invoke the police were an immediate escalation to lethal force, explaining that she should only file one if she was ready to kill me, because anything short of my death assumed my cooperation.

Marti is a pompous, self-important, meddler. Old, ugly and jealous, she is making herself more important to this than necessary, keeping Kate from mailing letters that she wanted to. We were able to negotiate a postal-letter exchange, which I think shall be a good thing. That will take Marti the fuck out of it, and oh, how pissed off she was at my “cc” of our exchange to Kate! SMP stayed afterward to explain to Marti that Kate wasn’t the one in danger and that it was in no one’s interest to pretend that I was like my brother. I am, Sarah said, emphatically not, and my death would serve no one, Kate included. In many ways I think my death would be simpler and easier for Kate than my life: death she knows. It sure as shit would be easier for me, but blah blah blah.

No death today.

What a pompous twit.

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 21:30:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: “Rory Bowman” <rbowman@reed.edu>
To: Catherine Lynne Carter <ccarter@reed.edu>
Cc: Marti Dell <mdell@hevanet.com>
Subject: FYI 1: Marti to Rory Re Kate (fwd)

I don’t know what your state of mind is or what you have told Marti, but in the interest of transparency, following are the messages she and I exchanged recently. She has graciously agreed to meet with me for coffee this Sunday.  – Rory

———- Forwarded message ———-
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 12:35:12 -0700
From: Marti Dell <mdell@hevanet.com>
To: “R. Rory Bowman” <rbowman@reed.edu>
Subject: Kate

Hi Rory,

Marti here (yes, Kate forwarded your email addresss to me).  First of all, I wanted to thank you for thinking of me a couple weeks ago about the tickets. Sorry I wasn’t home.  I’m sure it must have been (at least somewhat) awkward for you to call me.  I want you to know that although I am a close friend of Kate’s, I certainly don’t harbor any ill feelings towards you.  I always make my own decisions about people. So far, I still think of you as a nice and decent person, even if you may have a few emotional problems regarding Kate.  We all have our relationship issues that we need to deal with, me included.

However, I am primarily writing because of Kate.  She called me Sunday night, very upset, because you had sent her an email stating that you plan on calling her sometime this week.  I hope you aren’t offended, but I recommended that she forward your email to me, and I volunteered to write you back.  My recommendation to you is…don’t call her.

I will quote your email message here:

> “Well, I’ve been waiting months for you to write, with no good result.
> I shall probably phone sometime this week, probably in the evening. If I’m
> a good boy, the first call shall come Tuesday evening (when I assume
> you’ll be at knitting), but I’d like to talk fairly soon.

> I’ve been good, to no apparent benefit.
> Time, I think, to learn why.”

I will be very honest and admit that I certainly do not know what the content of all of your conversations have been with Kate, and so I do not know if you feel she promised to talk to you at a certain point, and do not want to make any judgments there.  However, I also know that Kate is definately not ready to talk to you.  I strongly recommend that you do not call her this week, or contact her at all for many weeks to come.

I also don’t understand what your email means, and Kate seemed somewhat confused by it also.  How do you feel that you have “been good, to no apparent benefit”?  What apparant benefit did you expect to receive? What have you been waiting for Kate to write to you about?

I can certainly understand your frustration if you feel that there are issues you need closure on, and that you may not have gotten that closure.  I have certainly had that happen in my life, and recently too.  However, you also won’t get closure (or any answers at all) if you push too hard.

Rightly or wrongly, Kate is not comfortable talking to you at this time. She needs to be in a better emotional space before she will be able to talk to you comfortably.  This is not something you can push about, and the more you try to push it, the less comfortable she is going to be about talking to you.

If it would help at all, I would be glad to talk to you about anything I may know or understand, but again, I strongly recommend that you do not contact Kate.

Give her a break, Rory.  And if you think that you already have, then give her a bigger (and longer) break.  As I am sure you are aware, she is working full time and trying to finish up her language requirements. Working full time and going to school is very demanding, so just leave her alone…at least until after she has completed school next May.

I understand that it may be difficult, but supposedly you still care somewhat about her.  If you do, then give her this space.

If you don’t care about her, and are just trying to harass her, then definately back off.  Although currently I think you are a fine and nice person, I am very protective of my friends, especially Kate.  She is like a younger sister to me.  If I think you are just trying to deliberately harass her, to get back at her because of some imagined (or real) wrong you feel she did you, then you will no longer find me to be quite as pleasant as I am being currently.  Right now, I am trying to appeal to your good nature.  I hope it is that part of you that is trying to contact her, and which will now give her the additional space and time she needs.

Please feel free to contact me, either at work or home, if you feel that there is any way I can help.  But yet again, I ask that you do not call her, quit emailing her, and just basically leave her alone and forget she exists, until at least next May. My work number is 241-2885 and home is 788-9219.

Thank you for your time.  I hope you are doing well.

Marti

———- Forwarded message ———-
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 15:26:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: “R. Rory Bowman” <rbowman@reed.edu>
To: Marti Dell <mdell@hevanet.com>
Subject: Re: Kate

I would very much like to talk to you (or someone else with any insight as to where Kate is emotionally) if that would be okay. I’m a bit busy this week, but can adapt to your schedule. Please let me know what kind of times would be good for coffee or something. An hour or two in a public place would be ideal.

I have an Apple demonstration I am doing Sunday until 6 pm, then I wanted to go get a flu shot before 7. Would sometime shortly after 7 work for you Sunday evening?

Thanks for your help. Please give my love to Kate. – Rory