From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/ceb566e4-b1fc-44a7-9700-f5276acecf9d

Kevin Balmer in exhibit 202, case 060303051.

Immediately after Cate Carter’s second summons to court, I wrote a long letter on the entire thing to send out to friends who had not heard the whole story. I also sent a copy to Kevin Balmer, along with a copy of “Peacemaking Among Primates,” the book I had been reading to suspect him of goodwill. I felt his good health was ample proof I did not mean him harm, but how does one prove a negative? Carter and Balmer understand violence as worms understand the sea. I even a sent a thank-you letter to Carter’s lawyer, for being civil while he called me an evil genius. This would end peacefully, rationally and in court, so I might as well explain what my plan was. A competent billiards player will always call his shots, and I didn’t want there to be any doubts as to who I was and what I was doing.

After two years I went down to the courthouse and was told the judge was wrong. There was no simple way to “clear my record.” Had I committed any crime? No, I explained. Had I violated a court order? No, again. Was there a conviction of any sort, probation, parole or restitution? No again, on all counts. Well then, they couldn’t help me. “Excuse me?” I asked. The judge said I could get this rescinded. Not really, they explained, but I might want to hire a lawyer. I made a mental note to go re-read some Kafka.

A woman had left me in 1998, promising to contact me later that year. When she didn’t, I had tried to return some things of hers, was insulted and accused of planning to kill her. A judge threw that out and I sent two letters to perhaps make peace. She freaked out some more, and then again a few years later. Afraid that some poor idiot with a pistol might endanger someone (like himself, or her, or me) through fear, I offer to meet him, which is interpreted as a third attempt on her life. Okay, young judge, knock yourself out! A restraining order against me annoys me for nothing, but presumably makes her look very important to her friends.

I like to think that I understand a little bit about violence, and I certainly understand the limits of the law. Something stupid has turned into something shitty, and I had finally let myself get angry at a clueless twit. A daughter of privilege had used the courts against me, insulting me in a way no man would dare. Whether she is crazy or not did not matter. This needs to go away, and she should pay the attorney.

As a point of honor I gave her boys three fair warnings, before proceeding to embarrass us both publicly and in court. I don’t want to see Cate Carter. Catherine Lynne Carter has nothing to give me. Kate Carter is a clueless daughter of privilege who plays seamstress to her friends and pretends she is a designer. No femme fatale, she is merely delusional. She mas moved from pitiful to being mostly annoying. Whether she is crazy or not, I shall break our legal ties. Carter may wish to bind herself to me, but I am done.

Cate Carter’s drug lawyer has been sent a letter, explaining that she has until September 30 to vacate her previous suit and order against me. Three warnings and these blog posts are more than enough to clear my conscience for the ugly and distasteful work ahead. Having inoculated myself against some of her blackmail, I shall now proceed to saw through her legal trap or the leg it holds with a clean conscience. She is a disgrace to herself and others, and shall be shown such in public court.

I want my reputation back. I want safety from her blackmail. I want her to stop aggrandizing herself, using the court system against me, and crying wolf in a way that hurts women who face real violence.

“You do not know these northern people,” a southern general once reportedly explained to a rash colleague: “They are deliberate, slow to anger, and thorough.” I proved myself passionate and loyal years ago, and then both patient and merciful. Now is the time to be calm and clinical. Three times three is nine, and nine days remain.

Bobbie Callahan’s phone number remains (503) 228-0930.

http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/c2caa0d6-5488-4e80-a5a5-db763208aa70
http://askasexywomananything.tribe.net/thread/cadd5309-6f9d-4a7e-8e8d-f68cc09edc6e
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/6ade6ee1-ef37-4f4a-84c7-46d92c425e08
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/fa8692f1-7e81-4934-80a8-66239f2fa4a4
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/2b2ec689-57f0-4e53-8419-948901984656
http://askasexywomananything.tribe.net/thread/6f504dc0-21c0-4ef5-a89f-1466dcf61ac1
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/555af724-0e63-4da4-bd28-4cfa2a3281b2
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/8cf65f99-d9d6-4898-845a-e5d6e27328d2
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/7c937de6-6148-468d-9636-243a6bcee4ba
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/ef1ac182-6ffa-46ad-ad8a-b89fb1295ce1
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/611ff089-4b89-4480-b7dc-cb3e0a9bf6cc
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/ceb566e4-b1fc-44a7-9700-f5276acecf9d

Comment from N on Mon, September 22, 2008 – 4:21 PM

Fighting the good fight, well alright Mac! Hope it finally turns out right.

From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/611ff089-4b89-4480-b7dc-cb3e0a9bf6cc

Kevin D Balmer in Exhibit 102, case 060303051.

Kevin Balmer first caught my attention when he posted a picture of himself with a pistol to a masculinity group on Tribe called “Shiva’s Circle.” This caught my eye for two reasons: (1) it seemed very un-Tribe-like and (2) I have huge judgements about people who think that guns are somehow cool, manly or funny. Looking at his profile I saw that he seemed a preppy poseur musician, but he had skills in GIS (a specialized kind of computer mapping system) and was working on a project with a former colleague of mine. I decided to hold judgement on the assumption that he was just naive. A white boy from Canada could naturally be drawn to guns and faux masculinity in the states, as surely as wiggers are drawn to rap music. The pistol avatar went away shortly thereafter and I did not think of it again for a week or more.

Having been on Tribe since November and sending feelers into “the community,” I was pleased when I received my first “invitation” from Kevin in late December or early January. Relatively new, I did not understand exactly how they worked, but it was an invitation to a screening of a documentary about a project of his called “The Diggable City.” I had heard about this on community radio, and knew one of the people who was listed on the web site, a tech writer who had been very kind to me when I was just getting started in the autumn of 1999. I was the third person to RSVP and was a bit surprised when (within twenty minutes of my reply) Catherine Lynne Carter was the fourth. When within an hour Heavee Kevee’s avatar changed back to the one with him and the pistol, I assumed that something was up. Looking a bit harder and attending the screening, I decided that he was as foolish as Cate Carter was crazy, left Tribe shortly thereafter but decided that it would probably be better to more formally check out.

My assumptions about Kevin Balmer were fairly simple. First, I assumed he was young and naive, to post pictures of himself with a gun on the Internet like some Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold wannabe. Secondly, I assumed his change of avatar was somehow trying to send me a message, “don’t mess with me” bravado that reinforced my first assumption. Thirdly, I assumed that Catherine Lynne Kate Cate Invisigoth Carter was telling him stories about me designed to garner attention and perhaps make him feel more manly. Naive young men who are trying to act manly can be dangerous, so my fourth assumption was that he might somehow consider me a danger. On one level this was funny, and the sort of bitter psychological justice that makes me sad but pleased with the world. If a crazy girl wanted to make a skinny boy feel manly by protecting her against phantoms, it would serve both of them right. On the other hand, I had just seen the 2004 elections, and felt strongly that fear was a corrosive force in our nation, and led toward fascism. Lest my withdrawal from Tribe be interpreted as a tactical advance, I decided to contact Kevin Balmer so that he would understand that there was no danger. Fearful and stupid people with guns are a bad thing, so I hoped to insert myself just enough to reduce his fear. But how?

Cate Carter was clearly not well, and should not be contacted. Kevin Balmer might live with Cate, and so should not be contacted at home. An email or postal letter might be misinterpreted (again) so I googled Balmer and decided that the single, least threatening thing I could do was to meet him in a public place in a non-threatening manner. Teh Googlez, they told me that he worked in NW Portland, so I swung by one afternoon and asked about him at the desk. If I wanted to send flowers to someone, I asked the reception desk, which building should I choose? “What is her name?” they asked. “Actually, it’s a him.” The receptionist gave me the building and so I decided to meet him there.

To guarantee that the letter I sent would not be intercepted, I asked a friend who lived near Balmer if I could use her business address, and sent a registered letter which he himself would have to sign for. So that he would expect the letter I decided to meet him in the least threatening way I could conceive of, as he arrived for work on a public street on a weekday morning. On the morning of Friday, March 17, 2006, I parked on the street outside of Consolidated Freightways and watched for about an hour as people arrived for work. Seeing Balmer, I approached him as he headed toward the building, introduced myself and gave him my card, explaining who I was. A letter would shortly be arriving at his house, and Kate apparently trusted him, so I would trust him as well. I was no threat, and so had left Tribe. If he would review the letter and decide what to do with it, I would appreciate it, and would also be available for lunch if he had questions. The entire exchange took less than two minutes, and I immediately made notes. If he or Carter wanted drama, I was innoculating myself, or so I thought.

My response, upon being approached by a strange man in a parking lot, would be to consider what he had said and if it made sense to me. Balmer, being Balmer, called his woman. Carter, being Carter, went for the self-serve apeshit. A few days later the nice sheriff arrived at my workplace where, in front of an employee, I was served a subpoena and restraining order. Claiming that she was in fear for her life, Carter brought me into court with a criminal-defense (cocaine and pot) lawyer, who painted a sordid tale of an evil genius who was upset over the death of his brother and so wanted to hunt down Carter for whatever profound insights and emotional closure I could give him. I was a very smart and creative person, he explained, who would use my nonexistent master’s degree in women’s studies and status as a former elite commando to find Cate Carter’s boyfriend and cleverly manipulate him to somehow get at Carter. As evidence of my agitated mental state, he read an oblique reference to Carter’s drug use and implied that I had been using illegal drugs, which made me unstable. Not wanting at that point to embarrass Carter I foolishly answered the questions in a way which did not impugn Carter. The woman was physically trembling in my presence and was clearly afraid of me, so it made no sense to embarrass her further. Having never threatened her, nor struck her, nor shown up uninvited at her home or workplace, I did not see how any reasonable person would be so afraid. I was smart and could thump people, I thought: so what? I assumed that the fact that I had never so thumped someone in violation of polite conduct or the law was evidence enough that I did not do so, but the judge was young, and made the safe call. Faced with a pretty white girl, clearly fearful, and a scary-sounding man, he granted her the restraining order.

There is something called a “Karpman drama triangle,” which I have mentioned before. Basically a psycho-drama played out in unhealthy ways, the drama triangle consists of people who choose and switch between three roles: victim, villain and rescuer. I have been pulled into such triangles before, and like to think I am smart enough to avoid them. An older judge has seen these before as well, but faced with a pretty white girl, young judge stepped in. He would do the safe thing, he explained, and I could petition later to have the order rescinded. The trouble was, as I was to find out years later, it is not possible to expunge such things from one’s record. Although the nice judge was correct that crimes can be expunged, stuff like this cannot, and there is no clear process. An attorney advised me that it would probably cost between $300 and $3,000 to petition Carter again, drag her back into court and clear my name. If she wanted to fight and drag it out, it could cost as much as $10,000 or more.

Carter’s shenanigans had legally bound her to me.

By twice pulling me into court and petitioning for an anti-stalking order, Carter had made me look like a villain. Since my vocational training is in criminal justice and education, I would always be subject to background checks. Her appetite for attention had created a legal trap whereby I was not quite accused of anything, but always under suspicion and subject to blackmail. Having contacted Balmer, I was now bound to Cate.

For professional and personal reasons of pride, I had to get this bullshit order lifted, but how could I do this without more Carter? Carter had self-selected out of my life and had lost round one in Multnomah District Court case number 9907-00283. Seeing me on the Internet, she had created drama and arguably won round two with a second case, number 0603-03051. How could I stay clean and resolve all of this legal bullshit and melodrama without a third round?

Perhaps her lawyer will listen to reason, or she can be shamed into doing the right thing. Certainly I had nothing to lose by trying, and who knows? Perhaps it could be fun or funny. With my brother dead and my reputation tarnished, certainly I didn’t have much left to lose.

I had been a fool.

Pretending otherwise solves nothing.

From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/7c937de6-6148-468d-9636-243a6bcee4ba

Melodrama thrives on triangles of villain, victim and rescuer.

A woman whom I have never hit, threatened with physical violence or even spoken with in more than ten years is getting a lot of attention lately for claiming I want to hurt her. Based on a promised return of her property and two banal birthday letters over the course of five years, she has twice drug me into court where she claims to be in fear for her life. I believe she is in fear (and a lot of other things) but mostly I think she enjoys the attention. She has a long history of getting attention by feeling threatened, and there is no reason for her to change anything now. So long as clueless men want to feel protective and clueless women cluck and gather around her, she shall get the attention she needs.

This is all very well for her and her friends, but not so good for those falsely accused. The law she has used came out of the feminist movement and was part of a general goal to protect women against domestic violence and terror. The general assumption that the feminist movement promoted for years (myself included) was that one should always defer to a self-proclaimed victim, and always suspect men of villainy. Under these rules she brought me into court, had a lawyer tell demonstrable lies about me and got a young judge to grant her a restraining order, to continue not doing things I have not done. I am now tarred with the same brush as rapists of children and beaters of women, which displeases me. What can I do?

My first reaction was to stay silent and look hard within my soul. This person whom I had once loved deeply and valued more than my entire family must have special insight. I spent many years trying to figure out what I had done to make her so fearful. I was ashamed to have even been accused of such a thing, and thought that the flaw must certainly be in me. I got very angry and fantasized revenge, some of it quite theatrical, but mostly I brooded. She left me in 1998. I returned her stuff in 1999. I sent a last letter in 2003 and was called back to court in 2006. It wasn’t until 2007 that I allowed myself to get angry, and not until 2008 that I broke my silence.

In ten years of soul-searching and hard emotional work I had learned a few things and come to understandings. Whether she was malicious or crazy did not matter, because it became clear to me that both of us had been playing a script. I had committed to being the lifelong friend, and she the injured innocent. Both of these were bullshit, and far less interesting than telling truth, my truth, about what had happened. By telling my truth as I best understood it and publicly lancing the boil of my shame, I hoped to disinfect a festering wound, and perhaps provide some insight that might help others.

In a very old book called “Games People Play” an early self-help author by the name of Eric Berne describes a wide range of activities which are logical, but mostly subconscious. Out of this work grew various other theories, which have value, but one of the central things to emerge from this line of thought was something Stephen Karpman called a “drama triangle.” Huge parts of what I was experiencing and had experienced made sense within this triangle.

Karpman’s drama triangle is a melodramatic soap opera with an ensemble cast and three basic roles. For variety and to meet everyone’s needs, the roles change hands as the drama develops. This makes things more dramatic but (more importantly) interesting for the players. The three roles are straight out of The Perils of Pauline: there is a victim (classically a pretty white girl), a hero (Dudley Do-Right or equivalent) and a villain (Snidely Whiplash). I had allowed this woman, Catherine Lynne Carter, to draw me into a game I did not want to play, and my salvation was in breaking the script: a fundamental technique I had taught in self-defense. An attacker initiates their attack because they have certain psychological needs that they hope to play out through enacting a scene. One key way to disrupt any attack is to do something unexpected that “ruins” this scene. By “breaking the script” the attacker has in his head, one can quite effectively stop the attack without violence.

What Catherine Lynne Carter (Kate Cate Moonhare Invisigoth) had done was avoid her own psychological issues by substituting a simpler narrative. In her narrative she was a remarkable young woman, so beautiful and talented that men would die for her. When her choices helped create a situation where someone died, she freaked out. Overwhelmed, she did the logical thing and ran away, but ashamed of this she had to create a cover story. Her cover story was that I was a monster, some obsessed super-villain who had to hunt her down. What exactly I was to get by hunting her was uncertain but character development is tertiary to melodrama. If I was a villain, she was right to leave me, and if I was dangerous, she need never look back. Her game was to paint a plausible story of her victimhood, hoping I would play villain so that she could repeatedly draw in a series of well-meaning rescuers. And were I to accept, I could play too.

By accusing me of villainy, Carter invites me to play, only in MY game I get to be the victim. Falsely smeared in court, I could become a victim, except that the first judge would did not buy her story. Looking at my actions, my lack of threats and violence, he decided that I may have been a jerk, but that I was no danger, and so denied her motion. Playing my own game of loyal friend, I sent her a letter in 2003, and created an opening where she thought she could re-engage. When she saw me online three years after this, Carter initiated another round, only this time the story was better. Not only was I an obsessed psychopath, but I was an evil genius as well: I had a master’s degree in women’s studies, I had been an elite commando, I was cleverly using her boyfriend to try and get to her. When I decided it was not my job to dismiss irrelevancies, a younger judge bit, casting himself in the role of “rescuer” for the pretty white girl, and inviting me to play victim if I so chose. I did not.

Objectively speaking, I have certain skills. I can shoot. I hunt. I’ve been involved in martial arts off and on since I was fifteen years old. I could have killed Catherine Lynne Carter with my bare hands the day I met her, and my skills since then are exponentially improved. There are hundreds of people I could have thumped, yet I haven’t hit another person in anger since I was six. If a judge or her friends or the man on the moon wants to think that they have somehow prevented a basically non-violent person from killing a pretty white girl, go for it! Knock yourselves out. Imagine that your prayers have prevented sea monsters from overtaking Manhattan and meteors from striking the earth while you’re at it. No harm done. I know who I am, and I know what I’ve done. I also know what I can do, and what I haven’t done. What is the script, then, that Cate Carter is playing?

If you are a woman in mid-life who has not lived up to your hopes and dreams, it must be nice to have a stalker. If you have not made money, gotten a good degree, started a business that didn’t really fly but earned the admiration of a few close friends, a stalker gives you a certain panache and cachet. Yes, you can say, I have not lived up to the myth I’d set myself to be my mother, but at least I have a stalker, you can say. I would have done better, had it not been for my stalker. Are YOU so fabulous as to have earned the obsession of an evil genius? Well I’m sorry, dear. How ordinary. But you can bask in my reflected glory, and do small virtue by playing at protecting me. I like it when I get attention, you might say, and since there is no danger this is a win-win. Bullshit.

I call bullshit.

So long as people let themselves believe nonsense stories and indulge in self-serving melodrama, our culture will do crap like kill innocent people in Iraq. So long as we tell ourselves lies about our own virtue and deny the humanity of others, we increase the pain of the world. It feels great to think you are right all the time: ask any Republican. But it is a lie. “Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities.”

I am no hero, neither rescuer nor victim. I will not remain silent for the convenience of a coward, and so I break a few convenient scripts.

Let those who would fawn over Cate Carter do so, but I am done. The script is broken, and I shall not play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perils_of_Pauline_%281914_serial%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle

Comment from F on Thu, June 26, 2008 – 1:04 PM

Disengage, cut the cord, leave this chapter of your life in the past as much as you can. It seems like you are still very connected to her psychologically. Why do you need her? You can work towards the closure you need without any involvement from her. Write letters to her and burn them, have imaginary conversations with an empty chair, but recognize that the two of you are a toxic combination that can’t be fixed. And I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.

Just some advice from someone who’s been there.

Reply to Comment on Thu, June 26, 2008 – 2:06 PM

I have cut the cord, more than once, but Carter engages the court system to legally bind herself to me in ways I find distasteful. Her legal shenanigans present certain long-term problems for me personally and professionally, and this writing allows me to inoculate myself against blackmail and other things until I decide to bring her back to court.

I assure you that I am bored with her almost spitless, but I estimate it will take a dozen or so (total) of these before I am ready for the third act. She lost the first round in court, then won a second by demonstrable falsehoods. Much of this is preparatory for a third act, where much of what I believe shall be on trial. By posting this I am methodically dismantling her nonsense, and hopefully providing some insight to myself and others.

The issue is not the relationship at all, but her insistence on insulting me and aggrandizing herself at my expense. So long as she and her lawyer have legally bound themselves to me, I’m going to use the cord for something educational.

I assure you that I play a much larger role inside her head than she does in mine. It would be quite flattering, if she was a better person. Since she is not, I do this: public privacy, for my own amusement, and in the interest of learning and sharing.

Comment from N on Thu, July 3, 2008 – 7:50 PM

The way I relate to your post here is how I once broke a script of my own and it was the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. Of course I am speaking of the script where as the mother of a child that I surrendered to adoption, I was supposed to never see or speak of my baby again. It was the biggest sadness and heartache of my life and I missed my son every single day of my life for 21 years. I don’t know why one day I suddenly decided to break it, but break it I did, and I searched for him, found him, and for the last 8 years have had the pleasure of being a part of his life at last. Best thing, hands down, I ever did. Period. Of course, if he had said “I don’t want this, leave me alone” I would’ve been devastated but it still would’ve been better than never having taken that step at all. I hope you found the empowerment you deserve from the step you took and that it lends you strength to move on now. One of the hardest things to accept in life is that sometimes when you love someone very deeply and it is not returned, or even worse, mistaken for something bad, is that it is not your fault. It sounds like you are really getting that. Good on ya! Here’s to breaking bullshit scripts!

From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/8cf65f99-d9d6-4898-845a-e5d6e27328d2

Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters mourned Sylvia Plath.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time–
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

Any semi-literate American woman between the ages of 30 and 60 will immediately recognize the name “Sylvia Plath.” An explicitly personal author and literary Janis Joplin, Plath was famous for three things: a 1963 novel (The Bell Jar), her suicide one month later, and a posthumously published collection of poetry, Ariel. The most-quoted poem from that collection is “Daddy,” which famously asserts that “every woman adores a Fascist.” A poet of modest talents on the global stage himself, her husband (Ted Hughes) was widely considered a murderer by some feminists, a complicit co-conspirator in Plath’s angelic death. Silent for decades on the matter, Hughes famously published a collection of poems just months before his own death in 1998. Titled Birthday Letters, this collection happened to highlight a personal custom of mine that began when I was fifteen.

It has been my goal, off and on, to write dear friends a birthday letter every year or three. Faced with the daunting task and commercialism of Christmas cards, I felt a short birthday letter each year was a more personal and humane way to keep in touch. Beginning in a time when telephone calls were expensive and stamps did not seem too cheap either, the custom has become something of an antiquarian oddity, often marked more by its breach than its observance, but one I have pretty much followed in my own journal and twice by mail with Catherine Lynne Carter. Big mistake.

After the ludicrous and confusing embarrassment of Carter’s subpoena and lawyer-fest of 1998, I spent a few years laying low and thinking. Brought up a feminist and coming of age in the late 1980′s, I had naive notions of masculine perfidy and feminist perfection in all things gendered. Elementary-school teacher, self-defense instructor and rape-prevention educator, I had spent years believing that most men were pigs, and that many of the manliest were pigs: child-raping, wife-beating drunks and lying bullies, whose word was always suspect and especially when at variance with the testimony of an inherently innocent and credible woman or child. That Kate Carter might be afraid of me was unthinkable, and that she would accuse me of wanting to kill her and misuse a statute written to address domestic abuse seemed to me bizarre, especially given what I saw as my clear tactical and strategic skills and (even in the worst of my depression) explicit courtesy. The only conclusion I could reach was in accordance with the judge’s of 1998: if not explicitly malicious, her alleged fears were clearly irrational. Time would heal certainly heal this, or so I hoped.

While appreciating the difference between commitment and obsession I do not, as a rule, abandon those I’ve loved. I reflected on Carter over many years, and for my own health used her birthday as a marker, writing unsent letters in my journals as a way to process my thoughts and try to create meaning. Some of what I felt was anger at being falsely accused, but mostly I was sad and confused. There was some fear that she might have seen something I could not, but mostly I assumed that each of us meant well and that she had been ill-advised. I was not my best at the time of her leaving and Martitia Dell had clearly continued to influence Carter for her own purposes, and possibly for Glen Slate. Although I wrote them, I sent no birthday letter to Carter in 1999, nor in 2000. In 2001 one, a letter sent through her lawyer was returned, so I skipped a year and wrote one in 2003. Finding myself out of town for the first time since 1996, I wrote three birthday letters in one day from Las Vegas: one to a friend of mine from fourth grade, another to a botanist friend from 1988 and a third to Kate Carter. Hand-written letters seem to me one of the least-intrusive, most personable and non-threatening forms of communication possible, but below is the exact content as a matter of public record.

It may help to know that I had seen Carter around Portland repeatedly, including a period during which I dated a dancer for whom she did costumes. Twice I had been in the same house with her for fittings, unbeknownst to Carter, just a room away. I kept my distance, though, out of courtesy and for her comfort. The 2003 letter was addressed care of her parents in California, with a return address to this client, whom I knew would see her often. Having been taught by the letter-bomb incident not to use my own return address, I did not wish to risk an inadvertent insult in this, my second contact in almost five years. After the bold rashness of returning her sofa with her truck five years previous, the text struck me as rather pleasant and banal gesture of reconciliation. She saw it, somehow, as an invasive threat. When she read it and freaked out at her wealthy client, it became obvious to me that Carter was beyond silly or mistaken, well into the irrational.

—

19 February 2003
Las Vegas, Nevada

Dear Kate,

Forgive me for not writing you as promised last year, but the point of your birthday as a time to write was to choose something clear and neutral: something well-defined but arbitrary that would lessen your fear and lessen my chances to do something rash or speak impulsively. “It is a characteristic of wisdom,” as Thoreau once wrote, “not to do desperate things.”

I was surprised when [E] mentioned you were in town, but pleased to hear that you seemed well. I don’t make much of [E's] insights into your character, but I have quite literally slept better since hearing that, making me realize how much free-floating anxiety I was carrying around you for all these years. As I was telling a friend earlier this month, you are in ways the last unresolved strand around Marcus’ death, the one variable I have not been able to balance. At an intellectual level I don’t understand what happened, at a limbic level I have not been able to process your scent, and the meds have partially arrested the mid-level stuff. Although clearly I needed them just to stay alive I believe that drug use (even anti-depressants) in some sense “freezes” emotional and other development, so some aspects of my coping and processing have been delayed until I am completely weaned of their effects. You must do what you need to, of course, and I have honored that, but just an FYI: I am glad of news and that you are well. Perhaps you could find it some year on my birthday to send promised news of your own, perhaps with a picture and news of your family.

I miss you, as I’ve said, and not always as one would think. Aristotle was right in the Nichomachean Ethics when he asserted that friends are dearer when one is happy. It is the good things I would share which pang me most sharply: a book or song, some craft or fabric. I understand so much more now some the things you said of color, as this week in Las Vegus I am bathed by shining light. I think you would cream over the Franklin-Covey organizing system and wish I could share small business tips and insights with you.

Was it worth gaining our brief sexual time time together, worth losing your friendship? At the time I thought it was, and I still might if we were friends, but life is funny that way, so today I am not so sure.

I think today of Gary Snyder’s poem “Seaman’s Ditty” and a song from Laurie Anderson’s Big Science, “Born, Never Asked.”

Happy birthday, Catherine Lynne, wherever you may be. – Rory

—

http://www.geocities.com/yesterdayswine/GarySnyder.html
http://www.lyricstime.com/laurie-anderson-born-never-asked-lyrics.html
http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=356

This weekend was Carter’s tenth college reunion. I have no idea whether she attended or not, but would hope that she did not spend it cowering in some private hell of her own making.

From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/555af724-0e63-4da4-bd28-4cfa2a3281b2

A rice bowl, such as the one Carter explicitly asked me to return.

June of 1998 was the last time I spoke with Catherine Lynne Carter. She had moved out in February, we had broken up in April, and she came by in June to pick up a few of her things and see the kittens of a beautiful feral cat named Ginger. She said she needed some space and had to focus on some things, cordially promising to touch base with me sometime before my birthday in October. I told her that I would keep my eyes open for other small things of hers, and she specifically asked me to save a small rice bowl of hers into which she had transplanted for me the gift of a small jade plant.

The rice-pattern bowl, for those unfamiliar, is a Chinese ceramic style wherein grains of rice are supposedly placed onto the bowl before firing, forming small indentations where the bowl is thinner and often translucent after the rice has burned away in the kiln. This bowl was a particular beautiful example, and the first such one I remember seeing. Like the small plant within, it meant a lot to me, and the last two promises I made to Catherine Lynne Kate Cate Invisigoth Carter were to remember her birthday and return this rice bowl. When Carter failed me many months later and added insult to injury through a creeply lawyer friend and her low-rent, drive-by legal threats, I still remembered, and cared for her beloved bowl. Things meant a lot to Cate Carter, as they often do to women of her class. The ownership of things allows one a sense of control and self-delusion that relationships with authentic people does not. Heirlooms often comfort heirs because the original owner is safely dead.

I did not spend a lot of time thinking about Carter after the colossal rudeness of October and my biting, unanswered “dump-o-matic.” I had been diagnosed with a severe, episodic depression and ordered to take a medical leave from work while I stabilized. On a wild roller-coaster over the loss within three years of two beloved jobs, two major relationships and the suicide of my youngest brother just weeks after he had attacked me and I had thrown him out of my house, I was doing the months-long tango of trying to find whatever drug and dosage that would stabilize me after almost two years of talk therapy had not done so. For anyone who has not been depressed, it is difficult to describe. The closest I have come is to say that it is the exact opposite of being in love. Rather than irrational and delirious joy, though, one fantasizes about train tracks, oncoming cars and half-way trips across tall bridges. If one has the energy, that is, to get out of bed, eat once a day, or bathe and brush one’s teeth once a week. It is something that I would almost not wish on anyone, and after over a year of it and mixed results from drugs, I was not sure that even at the height of spring I would be in the majority of those who emerge.

Looking over my journals for May and June of 1999 I see that I was methodical. I cleaned my house thoroughly and boxed up various things. I wrote brief thank-you letters to people I had not seen, and I prepared a small box of miscellaenous household items to send Kate Cate Carter, including one rice bowl.

My memory is not as clear as it might be, but the written evidence suggests that I was preparing to die. Having seen the chaos that such death can cause the survivors, I was methodically trying to be polite. Borrowed books were labeled so they would be returned. Pornography was purged and rooms were put in order. Because I had not spoken with Carter, I did not know her address and so sent the rice-bowl package to her care of her parents in California. A few days later I got an email asking what was in the box. I answered and got a notice from the post office a few days later. Because I was not feeling up to it, a friend took care of the notice and brought the box back to my house. Awaking after dark, I found that my carefully-prepared package, my final promise, had been returned, marked “refused.” I was livid.

To appreciate my feelings it would help to know that Carter had moved into my house almost three years before, and that I had rearranged things to make her feel at home. My bedroom became her study, shelves of almost a thousand books were boxed. A loom took up the front room next to a large white couch of hers which I had often hated. Having spent weeks trying to reassemble this and put my house in order, this small and petty gesture struck me as supremely selfish. With the sort of poetic clarity that often strikes me, I decided that I would take a chance and see if I could complete my promise after all. Among the things of Carter’s I had was a key to a Toyota pick-up that Daddy had purchased for her at college, given to me “in case I ever needed” to borrow the truck. Driving on a warm night to the last place I knew she lived in Portland, I found the truck and drove it ten miles, put three gallons of gas into the tank and her sofa in the bed before returning the truck and leaving the “refused” package on the passenger’s seat. Seeing this as an attack on her through her property, Carter set her crack legal team into motion.

A few days later I received a subpoena, as she and her legal eagle had decided to make good on Dell’s threat from many months ago. Heading down to the courthouse for what I thought would be similar to a traffic-ticket hearing, I found myself as the defendant against not one but two lawyers, who spun a self-centered tale of woe. I had invaded her privacy, she said, and had a temper that placed her in fear for her life. Failing to mention that I had put gas in the truck I borrowed (to return her property) she explained to the judge how use of someone’s valuable property was right next door to a threat on one’s life. When the package arrived at her parents’ house, she explained that they thought it was a bomb and so returned it. The judge established that (a) I had never visited her since she left unless invited, (b) had never hit her, (c) had never threatened her, (d) had jobs that required background checks and (e) no criminal history or motivation to hurt her. He told me to return her truck key through her lawyer and to try not to be a jerk in the future. Why exactly I would have put my return address on a letter bomb is something that I wish I had asked Carter to explain.

Then again, perhaps the rice-pattern is not really a decoration, but to aid the ceramic in fragmentation should the bowl be filled with hot gunpowder tea…

Comment from M on Wed, May 21, 2008 – 10:01 AM

Oh, Rory – wow. What a whack-job she turned out to be! ( Were there any hints, along the way, that things might turn out the way they did? Just wondering . . .

Two things: I understand depression from having been deep inside it for many years. Zoloft is a maintenance med for me, and may always be. Also, I have a collection of rice bowls and cups – I love them, and am always on the lookout for more when at thrift stores. They’re beautiful as a table centerpiece with some water and a floating candle in them – throws off a lovely pattern. ) Take good care of yourself! ~ Misha

Reply to Comment on Wed, May 21, 2008 – 9:29 PM

I think her problems are more complicated and subtle than the phrase “whack-job” conveys, and emerged from a variety of influences. She lost her mother to cancer when she was about ten, and never really resolved that. Her quest for meaning and acceptance led her into some very odd places where a lack of keen intelligence and useful insight were exacerbated by over-use of psychotropics. Just as the line between a nice Christian boy and a latent homosexual can be hard for some women to discern, I was pretty much oblivious to the differences between being artsy, addicted and mentally ill.

I was not aware of her drug use, its nature or frequency, until well after we broke up. Some people are too fragile to work with psychotropics, and I think that she was one of those. Unfortunately I never brought it up, she did not trust me to disclose and I never even suspected. In retrospect I could see a pattern where she created sympathy by portraying herself as a victim, and I think a lot of what happened with this incident was that she was looking for motherly support and comfort from older, matronly women. They got to be all mother-hen and she got to be doted on: a clear win-win. I was merely a convenient foil, chosen for deep psychic reasons that I can only speculate on.

In a word, no, but then I was distracted (on many, many levels).

No one wants to admit that they misread and over-estimated anyone as much as I apparently did her. Mostly it is just embarrassing, but funny. Mostly. Ten years later.

Comment from M on Fri, May 23, 2008 – 4:31 PM

It’s never just that simple – I know that. ( I hope you didn’t feel belittled by my impertinent-seeming question. I appreciate your insights.

Take good care of yourself! ~ Misha

Reply to Commment on Sat, May 24, 2008 – 8:37 AM

Oh, not at all. I just want to be certain that I am not painting some cartoonish picture of her as vile villain or myself as injured innocent. No offense taken.

From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/2b2ec689-57f0-4e53-8419-948901984656

Too self-involved to write a letter? Select from simple, multiple-choice options!

One of the things that Catherine Lynne Carter and I had discussed in couple’s counseling was the desire to remain cordial and to examine what had gone well and not so well in the relationship, to thoughtfully process our way out and hopefully learn from it. This was something that she didn’t feel up to right away, and so promised to catch up with me later.

Cate Carter moved out of my place in February of 1998, inviting me to stay over at hers as late as April, jealously interrupted me and another woman in May and then visited my house for the last time in June, saying she would try to be in touch by my birthday in October. When she hadn’t done so I sent an email telling her I planned to call her later in the week, whereupon her creepy older lawyer friend, attorney Martitia Marti Dell of Portland, inserted herself and thoroughly pissed me off by threatening legal action. I don’t know if Dell’s boyfriend ever got the sexual play he wanted with Kate Cate or not, but I was feeling pretty dismissed and dissed after so many mixed messages. I had heard of similar mixed messages and games she had played with others, so I decided to at least have some fun and get pro-active. Having recently had some golf pencils printed up for my company, I enclosed one along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and mailed it off to Carter, calling it “The Dump-O-Matic 98.”

I had honestly hoped that the dump-o-matic would provide some insight and let things finish in a vaguely humorous way, but Carter apparently didn’t agree. She never returned the form but I heard much later that she had sought advice on magical spells to keep me at bay. Did it work? Hard to say. Taking the phone call or returning the form probably would have been simpler, but for my own amusement I reproduce it here.

DUMP-O-MATIC 1998

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 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

Comment from M on Thu, May 8, 2008 – 8:49 PM

Rory, what I mean to say is that this is just both so fucking funny and *painful*!!! You are such a smart man – blows my mind! I’m sorry things went down with Catherine Kate Cate so crappily, but we have so little control, and I *know* you’re better off without her. Hope to meet you some day! ~ Misha )

Comment from SA on Fri, May 9, 2008 – 9:40 AM

I like the dump-o-matic.
You should sell this concept to the Hallmark people.

Reply to comments on Sat, May 10, 2008 – 6:39 AM

Thanks for the kind words and yes: The sort of person she has shown herself to be is not the sort of person who should be central to my life. Exactly how this became so abundantly clear will have to wait for future episodes, but that’s a funny and painful story for another day.

So, you think I should talk to Hallmark, eh? In the interests of being more environmentally friendly, perhaps I could design a card that uses those little “select an option” wheels. One wheel on the front could adjust to show pictures of a flower, a duck and balloons, respectively. The inside greeting could also change between sympathy, holiday wishes and occasions, with a third multi-choice wheel to indicate one’s relationship (daughter, brother, parent, friend). With three such wheels, though, it would be very expensive to produce.

The original multiple-choice option may be simplest. Too much for Catherine Kate Cate Invisigoth but still sad and funny, worth some poignant retrospect. Please feel free to adapt the format for other, happier uses! With S’ keen eye for all things vintage, I see great things ahead for the genre.

From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/fa8692f1-7e81-4934-80a8-66239f2fa4a4

Marti Dell's intelligence is exceeded only by her beauty.

Cate Carter lived with me for the better part of two years, moving out to focus on the latter portion of her senior year at Reed College in February of 1998. There was the usual talk of “space” and time, including a few visits to a couples counselor. I have only been in couples counseling twice, and in both cases it was pretty much divorce counseling. This was no exception, and at such a session we ended.

According to my notes I broke up with Catherine Lynne Carter at approximately 4:45 pm on Thursday, April 9, 1998. It was in the office of Tom Talbot at 1525 NE Weidler St in Portland, Oregon. A few days earlier I had declined what would be her last invitation to spend the night at her apartment because (a) I wasn’t sure the invitation came from a place of strength and (b) some vulture named Larry had been by, leaving his pot pipe on her bedstand. I remember sitting in my car with her outside of the building where we broke up, concerned about her as she discussed her anxiety about graduating from Reed on time and expressing a temptation to join her dead mother.

The next time I remember seeing Carter was at Renn Fayre in early May, when she passed me once without seeing me and then later found me, presumably out of her mind on some psychedelic. She interrupted me as I made out with another woman, then lay in my arms for the better part of twenty minutes. After her thesis orals ten days or so later, I swung by to see her, but she had not shown up at work. Concerned she may be in trouble, I went by her apartment afraid that I might smell her body as I approached, but a few phone calls showed that she had instead fled to father in California. She asked for more space and so, except for one afternoon visit at my house and a few politely banal emails, I gave her the space she wanted, asking her to contact me for my birthday in October.

Having not heard from her as expected, I sent an email to announce that I would call her on Tuesday, October 13, whereupon a creepy older woman by the name of Martitia Dell decided to step in on Cate’s behalf. Martitia Dell was, if memory serves, the youngest child in a family that did not value her achievements. Not the smartest or best looking in her family, Marti Dell became a low-rent real-estate lawyer and was generally a disappointment to everyone. Pretentiously into the local SM “scene,” Marti was old enough and lonely enough to play mother figure to Cate, a relationship encouraged by Dell’s boyfriend: Glenn A. Slate. Slate was another piece of work and retail lawyer who wanted to engage Cate in some sort of SM twaddle. The story as I heard it was that Glenn was reportedly “psychic,” carried multiple handguns and could not live in the city because the “vibrations” disturbed him. Whether Dell was Slate’s procuress or just another SM loser, I was still willing to meet with Marti, concerned what was up with Cate. On Sunday evening, October 19, Ms. Dell showed why her job involved working with papers rather than people, and why she would probably never do well at either.

I arrived with a few possessions of Cate’s to return, and am not sure exactly what Dell intended for our meeting. She opened strongly and belligerently: I would only see Cate through her, Dell explained, and if I did not like that Dell would seek a restraining order. Having had a single polite email exchange with Cate scarcely a month earlier, I was taken aback, and basically told Dell to go fuck herself, which did not endear either of us to the other.

Goodness only knows what Dell told Carter of the meeting, and to this day I do now know if Dell was acting as Carter’s attorney, Glenn’s madame, Cate’s big sister or some sort of demon stepmother. There are some people who should never take psychotropic drugs, and Cate Carter in my judgement was one of those, as was self-styled psychic cowboy Glenn Slate. I had scant idea what the heck they thought they were doing, but I was very clear after meeting with Dell that she was a nightmare and to be avoided. Dell and Slate are the sort of people I have in mind when I assert that most lawyers are neither smart nor brave. That Carter considered them trusted friends was all I ever need know of her mental state.

With friends like that, the smart money stays away. Two-legged nightmares like that are to be avoided. Bitter and offended that Carter would not only fail to check in as promised, but send such a piece of shit as emissary, I decided to send her a faux form letter I titled “the dump-o-matic.”

The dump-o-matic would not endear me to Carter…

Comment from N on Tue, April 15, 2008 – 7:20 PM

I’m not so sure this is a good idea for you to be blogging this. It’s starting to sound like a smear campaign against this woman, who obviously broke your heart. It was 1998. That’s 20 years ago. For god’s sake, let it go, man. It doesn’t matter if she’s sending lawyers and restraining orders and blogging about you now. That’s a reflection of her, not you. Don’t buy into it. Don’t get hooked into it again. It’s not worth it. Let it go.

Reply to Comment on Wed, April 16, 2008 – 8:50 AM
I am here to be myself, in all my flaws and glory.

Do you mean it’s a bad idea? I agree, which is why I have not substantively opposed or objected to her histrionic bullshit over the past ten years. It is my considered belief that Catherine Lynne Carter is not well, and that certain psychological issues she inherited with her childhood were exacerbated by drug use and bad legal advice. She comes from privilege, though, and one of the things that privilege can give one a self-centered sense of entitlement and a general lack of compassion or perspective. I had a very hard time after she left me, mostly from exhaustion from over-work and chronic pain, capped by the suicide of my youngest brother. Carter left me because I was not well, but even in the worst of my condition I honored her dignity and privacy over my own, as a clear documentary record shows.

When Carter asked me in June of 1998 to return certain small personal items of hers, I did so, and she suspected me of sending her a mail bomb. When she emailed to ask what was in the package, I told her and she had it returned as “refused.” I then used a truck key she had given me to return a large and ugly sofa she had also left and never picked up, whereupon she told a judge that use of her valuable property was next door to threatening her life, and tried to get me legally branded in court in a way which would complicate my professional life, despite a total lack of violence or property damage or threats of either on my part. She certainly failed to mention to the judge that, for the twenty miles I put on her truck returning her property, I put five dollars (a bit over three gallons) of gas.

My vocational degrees are in criminal justice and education, industries with routine and constant background checks. By selecting an accusation that lumped me with cowardly woman-beaters, she insulted me gravely. By playing to every pretty-white-girl versus crazy-veteran stereotype, she offended me on levels she does not even understand. I don’t think she is smart or ruthless enough to have done this on purpose, yet she did. And for years I have taken it, seen her around town, mostly ignored her, and been silent. When she drug me into court again (after seeing me on the *internet* of all places), and I gave the legal system a chance to do the right thing. With fair warning and announcing my intentions, I shall do so again. There is no dishonor in losing a fair fight, but only in cheating to win.

I have repeatedly contacted her lawyer and consistently been ignored. My original point to Ms. Dell so many years ago was that human decency was a greater protection than the law, and that the fundamental power of the state was to imprison or kill. If Carter wanted to play the legal game, she had best be prepared to see me imprisoned or killed, because the message that sends is that I am a bad person who can only be dealt with through force. Bullshit.

Are you familiar with a 1964 book called “Games People Play?” Carter is a second-degree player running games such as “Courtroom” and “If It Werent’ For You” and “Let’s You and Him Fight.” Dell is fond of sexualized power games and classic Karpman drama triangles, but very inept. I try very hard not to play games, but have now begun a third-degree game of “Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch.” By calling my shots before I make them, I demonstrate my skill and regain my sense of agency. My plan has never been to look good, but to be good: Oὐκ ἔστιν ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῳ̂ κακὸν, eh?

Martitia Dell is a feckless daughter of privilege who parlayed her class position into a law degree which she pretty much uses to paper over her place on the planet and to aggrandize herself well beyond her merit. I think that right now she is selling fire places for her boyfriend’s business under the lofty title of “general counsel,” which is a good place for her given the downturn in the hot tub and home-spa sales industry.

I assure you that I am quite aware of how this shall make me seem, and I have no intention of making myself look better than I am. I am not here to make friends but to be myself, to tell my story, and to let the cards fall where they may.

Do you know the poetry of Stephen Crane? He is most famous for his stories and short novels, but a line from a poem of his became the title of a race-novel by Joyce Carol Oates. I have thought of that poem over the past two years, as I consider who I am and what I can do, reviewing who I’ve been and what I *have* done. My silence has covered craven idiocy and the failures of privilege long enough. If these people want to play games of insinuation, reputation and law, fair enough. Cry havoc and let us all observe that, in matters of libel, truth is an absolute defense. From Stephen Crane:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter-bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”

Comment from S on Sat, April 19, 2008 – 7:43 AM
compassion

Ah my friend, I had no idea what you had been going through….
I knew you were bitter and tough, but not why, not really.
I am sorry you were hurt. by all the women in your life, (including me -unintentionally) and by your brother…
You know you were in the right… they may never admit it. even if a court of law tells them so.
take a deep breath and look around you at what you do have now.
chickens, green trees, freedom, and a beautiful woman who really does love you.
I do understand the value of lancing the poison of the past. and wanting to get it down for posterity…
and you may well say F*%#@ compassion! (for them).
sometimes this kind of thing is like cutting on yourself to feel better (trust me, I’m spinning on the rotisserie of my own percieved guilt
and angst.. after losing James.. on a daily basis… funny how seeing someone else doing it makes it look so much more clear.)
My dear friend, thank-you for being there for me when things have been difficult, more than once.
and do look at all this it from another angle, and give yourself compassion.
give yourself permission to purge this from your system with your writing, don’t let it poison you again. (by giving them your attention, a fight, a focus, you give them your power )
and remember that no matter how badly the universe has treated you by hooking you up with these creatures,
you are strong, you are beautiful, you are loved.
(and you know how to make kick-ass salsa and brandied pears!)

Reply to Comment Sat, April 19, 2008 – 5:00 PM
Hurt by women? No. That was me.

I don’t feel that I’ve been hurt by all the women in my life, and both of these are really beneath bothering to hurt. At this point it is mainly my pride and that can be cleared up in court. Other than perhaps an apology there is nothing I could want from her, and I don’t think that she is capable of that. Their punishment is to be them, as my honor is to be me. At this point is just a matter of clearly establishing position and finishing up the paperwork.

I feel stupid to have so drastically over-judged Kate, but her hour of promise has passed. May both of them live very long lives, so that their worth is crystalline clear. I did some stupid things, but nothing I felt was dishonorable.

Oὐκ ἔστιν ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῳ κακὸν, eh? “No evil can befall a good man.”

From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/6ade6ee1-ef37-4f4a-84c7-46d92c425e08

Catherine Lynne Carter on the beach near La Jolla, California, Spring 1996.

He said ‘I’ll love you ’til I die.’
She told him he’d forget in time.
And as the years went slowly by
She still preyed upon his mind
He kept her picture on his wall
And went half-crazy now and then
But he still loved her through it all
Hoping she’d come back again…

(Braddock & Putman, “He Stopped Loving Her Today”)

There is a very big story that we tell ourselves in the west about the power of love and the romantic ideal. From the chivalrous ballads of the medieval romantic period through their successors, the sappy movie, we wish to believe in the eternal power of love and commitment as a counter-balance to  betrayal and death. We live and die for a sense of narrative completion and fairy-stories of love are beautiful. Love and literature give us pretty stories, and as a winter sparrow may fly the length of a great feasting hall from one door to another and out again, so are we in our path through the light. From darkness to darkness we have our stories, and it is pretty to think the stories matter. I believe that stories matter, and so I shall tell a few on myself and of a character I shall call Catherine Lynne Carter.

I first met Catherine Lynne Carter in 1994, when I was working as a security guard and she was a first-year student at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon. Cate, as she is now known, had just arrived. A privileged daughter of an alumna, Cate’s mother had been Lynne Carter, a biology graduate from 1966. Presumably it was at Reed that Lynne had first been exposed to the carcinogens that would kill her when Cate was ten, so as much as anything, Cate was arriving into grief.

The day I met her though, bright eyes and clear skin, someone had broken into the Toyota truck her father had purchased for her to use at college. Richard Carter was a man whom I only met briefly, but from seeing Cate I can imagine what her mother must have been when he married her so young so long ago. Rich was a smart man, a Vietnam-era veteran, slightly prone to paranoia but very focused on Cate. As a woman, she was unfortunate to have inherited her father’s nose, but he had compensated heavily for Lynne’s death by doting on Cate, his only living child. I’m not sure entirely what all Rich had done in his professional life, but having worked as some sort of executive at Intel, he had been shown Cate love through home-cooked meals, sending her on trips as a teenager and to the prestigious private prep school in La Jolla, Bishop’s Academy, whose most famous alum would become serial killer Andrew Cunanan. With plaid uniforms and field hockey, however, Bishop’s had done well by Cate Carter, who was talented and beautiful and as intelligent as most babies can be, given good food, care, and access to education. That afternoon, though, someone had stolen her car stereo.

My official title at Reed College was “community safety officer,” which meant I was to patrol campus, tend to locking buildings, watch for damage and keep the low-income riff-raff away from the clientele. A working-class student who had graduated from Reed on scholarship myself, my job was either at the upper end of being a security guard or in the bush leagues of community policing. I loved what I was doing and, had I seen the future, I probably would have stayed for life. It was a beautiful day to be patrolling the Reed campus, and among the many pleasures of my job was that sometimes it brought me into close contact with beautiful young women such as Cate Carter, who would sometimes flirt as I helped them or took a crime report.

Flirting is a very interesting thing among young women, and in retrospect I understand it primarily as a defensive mechanism. Attractive to social predators and unsure of their status, flirting gains them the attention and protection of the powerful. It is a kind of bonding and invitation that they habitually use with almost everyone, appearing more attractive and being more attentive and ostentatiously kind in ways that they shall eventually outgrow. At the time though I just enjoyed the flirting, took Cate’s report and made a mental note. Smart and pretty, I would look forward to seeing her around over the next four years. How little did I appreciate how that would work out…

Comment from M: Fri, March 28, 2008 – 10:42 AM

And you’re going to tell us more, right? I hope so! Thank you, and take good care of yourself! ~ Misha

Reply to Comment on Fri, March 28, 2008 – 5:55 PM

Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
Yes. It is from a book project I’ve been thinking about and avoiding for the past few years. I hope never to complete it, but the time has come to start. I’m looking forward to finding out what the ending is! I have definitely lived in interesting times…

Comment from A Mon, April 14, 2008 – 2:56 PM
Wait, are you thinking of writing a book? I was writing this morning, yup, I am writing a book. BTW – gorgeous photo!

From http://askasexywomananything.tribe.net/thread/cadd5309-6f9d-4a7e-8e8d-f68cc09edc6e

My occupational degrees are in education and criminal justice, which means that there are often background checks if and when I apply for a new job. About ten years ago I broke up with a woman who apparently developed some psychological problems and decided that I was a Bad Man ™. Twice she has sought a restraining order against me and while the first was denied in 1999, a second judge in 2006 granted one and told me it could later be rescinded. When I went down to the courthouse about this, though, I find this is not the case. At some point I am probably going to have to spend between $1-3K to find her and get an official court record that I never threatened her, struck her, damaged her property, committed any crime and whatnot. This should be relatively straightforward, but he question I have for you sexy women is this:

As long as I have to pay to bring her into court and clear my name, how appropriate is it to spend a little extra money to return a legal favor and embarrass her as well?

General discussion and responses may be viewed at Tribe.

from http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/c2caa0d6-5488-4e80-a5a5-db763208aa70

Berne's "transactional analysis" diagram from 1964.

In the 1940′s Frank Capra directed a series of propaganda films titled “Why We Fight,” a title re-used for a more recent film that criticized the US war machine. This weekend I had a brief email exchange with a friend here on Tribe who had decided to leave and so took some time to consider yet again what I am doing here on Tribe myself and, essentially, why I write. What the heck are you doing here on Tribe?

I first came to Tribe in late 2005, encouraged by one of my computer-consulting clients to present myself here for artsy types who used Macintoshes. I signed up but didn’t really do much until Thanksgiving weekend, when I joined a few groups and made a few posts, noticing that a former girlfriend was also here. She was not well (she once thought I’d sent her a pipe bomb) so I ignored her, understanding she could contact me if she wanted to visit. Instead she made a semi-dramatic city-wide announcement that she was being hunted (and presumably said more in private circles). So much for positive professional networking on Tribe! When her boyfriend invited me to a film screening and then changed his avatar to one of him pointing a gun at the camera upon my acceptance, I decided that she was *definitely* trying to communicate. I did my honest best to honor these silly, sideways signals, but finally decided that she was a clueless drama queen I left Tribe shortly after I attended (and was not approached at) the film screening. Silly woman then sued me for civil stalking in a tale that may soon be told at http://catherinelynnecarter.com (depending on her future legal decisions) so from pride I returned to Tribe immediately after the suit.

I am on Tribe for four main reasons. In decreasing order of importance they are (1) to publicly assert and defend my own character while (2) playing a game Eric Berne calls “homely sage” and (3) wasting time and (4) trawling for interesting cultural events. It is ironic that I would have left here years ago were it not for the selfish rantings of a silly, drama girl, yet here I am.

For the most part I think that Tribe functions in much the same way as other subcultures. Human beings are social animals who seem designed for village life, and social circles much larger than a hundred or so confuse us and leave us feeling disconnected and meaningless. There is thus a strong desire to create sub-groups: smaller ponds in which each of us can be a bigger fish, a sort of comprehensible and defensible psychic space. I keep chickens and the same sort of thing happens in protestantism, as flocks break into smaller sub-flocks for a clearer picking order. Pretty much every social animal does this, as best I see, and I came to do this among  artsy, Portland-based Mac users. Having perceived personal calumny, I stayed to assert my decency and right to exist. If some twit wants to attack me, let it be in public where everyone can see how I deal with such fools.

The “homely sage” angle is something that only occurred to me recently, upon re-reading Eric Bernes’ 1964 book “Games People Play.” An influential book at the time and forward, Berne asserts that there are clear behavioral reasons for all social interactions, and identifies different ways people manipulate others and the social environment to get psychic needs met. Although much of the book is about destructive games and manipulations, he also notes a few positive games such as “homely sage” where a person of quite modest success relocates to a smaller pond where they seem wise and are revered. Having received a few compliments on my insights or contributions here on Tribe, it occurs to me that I get a lot of pleasure (or “strokes”) from this, and that the positive feedback (or fights) are a pleasure to me. I enjoy ideas and their many uses, and get to seem both more and less than I am here in print.

The use of Tribe and other online content as a means to flee our personal pain and unsuccessful lives is clear to anyone who spends more than an hour or two of discretionary time online. As a child I retreated into play or nature or with my dog. Later I retreated into books and ideas. Today people go online, but it is still essentially retreat. “Retreat” can be a positive thing (as in a healing retreat) but it is retreat, nonetheless, and much of my online time is retreat in the ambivalent or negative sense: a distraction from more fundamental issues or tasks I should probably be addressing.

As for cultural events, there are actually darn few. I found the name of a neighborhood gallery I visited monthly, and have attended a few burner-oriented events I would have missed, but much of the stuff on Tribe is clique-based or about DJ’s and (what seems to me) newage twaddle. A lot of the kids who in high school would be in band or drama club are here on Tribe more, dressing up to drink liquor. In Portland, it seems, much of the BM activities are a sort of micro-scene: a display ritual in which people dress up to see and be seen. Depressing. I know that there were lots of good people in band and drama club, but mostly they have day jobs today for good reasons. Watching them praise each other is heartening in the way that watching the Special Olympics or weeknight Little League baseball is heartening. It is wholesome and good and positive and such, but it is not the Kirov or Bolshoi Ballet.

So why do I write? To show I am not alone, and that I am not the thoughtless, senseless monster that some would paint. I am neither stupid nor merciless, just here. Thank you for reading, and giving me something to reflect upon.

Comment from N Fri, March 7, 2008 – 5:30 PM
I don’t think you are a thoughtless, senseless monster and I have enjoyed reading your blog, and very much enjoyed the Tribal interactions I have had with you, through comments and messages. I’m sorry to hear about the drama queen/stalking situation and I hope it resolves soon.