ash’s cyber friend she suspects never quite understood the issues culminating in ash canceling her subscription to her local paper. (Actually, she didn’t cancel but let the subscription expire without renewing it in order to gradually wean herself from it). When Mike, the editor, published “Musical Hot Seat” (authored by “name withheld” referred to in the copy) on the first day of the month after their dispute prompting a moratorium (which, as far as she was concerned, represented quite a statement of reinstitution), ash expected her friend to comment on the fact and misrepresent the occasion as the end of a recovery period. Of course, that would have been inaccurate. ash had thrown no tantrum to recover from nor did she intend to resume contributing letters she would soon no longer be able to read.
But concurrent with the event ash’s friend happened to be distracted by a personal matter and never saw her letter to remark upon. Meanwhile, ash wrote the following in anticipation of the misinterpretation she expected but never received which also serves as a synopsis of her response to being published one day shy of a month after Mike betrayed her only to shut her out. (By the way, ash always calls Mike by his last name, but has used his first name to protect some of his privacy.) As it turned out, the paper was to continue arriving for a number of days after the date on which she wrote this:
NO NO NO NO NO. Could I say that more emphatically? We’re not all better now. All made up. Bygones in the past. She cooled off for a month (my temperamental frequent contributor, well sometimes you have to indulge them) and now I let her back into the inner sanctum. No truce. No forgiveness. No picking up where I left off.
No. And isn’t it so revealing. First day of the new month, a letter about the same creep he let me vent at months ago, with 4 intervening pieces- called “The ‘Poison Pill’ Portfolio” on my website - taking shots at him that somehow weren’t suitable for publication. I’ve been reading his signals since January 2. No. The heat may be off of him but that leaves me out of the equation. I made no such deal, not implicitly, certainly not explicitly. Take some time and I’ll ease you back in.
No.
If anything I’m disgusted at this newest development, if it was predictable and anticipated. Everything done on his terms and now he generously reopens the gate – but just a little. And the irony: a few more days and I wouldn’t have seen it. My renewal date was last Friday; yesterday someone called asking me to do it over the phone. No, I had Randell lie. The check’s in the mail. Well, it isn’t. I’m not renewing. I’m expiring. Not canceling, which would have been too abrupt, but a gradual transition to serve my purposes. And once there’s no more paper there’s no more logged in version of the paper either. There’s just the logged out version in which limited material is available, not including – you guessed it, letters. A few more days and I won’t be able to read my own published letters, assuming I keep bothering to send them.
Nice. Bet he hates [name withheld], whad’ya think? Reminds me of the juicy information that just came out in the Libby trial: Russert hates Matthews. Administration creates and exploits intramural passive-agressive attacks for their advantage. So I get to be his surrogate when Bakke writes his smug, religion-tinged, letter-writer contemptuous, boring local citizens essays. I suppose I could keep sending Mike stuff and designate a subscriber to tell me if and when and what, though I could easily guess. As long as I don’t point out his failings! Or maybe I won’t even want to know. There’s something fitting about that notion. He’ll never realize I staged a protest by refusing to support him and his paper, that I no longer get the paper and I suppose that’s exactly the way I want it. The jackass never got how much he insulted me, severed me – but only temporarily! - to preserve his professional standing, and then lied to me at least twice as he attempted to minimize the issue (but we’re all hunky dory and copasetic now). Never got it and never will which is absolutely no excuse considering he got it enough to agree with me – before he didn’t. So how could he get why I’m taking my only recourse as anything but a hysterical over-reaction? Even some of my close associates don’t understand either. My son doesn’t, though my daughter does. Randell does only after he’s heard years of stories about my upbringing and resulting mindset. And even so at first he was worried about the self-spiting element until we worked assiduously to replace everything from comic strips to the advice column online, with alternative news sources already in place. What, you didn’t think I’d do this without backup, did you?
Due respect, I don’t think you get it either. Nothing blew over, not on my end which happens to be the end without power. I took a course of action and coinciding with this published letter it is about to be finalized. I was thinking the other day that it could be fairly well summarized as the “ick” factor. An expression I read recently regarding abortion, but it applies to this too. Praying for a born Jew to convert to Christianity. I don’t expect a born Christian to feel how close to figurative rape that is, though a number of huge steps removed from being ghettoized and jailed in Mother Russia, so isolated my grandparents never learned the national language. And it makes no difference that I denounced my inherited religion some 45 years ago; it’s about heritage which I couldn’t reject if I wanted to, and I don’t. Matulis may be an atheist now but that’s irrelevant. Janet was raised Christian but as a long-time active atheist she can relate on some level without experiencing it deeply, ie she can empathize. It’s icky. On some level he knew that but ignored it. And now he’s got his raise juxtaposed with calling Barney Frank a senator, as if in reward for his glaring error. If there was a correction I didn’t see it.
Well fuck you, Mike. You played it entirely to your advantage and are so obtuse you actually believe it was gracious of you to let me back in, as if all those submissions weren’t to taunt you, weren’t supposed to get in. Bet I’m supposed to be grateful. No. I’m cutting you off. How absolutely perfect I get one final letter before the paper stops coming.
And I’m so neurotic I couldn’t fall asleep last night. It finally registered I was waiting to hear if the paper came, or was already a thing of the past. “You wouldn’t want interrupted service,” as the lady told Randell (Mr. Cormulley). I thought it was around 3:00 the car would pull up to a screeching halt, a door creak open, a thud on our sidewalk, then peel away. A drive-by delivery by some teenager or desperate adult, no 12 year old on a bicycle in these parts. When it didn’t happen I thought, well, all right then, flipped on my bedside lamp and tried to read long enough to lull myself to sleep. Then at 4:00 it came, and I promptly fell asleep only to find this testament to Matulis’ delicate ego upon waking. Did I say fuck him? I haven’t even proofed it to see whether the “Embryonic stem cells caused Bush…” descriptor stayed in. Maybe I won’t have my neighbors return it, just hold on to the original filed away with all the others. That would be appropriate too.