Path: cs.columbia.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!helios!tamsun!tamuts!n305bn
From: n305bn@tamuts.tamu.edu (Meredith)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Rose petals and a Summoning
Summary: For and against...
Keywords: For Meta and Kateri...
Message-ID: <2935@tamsun.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 11 Aug 91 07:31:52 GMT
References: <1991Aug10.061924.12030@midway.uchicago.edu> <1991Aug11.043835.6994@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: usenet@tamsun.TAMU.EDU
Followup-To: alt.callahans
Lines: 152

In article <1991Aug11.043835.6994@midway.uchicago.edu> moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (mary anne amirthi mohanraj) writes:
>Meta,
>
>	About kill-filing those you call the enemies...no, I can't agree.
>I really think we need an occasional reminder that there are jerks out there
> - and you never know..someday they _might_ have something worth listening to

I have a kind of Philosophical Problem with the use of kill files, but that
is neither here nor there.  I have a deeper problem with using Kill File
Magic on He Who Shall Remain Nameless...let me explain.  I have to tell a story.


Once upon a time, in a Texas Town far, far away, there lived a family of five.
The parents were in their fifties, the two sons thirty three and thirty, and 
the only daughter was nineteen...

Family is a word that can mean any relationship at all, from my preferred
usage which includes everyone I love and, incidentally, quite a few people
here in A.C., to a group of people living under the same roof at the same
time who have nothing incommon other than hair color and last names...

This is a story about an egg.  One of the ones you can order from a catalog.
You remember...they have little stands, and pretty patterns...In the 
picture there are twelve eggs in a glass case, and the light hits one
egg just perfectly, making it beautiful...magical.  It was a bright gold
filigree, hollow to maximize the reflective qualities...I remember, 
because the picture of it was pinned above my brother's desk at work for
over a month while he waited for it to come in.  He marked off the days
on his calendar...

My brother has not led a happy life.  He was into drugs for a long while, but
he beat that to a great extent...the only drug he uses now is alcohol. 
He uses it consistently, and can't stop.  They call that Alcoholism. 
It ruins your life, and it hurts anyone who loves you.  I love my brother 
with all my heart...and so, of course, being with him is hellish for me.
I know there is good, kind person locked inside of him somewhere.  I remember
it from when we were children.  Now, though, he isn't himself.  He's
nothing but the disease, it rules him.

Still, the evidence that he can change is there in the intense love he
has for anything beautiful.  A sunset, a rose...a gold filigree egg...

Once upon a time, after living with her brother for two weeks, a young
girl who worshipped her brother was forced to leave, and move back in 
with her parents.  She had gone home one night to find the door locked
against her, her belongings on the porch...no ammount of pleading could
make him let her in.  He had been drinking...and in the delusions brought
on by so much alcohol he had convinced himself that she hated him.  That she
was using him...She had never hurt so much in her life.  Melodrama, perhaps,
but he was of the same flesh and blood as she was, her *brother*, and that
*meant* something.

She took what was there and climbed back into her car, heading across
town to her parents' house.  She cried all the way there, silent tears
because she couldn't find her voice.  Before going in she cleaned 
herself up, hung a smile on her face and opened the door like she had
never left.  She offered no explanations...she simply asked to use the
family hatchback the next day, to go pick up some things she had
forgotten.

He was at work when she arrived at the apartment to collect her things.
The key stuck in the lock...it always did.

The apartment was spotless, completely clean.  The precision with
which the furniture and knick-knacks had been arranged was almost
fanatic.  This was normal.  But today there was a difference.

There was a clothes hamper next do the door, filled with her
papers and odds and ends, waiting to be taken away.  And...in the
middle of the room, lying on its side next to the catalog picture,
was a gold filigree egg.  

It was only half the size the article claimed, and up close you
could tell that it was plastic painted gold.  It was light.
The stand was bent out of shape, and part of the plastic that 
formed the egg itself was broken away completely.  But the paint
did sparkle in the sunlight...   

She began to cry.  The egg, broken and worthless, seemed to be a 
symbol for her brother's life.  Nothing was ever as good as he hoped..
Disappointments hounded him.  Yet he wanted so badly for the picture
to be the reality...he wanted so badly for something, just once, to
be what he hoped it would be...

And it failed him.  I failed him.  He wanted us to be a family, just
the two of us, even if we couldn't be family with the others of our 
own blood.  But I was never home...and when I was, I wasn't what he 
needed me to be.  I was just...myself.  Too busy, too wrapped up in
myself, to easily annoyed...he was my *brother*, and there was nothing
I could do for him, no way I could touch him and let him know that
I was there for him...

Does this begin to remind anyone of the story about the Ice Cream?
The last post of D.S?  I made the connection instantly.

My brother only talks to me when he is drunk.  Oh, he *talks,* says
hello, teases me occasionally.  But the only time he can treat me
like a real person is when he is plastered.  That's the only time
he can trust me.

So I can't use my Kill file on D.S.  I only use the initials because
he reminds me *so* much of my brother that I know exactly how he
would respond to my pity--anger, humiliation, and abuse.  I pity him
because I can see beauty and I can trust...and he can't.  I can't
think of a better reason.  I feel pity because I have so much...and
guilt because I can't give him anything at all.  If I tried, he wouldn't
take it.     

Still, I have to listen.  I don't have a choice about that.  Maybe, one
day, he'll say something that will give me a clue as to what to do to
help him see what I see here.

This wasn't supposed to be a downer post...I'm not hurting over any of
this now.  I was nineteen at the time, a whole *year* younger (grin).
Things are alot better with my brother now.  He's in AA, and we're talking.
Yes, even when he's sober.  Don't think that I posted this to guilt
anyone, though I would advise against the use of Kill Files.  IMHO
D.S. is in more need than anyone I've seen posting here in a while, 
mainly because we're talking at least.  He can't even do that.  He
isn't going to ask anybody to help him over his problems, whatever they
may be, and anybody who tries is likely to get burned.  But there's
always the chance that he could slip up, and let somebody in.

We can't know.

-------------------------------------+ 

Meredith shakes her head and stumbles out of the LoR.  With a 
rueful grin, she heads over to Meta's table.  "Sorry, friend...
Did I just flame you?"  She offers her hand.  "A difference of
opinion, Meta...Yvaude.  "No offense intended.  It was just something
I thought needed to be said.  I understand your need to protect
the Place...it's something I feel, too.  But I question whether
we are protecting the Place from someone who could do it damage,
or someone who needs it more than many who we welcome...?  Or if
the answer to that question is both...do we turn him away?"

Meredith trails off, and looks around the bar.  She notes those
in the crowd that she knows and loves...those she has yet to meet...
Her apology is directed to all of them.  "Meta is right.  They way
to kill a Flame War is to ignore it, not flame back, and if I 
have fanned the fire I truly apologize. 

"And D.S., if you are reading this, I make you a promise.  You're
not going to be in my Kill File, ever.  I hear you.  I just hope
you can hear me, too."

Meredith walks to the chalk line and raises her glass.  For a moment
it looks as if she might speak...but the moment passes.  In 
silence, she sends the glass flying into the fireplace.

Meredith has said enought for one evening.