h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Understood.
I asked in that way (not for the first time) to give you the chance to say what you said. In case you wanted to say it.
I do know you suffer. Sometimes I need reminding that my own kind of escapism isn't a universal cure. And it's tough to know where a welcome diversion ends and an annoying intrusion starts. So it's always good to say things straight.
Anyhow, sorry.
See you around
Pin

Well, I don't really use h2g2 for escapism, and I don't use my creativity that way either. I have a bad preference for preferring reality - that way you do at least know what you are dealing with. Most of the time the shortest way out is through, and the poems are machetes cutting the path, among other things.

I've been thinking about this a lot today, and while I actively seek out your comments on the text of my poems and a lot of them are far stronger as a direct result of what you have said, the context of them, why I write them, where I am coming from, what I am going through is totally out of bounds.

In particular no-one - not you, not my best girlfriends, not my lovers, no-one, has the right to tell me what I am feeling. They can comment on what I am going through, they can tell me about similar experiences, they can challenge me, but no-one has the right to say "you are feeling this" or "you are doing that". Oddly, those things are ok couched as questions, but not as flat statements.

Call it a boundary thing.

When my life gets tough I pull back from h2g2. I appreciate it when that is respected.

Still, I appreciate your apology.

Thanks.

B

That's fair.
I simply misjudged what you wanted.
I know better now.
I hope I haven't killed this off, because you give me a lot of ideas and guidance too.
And fun.

Killed what off?

Incidentally, I thought of you this evening, because I took "Man" to the Posh Poetry group. (I have to say they took it on the chin).

One of the poems was about seals, and I wanted to ask the writer "Can I send this to my mate Pin, who's a seal", but realised how absolutely nutty that would have made me sound!

I'll type it up soon and send it anyway.

Cheers.

B

You know what.
I don't know what to call it, but if it's still alive, that's OK.
'Prise de fer', maybe. That's what another friend (and kindred spirit?) calls my relationship with her. I got as far as finding out that it's a fencing term. Which is probably far enough.
Looking forward to the poem.

Well, I don't take combativeness as a sign of friendship, I have to admit.

I tease, and I enjoy being teased, with affection. However my dislike even slightly raised voices is so strong that I simply walk out, whether I am merely witnessing the raised voices or actually on the recieving end.

I have never thought that either debate or argument were amusing or fun. My baseline is kindness and gentleness. I may challenge, I am prone to sarcasm when angry, but I cannot see that 'shouting' and 'respect' can be in the same sentence.

Let's see how we go, eh?

Ben

Hi Ben
First, checking to see your still subscribed...

Which you are. Good.

We've been at cross-purposes recently, I guess. You said something about fairness that made me realise how p*ssed off you were. I'm sorry for being slow to get it.

Do you want to talk about polishing Lee? This time, it's important to me how it's approached. I really want this one to establish the precedent of an EG-Entry (the other one's picked) being linked to an alternative Entry.

I was pissed off. Still finding it hard to let go, which is unlike me. To be honest I think it all goes back to a throw-away in one of your emails over a year ago when you said something to the effect that I shouldn't get so worked up about a silly affair. The problem being that the relationship in question was and will remain a defining one for the rest of my life.

Now I have got that off my chest - yes - let's talk about Lee.

I'll polish it, but you have the fight. I am done fighting the Italics. I have spent too much of my time on that particular silly activity to want to spend any more time on it. I'll polish it using the UG Eds' a/c, (if I can remember the password - I'll sneak in and change the skin to Brunel and wind up the !). That way it is as permanent as anyone who is not an Italic can make it.

But it is your fight, not mine, and I am not going to get involved in it.

Did you GML it? Is it spelled correctly? And what about the quotations from the song?

Regarding the quotations - if you want me to slap the separate sections onto either one page or separate pages and store them on my site I am happy to do that. However I would want the permission from the copyright holders - not for me, but to cover our ass with the Italics.

Long and short, is that I am happy to be your amenuensis, but I am not joining in the fights.

B

I suppose I have a bit of a history of this sort of thing. I latch on to people who are superficially like-minded, and then fall out with them by prescribing my own medicine. I guess there are degrees of egocentricity. Perhaps rest-of-the-world-switch-off as an ultimate defence mechanism is a bit strange, but that's just what I do.
I've sometimes wondered what I'd really feel like if I lost my wife, but we're so alike in this respect that there's a kind of unspoken pact of dispensibility. It clears the way for much else to flourish. There's no clinging.
Early in our relationship, nearly thirty years ago now, she left me a note after some trivial catastrophe that said "Act like a dog, think like a cat". Something clicked into place when I read that.
But it can also go too far, such insularity. That's what a lot of Seven Years On is about. Yet in the end I fear emotional surrender much more than I fear frigid entrapment.
Then I see people like you, who not only lead with the heart, but who apparently grow through the experience. It both fascinates and scares me, frankly. That's why I sometimes give that kind of stupid, self-contextualised advice.
Well, I thought it all needed some explanation, rather than an endless stream of plaintive apologies. We either move on, or we don't. One last sorry-for-the-past, then :

Loud and clear on Lee and the italics. I expected you'd say that, and I can hardly argue in the light of the foregoing. Spoken like a true seal, there, Ben.

The quotations need excising, or at least cutting back to a brief core that both retains the punch and makes the nod to Fairport. Those are the two objectives there. Thanks for the co-hosting offer, but the piece wouldn't stand fragmentation.

Paraphrasing is a possibility, but when I've thought about it I've noted three things :
- same device is used later, in the walk from the cell (that's why there are what might seem like clunky references to heels and life's sweet hum and suchlike. That's all alluding to Part VII, the Hanging Song)
- much of the substance of the quote is duplicated in the 'Reverie' section
- the headache allusion would need to go in at the beginning if shifted. That would mean messing about with Trout's bit, and I don't want to do that.
The only thing that Fairports' words really add to the overall story, then, is a few grains on the Lee-did-it pan of the scales through those menacing night-time images at the end. That's where the core of this lies. Those are the last lines that it probably needs boiling down to.

I guess it's up to me to redraft, then? Your suggestions would be more than welcome, though. You know all about getting too close to own-writing, and I need crit for just the same reasons you do.

Hey, the Weddell-Cat needs coffee. Life goes on. You're cool, Ben. And I'm marginally cooler when I remember not to be earnest. See you around.

Pin

Do you know, I haven't a *clue* what you are saying in the first section of that post?

I am pretty cool with that, though, and appreciate the thought that has gone into it, and the engagement with the situation. I don't really need to understand the result.

I am a great believer in permit the process and trust the process. Hence my preference to go through stuff, rather than around it, I guess.

Time for the thing.

Regarding Lee - you do the hard work, and I'll add the blob. I'll take a look at it if I get the time and headspace, but I make no promises.

Take care, you mad, bad, smelly, fish-breathed thing, you.

B

Hi Ben

One of these days, I'll explain that stuff better. It makes sense in this head, but then so does other stuff that induces jaw-drop in the general populace.

For now though, I've redone Lee, the offending copyright-breaching bit. I'm not sure that it's exactly finished, but the style and message seem right.

Trouble is, I'm finding it nigh-impossible to stand back off the damn thing any more. Could you take a look, and let me know if you think it's blobworthy?

Pin

I'll take a look.

B

Hiya Pin.

I have started polishing Babbacombe Lee, and the first cut of the polished gem is here: A3142027.

I have sorted out the GML, and tidied up some very minor punctuation things.

I am not sure about the layout though. You / Trout had instead of tags, and it now looks a bit looser - what do you think?

a collaboratrix called Ben

I think it looks too open now.
It was me who set it out like that. I don't remember why.
It would look better with single line spacing between paragraphs. Maybe odd bits (the first trap failure, maybe, where time is slowed) would then look good in contrast if we kept just those parts as they're now set out.

Trout's about a bit again; did you see? He hasn't said anything about this yet, though. The first section here is his (perhaps you guessed) and so therefore is the last bit, though he didn't plan that. Other than that, he contributed quite a bit to the structural ideas.

I really wanted this to be more fully collaborative, but the timing went off with his upheaval. We fell out a bit over it too. (See? I do it to everybody) He had some very far-out ideas for it, like a bit drawing parallels with Beckham missing penalties, and I just couldn't see that working.

The collaboration thing is so difficult. There are bits lying around all over the place now. Come to think of it, the only friend I didn't suggest some joint-writing to is boots. And the only person who treats me just like they always did is...

Oh well. A bit late to unwind time now.

Pin

There is something very odd in the way the tags have behaved.

It took me ages, and I want to understand what the site is doing with the tags, and whether it is doing it just to this entry or to others too, before I wade back in. I'll give it a few days, check other entries, check it in all the skins, and maybe ask the Italics or Gurus about the tags. I mean, what is the point of a tag, if it puts in an extra white line when all you want is a line break!

So - at least you have learned that you are not one of natures natural collaborators.

Do check out http://www.stwa.net/scrawl/publicpage.php and say Beth sent you. You'd enjoy it there - though I am not going to say what aspects of it you will enjoy. .

B