April 27, 1996 (continued and stopped on July 6, 1996) (letter from L)

Dear Cynthia:

Sorry we haven't been able to get together for our Last Supper -- here
are items which i could not bring myself to throw out but i could not
bring myself to lug them half way cross country either. I still have
an Otto Muehl poster which i am keeping for my new hallway or kitchen
in NM. These items in the box all belong to Part I of my life. And i
see the majority of Part I of my life as a mere reaction to my
childhood, and more specifically, to trauma over my parents' divorce
which happened when i was 3 or 4. In short, Part I of my life
certainly had its own brilliance and vitality but it lacked an all too
high degree of healthiness and groundedness.

You were part of this Part I of my life; you and Richard and Company,
Inman Square, Amory Street, Westland Avenue, Cappy's Pizza, New York
City, FH/BH and others you did not meet. And there is something I've
always wanted to tell you: back when i was living with Rachel and had
myself a harem of 6 men (4 lovers and 2 platonic), i also met another
man who i called a love object named Stephen. Between the feelings of
love and the harem, the inside of my belly felt an opening. The
sensation was one of petals to a flower opening in slow motion (and
the flower was planted right there in the center of my womb). Some
weeks later you got involved with Eddie and continued with your other
lovers, also. You are telling me of this sensation in the pit of your
belly, that you felt this opening. I went to say I too had that
experience but before I could say anything you.tell me that I have an
intellectual understanding of this opening. So, I've always wanted to
tell you that no it was not an intellectual understanding but an
experience of the heart, soul and body to the head.

My need to tell you this was based on the fact that there were no
other women who came close to my experiences with multiple partners
other than you. And, I always wanted to know if you had any of these
openings in the womb sensations while on FH; and if Otto inspired any
such openings; or any thing came close to that opening sensation. Was
the sensation provoked due to having more than one lover and having a
special love on top of the others? I think so.

When I first met you and for quite awhile after our initial meeting, I
had seen your life as merely one who played games, lied, manipulated,
was mainstream, etc. We were in different spheres and mine was one of
honesty (or so it seemed to me). -

However, as Part II of my life came to, meaning I was more in tuned
with the day to day world, i began to realize that my sphere had not
been so much of honesty but of a lack of awareness. Your situation
with your husband, leaving him and your affair with Robin brought on
all sorts of respect and admiration for you. You emerged like a queen.
And I felt sad that I had not been more aware of the outer world as i
see this lack of awareness as greatly interfering with communications
(with you and Richard and others) and with my not getting what i
wanted or needed out of life.

It also appeared to me that your life was one of a perfect type of
evolvement - from getting your degree, to marriage, to artistic
acknowledgement, to communal awakenings. So for some time in Part II
of my life, I carried you around in an abstract way as someone to
follow as an example for women who want to evolve or want more out of
life. (you were on FH and Munich at this time). When you returned to
Cambridge, i found you (and some other women I know) to be a great
depression reliever over this business of growing old. I wrote in my
journal that just thinking about you and your activities dispelled the
blues because there was still so much to do; that there was still so
much I could do. I had your life to look up to - your life and your
energies to "lean" on (on an abstract level).

I now consider myself in my fabulous forties (and ; entering Part III
of my life). And for the first time i feel i am right on time. I'm
sure your life activities has helped me to obtain this sense of
well-being. And once again, i am talking on an abstract level.

When it came to concretes in Part I and II of my life there was (and
is) all too much a lack of receptivity between you, me and Richard --
whether its regarding men, openings in the womb, FH/BH, Munich,
Dorchester, Pearl Street, Hampshire Place, political/social, feminism,
objectivity, non-monogamy, STD's, The Great Hamphire Heist, and other
existential circuses - i have yet to be able to share in any
constructive way the pains and sufferings endured due to all of the
above. And, I slowly had begun to realize that friendship is something
where these matters are not primary sources of pain, like they were in
Part I of my life. And if they-are~primary sources of pain then you
ain't with friends. So I stopped initiating contact with Richard -- to
do so would have been doing myself a great disservice. He once
commented to me that I had years of experience of his meanness. I have
had no desire for the past 10-12 years to chalk up more experiences of
his meanness. But perhaps I am ahead of myself here.

Getting back to you...this admiration for you is still here inside of
me but it has toned down considerably. I do not see you as the total
example for other women as i use to, for instance, nor do i consider
your life to be a perfect sort of evolvement. i discovered there is
something which is lacking in your evolvement.

Receiving steady income got me more in tuned to the day to day world
and with it a different perspective on certain matters. Like feminism.
Before working there was something i never trusted about feminism and
i couldn't quite put my finger on it until i read Wencke's writings
from FH. She simply said feminism robs me of my sexuality. And that
summed things up quite well for me regarding feminism - no way was i
going to join a bunch of asexual white girls. Several years later as
I'm working in an architectural firm, with lots of women architects, i
overhead a conversation one day. They began to defensively make sure
that no one thought of any themselves as feministic. And the more they
did this the more i disrespected them simply because i began to
realize that they would not have their professional standing without
the feminists. They sounded like a bunch of ingrateful leeches. Then i
recalled the problems my mother had getting raises and promotions all
due to the fact of her sex. They would tell her that a man got the
raise because he had a family to support. Mom was raising me and my
brother - i guess we weren't family. And the same goes for you my dear
-- the fact that you have had choices to exercise is not because of
some man fighting for your freedom or equality. Nowadays we don't have
to go into a doctor's office and pretend we're insane in order to have
an abortion. And, you once commented to me that there's nothing like a
steady pay check. You can thank the feminists for that pay check. So
the more I was hearing you sneer whenever you said the word feminists
or things like "I don't like women's anything," the more i saw you as
ingrateful, ignorant, and leechy (which was rather disheartening
because you would have so much to offer people, offer the world. I
also felt embarrassed for you).

It's the same with "political" -- when you were telling me about that
filmmaker going into Gaza you seemed to emphasize the fact that his
film was objective. Your implications seemed to say that my stance on
a particular issue is not objective or due to objectivity, which is
rather blind of you. I took it to heart at first, and I also laughed
at you thinking about the five Israelis in all of Israel who would
consider that film objective (sandy is not one of them). But then i
realized that this is part of your lacking evolvement in The World.
What added fuel to the fire was your attitude towards the work i am
involved in with the Native Americans, specifically the youth project
on Pine Ridge Reservation. I began to see myself as having a more
sturdy footing in self, others, and world. That my social
consciousness or my world view, or my grassroots activism with the
Lakota nation, or my intelligence regarding human rights, have no
equal or parallel in your life -- you have no concern with the world.
Your art, creativity, FH/Munich experience, multiple lovers have
parallels or similarities in my world.

It's not just me "going on" do not misunderstand me -- if there is no
visibility or comraderie or support then one has to go looking for
this in others. I stopped initiating contact with Richard but i waited
to see if he would come by on his own. I did not call him, as i said
before due to the fact that it would be doing myself a disservice, but
I did not want to violate myself in the process. So I waited. And 6
months before you arrived guess who appeared at my door step and
reappeared time and time again until your arrival? Richard himself.
During those 6 months i got to see all my worse fears confirmed about
him and his arrested personality. I saw the dear boy as someone
floating down a sewer. I felt like i had to wear toxic gear from head
to foot when in his company. He proofed to be good for filler. There
is nothing possible with the dude. I saw you, me and Sandy as
representing three roads to travel down for a relationship: you for
living on a commune already established, me for starting one, and
sandy for marriage. Now which of us got fruition here? None of the
above.

I saw myself as the friendship of his life and you as the love of his
live and he short-circuited both of us. He once told me that he cannot
change the past -- he thought he was being in the here and now, i
presume. The past i can live with, the present is another story and as
i watched Richard for those 6 months to see what he did and why and
how he did i felt no compunction to start contact up again with him.
His behavior was the same, mine was not. His behavior during those six
months told me that the past would merely repeat itself. He did
nothing different than what he had in the past. He was easy to use as
a filler and a punching bag. And as i punched away, i waited and
waited - I'm thinking that this guy needs a big trauma to shake him up
so he'll change. And the big break came, too, when he lost his
apartment. I was hoping and a praying he'd go under and not so much
because he deserved it but because I did! Yeah, that's right. If he
had some trauma to shake him up, maybe, just maybe, he'd come out of
it a healthy man. Well, you blew my big chance, Cynthia, by taking him
in. And there goes the big change down the sewer.

STD's and thievery: big issues, big pain. While richard is pushing me
into the bedroom of Hampshire Place umteen years ago, I keep telling
him I haven't been to the doctors yet as my appointment isn't for
another two days. He doesn't seemed concerned. Two days later I am at
the doctors and I tell the doctor that i am very itchy in the pubic
area. He puts on his plastic gloves and commences to examine me. He
finds nothing. Weeks later or days later I get bamboozled by you and
Richard over lack of responsibility and awareness and hygiene as
richard has crabs. He is angry with me (not himself for waiting when I
told him when the doctors appointment was) Not only that but richard
stops having sex with me. Sandy and Linda have herpes - i do not
recall bill, robin and whoever having fits about getting tested for
herpes. Did anyone get tested when Sandy came down with herpes? And
richard continued to have sex with her -- so much for objectivity.
During the 6 month time before you arrived, Richard pulled out a Mass
General card with times for the clinic. He looked off -- slightly
retarded. Whatever I have had is long gone. Sandy and Linda will be
carrying herpes to their graves. So much for hygiene.

The Great Hampshire Heist: Richard and I are sitting in hampshire
place kitchen one afternoon when i am living at Rachel's as i was
kicked out due to not paying rent at hampshire place. And richard
tells me that all he knows is that he started to say things to people
about the knives and they returned. So i;asked if they returned to the
pantry shelving into their plastic container. He nods his head yes. I
shake my inner head. That means one of two things. I did not have a
key (i had placed it into hippotomouth, which sat on top offthe
refrigerator, on my last day at hampshire place) But someone returned
them i.e., i had an accomplice or, I was able to walk through those
shabby walls to put the knives back. The FH book which is in the box I
have now mailed to you was loaned to me by Richard. Eddie had the
original Richard let me read this one, the one in the box currently.
At the time he handed FH-2 book I remembered thinking that this is why
I like hanging around Richard: he thinks I've taken the AAO book but
he's still letting me borrow the FH-2 book. And you know Cynthia
throughout the years I've certainly had plently of time to think about
this caper from Richard's paranoia and what I did come up with are two
red pens sitting on the kitchen table at the time of my departure. I
picked up these two pens and told myself to leave them as richard may
not have any and then i said fuck it and put them in my pocket. The
problem with that is when i had first arrived at Richard's from NYC, I
had placed all my pens and pencils in with richard's pens and pencils.
So if we must be exacting, those two red pens sitting on the kitchen
table could have possibly been mine.

To date I have given richard $176.00 (in cash; when i handed this to
him i told him he did not have to pay me back as i owed him money)
and, during my packing for New Mexico, I found three m.o.'s made out
to him in the amount of $60.00 each. That's a total of $356.00 -- i
ain't paying him anymore.

There are other issues i wanted to go into here, there are other
things i wanted to tell you, but time is running out & so is space--i
would like to write down here regarding issues of our past for a
completed closure so i will be in touch (like it or not, baby).

The videos are Z's. Please send them to him as i do not have his
current address. They are of his favorite sleuth: Sherlock Holmes! He
must miss them--

(& Richard can say that i stole them)

-----

P.S.S. one more box is also on the way!

Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 15:25:08 -0500
To: Atlanta
From: adl@xensei.com (Richard Gardner)
Subject: Re: The Url Dead?

>http://www...
>
>You will see what I have been doing if you visit my site.

I can see.  Who was the lucky guy you wrote that for?  I like that
spiral binding.  Couple of 404's: IRC.HTML, etc

Recently, watching a movie, a movie about the movie business.
"The Bad And The Beautiful", with Kirk Douglas, 1952, I think.

Hey, this is getting good, I thought to myself, thinking this
is a film I'd never heard of.

Then she came on the scene.  Suddenly I remembered seeing this
film years ago.  The part with her, you, in a way, is the only
part I remembered.  She burnt an icon in my brain.  There we
were.  Years ago, made even longer ago.  Seen years before I
ever saw or imagined you.  I imagined you many times after that.
I wished for someone like that many times.  Well, I got her,
you, really, but... not... quite...

You can imagine the role I imagined myself in after we made our
film.  She's not a big part--but the biggest part of that movie
for me.  And she's still alive.  It was like a shock to see you
there on the screen.  A woman I've always imagined.  In real life,
of course, we don't get what's in the movie.  It is, after all, a
movie!  Boiling down a real life wouldn't be a real life.  A reel
life is not a real life.  Your real life has been boiled down to
a small part of a reel life.  See it, watch it, make the out of
focus blur go away so there is only one of you to worry about.

Take a look at this:

          http://us.imdb.com/cache/title-more/plot+9259

From: Rsbeatty@aol.com
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 14:33:50 -0400
To: adl@rtuh.com
Subject: Thanks

Hi Richard,

Thanks for sending me the genealogy contest info.  Since I have all
year, I believe I will enter.

Not much new here.  I've replaced the steering gear in the van and it
now goes where I point it.  There is a disconcerting "CRUNCH" and a
tiny jump whenever I hit the brakes or release them.  So far I can't
figure out what it is but nothing has fallen off.  I'm going to have a
friend drive over me and stop to see what gives.

The motorcycle is also running now.  I've changed all the fluids and
am ready for a longer shake down cruise .. say to South Dakota to
visit my brother one of these days when it is cooler there than here.

I've caught up on correspondance .. just in time for another camping
trip with Marsha to New Mexico.  Maybe this time I'll take along my
micro-cassette recorder and dictate my travelog as it occurs.

Chow

Ron Beatty

Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 21:30:17 -0600
From: L
To: rgardner@MIT.EDU
Subject: 

Thanks for the msg.  It's always fun to get a msg from you.  But you
never answer my msgs.  What's the deal?  Cary's wife is my friend from
Brazil, Valeria, pronounced Valerdia.  I think I mentioned this in my last
E-mail msg which you didn't respond to.  No, unfortunately I didn't see
Lotti--she chickened out on stopping in New York when Valeria found
out she couldn't get out of work and join her.  I wonder if she is still on
the road.  She got guts!  As far as the Web thing, thanks for the
advice--anything I should look or in particular?  So, who is this guy
Lloyd?  What is yours and Cynthia's home address.  Say hi to her for me.

MWA