The Aeneid

I have refrained from discussing my banishment from The Literature Network with the same impetus that I have discussed my banishment from the P$W Speakeasy, partly due to the fact that my sins in the former community were negligible in comparison to the latter, and the site owner remains, still, an infantile jackass, but losing the connection of virtual familiarity still bites. I have little desire to return to the latter site, and this took me ten years of grinding away at a guilt I allowed to balloon, seeing myself in a fearful and degenerative aspect, which more or less is concomitant on mental illness as a matter of degree, to parse more finely, a mood disorder. To tirelessly reiterate the point, however, what I wanted from the MFA guild was a path to freedom that did not involve teaching, and it is now in twilight. As to the former forum, so called, it bores the shit out of me, minus the handful of useful contacts; those contacts, however, are apparently not my friends, since none of them use my comment section, and they know spastic is also the avatar Jozanny, hence my cynicism about connection and alienation through device, despite the fact that the stability of my lung function is coming to an end. I have probably purchased my last supply of Aeros, and may need more aggressive breathing therapy very soon, and even though I may not have fully connected the dots to any satisfaction of the online legal community, my former supervisor, her employer, and my landlord, have, through their negligence, destroyed my health. Had Liberty kept its promises, I would not today be so weakened, and sick, and levels of loss have their priorities.

However, I reconnected with Virgil (Manny) by the virtue of a spammer who had gotten hold of his yahoo address, and will confess that I have relented in relation to our former friction, which can be blamed on Italian provincial rivalry between NYC and Philly neighborhoods, she smiles while dying. If you hurry and look at the site, you'll notice Orphan Pip is still an active regular, and thus will be footnoted. The moderator Scheherazade, intones, "We take bans very seriously, and will not talk about them."

This, as well, is an utter form of hypocrisy. I committed no crime; my lungs were in bad shape and the site owner kicked me off because I attempted to discuss the chapter summary payment for what I had completed. Our capacity for pretension knows no end, and is in fact, limitless, and no one there cares about compassion for a homebound invalid.

As Manny is of my blood, I forgive his citations of the godspel of John to comfort me, and bear him the affection of our fellowship, remain pleased that he came to meet me and that we exchanged gifts and kisses, and that he and his wife are happy with their young son, and that I can bless their fortunes from afar, and the personal convictions he and I share are no longer so different, though Manny has been a good Catholic, and spastic has not, and can never recommit to the faith, as such, because I cannot vacillate, like Anne Rice, between extremes. I may have mentioned I sent her POB a letter once. Pointless exercise.