> and now, mike's version of 'what's up with rowan', pieced together from
> various sources and various wonderings..

was this quilt just patched together?
most of the elements are intact though you seem to have feigned ignorance
up until now.

> please excuse any trivialization of your personal feelings, i'm going to
> try to be brief and simple.

I like to think of personal feelings as trivial.
they aren't, but it helps me cope 8)

> you like michelle.

oh baby.  she did try to wrestle my socks off with her feet, I'll have you
know.  

> you told someone (can't remember) that you were going out with michelle

joanna is the weak link in this chain; somewhere along the line I went to
a movie with michelle.  She asked how things are going and I'll assume
that from me to joanna to anna the message underwent a hideous
transmutation from "went out (to a movie)" to "going out (end of sentence)"

> michelle found out about this and denyed it.

not publically, but it made her backpedal away from me.  I wasn't aware of
it for some time.

> i don't know what else became of that.

not a (fucking) lot.
obligatory insertion of profanity gratuitous, I suppose, but if I were to
say it out loud I think I'd have slipped it in, despite the fact that I
rarely wear if ever.

> a couple orgies on anna's new bed.  I was involved.  i was being the myk
> that comes out in a croud..  of course ampified by the fact that i was on a
> bed with a bunch of people.
> i alienated you and brooke and woody.  i'm sorry.  chris did the same
> thing.  why do I blame myself over him?  because chris is unaware of other
> people's feelings.  (and i claim to be at least partially aware)  and i
> claim to care, too, because i know how it feels.

your role in orgies did not concern me.

it's just that I have a long tradition of being excluded from such
(primarily on account of my size) and in this particular circumstance I
was very conscious of it happening to me but was inable to voice any
complaint without making clear intentions which had not yet been
more-or-less public.

watching the blues brothers; michelle sits on the ground, with chris on
one side and rowan on the other.  rowan suspects some latent competition,
but isn't going to make a fuss about something he hasn't even confirmed in
himself yet.

mike suggests rowan trade places.  anna agrees.  rowan sits in rocking
chair, away from group.  mike sits with anna; chris sits with michelle.
rowan just sits and pretends not to have been bothered.

other stuff later happens.  not so bad.  everyone sits on bed.  chris,
mike, rowan, michelle, and eventually anna.  with the introduction of
anna, rowan begins slowly but surely being pushed off the bed - the only
notedly active party in this act was chris.  because it _is_ her bed,
rowan has no valid reason to complain, and loses bed space altogether.

anna lies next to mike.  they are happy.
chris lies next to michelle.  they are happy.

rowan sits on floor and seethes.

repeat the bed portion again a week later, with rowan being careful to
call "anything besides the floor" and still end up with it.  unable to
stand remaining in the arena of his second defeat, he packs up and moves
to the couch.  

and, well, the differences between being separated by great distances and
by short ones is alluded to.  I seethe no more nor less, but am at least
posed with anna's cats as a possible excuse to remain away from the group
which causes rowan pain.

ooh!  forgot to mention - rowan on couch, michelle comes to couch, invites
rowan back to bedroom, rowan goes back to bedroom... no space is made for
rowan!  in respect to the invitation, rowan momentarily sits on the floor
before remembering why he left the room in the first place.

back to differences between those gol-danged distances -

there doesn't really seem to be any.

> I talk to you on anna's couch after one of the orgies, noticing you were
> melloncolly... you surprise me with the depth of your answer.. i also
> remember driving you home and talking about contingencies.  very cool.

yeah, that's easy for a person with bed space to say.

> chris is now seeing michelle.
> you are not pleased.
> you feel like you've been stabbed in the gut.

blind fury...

no particular target possible,  except the eternal option of self-hate.

rowan grows aware of michelle discreetly distancing herself from him, but
doesn't know why; doesn't know of joanna's mistranscribed information to
anna.  hm.  if she's distancing herself from me, this probably isn't the
best time to tell her that I love her.

ah well, I'm patient.

rowan becomes aware of chris co-opting michelle time, but doesn't know if 
it's conscious or not.  nothing I can confront him about, not that I
would even if it were. rowan leaves michelle somewhat alone because she
tells of long work days and final exams in correspondance.  in the gap,
she does not in fact accomplish more but the gap I occupied becomes filled
with chris.  rowan becomes aware of things like; anna, myk and the rest of
the group _generally_ walking in front, chris, michelle and (rowan)
forming a slower rearguard, or upon returning from anna's every time chris
always drops rowan off before michelle, despite the fact that he passes my
house on the way back from marpole, despite the fact that I point that
out, despite the fact that I ask to be dropped off last and am not.

i'm still quite delusionally certain that one of the places I went wrong
in pursuing this relationship was in not having a car.

other sources of bitterness?

after chris leaves tabmeet 4 year anniversary to do work which dearly
needs to be  done, he is encountered with michelle, who also needs to do
much work, at benny's, by the roving meet..  rowan responds by sitting
outside and gulping down dry heaves.

when rowan learns that chris is going to walkabout, rowan wants to come.
rowan has heard it's a cool movie.  chris initially says no.  rowan asks
'why?'  chris does not say, 'because michelle is going to be there and I
want to be with her (without you)', he says, 'okay, come.'

blah bahb hlahb l hablh ablh LAHBLAH

> you talk on tab about this..  or at least hint at it.

with nothing made official, no communication can be made with the actual
people involved.  instead, hints are provided - hopefully so that someone
will eventually ask me a particular question which I can respond to with
all of this ramble.  And perhaps someone who reads tabnet AND is somewhat
involved in the mess will read it, and pass along rowan's mental state
with its news.

> your relationship with chris doesn't allow you to talk about personal
> things with him.
> you don't.
> you fester, instead.
> chris of course doesn't know how to handle this either. (like anyone would...)

I tried.

I tried to make it simple.

"One sentence answer.  Who is Michelle.  To you."
"Why do you want to know?"
"(inhale) Because I've got a _big crush_ on her."
"Well, to give you an answer to that... I don't know."

yeah, THANKS FOR SPARING MY FEELINGS FUCKER!^%#$@^!%&#$
as rumour would have it, he knew well enough the next day.

this would have been much easier if he had said "mine."  if he had said
"do not touch."  if he had said "drop it."

i was prepared to completely remove all thoughts of her from my head, but
then he had to give the ambiguous statement EYE DONUT NOOOOOO.

after answering, chris leaves, rowan goes back into basement and says to
travis, who he had talked to at tabmeet 4: "Hope again rears its ugly
head."

> anyone reading the reviews and putting 2 and 2 together can piece together
> kind of what's going on.

you may have noticed that I didn't write any reviews.
Or rather, that I didn't post any, because I did write them.

> meanwhile, chris talks to me, amazingly.  once.

he talked to me, but all he said was "stuff is going on in tabnet that
people may be dragged into and it's pretty tacky."

> these are things i perceive.  correct me.

hopefully this will clear some  things up...