re: isn't it interesting

From: wi.1761@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
Subject: re: isn't it interesting
Date: 29 Oct 91 18:20:33 GMT


Okay, I'm depressed. I thought I had had a great insight about the 
future of the ASB and kindred bulletin boards. I thought that maybe 
they would develop into a form of tolerance therapy for the world. I 
got flamed for that! Waitaminnut. Does it qualify as a flame if they 
just send you private e-mail rather than posting their response? Well, 
it's the thought that counts. Someone, I lost their address in a fit 
of pique, told me that my breathless discovery that I, too, could be 
tolerant was something my grandparents before me had undoubtedly 
discovered as well. I was being adolescent. Pollyannaish

Well, my POINT, Mr. Smartypants, was that these discussion groups 
could be the embryonic beginnings of something really important and 
healing. There are lots of people that never learn that lesson. What 
if they did through this medium? Wouldn't that be a big thing for the 
world? A big step forward? Global tolerance brought on by simple 
communication of honest feelings without the burden of defensiveness 
and the fear of confrontation or embarassment? I think it's exciting 
to be here at the beginning. If we could only live long enough to see 
where it would lead. THAT was the point.  


Besides, my period is due, so watch out, buster. I'm dangerous when 
I'm this way. I go to pieces so fast, people are killed by the 
shrapnel.


I just wasn't ready for him. I had just had a gomer die on me.  
Normally, I'm not bothered so much, but for some reason, this one 
upset me because she woke up just before she died and didn't know 
where she was or how she'd gotten into the hospital and there wasn't a 
single person anywhere on this entire planet that she knew that would 
even visit her and it was a miracle that I even noticed she was awake 
at three in the morning anyway. I sat with her for a bit and explained 
what had happened to her, about the stroke and all, and she was an 
intelligent woman who understood but was just lonely and old, and I 
had to leave and she was gone by the time I got back.

Before I left I asked her if there was anything she wanted. Her little 
worried watery eyes looked at me for a long time but she didn't say 
anything and I can tell she's thinking of the things she really wants. 
To be young again and have husband alive to take care of her and most 
of all to live.  She's afraid. Really really afraid at three in the 
morning, and not of anything easy like an injection or a hip 
operation. She is afraid of Death.  The Black Widow, Death. Right at 
her bedside, finally come, right there. And I ask her, "Is there 
anything you want?" And when the words were out of my mouth I knew, 
and I wished I could take them back, and she knew I knew.  Mercifully, 
she says, "No, hon, you just go on. I'll be fine." I don't know where 
they get the strength to die like that, she looked so little and frail 
on that bed. Didn't even dent the matress, but she had the strength to 
forgive me for getting to live that night when she didn't. I guess 
those were her last words, and she spent them letting me off the hook 
as gently as she could.

It happens all the time, but usually they don't wake up first. Seems 
like they always pick three or four in the morning to go, almost like 
they don't want to bother anyone. I hate it when they bring in a 
gomer, especially if I'm on night shift.

And then somebody else turns blue just as I was going off and I have 
to stay late that morning and I smashed my thumb getting the crash 
cart and my period still hadn't come.


So later that day I check in at ASB for a little fun and this wiz-guy 
te discovery and everybody does it all the time so what makes me think 
I'm such a big deal. Well, I'm not. That's not the point. (flame 
alert)

The POINT IS, ASSHOLE,

There must be lots of intolerant people with their own hidden 
perversions out there. If they could learn, at a place like ASB,


WHICH _IS_ CONSENSUAL SPACE, INCIDENTALLY,

that their perversions will be tolerated and the only price they have 
to pay is to tolerate others, then this kind of communication could be 
the beginning of something really important to the world. Tolerance 
therapy.  More important than, say, electricity or nuclear power. Or 
religion. BUT I'M SORRY IF I RAINED ON YOUR PARADE, ASSHOLE!!!@! 
Damn., I broke a nail.

ps. I do have that right, don't I? Consensual Space is where people 
consent to become closer to each other through a demonstration of 
mutual tolerance and acceptance? Or do they just consent to let other 
people insert foreign objects into their orifices?

I tell you, some days just make you wish Life had a fast forward 
button.

Nurse Jones, who feels a lot better now, thankyou.

Even so,

I think of all the corpses
Lying in the shade;
I cannot chew my peanuts
Or drink my lemonade.
Good God, I am afraid....

On to the next posting

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