Mellow weekend

August 20th
Mellow weekend with the fun and busy summer social calendar still primarily and unfortunately accented by the last straining gasps of the Cleopatra fiasco. There was a moment at church this morning... I was in a blurry eyed daze through most of it after staying up all night. I never open up the hymnal – I'm not quite there yet – I just stand there staring at all the girls while everyone sings, or sometimes I bow my head and pray, using the singing as beautiful background music to my meditations. But today I was even a bit more dazed, deep in contemplation of this mess with Cleo. It is never easy when we are being deceived or attacked or bullied or mislead. There is a tendency surely to take it personally, which one shouldn’t, but one does sometimes. And certainly this occupied my heart and mind, but I continued to feel into the real creation. What was I missing? This isn't like me, to be caught up in this kind of drama... what was I not seeing? ‘God/Goddess help me to fully integrate this creation,” I prayed, begged, moaned, pleaded. ‘Do I let it go? or do I fight to the bitter end? do I crush them out of principle no matter what the cost? Or do I grab the lessons and move on? Help me to know the answers.’

There was a moment there when I would get glimpses of things I had done during the ten years I had been associated with Cleopatra either as her lover or in business. little things. seemingly insignificant things. but things which still stuck my attention. primarily little thoughts or memories would come up about my spending. God am I a spender. No need to go into the details. But suffice it to say that I own just about everything a person can own, enormous collections of things. and the truth is that Cleo never cared about those kinds of things. In fact she cared a lot more about just your basic putting food on the table type of stuff while I was out buying antique ottoman empire pottery or bearskin rugs or building up our library. ‘we will never be able to read all the books we already own in our entire lifetimes, nor listen to all the cds we own. can’t you stop?!’ she would scream. And I would respond that it wasn't about that. it was about building a collection. Yes... me and my collections. But at what cost? What is the use in a collection of thirty something guitars if you can’t pay your bills on time? she was right, and I knew it, but I would repress the feelings because I can see now that I was kind of, well not kind of, I was just plain addicted to spending and buying and collecting.

So today I would feel these little swells of guilt pop up inside of me about that as I prayed... normally I am very used to pushing that shit back down. But I felt it today and listened to it. and I heard that voice, and it said, this is a small price to pay for what you have learned. There is more to this than you have allowed yourself to see Fishy. there is more to Cleo’s actions than you are allowing her credit for. you are so busy blaming and attacking and feeling victimized and yet you are asking to see the bigger picture here, so allow yourself to see the bigger picture.... I just kept my head down and my eyes closed and kept listening and feeling.

‘This is a small price to pay to learn these lessons’ seemed to be the lesson... let it be. let it go. settle now. let go of your need for revenge or righteousness or what you are telling yourself is justice. I realized that this wasn't about Cleopatra at all. this was about me. this was about learning about me. about who I was and who I had been. There was a time in Italy, pretty much the entire last month, where I would buy a new shirt and new underwear everyday because I refused to do my own laundry. And because of where I was staying, on via condotti (sp?) -- the rodeo drive of Rome, I was spending about 20 bucks a piece on underwear and about two hundred dollars a shirt. and this was only the beginning, only the tip of the iceberg. I found my ways to justify it all. there's nothing wrong with that kind of living if you have the means for it. absolutely not. in fact it should be encouraged. Right? I mean life is to be lived. But if you're just on automatic and you're risking it all just for the pure sybaritic pleasure of life in the moment.... well that's a different story altogether... and that's pretty much been the story of my life thus far. What I found is that when you are acting irresponsibly you tend to feel guilty and when you feel guilty and you aren't too wise you tend to take actions to try to make yourself feel better no matter what the cost. These actions make you feel guiltier still and one day you wake up, if you're lucky, and realize that you are trapped in some kind of a death trap of the spirit so to speak, a never ending downward spiral of guilt and pleasure seeking to try to cover up the guilt.... welcome to my nightmare. An eye opening series of realizations. Does that justify or give rational to the recent onslaught of lies cons and deceptions by Cleopatra the last few years? certainly not. But it does make it make more sense. And it does help me to understand her rational. And more than anything it does help me understand myself and my sense of confusion about this situation and my own part in it.


At the coffee hour later that morning, I complimented the reverend on his prayer at the end of the service. it was brilliant, well worded, heart felt, deep, encompassed a lot in a few words. He shared that he had me in mind specifically when he wrote his sermon. I was honored and intrigued. Told me that he knew about my last minute abdication from becoming a new member due to certain problems I had with the faith and creeds and all that. that I chose instead to swim along side of the boat rather than get in the boat as he puts it.

Its true and I make it no secret. I have a lot of problems with the Christian faith and they know it. the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, his alleged death on the cross, the resurrection concept, the usurping of what was a Jewish religion by the roman empire for their own devices and to eventually use against those people, the distortions and flat out lies the church has fabricated over the years, the atrocities committed by the church on all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, slave trading camps and prisons in the courtyards of churches, European Christian “missionaries” (death-squads) forcing their beliefs on native American peoples at the threat of “convert or be killed,” just the general blight on humanity that organized religion has been throughout history. Up until recent years, religion has been the biggest organized terrorist group the world has ever known. and lets not even contemplate Christianity’s more recent attacks on the Muslim world or on homosexuals. Indeed the Christian boat, or any religions sea vessel has never been a very sacred or holy place to find oneself traveling in if one is a thinking person.

So I thanked the reverend and we had a great chat. A real heart to heart. [here's one for you. The shroud of Turin lays out great evidence that whoever was wrapped up in it was not dead and did not die. plenty of different Scientists and universities from many countries claimed it was the shroud of Jesus when he came down from the cross. The Vatican vehemently denied the science, not based on their own science, but just on “holy authority.” They then snatched up the shroud and refuse to give it back to its rightful owners, claming that “its now church property.” But of course the question that is begged here is that if this mysterious shroud does not belong to Jesus or anyone important to the church, as they now claim, then why are they keeping it? what do they care? well that answer is simple. Eventually after we all die and hundreds more years have passed, the church will then claim that the shroud is indeed the burial shroud of Jesus, hoping that by then they can snuff out all the evidence and science that says that the man in the shroud didn't die on the cross, and they will then make it a “holy relic” and millions of people will flock to the Vatican to see it every year. that's it in a nutshell. that's the science of religion.

So I'm here for the community. And one can truly feel the “spirit of God concept” in the air at this place. and that transcends dogma or creeds. That's something that happens when like minded people come together in one place and in one spirit and attempt to do good things and think good thoughts. I was raised a Christian and feel most comfortable in the Christian setting. As Bishop Spong once told me, it doesn’t matter what faith you come from. its what you do with it while you are alive. I've been a lot of things over the years. tried my hand at atheism, agnosticism, witchcraft, Judaism, Krishna consciousness, Hinduism, Buddhism, and they all have great things to offer the seeking heart and the human spirit.

As a human we can do that. in fact one should do that. it’s a big life. life is huge. And long. for most of us if we are lucky. we should take the time to explore and research and traverse the maze of human thought far and wide in order to seek out what is out there and what satisfies the constant craving of the soul the most profoundly. For me now I am back again. I have come full circle. But it doesn’t mean that I'm taking any dogma or half truths or beliefs on faith or creeds for granted. Wherever there is that feeling of the spirit of God in the air is where I shall be.

Talking with the Dove the other day, who is still a happy-to-be agnostic, I shared my stories and my current view on things. I mean in the end its all just stories. So what's the harm in any of it, if indeed there isn't any harm being done? can you still be a Christian and be against the war in Iraq? Sure. Can you still be a Muslim and be against suicide bombers? Sure. Can you still be a Hindu and not necessarily believe that Shiva had ten arms and legs or whatever? Sure.

In the end, its all just humans making stuff up as they go along to entertain themselves. A smart person knows this. century after century the stories change slightly. Even the God concept itself continues to change and evolve over time. the human life span is so short and most people never study human history completely enough to ever become aware of that. so they just assume that everything now is the way that everything is and should be just because that's the way it is now. that's a funny thing that humans do isn't it? assuming because we believe something today that that's the way it is? that it’s the truth. Never using hindsight to look back and see how wrong we've been in the past when we thought everything back then was just the way it was and that it was true, and so never questioning what we know or believe to be true today? they just assume that because we believe it today, it must be true. most don't even ever change their religion even once, let alone countless times. they never bother to notice that they're country is not THE country, but just ANOTHER country. they never bother to notice that they are a man or woman for no other reason than the obligation of necessity, or an American or a Russian or an Iraqi for that matter. These things are no more than the mere need of having to be one or the other. no better or worse, no more right or wrong than the other. They are just technicalities.

The spirit transcends all of these minor details. a transcendent human, a transcendentalist as it’s once been called, will swing from far left to far right in their lifetime, from the top to the bottom, from religious to atheist, from conservative to liberal, from good to evil and everywhere in between, [some even go so far as to go from man to woman or from woman to man] all in the name of experience and exploration. As long as one remains human throughout the adventure, then all is well in the soul as it passes from one lifetime to the next.

But allow me to add that this church experience has been important to me. whether I'm in the boat or swimming along side of it. It has meant the world to me.

August 19th
I finally completed the mammoth personal integrity rundown project. Granted my own personal version of it. I sort of broke away from the pack and headed out into uncharted territory with it that's for sure. With the actual exercise you are meant to write down three answers to four different questions and that's it. that's the exercise. But I decided to do my entire life and not stop until I had tackled every single memory I could find. Today. in the afternoon, I worked out the last one I had jotted down. What a feeling. A great feeling. I went through four full notebooks and legal pads, one of them with 250 pages, and two full pens of ink till they went dry. About three to four different situations on each page from my past. I must have written down and sorted out a few thousand different experiences from over thirty years of living. Everything I could think of that had ever happened in my entire life that caused me or another person upset or harm or discomfort. Every lie con deception abuse crime or misconduct I could ever remember ever committing. Big things and little things. everything from stealing pocket money out of a friend’s mom’s purse when we were little kids in order to play video games, to looking at people on the street with that ‘snobby nose up in the air I'm better than you look.’ You know the one. at least if you know me you do. I just went for it and six weeks later I have finally finished.

When I finished the last one I felt such a feeling of freedom and liberation and accomplishment. To finally let all that go. to be free of it. to acknowledge it, work it out as to what made you do it, where it was coming from, who you were being when you did it, why you did it, why you told yourself you were doing it, who you hurt and how you hurt them, and how you hurt yourself in the process, and how it has affected you since... and after each one the recognition that that's not you. that was your creation. But its not you. not you now. that you can be free of it. that you don't live like that now and that you have to live like that, you don't have to do those things anymore, and you don't have to live through the guilt of those things anymore. You don't have to worry about them and you don't have to worry about repressing them anymore. They're over. They're in the past. You are you in the now. free from the past. Aware in the present moment of who you are now and you who you want to be.

As I finished the very last one, I heard this voice that whispered that it was the most important thing I had ever done in my life. God was smiling. This was the climax and final chapter in the Jedi training that I started so many years ago. This was big guys stuff. warrior’s stuff. not for the faint of heart. Not for the beginner. the sheer act of it can weigh heavy on the heart and mind. For the ego is used to being defensive. Used to defending our every act, no matter how heinous or injurious to others or ourselves, the tendency is for the ego to always try to build up a defense to it, justify it, rationalize it. so it isn't an easy task, and once in it, its hard to stay in it and to really face it all.

Every night it has been important to spend some quiet time before sleep letting everything I had discovered release from my heart and mind. Every person that I thought of that I might have affected in a negative way or who I had projected had affected me in a negative I would bless as I fell asleep. ‘Coon may you be happy and well. Mr. Sharock (third grade teacher) may you be happy and well. Bas may you be happy and well.’ One by one releasing the stuck attention and energy for good. out into the cosmos to disappear with all the other thought and feeling atoms that have ever existed...

When I was complete I felt relief and exhaustion all at the same time. I went up to my apartment, laid down on the couch and fell asleep within minutes. Felt almost hypnotized. As I was drifting off, God/higher self whispered ‘Fishy you did it. this is the most important thing you have ever done. you can rest easy now. do what you want to from this point forward and harm none. You don't have to worry now. you don't have to be afraid anymore because you aren't afraid of yourself anymore. You are free.



August 18th
Me and mom on the phone .and she telling me to flow love to Cleo regarding the current matter. Of course we are on the front lines up here and all just focusing the energy on strategy and law and turning this thing around a bit and getting a little justice and all of that. the last thing on anyone's mind is flowing love to anyone. The truth is that for the last four years I flowed truckloads of love to Cleopatra and didn't do much else but trust every word she said as I went along my merry way. Thinking the whole time that I was protected because not only were we ex-lovers but also best friends the way only ex-lovers can be. I guess the way I was looking at it was that yes she was slightly psychopathic and lied a lot, but at the bottom of it all she still loved me. [note: just because someone cries a lot, pleas that they are innocent and a victim of a hard life and sad and desperate and all that, and begs you to help them and acts really nice to you and calls you all the time etc does not mean that they are your friend and that you should help them or trust them or be their friend. this was a huge lesson for me. Cleo cries a lot. she is petite, cute, graceful and elegant in her manners and style, and she will call everyday, tell you about her family, ask you about your own family, cry up a storm and scream that she was victimized by yet another person and if you just help her this time she will learn her lesson and “never do it again.”

So that was the game. I did whatever I could to help her and take it in the ass on occasion from her newest cons and deceptions as a sick kind of codependent trade for having her and her family kind of as my own surrogate family (why I don't know consciously for I have a great family of my own), and also for having this false sense of friendship with her. I believe now in hindsight that I was so obsessed with the idea/concept of being friends with all my ex’s that I was willing to pretend to myself that that's what was happening even though it wasn't really just so I could feel complete by it in some weird twisted way. But to her defense I will also say that there was more to it than that. like that line from the movie velvet goldmine where Iggy pop says to David bowie, ‘are you gonna be my mainman now?’ (referencing marc bolan of course). and you know that was my thing. always have to have a mainman. Or a mainwoman so to speak. Someone to look after me, take care of me while I did my thing. And even though we were broken up, I was cool with Cleo being that for me if she was. and she seemed fine with it. well now we know why. so she took care of our businesses and real estate and tax filings and all of that while I traveled around the country playing with my band or traveled around the world getting juice and inspiration or just sat at home getting juiced and writing songs. Just generally doing my artist on permanent holiday thing and trusting that all was well in the world of Fishy.

Of course the whole time I was getting screwed and just didn't know it. and the thing that I find the hardest to deal with is that I sensed it intuitively. Intuitively I can’t recall how many times I heard that whisper in my ears that we hear telling me ‘don't trust her, stop talking to her, and take legal action now about all of these acts of misconduct that you keep finding out about before it is too late.’ but I didn't listen to this voice in my head. I chose instead to hang out in that comfortable artist space I live in where everyone is cool and all the world is a happy go lucky place and everyone has everyone else’s best intention in mind. I've learned my lessons. The last few weeks with pen and pad in hand I've sat down every night and contemplated and made note of the mistakes I made and the misjudgments. I wasn't perfect. I fucked up a lot. I wasn't an angel. I know that.

She and I have spent a lot of time on the phone the last few days trying to settle this thing before it gets totally out of hand. if we end up battling it out in court we’re going to both end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers fees and this thing could drag on for years. will justice eventually be served? Who knows. this is America. And American justice is not justice. It is a battle of money and wits and a contest between who can hold a straighter face while lying to deceiving and manipulating judges and juries on technicalities. That's the cold hard truth of American justice in a capitalist society. So we both know that. And me, all I want is to get back into the studio and record more songs, get back on the road and play for more people, travel more, see more of the world, learn more languages, write more, drink more good coffee and cognac and wine and beer, smoke better cigars, and make love to more beautiful women.

Cleopatra knows this. she is counting on it. she's literally banking on it in the truest sense of the word. she knows who I am at heart. she knows I don't have the heart for another four years of this shit. So I'm cool with the lessons learned. I've spent a lot of time apologizing to Cleo whenever we have the opportunity to speak. Acknowledging my mistakes and my own misconduct. When I walk away from this, whether justice is served or not, I want to walk away with a clean slate and clean state of mind and a lighter heart. and I've learned my lessons. I know how I could have prevented all of it. like I said, its all about a persons actions, not their words. and no matter what I saw, I just couldn’t convince myself of this simple fact. I know I sound like the most gullible man in the universe but you couldn’t convince me no matter what that your ex-lover/girlfriend/ fiancé/or wife for that matter would ever deliberately fuck you. I just didn't see the world like that. but I was wrong. almost-dead wrong.

So God-loving peaceful loving precious mom tells me to keep flowing love to Cleo, that inside she's a good person, and to remember that love is the most powerful force in the universe. I responded, ‘no mom, its not. Money is the most powerful force in the universe. A hard lesson to learn, but unfortunately the truth.’ at least in this universe.



Later, I tell her, in a brief moment of calm and humor that I'll have you know that I will spend all day in my underwear and not be able to leave the house because I can’t decide what to wear. It is now 2:35 in the afternoon and I haven't gotten dressed yet because I can’t decide what to wear so I can’t even go out to eat and I'm fucking starving. This really sucks. Mom says she noticed that I was this way since I was a little kid. she would always let Beaver pick his own clothes out but with me she would go pick my outfits for me or I would never come downstairs because I would never be able to decide on what to wear. I would be standing there in my underwear as a little kid with all these clothes thrown all over the room. Not much has changed.

Today finally I just said fuck it. I was starving. I was finally able to pick out shoes after about an hour. I laced on some boots, stayed in my underwear, and walked out of the apartment. Striding down the street in my underwear and my black boots to get something to eat. madness? maybe. But to me it was just another day in the life of Fishy in New York City.

Last screening: imitation of life with lana turner. This is the classic Douglas sirk film from the fifties. I am watching all of his films now. this is a really good movie and if you're into the old ones this is a good one.


August 17th
Candle light vigil for mother of dead Iraq soldier cindy Sheehan who is out in Crawford Texas at the bush ranch tonight at union square and 1300 other places around the country. America is waking up. in Manhattan alone there must have been about 20 different vigil sites; I sent the General to go march around and show some solidarity.

thoughts: protests are good. demonstrations are good. but they do not help that much. They help bring us together. good. they help generate ideas. They help bridge different groups and create memes. They lend support. They get the issues in the press and media to a certain extent. But not enough.

Real change socially and politically happens from the inside, not from the people on the outside. if a government is going to change something whether it is a war or a policy or its entire structure it happens because the people on the inside want it to. not because of the people on the outside. the sixties in America proved that to us. it was the most extreme and volatile action the American people ever took; there was literally full on war in the streets of America for years and that war raged on in Vietnam because those people in the American government wanted it to be so. the American people could do nothing about it. bush will still finish his war in Iraq. He will go down in history as the “president who liberated Iraq.” Period. That's just the way it is. our vigils tonight will be shortly forgotten. Waco is a good example. The murder of most of the leaders of the black panther movement by the government in the late sixties proved it. politics are corrupt. Governments by their very nature are corrupt. Corporations by their design are corrupt.

What can we do? that is the question. What can the people really do?


Current read: the history of the land called Palestine/Israel. Check this interactive site out. good quick overview FYI. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/mideast/

Last screening: all that heaven allows. With Jane wyman and rock Hudson. A Douglas Sirk fifties classic. A quote: “he's able to stay true to what's important to him, because he knows what's not important to him.” good old fashioned flick.


August 16th
For the record further regarding the Cleopatra saga:

I see wedding crashers. Again. Think it’s a great flick. It reminds me of the old days less than a year ago when me and Bas and tortoise and Sneed/formerly Ferret would all hang out together, getting drunk and picking up girls and have fun guy times. later that night I'm on a rooftop of this poser bar in the meat packing district with all these mainstreamers and short-hairs and desperate single sluts. I crawl into a cab sometime in the middle of the night or the early morning. I call sneed/formerly Ferret to tell him that he is a dick if he sells me out to Cleopatra for fifty thousand dollars. I'm a little drunk. I mumble into the phone that friendship is too important to sell someone out for fifty gs.

The next day we talk. It turns out he informs me that he had already sold me out over two weeks prior. He was surprised and and happy to hear from me because he thought I already knew about it. I didn't. I figured he would have called me if he really was going to sell me out. he didn't. he was elated that he walked away with double what his shares in our company were worth. He had just scored one hundred thousand dollars of free money from a company that he didn't start, work at, invest in, or participate in in anyway by playing me against Cleopatra, using our battle to his own benefit and extorting from one of us double the value of the shares we had given him as a gift when we were all just kids and didn't know any better. As soon as I found out I hung up.

I call Cleo. I get her to admit that she bought his shares two weeks ago even though she had still been telling me that she would never do it and even drafted a contract saying such. For six weeks she had put me off of suing her because we had both agreed that neither of us would buy out Sneed because he was a greedy little devil playing us against each other in order to extort more free money from our company. For six weeks she and her attorneys continued to send me and my attorneys letters saying that they would not bargain or negotiate with Sneed, and that they were almost done with their agreement that Cleo and I would sign in order to make peace between us and set things right. but the whole time they were lying.

for six weeks Cleo called me daily to ask me how I was. how was my mom. To tell me about her daughter, about her husband, about how eventually we would be selling the company and make tons of money. and the whole time she was pretending that she would never buy out Sneed and that everything was fine between us. I found out later that night that Cleo was lying much more than I had even realized that weekend. It turned out that not only had she bought out Sneed’s shares paying a double premium for them in order to try to gain majority control of our company, that she also had already sold the company behind my back. for six weeks she had been talking about this impending sale that may happen one day and the importance of us coming to an agreement. Whenever my law firm would address their concerns of me seeing the books of the company from the last two years and seeing the purchase offer, her attorneys would say that there was no offer and that there was no pending sale. They were lying. They had already sold the company. Broken numerous laws and Florida statutes. Taken the money. and were stalling me. for as long as they could.

My attorney, a hot young super-sharp Virginian with a genius IQ and a body to match, who’s husband happens also to be a director for the CIA, is fuming and incensed. She is outraged. She tells me that at the level that her firm is at (they are one of the biggest) and Cleo’s attorney’s is at (they are small but reputable) that they don't normally see this kind of thing. they don't see company's break the law so flagrantly or so blatantly. And she says she has never seen another attorney do it to this degree.

she calls the Florida bar ethics commission and checks a few things out and sure enough he has broken so many laws that they can’t even believe what they are hearing. He is the head of litigation at his firm. There has to be a reason he has participated in such blatant criminal acts. Cleopatra, not a mystery, its understandable. She has been lying and cheating and deceiving since the day I met her. call it nature or nurture with her. Who knows. but that's just who she is.

Her husband, a short and stubby little fighter pilot for the marines who goes by the name of Ace, had been advising and counseling her for months to pull off this grand fraud, or so Cleo tells me. Her job was to talk to me on the phone everyday as if we were still ex-lovers and best friends and be as sweet as she could, lie about everything that was going on behind my back and to repeat the words “I just want this to be over and go back to school.” The whole time they were forging my name to documents, perpetrating innumerable frauds and deceptions, and negotiating a sale of the company that I founded back in my bedroom when I was a young idealistic lad to a large publicly traded multi-national. She said whatever she had to each day to keep me thinking that nothing was going on while they sold the company behind my back while I was up here in New York working on my music and the TV show.

Its obvious why ace would attempt to pull it off. The proceeds from the sale would not be huge but they would be considerable. If they could take all the money before I knew, i would have no way of getting my hands on the money that was legally mine unless I sued. Which would cost money. lots of money. no matter how many laws they had to break to pull it off, they knew that once they pulled it off and had the money, it would be very difficult to ever get it. I would have to sue to get it and even if I did get a judgment against them, they could claim that they spent the money or lost it or whatever and there was a chance I would never get it. in the meantime, my company had already been sold and I never even knew it.

When I heard the news I was in a state of physical emotional and mental shock. My arms had chills all over them. my heart was racing. There was lump in my throat the size of mount Rushmore. I couldn’t believe that you could live with someone for six years, be engaged to them, share a life with them, work side by side with them for so many years, and be best friends with their entire family, and they could still do something like this to you. to me it was unheard of and entirely unbelievable. But as my mom reminded me, ‘honey you like to walk around as if you live in Disney world. as if everyone is kind and good and happy go lucky like you. perhaps its time you grew up and became a man...’

Mom was crushed and crying of course. Cleo was a daughter to her. and as much as she knew Cleo had given way to the darkside years ago, she still had faith in her. she was devastated. So was Beaver. He was so angry that he couldn’t contain himself. ‘I knew she was fucking lying to you. she was using you because she knew that you still loved her. she was counting on the fact that she could wrap you around her finger because you were together for so long. that is unforgivable. But why did you trust her when she had already fucked you and lied to you so many times already?’ ‘I don't know man. I just believed her. she was being so nice” ‘well hopefully now you will learn from this and never trust anyone again who has already lied to you...’ we both go silent on the phone. we have nothing to say. Everything I had worked for for the last ten years was gone. I had just been had by my ex fiancé and her new husband. if she got away with it, I would be dead broke as if I was still a teenager or just out of college. in order to fight for what was mine my family and I would need to come up with about a hundred thousand dollars to sue and prepare for a bitter battle with liars and thieves and still not be guaranteed to get anything back from it. certainly they would go to jail, but if they hid the money, they could always claim that they didn't have it. another possibility would be that the public company that purchased our fledgling little venture would find out about the suit and reverse their purchase. It could destroy the sale and destroy the reputation of our company forever. I would still be starting from scratch.

To make matters worse, I email Bas about the incident and tell him that it looks like I am going to have to sue and he may get dragged into it but that I would do everything in my power to keep him out of it because I loved him like a brother. his answer was a big fuck you. leave me out of it. Bas is out to get some cash out of the deal and brother or not he refuses to even speak with me. yes the same Bas I lived with for four years. yes the same Bas I put through college with every penny I had because I wanted to afford him the opportunity that I never got to have when I was his age. Yes the same Bas I thought would one day stand right next to my brother beaver at my wedding. I don't know if I can’t say if I had ever felt such pain. I paced the floor as I read his email over and over again. I lifted weights all day to quench my anger. I could not leave the house. I paced and i paced and I paced.

Money is a powerful force. I had to finally come to terms with this horrendous fact. It appears that it is more powerful than anything else in the universe. Certainly more powerful than love. I had shown and shared more love with Cleo Bas and Sneed than anyone else in my world over the last ten years and the diaries certainly attest to that, and collectively and individually they had each sold me out for money. hoping that in the end it would be too late when I eventually found out.

One of the things that has made the deepest impact on me throughout all of this though is the amount of friends I have, and family members, and their willingness to come forward in support during this drama. I have been overwhelmed with support and encouragement from friends and family. everyday, every hour someone calls to tell me to be strong to be courageous to be brave and not to forget who I am. To not give in to anger or sadness or despair. Mom Beaver Little Tree boo boo Infinito the poet Madelynne O'Ryan Juliet polar bear Brown Bear the cat and many more all coming to call almost hourly to remind me to be a good person and to stand strong. for this I am truly blessed. It has given me strength and encouragement and has enabled me to tread on in the face of such heinous acts the likes of which I had only seen or heard about in the movies.

I am tired. I will continue with the saga later.

Current spin: Akufen, My way. great music. just buy it.