John Taylor Pell...Your betrayal in my time of transition and temporary weakness did not pass without notice. Sure, I've been quiet, biding my time, waiting until I've regained my footing and a steady supply of ammunition.
Ever since you berated me for spelling your wife's name wrong -- which I DID! -- I've gotten a rotten pile of trash talk from you. In your last communique, you insinuated that my conflict with the two women in the NewsRoom I told everyone about last month was false. A mere fancy. Some delusional episode made up to medicate a more grim yet less narrative reality. And you demanded I provide more information concerning the event! Yet even then I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I called you to explain the whole shitty deal. Then you... you refused to pick up your phone. What the hell else could you have been doing at 1 a.m. eastern time on a Tuesday night? Obviously not drinking Miller High Life and explaining to your wife the importance General George Patton had on your life philosophy of making sure you're always on the offensive, controlling tempo and making sure you're long gone before anyone can start asking a question let alone organizing resistance. J.T., cousin, do you know what happened to Peter after he denied Jesus? (Uh, yes, I am comparing myself to Jesus here, and, to tell you the truth, I think he comes off much the better for it.)
Well, of course you know what happened to Peter, and, suddenly, as Chekhov said in a writer's world everything happens "suddenly," I've written myself into a corner. Didn't Peter offer the Greeks pork and never-ending after life on the cheap? Or was that Paul? Either way, the man was an early Sam Walton, selling morality and the fruits of the flesh at wholesale discount.
Bhahhh, it doesn't manner anyway.
The point is, I apologize for mispelling Kaori's name. I take full responsibility. No time to pass the buck now. Yet... I can't help thinking that I did ask Dianna to fact check the piece, and she was dead sober. So, I mean even though I've been the stand up guy and taken on the full load of that all-too-adult term, responsibility, for the aforementioned events, I think, perhaps, Dianna... that is to say, my wife, should share the burden as well. Maybe even take on 70 percent, like the arrangement I worked out for our future child rearing.
Anyway, I've been under tremendous stress. I cannot reveal too much now, as my council with Los Papas Grandes has left me very paranoid of possible legal action taken against me by the university. He says that, should I say something about one of the students I'm supervising having taken a severe blow to the head during childhood, leaving them borderline retarded, the school may take legal action against me. Perish the thought, I know, but still.
Otherwise, school is going well. I'm up against a deadline for an article for both a class and a local magazine, one in the same article, but double the pressure.
In addition, I've taken up mining for data as a hobby. The fact that I have a teacher who is teaching me to use the law to strong arm bureaucrats into giving me electronic files to root out waste and bitterness in the system is like an evil genius finding a mentor. These Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) classes I've been taking are right on. Wave of the future and nobody else wants on board because of the writer's natural fear of numbers. But screw them, this could be "big-time," as a young man I knew once said. With a basis in fact and dead-on numbers, I could mix it up with these fuckers.
And I think I've made my point. John Pell, I expect a full apology pasted on my message board, tut sweet, and if not an apology, than at least a scathing attack against Money for her outrageous copy editing.
Best on...
Pell