> Hi Maggie, It's Reggie and I'm feelig compelled to

answer this letter. I clearly have a negligible

investment in the whole affair (compared to the two of

you)and so the simple fact that I'm writing to you so

personally may resonante with your whole callous mike

edifice in a way that will render this letter useless

in regards to it's intent. The genuine central intent

and impetus of this letter is to continue to be

micheal and yours freind in the manner in which I

conduct these sort of nontraditional freindships

which, if it's what you need, you can just disregard

as more kryptonite from planet mike. Of course a

lesser part of my compulsion is a kind of amusing

prose challenge but I want to be clear that I am not

making light of you. I really find you impressive and

intimadating. I'll finish this preface by saying that

this really is the sort of thing that i say to my

girl-freinds which you are ofcrourse free not to be.

I really suspect that to some degree you've created a

bit of a cartoon of yourself and mike for (or maybe

more accurately with help from) your boyfriend (see

your own paragraph seven). An even more partial and

reductionist narrative might read like: Young innocent

corn-fed Texan falls for sharp eastern pomo boy and,

to her suprise, get's totally pomo'd. Girl sticks it

out for as long as her blue blood pumping heart can

stand and then with a broken heart returns to original

wholesomeness. I am certainly not trying to somehow

cover for the fact that Mike can be a remarkably

insolent prick and you'd have to get in line to say

it. Nor am I going to hide the fact that I've sat and

marveled at how you acivated the rather sizable potion

of mike who explicitly wanted nothing more than to

spend his whole fucking life with you and whose

primary functions were to try to wrap his mind around

how fucking dope he beleived you to be and how on

earth he could continue to keep you interested. I

don't have anything to do (except for my own

investment in mike which began long after his

"desease")with you and mike's relationship politics or

psycho/bio germ warfare or whatever. What I'm

concerned with really is the Jenny jones level of

testemonial cartharsis you seem to be looking for. I

honestly think that it is more than dangerous to take

a year and a half of your life with someone who you

cared about and who (even if he wasn't prince

charming) was unquestionably stimulating and with whom

you expirienced and processed alot of

extra-relationship stimulation. I'm know you're smart

enough to realize that on some level you are just

sacrificing your old realtionship to your new one

although I'm not sure that you're considering the fact

that if 'James the noble and pure of heart' doesn't

work out you'll just have two bloated corpses in your

head. I mean do you really feel comfortable accusing

someone of having taken advantage of your innocence?

Are you not even a little bit aware of just how much

your making mike your "chauffere" fed the exact

liberal progressive pomo sex monster that you've

decided is all of him? He thaught you were such a

badass. You actually inspired him to new hieghts. He

told me about your professional expiriment while

attempting to squash me for insisting to devil

advocate that you were just a really hip effective

shell for alot of bourgoise insipid values and that

you were gonna turn him into a castrated wack

professor. From the outside, regardless of the

interior politics, your massive outrage at his night

of casual seedy sex with a bar patron, when coupled

with the young courtesan thing, seems really

suspicious. Aren't we projecting a little? Aren't we

maybe trying to kill a few too many birds with one

stoner? Do you really need to kill the birds (for

james?)? Sure mikes emotionally irresponsible but it

certainly takes one to know one. If your letter to

mike was really just about hurting his feelings that's

totally fine and it worked. If it wasn't then I must

regrettably inform you that that's not what healing

looks like. Guy makes you walk home in the rain, dump

him. Totally fine. Your boots were made for walking.

But I've seen you on this "sick and deseased" side of

the matrix and you were totally plugged in. You were

not part of some year and a half long date rape. As

far as I can tell you put on as good of a show as

anyone else and you should own it because even if it

hurt it was totally awesome. James is the opiate of

the masses and opium is also totally awesome. Do you

know what I'm saying? I realise that this has

degenrated into some kind of rolling stone new age

shit but I really mean it. I beleive you owe it to

yourself, even if you never speak to mike again, to

get to a place where you can appreciate your time with

him. I'm sure it was probably for the most part

beautiful and rare. He is only partially stupid and

sick just like the rest of us. an he should have the

right to attempt to love someone else without having

it tainted by only partially astute pathos ridden

statements about his capacity to love. I highly doubt

that you just did fiona any favors. O.K. That's it

from mike's (and still sincerely your) idiot hypocrite

friend. How are you anyway, besides all that?

reggie:

I was wondering if I would get to hear from michael about this. I didn't think so, but you? That's entirely unexpected.

I don't really know how to respend to you about this note. I kind of want to argue with you and say things like "point one, the new relationship has nothing to do with the old one. i've been friends with james since i was 13.." or something like that.

But i actually don't want to argue with you abou my relationship with michael. You live on that same planet that he does. I think you also have some kind of crazy influence over him that I really do not care to understand.

As for the place michael has in my heart...Blahblah...

The letter to Mike was about how I do not want to be his friend. I'm not prepared to hang out with him and Fiona and all his cool new friends in portland. I'm not prepared to hear him dis James (as he does on the phone with me) or judge what I choose to do. And really, that's all I ever feel when I'm with him: critiqued and essentially judged. This isn't some poor self-esteem woe-is-maggie thing either. I feel fine around scores of other people. Boys even. Boys I'm involved with even.

As for his cheating on me. Please take note: we had an agreement not to sleep with other people (herpes anyone? anyone?). And he did. That was awful and made me not trust him one iota. Well, that and the rather sneaky way he managed to monopolize all my time by insisting that he could at ANY moment run off and stick his dick anywhere he wanted. Whatever. It was a childish relationship. As for him wanting to spend the rest of his life with me. Sure. Fine. Whatever. He's already transfered that to Fiona and that's fine. His feelings have much less to do with the person than the fact that someone's around, eating up his amaaaaazing intelect and deeeeeep thoughts. Right. I'm just not impressed anymore.

And If it hurt his feelings, that's real sad. I'm sorry about that. I don't want to hurt Michael. but the last time we spoke on the phone, in case he hasn't filled you in on this yet (as you seem to know everything else about me, kid), he told me I should go ahead and yell at him anytime if I was still mad. And I am, and I did.

So, excuse the sass in this letter, but you got me a little irritated. Blueblooded girl from texas, eh? I think you underestimate me, and I think you've already put me a teeny tiny little cubbyhole, but then, i suppose that prolly makes it easier for you.

Other than this drama, which is not what I intended it to be, I'm excellent. It's a little cold in the Northeast, but that's alright with me. I've been skinning baby seals and wearing their fur to keep warm. Oh, wait. That's just the cartoon version of me. Excuse.

Maggie