Spider women, Harlan Ellison and the illusion of control

I'm back.

Obviously. And again, feeling around the cautious minefield of exposition.

Several years ago, when a memoir project was first floated, I received a pleading note from a former lover, who had since married. She told me that she had never told her new husband about "us" and that he would be upset, so that it would be very nice if either I did not publish the book, or left her out if I did.

Hey, what sort of a monster do you think I am? I use my totems, in part, to allow those whose lives intersect with mine to remain at least somewhat anonymous. But, sometimes, owing to the size of the target, obscurity is not an easy option. In this case the woman was the editor and publisher of one of the larger poetry e-zines on the planet, and her name had been connected with mine in rumour and fact (that she kept everyone she ever knew away from her new husband is the truly remarkable feat of social engineering of the last half-century...he has to have been curious).

All I have ever required is to be asked to be discreet. Not threatened. Not challenged. I admit that the human mind is, at best, an imperfect photographic plate and sometimes details mix and run and fade and shift. And not just in my mind. I have had incidents recounted to me, quotes attributed to me, that I know I never uttered and never was present for. Just yesterday a manager at work complimented me on a story I had related in a previous class I had taught. The problem is, I have never had her in any of my classes, and what details of the story she told me bears no resemblance to anything in my memory.

So either she is confused or I am. I will bet on her.

When my muses, my totems, are public figures, such as editors, artists and lingerie models, it is tough to keep their names completely off the record, especially when they go on the record at some point, regarding our relationship. Anyone here ever recall the interview with The Panther that once appeared on my site? A few months after she gave it to a mutual acquaintance, a new boyfriend of hers, doing research on her, found it and was troubled by her casual attitude towards my divorce. She called me up, in tears, begging me to take the interview down, which I did. She was angry at me. For her public statements. About something she did. Somehow it was all my fault.

I'm not in this for blood, vindication or even a little personal payback. I can't tell the truth without sometimes treading on people's toes and sometimes they get angry. But not at me. At themselves. My Mother is fond of saying not to do anything you wouldn't do in front of her. Makes it tough on a honeymoon, but in principle it is a sound notion.

Harlan Ellision taught me that the greatest control you can have on your own life is to live so publicly and without shame for anything that you are un-blackmailable. He said that to me at the Pizza Inn in Morgantown, West Virginia, back when we brought him to town for a science fiction convention. He was sitting at dinner with me, my fiance (Psyche) and her sister, who was a few years later to become Arachne in my totem-muse pantheon. I learned a lot that evening about truth and the danger of veils. Some of it inadvertent. Some would contribute to the death of that relationship with Psyche and lead to the affair with Arachne. Some of it would take years to digest and learn from.

And yes, their youngest sister, Aurora, would also get into the act...but that was much later and an act of irredeemable stupidity on my part, even though botht Arachne and Aurora occurred much after Psyche and I had parted ways and she had swiftly married one of her graduate students. I understand they are still together. Good for them! I believe in mongamy and am sometimes bitterly disappointed in myself for not having been able to make it work.

Yet.

Never bet against an Amomancer. We will surprise you. And it will be public, is code-worded and totemed to the ceiling.