Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998 19:35:57 -0400
From: H C Fahey <hcfahey at ziplink.net>
Subject: Hail and farewell

Dear Johnny-List --

Once upon a time -- when I was in high school -- I used to play
solitaire.  Later I wrote long letters to distant friends.  Then I
used to play Solitaire Royale on our first computer.  I used to make
fair copies of my poems and other writings.  I bought my second
computer so that I could play SimCity.  Now I spend a lot of time
reading and writing email letters.

This is the series of activities that I have pursued instead of
accomplishing anything meaningful in my life.  I don't know why I
fritter away my energy in this way.  It is a strain to maintain a
socially acceptable persona in the face of the rage which has run
through my life for as long as I can remember.  Perhaps tolerating
this constraint takes most of my energy, so that there is not enough
left over to accomplish anything yet too much not to need some
channel. Probably.  As for the rage, well, it is overdetermined.  I
have repaired much -- even, maybe, all -- of the damage done, but I
cannot stop the rage.  I can control it, but I cannot change it.  I
cannot stop the way I feel about the wrongness of the world, and I
cannot change the wrongness of the world.  The uselessness of the help
offered to me only makes me angrier.

For a long time I have been overworked, exhausted, and subjected to an
intolerable lack of solitude.  Now I can't figure out why I should
spend all of my time always doing what others regard as important and
never doing what I regard as important, especially as those sets of
values are increasingly divergent.

So I am unsubscribing from mailing lists and going into seclusion. 
You may imagine me reading, thinking, and writing, and rehabbing my
house. Perhaps I will return after a while.  Then, again, maybe not.

If you want to stay in touch with me, you can email me privately at
hcfahey at ziplink.net -- you can even cc your posts to the list to me if
you think they might interest me.  My postal address is Helen
Cornelius Fahey, 44 Gulf Street, Milford CT 06460-4811, and my
telephone number is 203-783-1692.

Love,
Cricket

"It is perfectly feasible to judge everybody according to one
standard. Don't treat humans as things.  Don't cause unnecessary
suffering.  Don't use coercion.  There's my moral code.  We can add
stuff like: Don't collaborate with the enemy.  Don't dig your own
grave.  Develop resources.  Share resources."
 -- Helen Fahey, Letter to Richard Gilbert, 4 June 1998