Please forgive me … I didn’t mean to cause speculation and worry …

I’m not gone …

A bit of what’s going on: my son and his wife just moved home the day before yesterday … yesterday I put most of the day into preparing for a final I have to take today … also yesterday, my mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital back at home for CHF, and once I finish my final I’m going to have to drive down to Dover to check on her … and I’m printing out and preparing my material for a new course that begins tomorrow.

And yes, there are other things going on too. I won’t pretend that the business with TNT has had less of an impact than it has. I’ll be more forthcoming in a later post … I’m afraid I’m going to have to settle myself a bit first, though.

For TNT … and for all of you, because you’ve all been involved, and I believe that you all deserve to know how things went down: the gig was up when TNT’s “friend” contacted me anonymously with information, begging me to not say anything to TNT, and telling me that TNT is, indeed, an 18 year old girl. No … it wasn’t because of what this “friend” said, because I don’t pay attention to anonymous commenters or emailers … it was because the IP address came from the same IP address as TNT … exactly. It’s either from the same private network, or perhaps even from the same computer. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that several parties in this drama have been the same person from the outset, although I can’t be certain of that.

My hope for TNT … Erin, or Jessica, or whatever her name may be … is that she take that desperate need for love and attention, and find someplace to put it where she will be accepted for who she really is. She’s a brilliant young lady, and needs to channel her talents and energies into something constructive - perhaps even into medicine, since she did such a good job pretending to be one.

As a community, we need to learn from this. First of all, trust and love are never wasted, even when the trust is misplaced. I don’t mean that you should open your wallets to the next Nigerian scam … or agree to meet with an anonymouse in a dark alley after midnight for a cup a tea … what I do mean is that, even if the person you’re responding to with care and love is misrepresenting him or herself, the love is still not wasted. There’s a needy human being at the other end. We all misrepresent ourselves, even when we use our real names - perhaps it’s in something as simple as being silent when we want to speak, or saying something is “OK” when it really isn’t - but at one time or another, we all “go” there. We should still, after all of this, be able to reach out to each other in a love which is tempered by the understanding that we may not always know exactly who it is we’re loving … but that it shouldn’t matter anyway.

Secondly … when I read someone else’s blog, I have no idea if they’re who they say they are, or are doing what they say they’re doing. Very few people have any idea if I’m who I say I am … for all any of you know, I could be, as Dr. Flea speculated before we met, a big hairy biker with tattoos and chains. In order to gain something from blogging, and from belonging to a blog community, we have to suspend disbelief, and ingest the blogs and their posts with a spirit of adventure, and a willingness to expand ourselves. Each thought we absorb which we’ve never considered before is our gain - even if we later reject it. Nothing is wasted, unless we close ourselves off from each other - and then, really, blogging becomes a pointless treadmill exercise.

Now, on a personal note … my inbox is stuffed with over a hundred unanswered emails, and I want everyone to know that I’m really touched by your care and concern. I’m not sure how I’m going to get all of those emails answered … or how long it will take once I begin to do it, since I’m going to be very busy for the next couple of days with finals, a new course, and my dear mother-in-law, whom I love to distraction, sick in the hospital. I just wanted everyone to know that I’ve seen the comments, read the emails - and that some of you touched me deeply enough to help me through a box of tissues over the last couple of days. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.