A Cautionary Tale

Pictures she sent me allegedly taken in the 70's, funny she had no up to date ones.

Old Knudsen is not issue free, no its true I do have issues that colour my decisions and effect how I deal with the world in general. It may shock you all to know I have issues as I usually appear so carefree and full of love, well full of something.

It was about 10 years ago and I was on-line, there was Yahoo groups rather than blogging to be had and I was member of some groups getting into flame wars and getting slagged off for posting too much, the usual not much has changed except now its 'my' blog to do with what I want and only those with the secret decoder rings in their brains will want to read me and not the dross that get on like Gollum who say, "stay on the subject, stop having so much to say about it, whats a metaphor?" in reality they are saying, " my life is shit, why can I not think of opinions? I'm taking it out on you cos yer better and far too different."

I met this woman on-line in one of these groups, it was a group that claimed to be a political activist type group but did fuck all but complain.

Mave McDonnon was an older woman from Oklahoma but claimed to have come from Ireland when she was 5 or something.

One of them Americans who has a taste of Irish blood or think they do and want to be Irish. She did the heap claiming to have marched in civil rights marches and peed on the White Hoose once,a nightclub singer she also claimed to be psychic and often talked to her old dead Irish grandfather whose name I promised never to reveal and still haven't.

At least one failed marriage and a son in the Naval Intelligence, her childcare business had failed her hoose that was owned by her mother was reprocessed when she couldn't keep up with the payments. She had one friend who was a younger gurl named 'Holly' she would type for Mave when her arthritis got too bad.

Mave had a lump in her neck that she had ignored for years as she didn't have healthcare, it turned out to be cancer in an advanced stage and there was no hope.

On top of this Mave had a boyfriend she referred to as 'Sir' he was a pastor who spent most of his time protesting the death penalty for criminals, when he heard about Mave's cancer he chose to ignore it and carry on as usual.

I talked to Mave on e-mails a lot and a little by phone, I considered her a friend, no need for fake screen names or personas. If only you lot knew how much of myself I really put into this blog, I am a most honest person and expect no less from my friends.

I offered Mave a place to spend her last days as she was depressed and lonely, it turned out that in those later times she then decided to just pop a piece of information about herself into the conversation that would negate any plans we had.

Her excuse was that she was taught to be secretive on-line but this was after so much info had passed between us and the trust was lost.

She went a bit nuts and started saying things in lists about me that she shouldn't. I wondered what else wasn't true about her because I wanted to believe she was being honest, why wouldn't she?

There is a time and a place for persona and a time for truth. Some only want to go as far as the persona because maybe they feel that reality is not enough for them, I write what I know and from some experience and then of course I'm just maybe a little crazy who knows? at least I came by it honest and not like those drugged out wannabe crazies.

I stopped talking to Mave, she sent me a letter saying she had moved in with Holly (did she even exist?) but I didn't reply I didn't trust anything that woman had now told me.

10 years on and Mave should be dead, she never visited me like she said she would after death.
Now I take everything with a pinch of salt On-line and in Real-life until I have proof. Psychic are ya? a blogging gorilla/cat/dog or lemur are ya? a hot 18 year-old gurl are ya? yeah well I'm a Scottish one-legged geezer from Killamory unless you talk to me in private e-mails because then I reveal my true name of Jake the Bolivian spy from Arkansas (pronounced Ar-can-sass) be what you want to be I'll play along as its the polite thing to do.

There are still many out there who remain guarded even in private and even mistrust you when you tell the truth but I think that's because a liar will think the worse of people because that's what they would do themselves.

I can't be arsed with silly games a lot of the time, Mave lowered my level of bullshit, don't trust me I don't care you can't judge character, go on try to get personal to get the dirt on me well I just don't hand out bank information on a plate to people who just pop up from nowhere and ask me as they often do.

Having lived among terrorism for decades and not knowing if the car belonging to the cop across the street is going to explode or not I've had paranoia ingrained.

I know Bloggers have lots of personas, I do. I don't use to fool people into a relationship though I just have fun or to validate my wild claims on my blogs, many of you know my other names or its just so obvious.

I no longer live by my site meter, I can usually smell a yank even with a UK addy as for my real UK spammers I don't care. I know you are out there pretending away whatever, its only blogging. You will get all you deserve have no fear about that.

The worse thing about the Mave episode is that I miss her as a friend even though everything was probably a lie but we live and learn and care a little less with each heart break.