Path: mit-eddie!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!jefyoung From: jefyoung@pawl.rpi.edu (Jeffrey Young) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Soulmates and exiles Message-ID: Date: 5 Dec 89 02:19:59 GMT References: <43561@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <9306@microsoft.UUCP> Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Lines: 37 The Unicorn shakes his head sadly at the mention of soulmates. "Aye, Gilly, you are not alone in your search. I too, seek for one whom I do not know -- one whose soul matches mine. I hope that she is out there still, and hasn't given up on finding me yet. You can only wait, and hope.. (and pray, if you'tr religious) I'm sure we can both agree that when we do find our opposites, that it will have been (almost -8) ) worth the wait." "We are but souls drifting in the void: it is inevitable that some of us wil eventually run into each other." --a quote by an author whose name slips my mind..but the message is that you will meet the one..and hopefully he won't be already taken! Stands to reason if you are strong-willed, so should he be, since he is your match.." "In my case, I might be in trouble. I would sacrifice myself for someone who truly needed me, rather than see her suffer where I could not help. Those whom I hold while they cry, however, I hold myself away from, asking nothing in return for the comfort I give." "My double might have been trapped by one she helped.." The Unicorn's gaze clouds over, and grows vacant. "I hope not.." "Perhaps some of you don't believe in soulmates.. I do.." -Taldin -- "You are blue, Unicorn.. the Blue of clear, cloudless days where everything seems like it's going right and nothing could go wrong.. and the Blue of despair and lonliness." jefyoung@pawl.rpi.edu Path: mit-eddie!bu-cs!ckd From: ckd@bu-pub.bu.edu (Christopher Davis) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: alt.callahans--where we stand Message-ID: <43914@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: 5 Dec 89 04:03:58 GMT References: <43776@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <1989Dec4.014345.8008@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <9|_6Z&@rpi.edu> Sender: daemon@bu-cs.BU.EDU Reply-To: ckd@bu-pub.bu.edu (Christopher Davis) Organization: Boston University School of Management Lines: 86 In-reply-to: fargo@pawl.rpi.edu's message of 4 Dec 89 22:14:21 GMT In article stadnism@clutx.clarkson.edu writes: > whose idea was alt.callahans, anyway? In article <9|_6Z&@rpi.edu> cse@pawl.rpi.edu (Christopher S. Eplett) writes: > I believe that the 'blame' for this can be placed squarely > upon the shoulders of one fargo@pawl.rpi.edu ( Ethan Young ) >>>>> On 4 Dec 89 22:14:21 GMT, fargo@pawl.rpi.edu (Irwin M. Fargo) said: > Ok. I give. > But I must make it absolutely clear right now that I created this group > indirectly only. The real blame falls on Christopher Davis. AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE "Hey! Someone get this 'real blame' offa me already!" > And, as I'm sure you've been waiting for, here is the explanation. [Irwin finds the Place, discovers that people are important, and...] > This realization hit me at about 5:30 am sometime in early November > 1989. (Just as I closed the book in fact) So, I pulled meself out of > bed, walked over to my computer, logged onto the Suns here at RPI, and > posted my proposal for a newsgroup (at that time) called talk.troubles. > Well, while the discussion was going on about talk.troubles, Christopher > left a nice short message which said simply: > All right! I've had enough! I'm newgrouping alt.callahans! > And thus it was. This was, BTW, my third try at creating it. The first two times, I put out feelers in alt.config and rec.arts.sf-lovers, and got basically no response, figured nobody particularly cared, and punted. This time I basically said "Oh, the heck with it, no better time, etc etc" and created the thing (finally). I'm glad I did. Seeing people get together like this--open up like this--*care*, just reach out and *be there*--it's magic. From the foreword to _Time Travelers Strictly Cash_: " '...*any* bar can be Callahan's Place, as soon as responsible people start hanging out there together. You'd be surprised how many sons of bitches believe people only care about each other in books.'" --Spider Robinson quoting Mike Callahan > Well, I hope that clears up alot of stuff. If you have any more questions, > please send me or Christopher mail (I don't think he'd mind. Would you > Chris?). I believe the term is "hell, no!" I love getting e-mail, though I'm sometimes too busy to return it promptly. And I'm always here to listen-- after all, "that's what friends are for" to quote one of my favorite songs. Hit it, Eddie. > Thanks, > Ethan Young Thanks, yet again, to all of ya. You listened when I needed you, an' for that there's no way to repay. "To listening, to caring, to loving one another even when you've never met." *CRASH* [followed by a bunch of scribbled notes on line printer paper, having to do with propagations and ftp sites and the like] "This... administrivia... isn't what the place is really about. I think it's neat, but hey, I'm a statistics nerd anyway. Perhaps I'll tag them in the Subject: line from now on. :-) "Hey, I can speak smileys. Must be that Callahan's magic at work again. Well, whatever it is, I like it." With that, he/I (insert appropriate person depending on whether you like first or third person stories :-) walks over to where Gilly sits and gives her a backrub as he discusses pointers with an ex-beagle. -- Christopher Davis, BU SMG '90 "Many verbal attacks are part of someone's aim to establish their rank in a dominance hierarchy, the same sort of behavior common among nesting fowl." --Daniel Mocsny Path: mit-eddie!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!t-phils From: t-phils@microsoft.UUCP (the Eternal Stranger) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Soulmates, exiles, life, the Universe, everything... Summary: Is there some point to this game? Keywords: Life sucks Message-ID: <9319@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 5 Dec 89 04:08:44 GMT Reply-To: t-phils@microsoft.UUCP (the Eternal Stranger) Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 90 No persona this time. Some things, it's kind of tough to put into a persona's mouth. This is me, the real Phil, the easy-to-overlook guy at the back corner table. (I _think_ I'm real - I feel it when I pinch myself. Sometimes I wonder, though...) Life's been rough lately. Life's been rough for a long time. Most of the time I think I deal with it pretty well; sometimes - like now, for instance - I'm not so sure. (I guess I should get a drink if I'm going to stand here jawing at you all? Don't know if I'll get around to a toast or not... I'm just kind of rambling. Better give me one anyway... let me take a Bailey's, Mike.. thanks.) Like I said, life's been rough, and to tell the truth I'm getting more than a little tired of it. But it's the only game in town, so what do you do? There isn't any place else to go. So you keep on - no, don't let me de-personalize this. _I_ keep on trying to figure life out, and every time I think I've got some part of it figured out, some joker changes the rules. Or I find that I had the rulebook upside down. Or something. (I should stay away from the metaphors, shouldn't I?) I'm 29, and I've spent basically all my life alone. I was never really all that close even to my parents - something to do with spending a long time in hospital at a very young and impressionable age. By the time I was finally discharged, I didn't recognize my parents. I thought they were two strangers coming to take me away from the place where I lived, which to me was the hospital. I never really got close to anyone else since then, either - I never learned how. There's some things that you never really learn properly - at the instinctive level you need to know them at - unless you learn them at certain times of your life, and I spent most of those times in hospitals. Well, sooner or later, I learned - or started to learn. I tried to learn. I think if I'd been learning in a formal class, I'd have flunked out, badly. Even now I'm still not really too sure about how to deal with people. Jilara had it right when she spoke of being an exile... I couldn't honestly claim to feel like I belong to the human race. I feel like the human race gave me the bum's rush about 15 or 20 years ago. 'Course, I'm feeling pretty burned-out and generally stressed right now, so that may not be a fair judgement. Sure seems to fit the facts, though. To cut a long story short, what little I learned didn't really get me too far. I'm sick and tired of being alone, but I can't do anything about it, and if I don't try to do anything - if I just let things happen - then either nothing happens, or something looks just enough like it's happening to get me off my guard, then it all blows up in my face. Somewhere, I think some b@*&%$d is laughing. Personally, I don't see the joke. Gilly, take my word for it, 20 years is nothing. You haven't even gotten started yet, and you've already found the Place. (I wish there'd been a Callahan's here - and I'd had access to it - when I was 20.) Well, I've been composing this on and off all day, and I've pretty much lost track of what I was trying to say... if I ever knew in the first place, which I'm not at all sure I did. Don't worry if I don't make too much sense, it happens all the time lately. To be honest, I feel about ready to just fall apart in a corner somewhere. I ought to quit wasting your time until I figure out something that makes some kind of sense to say. I'm not doing too much here right now except moving air around... Oh by the way, Jilara, I got your most recent message. I sent a reply back by the same path, and also by two other paths, and I noted in each one which path I used... if any/all of them get through, let me know which one. If none of them got through, we'll have to try another path... the three paths I tried today are: jilara1=uunet!motcsd!fsdcupt!jane@apple.COM jilara2=uunet!jane@fsdcupt.csd.mot.COM jilara3=uunet!apple.com!motcsd!fsdcupt!jane (that's extracted directly from my mailer initialization file.) Hopefully, at least one of them will work... ...I suppose I should do something with this glass, shouldn't I? "To life... would whoever has the instruction book PLEASE pass it around?" (hope I hit the fireplace) Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need a chair to collapse in... -- Phil Stracchino Philosopher. Poet. Console cowboy. Technogeek. Human being. (And if you believe that, I have this bridge in Brooklyn for sale, cheap...) "What about me, it isn't fair I've had enough, now I want my share Can't you see, I want to live..." - don't ask me who, I don't know - Path: mit-eddie!wuarchive!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!mtxinu!unisoft!greywolf From: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: soulmates Message-ID: <2673@unisoft.UUCP> Date: 5 Dec 89 02:56:20 GMT References: <43561@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <20940004@hplred.HP.COM> Reply-To: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf) Lines: 61 In article <20940004@hplred.HP.COM> egly@hplred.HP.COM (Diana Egly) writes: > >Friends, are you really certain that your soulmate will be your spouse? >Are you really certain that the issue of soulmates is critical to romantic >relationships? Because I'm not. The grey wolf on the floor barks twice in dissent, strolling up to the line with his half-finished glass of midori held gingerly in his mouth. He sets it down. { To each their own, as they wish it. I didn't go on that assumption; I wished for it. I didn't want my romantic SO to be just another romantic SO -- I wanted a romantic SO who could be more than an occasional friend; I wanted a good friend. I wanted someone I could spend the rest of my life with. I've waited for her for two years now, and it will likely be three before we finally live together. } { The force which draws us together is truly amazing, and the energy we share is paralleled only by that of a dream I had once (one that literally saved my life). In her I see timeless beauty -- and I mean timeless. Through and through, she is wonderous. Depending on lighting, mood and physical position, as well as other non-physical factors, she can look as though she is right out of the 1890's; other times she seems right out of the late sixties/early seventies. And when I share time with her, it is intense, and sometimes, for a fleeting moment, our location does a time shift -- it feels like we get thrown back to different eras. She is special to me.} { But the reason I am up here is not necessarily to tell my own story, but to re-iterate "To each their own". I know what it is that I perceive as "need"; for someone to state that it is only my perception of what I need would be senseless. I need it. That person obviously does not share my need. For you, Diana, your need is not to have your soulmate and your SO be the same -- for me, in my heart, such an arrangement would not work; and at this point I am so hopelessly in love with my soulmate that for her to cease to be one or the other would be horrifically impractical. For someone else, a soulmate might be something else. Who knows? } { Again, to soulmates, and to the many different forms they take.... } > >I can not deny my own experience. { Nor I, mine. } The wolf flings the glass into the air with his nose and bats it into the fireplace with his paw... *bap* ***CRACK!*** { Hm...never seen a glass just crack in two after that before...} ... and returns to his ...uh, seat? next to Gilly. -- "Like leaves we touched, we danced; we once knew the story As Autumn called and we both remembered all those many years ago. I'm sure we know..." Path: mit-eddie!wuarchive!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!mtxinu!unisoft!greywolf From: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Poem Review, + Request for Personal Info About Posters Keywords: Good Poetry. Message-ID: <2676@unisoft.UUCP> Date: 5 Dec 89 03:38:49 GMT References: <3170@hub.UUCP> <11216@csli.Stanford.EDU> <2674@unisoft.UUCP> Reply-To: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf) Lines: 32 Name: Roan Jon Anderson (first name pronounced "RO-wan", like Rowan + Martin) Hobbies: Role-playing Gaming, Video Gaming, Pinballing, drives in the country, music (piano, mandolin, bass, guitar), programming, spending as much time with my soulmate as I possibly can... Age: 24. Sex: Oft..er, Male. Height: 5'10". Weight: 133-150 depending... Race: Elf/Wolf/Human depending...[half- :-)] Favourite food: Varies. Pizza, but I've OD'd on that. Probably omelettes this week. Favourite colours: Dark green, dark blue, grey, silver, black, and burgundy. Favourite TV shows: Road-runner cartoons, Beauty & the Beast, Star Trek (don't ask which -- I like 'em both!) and, in an emergency, the news. At this point, though, my household is sans TV. Favourite movies: The first two of the Star Wars trilogy, Dead Poets Society, Back to the Future (haven't seen the second yet). College: Life. Major: Systems Administration, Music, Love. Year^H^H^H^HLifetime: I think it's my last. I feel old... Location: Somewhere on this plane, though, as I wrote in another article, times and dimensions shift around me on occasion... Musical preferences: Anything with decent harmonies, not too terribly poppy, stuff which tells a story. Goal in life: To live. Not to just exist, but to live. -- "Like leaves we touched, we danced; we once knew the story As Autumn called and we both remembered all those many years ago. I'm sure we know..." -- "Like leaves we touched, we danced; we once knew the story As Autumn called and we both remembered all those many years ago. I'm sure we know..." Path: mit-eddie!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!elroy!cosc5sh From: cosc5sh@elroy.uh.edu (Unbeliever) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: The Visitor's Return Message-ID: <5133.257b3d4c@elroy.uh.edu> Date: 5 Dec 89 10:00:12 GMT Organization: The Land Lines: 32 A whooshing sound is heard once again in Callahan's bar, but this time it seems... louder. Suddenly, a large blue box with a flashing light on top fades into view in the center of the room! A tall, curly-haired man wearing an amazingly long striped scarf steps out of the box, and approaches the bar. "Got the spacial coordinates right this time! Greetings all! Mike, the usual!" A cup of specially brewed English tea is promptly brought to him by the bartender. "For those of you who don't yet know me, I am known as the Doctor. I know many of you, having met you several times in the future." He waves to Gilly and smiles broadly. "You're going to be very happy, and it will happen sooner than you think!" He bends down to scratch a wolf's ears and nod solemnly at the Blue Unicorn. "Gentlemen, I have had many friends, but I, too, know lonliness." He raises his cup. "To the end of our journeys: may we find our individual destinies before they find us!" He downs the rest of his tea, and looks disapprovingly at the cup. "This simply won't do. Mike, a ginger beer, if you please." Taking the drink from the counter before him, he gulps it down, and hurls the mug at the fireplace. "Ah! Much better. The effect is lost on a teacup!" Dropping the teacup into one of his seemingly endless supply of pockets, he waves goodbye to the regulars of Callahan's Bar, and ducks into the large blue box, which fades out with the customary whooshing sound. +--------------------------------+-----------------+--------------------------+ | Handle: Unbeliever | Empty |"In the immortal words of | |Internet: cosc5sh@elroy.uh.edu | Space | Socrates, who said, 'I | | Bitnet: cosc5sh@elroy +-----------------+ drank what?!?'" | | UUCP: ...texbell!uhnix1!elroy.uh.edu!cosc5sh | -- Real Genius | +--------------------------------------------------+--------------------------+ Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!gh1g+ From: gh1g+@andrew.cmu.edu (Gregg Fielding Hinderstein) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Another Toast (won't I ever get change?) Message-ID: <0ZStmYa00V4C05h0o8@andrew.cmu.edu> Date: 5 Dec 89 10:47:00 GMT Organization: Class of '91, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 28 Hi again all, with all the people who "sit in the corners listening" I guess a few of us have to keep yappin' on, huh? :) Anyway, Mike, an Ice Tea please (no, not a Long Island one) I have a problem I've never heard of anyone else having, and it's affecting my whole life. The problem is that I intimidate people. Not phyically, I'm only 160 pounds, and not prone to violence, but somehow... I first realized this last year, when my best friend told me to come along to his girlfriend's room one afternoon. Seemed she wasn't getting along with them, and "you make them nervous". After this, I began to realize it was true all over. I though it might have something to do with my somewhat wild appearance, but I recently learned that a group of people who I had only spoken to over a computer felt it as well. I'll admit, something deep within likes the idea, but in general it's hard to deal with. I even feel it in some of my friends. I don't know if it's subconcious, because I'm afraid of being hurt, or entirely accidental. It also seems that if I don't scare people, I might be boring them, I'm never really sure which it is. Anyway, it seems I get ignored alot. Even here. It's damn painfull sometimes. To people, and what's inside them Gregg "Don't shiver as you pass me by, cause Mister, I'm the one whose frightened" -The Who, I Don't Know Myself Path: mit-eddie!wuarchive!uunet!psivax!ttidca!hollombe From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Jilara's Turn Message-ID: <8204@ttidca.TTI.COM> Date: 5 Dec 89 00:57:20 GMT Reply-To: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com (The Polymath) Distribution: alt Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica Lines: 34 The quiet man in the corner suddenly looks up, as if he's heard an odd sound. No one else seems to have noticed anything. He walks to the door and turns the latch ... The door opens, and Jilara stumbles in, wearing some Celtic jewelery and a long length of tartan wrapped around her. She unpins the brooch and lets it fall off her shoulders. "McPendleton tartan," she says, plunking down a dollar. "I got used to wearing such things when I used to do fairs and parades with a wild bunch of heathen Scots. You all wondered where I got my taste for scotch? I also found a good length of wool, properly draped, keeps you nicely warm. Even on a miserable, rainy St. Paddy's parade in San Francisco, when we all looked like Ellis Island refugees. They were my family, then. They gave me the two most precious things in my life, the two friends who have been the force keeping me going, who believed in me, down the past ten years." She smiles at Callahan. "Laphroigh, this time. Someday, on another night, I'll tell a tale, a tale of a Funeral in Camelot, and how it saved my soul. But that's for another time. Tonight, I just want to toast a group long gone, but ever fondly remembered." She holds up the glass of scotch, gazes into the amber liquid reflecting the light. "And thank god for them..." She steps up, holds the glass for a moment in front of her forehead, extends it out and up, in the manner of the Japanese, who might toast Jizo, the patron saint of travellers and dead souls. "To Clan Colin, and the Old Man, Eoin Colin MacKenzie, who made it all possible!" She drains the glass, smashes it in the fire, and smiles. A few see her turn away and wipe away a tear. [Posted for Jilara by: ] -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Illegitimis non Citicorp(+)TTI Carborundum 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 452-9191, x2483 Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun|philabs|psivax}!ttidca!hollombe Path: mit-eddie!bu-cs!lll-winken!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!nl.cs.cmu.edu!mjc From: mjc@nl.cs.cmu.edu (Monica Cellio) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Another Toast (won't I ever get change?) Message-ID: <7215@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Date: 5 Dec 89 16:18:51 GMT References: <0ZStmYa00V4C05h0o8@andrew.cmu.edu> Organization: Carnegie Mellon University Lines: 20 I think I can understand your problem (intimidating people). In my case, it's a natural "skill" which I deliberately use for certain lower life forms (such as car salesmen, politicians, and those cretins who call me at 9am on a Saturday to sell me aluminum siding for the (brick) house I rent). I try very hard to avoid "accidentally" intimidating people, but it doesn't always work. I was told once by someone that a mutual friend has a great deal of respect for me because I can intimidate another mutual friend; I had never *tried*. And there are people who've never met me who are sometimes afraid of me because they've heard misplaced hype. Argh! (No, I'm not likely to physically intimidate many people, either.) The people who bother to try to get to know me know what I'm really like. I wish I could say that the rest simply don't matter, but I can't. To appearances. May we be able to keep them under control! *CRASH* Monica mjc@cs.cmu.edu Path: mit-eddie!mintaka!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mailrus!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!jmdoyle From: jmdoyle@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jennifer Mary Doyle) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Interconnectedness Message-ID: <11960@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 5 Dec 89 18:01:22 GMT Distribution: usa Organization: or, conversely, Chaos: Lines: 25 It's amazing where you people turn up. Seems I've been finding Place denizens everywhere I look. On to the varied and gobbeldy reason(s) for this message: I have an id file of the sort, um, *someone* [sorry!] is looking for, but it's rather long. It was originally written as my relay idfile. When I say long, I mean 100+ lines. I can mail it to those who are interested. Second, hello to all of you in corners. Come share with us when you like, don't if you don't. We'd welcome your additions, but respect the silence. And hello to you over in the corner, discussing politics and education, and maybe geology. Welcome. And finally, third. Mike, I want to celebrate my majority. It is now legal by my state laws for me to drink (as of 2 days ago), so let me have a Fuzzy Navel, please. Thanks. [10-20 minutes later...] "To the people in the corner. I understand because I know. I've been there too." Jen -- "Make mine a root beer, Mike. Thanks. To communication! " ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jennifer Doyle // Princeton '92 // jmdoyle@phoenix.princeton.edu Disclaimer: I am a student, I represent the future.