January 15

Scenic Route’s sixth anniversary came and went on Tuesday while I was in the third day of battling with a client’s broken computer, which was pushing back an already too large backlog of client web work.

Plus there’s the stuff that I need to do for my business, like get the new Linux-based test server here at home going in preparation for leasing a new online server, work on my advertising campaign, (shit, just even finish my business web site), write my newsletter…

There’s also stuff I want to do, like a local site where I want to do a makeover of then see if I can sell it to the owner, I want to write more here and maybe make some modifications—dunno, that one hit me just this morning.

However, on the site’s sixth anniversary I committed an act that I once thought was unspeakable and that I now see as a necessary evil. Never say never.

Drama rules

It felt awkward to leave last month’s entry hanging the way I did with sort of a teasing reference to drama. I did actually run out of steam that day, but I was still unsure if I should write anything about it at all and if so, how much.

The drama is between two friends and I’m involved only in that I’m in the middle. I tried to help bridge the gap and show how different points of view were equally valid even if one disagrees with them. There are amicable ways to disagree, you know.

Ultimately, I decided that the root of it all wasn’t my issue—which means it’s not a valid topic here—and that writing anything about it would hurt feelings on both sides. Boy am I glad I did.

On Tuesday, the site’s sixth anniversary, I blackholed 2½ years of entries and a handful of pages that refer to them. As the battle escalates between the two factions, I’ve removed Scenic Route as a weapon between them. If they want to use things I wrote against one another, they’ll need a subpoena.

The whole thing saddens me. I can see valid issues and concerns on each side and I can see a fairly broad middle ground where compromise could be reached and could be renegotiated as time moves on. Pigheaded rigidity continues to prevail on both sides and the person central to the dispute is treated like a prize to be won or a trophy to be retained.

I have been treated alternately as ally, messenger, spy and now, I fear, as pariah. Thus, I had made the decision—and informed both parties—a week or two ago that I had to step out of the middle in order to maintain my own sanity and retain even the possibility of a continuing relationship with either or both of them. Then, last week, the words “had a long talk with the attorney today” came in an email.

That’s when I made the sickening decision regarding the journal. The 13^th was the first day I could get around to doing it. There was no premeditated symbolism to it, however, now that the unspeakable has been committed, it sits there—big, fat, nasty, foreboding. What does it mean?

I don’t know how to, whether I should or whether I can maintain these friendships which are so dear to me. There are people with medically-limited remaining life-spans on both sides. It’s not like I could disappear for ten years then come back to pick up the threads. There may be none to pick up. And, perhaps selfishly, I want to enjoy their friendship while I can.

I shall go for a cry now and return later…