Kristin, I can ask B to do a search in the next day or two. Provided she doesn't pop.

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he did interact with brenda and ... someone else I'm forgetting

Well, for the record, there was me. Gus did business with my company as well. However, he donated the labor, so there was no receipting process. All my company's correspondence with him happened electronically as well. (Which is not unusual for us, I should add.) So I have nothing helpful as far as documentation goes. I appreciated the expertise of a generous man.

I don't post my picture online, have in the past flaked out of planned meet-ups, post under multiple pseudonyms and email addresses throughout the web, decline to tell you my real name and address, and if you managed to find my unlisted phone numbers would discover that one was a New Mexico number and one was an Indianapolis number, neither of which are where I (claim to) live. I have deliberately avoided being visible on the web and am not, with the exception of my company. I am shy and have not met most of you and have never called any of you. Well, okay, except Steph, 'cause I needed directions to Graeters. Very important. I did meet some of you and some of you do know my name and company and where my house is. But I find lots of what we have under discussion here still falls under plausible deniability for me. There's also lots that remains inexplicable and problematic.

If I were a family member and read this conversation, would I be upset by reading that someone hopes my loved one is dead so that he doesn't turn out to be a liar? Yeah.

(eta: I feel this way, too, and said so privately early on. I don't mean to feel this way is wrong, just that I might react poorly upon seeing it if I were a legitimately grieving family member.)

Was I a friend who was upset upon hearing about his death, upset at seeing the mourning of my friends, and more upset by the possibility of deception? Yeah.

Where does that leave me? I'm not too sure, other than I am sorry we have suffered a loss as a community, one way or another. I'm sorry we've been hurt, one way or another. I hope we continue to communicate with each other and relate to each other regardless.

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Thanks for weighing in, Liese. (I have to admit, I never feel older than when I realize how much of my life is googleable.) Definitely agree that the monkey-grooming should be, and has mostly been, set on High.

(Anybody who has YouTube footage of a monkey and a hair-dryer, now is your moment!! )

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Well, there is Trunk Monkey.

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What about a Monkey bathing a cat:

[link]

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Sorry if this is way late, but I was pointed to this:

For the record, I did not check with deb, to see if she ever finally got it. Those comments by me were based only on what I saw in thread. Deb doesn't come here much any more, and I didn't want to drag her into something, so for all I know, she got a synopsis. I just never saw it in GWW.

No synopsis. He never sent it. Claimed he had, but it never got to my email. I wondered about it then, but frankly, my own suspicions had nothing to do with whether or not he was "real"; I find I don't much care, since whoever or whatever he was, he was funny and sharp-edged in the only place I was still posting at b.org in the past year.

I wondered if he'd remembered that I don't read much scifi or fantasy, and was afraid I'd roll my eyes at it. Which is silly - I wouldn't have, not to him, not to anyone.

I have no clue if this one of these cases Allyson writes about in her book - that was the Penlind person, yes? I have trouble believing it, just because the mind boggles. Who in HELL has time to stage something that whack?

Anyway. Hoping everyone's having a good new years.

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I don't post my picture online, have in the past flaked out of planned meet-ups, post under multiple pseudonyms and email addresses throughout the web, decline to tell you my real name and address, and if you managed to find my unlisted phone numbers would discover that one was a New Mexico number and one was an Indianapolis number, neither of which are where I (claim to) live. I have deliberately avoided being visible on the web and am not, with the exception of my company. I am shy and have not met most of you and have never called any of you. Well, okay, except Steph, 'cause I needed directions to Graeters. Very important. I did meet some of you and some of you do know my name and company and where my house is. But I find lots of what we have under discussion here still falls under plausible deniability for me. There's also lots that remains inexplicable and problematic.

Thank you for posting this, Liese. Good to remember that we are all only giving what we chose to here and online.

I hope we continue to communicate with each other and relate to each other regardless.

We are all optimistic on that point, I think. I mean, I really hope we do, but the past couple of days have been ugly on a lot of sides.

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It's sad. There was definitely a poster named Gus. He posted. Many of us interacted. Now maybe the things he said about himself were true and maybe they weren't. Many people are focusing on this because they want something verifiable about his life and death. I - personally, very personally - don't give a damn about whether he lied about his life. But I do care about whether or not the person posting, that I had an online posting relationship with, is really dead or not. And finding that out? Requires finding things out. It's viciously circular.

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I do care about whether or not the person posting, that I had an online posting relationship with, is really dead or not. And finding that out? Requires finding things out. It's viciously circular.

This, precisely.

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Liese, am I crazy, or were you at the first F2F? Didn't you have some magic cord action in Chicago or am I thinking of someone else?

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Yeah, I was. I was tech chick in the days before we had ND. Heh.

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