I’m not one to go around asking for advice. I’m usually only giving it, but I just might need some insight from my Facebook friends. I just found a message on my phone from…..GUESS WHO?

The Ex. The one who wrote that inscription to me, and the the one that I suppose is at the root of all this crap with Becky Haynes. It’s surprisingly nerve-wracking to hear the voice of a person you were in love with over a decade ago. Surreal. (And after that long, still having any reaction at ALL–what’s that about?).

She was perfectly civil. This is what she said:

“Hey Kelli this is Tammy. I understand you posted some personal letter or card or something from me on your Facebook page. I would appreciate it if you would remove that, it was never intended for the whole world to see, and I don’t really appreciate that, and i wish you would remove that, and anything else like that. Thanks.”

Okay, first, obviously, she hasn’t seen it. Because she didn’t seem to know just what was posted.

Second, she obliviously doesn’t know much about Facebook, or she’d know that it was not “For the whole world to see”–it was only seen by those on my Friend’s List, of which Becky was a part, and this is the only reason it got back to her.

Third, what the hell about it is so personal? –That it reveals that someone named Tammy had a relationship with me 12 years ago, and at least one time, she wrote something cute and affectionate in side the cover of a book she gave me?

Oh HORRORS. What will all those BILLIONS of people think of her?

Seriously, why would she care? I asked myself that question yesterday. If the shoe were on the other foot, would i care that she posted an inscription JUST LIKE THAT, from me, on her Facebook? Um, NO. Why would I?

Even if I acknowledged that people have differing views of what is “private”, especially in today’s wide-open technology environment, respecting some dubious infringement on that privacy seems to be predicated on whether i should care, in relation to this person.

This is the person who managed to push me out of BOTH of my bands, and summarily took away my biggest dreams. Now, understand, i was the principal songwriter, lead singer, booking agent, publicist, bought the equipment on MY CREDIT, carried it all in MY van, which got trashed, and never got any compensation for any of it. Not even GAS MONEY.

This is the person who abandoned our first band and bandmates, without giving them an explanation, though I begged her to–and in so doing, also crushed THEIR dreams.

In fairness, she had just lost her younger brother and was grieving. So I was afraid to do anything BUT be supportive. Ultimately, though, I was too in love with her to stand up and say, “If you don’t explain it to them, I will.” So i went along with it, because i was supporting my partner in her needs.

Then she wanted to start a new project, and I didn’t understand, because i thought she wanted to be away from the music for a while. Again, another misjudgment I made by going along with that. But after we broke up partway into that second project, I had to keep playing music with her while she was being cruel and hateful to me. She would place the other member between me and her on stage, (there were only three of us, it was an acoustic trio), and they would start songs without telling me what they were, and do songs i didn’t even know, and I was the Lead Singer.

How many times have you seen the lead singer off to one side, while the backup singer and guitarists were clumped together on the other? There’s a reason why the stage configuration is the way it is….So then that meant the other singer could sing all these songs SHE knew and I was left over on one side, trying to figure out what was going on. It felt awful.

I had to watch them leave shows, and go off together to talk about the experience, while I went home alone WITH THE EQUIPMENT, which i usually had to unload myself.

Finally, with visions of throwing myself in front of a train, I had to walk away from that dream, too. I contacted both of my previous bandmates and I offered an apology for what happened before with the first band; I told them both i had been a spineless ninny, and that they didn’t deserve that. I asked for their forgiveness and they both gave it and said they understood.

Since then, my Ex has apparently amassed some kind of musical posse from that past to collectively ignore and hate me. Everyone in that circle of people has discarded me like so much dryer lint. There are all kinds of examples, but I’d rather not resurrect any more of that crap from the past, than i have already done here, by way of explanation.

The point is, this person (The Ex) has never given me any reason to respect ANYTHING she might want. She never showed any respect to me at all. And I’m aware of, and am now recalling, how many times I took the high road with all that, and how many times, i erred on the side of “being nice” and “doing the right thing.” Being honorable only got be a boot in the teeth. And it got me ostracized from my own life. I became the Historical Pariah of that Clique of people. That Clique that is now all intertwined again in more musical projects together.

So now, I’m supposed to take down that little inscription photo, as if I had been reprimanded like a child, take it on the chin, and grin and shuffle and say “Yes massah”?

I don’t fucking think so.

It makes me want to have it printed in the newspaper in a full page ad.

If someone asks me to protect their privacy, I would normally do that–I don’t infringe on that unless a person has betrayed me, and then I just don’t care. It becomes material for my own evolution, community property for others to mull over and perhaps learn from, and fodder for my writing.

And yes, sometimes it becomes my own paltry revenge, the only way I know how. Someone screws me over, and they usually end up being an exceedingly unlikeable character in one of my books. This, in lieu of tire slashing or keying their car. I am patently nonviolent. My wars are usually intellectual ones.

So, to a Jury of my Peers….what say you?