Monday, April 21st 2003
A weblog recording the events surrounding the disappearance of B—.
April 21st 2003B— is the father of my child who was born seven weeks ago. I haven't seen him since October 10th 2002 and don't know if I ever will again. This website is an attempt to help him, though I'm afraid it might have the opposite effect. I have to admit though, that my priority is my baby, and if he has B—'s genes, I would rather make this story public now, than have him be harassed, or worse, hunted, in twenty years' time.
I kept a diary during the time that I knew B— . I mean I was already keeping one, but it only got interesting when I met him. If you click on Diary entries on the menu you'll get a list to choose from. I only typed up the interesting parts, so there are sometimes big chunks missing. He signs himself B., and it gave me the idea to use the initial for him throughout the diary, as it was difficult for me to start thinking of him by his real name when I finally found out what it was, and both his real and fake names begin with B anyway.
I have tried to make things a little clearer for online readers than they were in the original diary, so there are little bits of description, explanation and such like which were added by me in square brackets [like this] as I transcribed so as to make things clearer for those readers who are not me! In fact it was very tempting to rewrite history as I transcribed, but I decided to be honest to my feelings at the time they were written. Of course, being a diary, it's all subjective anyway, including anything I quote from anyone, especially some long conversations with B— , which I made huge attempts to remember and transcribe the day they happened because they were unlike any conversations I’d ever had and played a huge part in my falling in love with him.
I carry the paper diary with me all the time, so some parts were written 'live', often at work during the day, some parts written at the end of the day, some parts the following day. I noticed while re-reading it that the tenses kept/keep switching, but decided there was no appropriate tense for what goes on in my mind, and left it as is.
As of mid-November 2002, when I took the decision to make the diary public, I have been writing from the perspective of communicating to strangers rather than to myself, so you may notice a change in tone and intelligibility when you get to the entry for November 19th.
B—'s emails to me since he disappeared (and some others from before) are collected in the section called B—'s emails, which can be accessed via the menu bar. Who knows, maybe the odd clue about his whereabouts might be spotted by someone out there who isn't as close to the whole thing as me. The section also contains most of my emails to him, though I lost the first bunch when cleaning up my computer after the incident last September. There is also a section called other emails containing correspondence I’ve received from strangers about B— and this blog.
The section called B—'s papers contains a letter to our son as well as other documents which I received by mail from B— earlier this month. The documents are mostly essays and musings about subjects which interest B— . I may transcribe the ones I find interesting and put them online, but it's not a priority for me. In the Documents section you will find whatever documentation I have been able to collect by fair means and foul (sorry, B— ) and have scanned into the computer, including the only photo of him I have.
There is also a Glossary, which I decided to add for those who don't live in Montreal and don't know some of our local words and expressions. There are hyperlinks from these words to their glossary entries. Just move your mouse pointer over words you don't recognize to see if they link to the glossary.
Finally, there is a Bibliography section which contains the titles and authors of books which might help the public's understanding of the New Sense in some way, as well as relevant blogs. There is an ongoing update process for the bibliography. Suggestions are welcome, and can be made by emailing me here.
And why did I call the site The New Sense? You'll see.
Sara Sam, Montreal
Thanks to John Dutton for help and suggestions with the weblog design and programming. The New Sense weblog © 2003 John B. Dutton.
