Got an email address
I think - think - that I've found an email address for Natalya Tartakovsky. I got the bright idea to start looking through rec.arts.ballet, since my searches on her name found the Tartakovsky family being major contributors to several ballet companies in the Pacific Northwest and her mentioned as attending several opening nights. So, figuring she's got an interest, I start looking at discussion boards, and eventually find her posting to newsgroups. The posts stopped a couple weeks ago, and the address was a hotmail account, the type you never read so that spammers harvesting addresses from usenet won't have your real address.

Now that I've got it, though, I'm not sure what to write. How do you warn someone that their boyfriend isn't who he says he is without sounding like you're crazy? What if the first thing Nat does is to tell "Martin", or Michelle finds out some other way - like, if she's already stolen Natalya's body? And even if she believes that something's not right about "Martin", what can she do? Hire a private detective? What can he find, aside from this blog (which isn't even using real names because I didn't want Michelle or Kurt or anyone finding it)? There's no prior connection between the two of us.

And if Martin finds out... What's the reprecussions? Say Michelle's really a witch who's being tested somehow. That's the most benign possiblity. I suspect that I'm for the most part being left alone because leaving me alone is useful - maybe the technology (or, OK, magic) that accomplished the switch is untested and observing my health and actions teaches them something. Or maybe it's just entertaining. Maybe she figures she might need to know something only I would know. Or maybe killing one of us (or doing me some other kind of harm) would have reprecussions to the other.

Killing me. Or killing Michelle, legally. Either way, the continuous stream of memories and identity that I consider "me" would come to an end. Right now, I'm maybe not worth bothering. But if I start telling people like Natalya - people with resources - without hiding behind pseudonyms... Maybe I become expendable.

Damn it. I wish I could think on this some more, but the longer I wait, the more likely Michelle is to steal Natalya's body, or the more irrelevent any information I'm keeping in Michelle's noggin would be, or the more confident Michelle and whoever else is responsible might become in their process...

Arrrrrgh! It seems like every chance I get to actually help myself just makes me more afraid to do anything!
- posted 9:07 PM - - (archive use only)