[Coach]

On Monday February 13 I intend to begin serially posting my autobiographical novel LOVE NOTE on Andy's General Spinal Injury Discussion message board at http://www.spinalinj...om/homepage.htm. Any of you who read much of THE HEALING, which I've been posting there, will recognize a few of its characters, including Arthur and Lee, and of its plot lines, like Arthur trying to write. The day LOVE NOTE begins is nearly ten years after THE HEALING ends, but flashbacks tell a lot of what happened in those ten years. (Understanding LOVE NOTE does not require having read THE HEALING.)

I lack and crave readers, and I thought no harm could come of posting THE HEALING. LOVE NOTE is a different matter, because LOVE NOTE can indeed cause harm. I would publish it relatively qualm free, but posting it on one SCI message board and mentioning it on another is different and I think requires an upfront warning. Much of its matter is explicitly sexual, and it may be offensive to some of you, but it's not the sexual content itself about which I feel I must warn but the temptation it may possibly arouse to mix sex and drugs as I did. Anyone who is tempted should think twice. Cocaine is trouble. It messes with your sleep; it causes you to lie, even to those who love you and fear for your well-being; it's very illegal; it's very expensive; it's very addictive and incredibly difficult to use in moderation; and it puts serious strain on your vital organs, including your heart, and may directly damage them. Too, if you use it with a lover, it puts your lover at risk. I do not recommend anyone try to revive his or her genital sensation by willy-nilly using cocaine. It came to let me feel intensely, but I'm not at all sure it can do the same for you, even doubt it. LOVE NOTE is not an ad for an illegal poison, and I haven't done any coke since November 5, 1990. I do wish, though, that more research was being done on SCI and sensation, particularly sexual sensation. Is it?

LOVE NOTE's about being a quad and a human being, about feeling and doing and trying to do, about communicating and not communicating, and about love. It was written for a general audience, but touches on innumerable points in which those of us on this and Andy's board have special interest. I struggled to write it, and in some ways and some places it's very much what I hoped to write. I hope that some of you will find it interesting, even worth while, and that my lust to be read hasn't led me merely into doing mischief. I also hope it will now and then serve as a starting point for discussions on Andy's board and even here.