Police Sent For Rollins' Ex

By El Destino
Pigdog Staff Writer

A police officer visited a Seattle-area hotel after Omni Development founder and president Wil Shipley paid an unexpected call on ex-girlfriend Kim Rollins.

The policeman's visit culminated an ongoing series of humiliations for the Omni Group founder. After Rollins failed to answer a phone call from the hyperventilating Shipley, "I went to the hotel and knocked on her door," he confesses in an on-line essay, "praying that she'd be there and could hold me."

http://www.omnigroup.com/People/wjs/Ouch/981118.html (Archived)

Ms. Rollins was at the hotel -- and did, in fact, hold him. But Shipley remembers that "While I was there, my mom called" -- and then, "the cops showed up while I was talking to her...." Responding to an earlier phone call -- in which signs of hyperventilation were evident -- and unable to reach his cell phone, Shipley's mother had sent the police to the hotel. "Mom had said if I don't impress the cops with my rationality they might 'suggest' I go spend the night at Harborview," the Omni Development founder confides on-line -- a suggestion "Mom" later indicated would take the form of handcuffs.

Shipley's software company occupies an elite niche. "They are NEXTSTEP -- now OPENSTEP/Rhapsody/Mac OS X -- specialists," remembers Pigdog Journal editor RatSnatcher. "Their web browser runs on NEXTSTEP; all of their software does." Omni's work has ultimately involved some of the industry's largest clients. "They did the port of FrameMaker to NEXTSTEP...." But now? "Still haven't paid the bills for Omni," Shipley writes. "For the last two days it's been the only thing on my plate, but I haven't been able to do it."

http://www.omnigroup.com/People/wjs/Ouch/981119a.html (Archived)

Pigdog's coverage of the ongoing psychic chaos has drawn mixed reviews. ("Go fuck yourself. This a godamn stupiod obsession with boring people," one reader commented -- in an apparent attempt to frame noted U.K. drunk "Johnny Royale.") Indeed, in a painfully confessional stream of essays seven since Tuesday -- Shipley mulls endlessly over the details of their nine-year relationship's break-up Sunday. "How many times can I tell her that I love her still, and will take her back, before she starts feeling like she has to defend her decision, and in doing so hurts me more?"

"Ok, this last question isn't actually rhetorical -- I know the answer, because she reached that point yesterday."

Shipley documents his ongoing meltdown -- vomiting at his friend Wolfe's house, vomiting in the Omni Group parking lot... "At about 9 a.m. I was so completely miserable the only thought that comforted me was, well, if this gets too tough I can always pull a Kurt Cobain. That actually made things more tolerable."

"Somewhere in there I got sick and put my finger down my throat so I could get rid of the soup."

Day Four of the very-public turmoil continues, leaving web-browsers watching in stunned silence. "I imagined there was this sphere made of polished metal, and it was hollow inside," Shipley wrote Wednesday. "If I could center it, with my mind, around my heart, it would act like a faraday cage, and keep my heart from sending out all the pain waves. I called it 'The Void'(TM)."

"At this point I was finally starting to torture myself with images of him and her in bed, so I really needed anything."

Shipley offers a thorough depiction of his ongoing unproductivity. "I've got a routine, now. Sleep fitfully all night. Call people until I can get out of bed. Struggle into work. Write this wretched journal. Become unbearably lonely. Go home. Try to find someone to talk with until bedtime...."

And Kim Rollins? "She switched hotels, and wouldn't tell me the new number."

http://www.omnigroup.com/People/wjs/Ouch/981119.html (Archived)