On that front, I’m now looking at the amazing possibility of helping people in sexuality communities who have contacted me from Washington DC, Toronto, and San Francisco emulate the success of New York City’s event in their own hometowns. But not yet…. Not quite.

As the unconference ended, Sara and I were joined by a group of over 20 friends (and friendly acquaintances) for dinner at a nearby Asian restaurant. Despite my hunger (I only ate at the behest of my concerned friends during the day ’cause I was so busy), I didn’t want to finish my meal; I knew that would be the end of dinner, and the day. Nevertheless, day turned to night and as Sara and I walked around the corner for a modicum of privacy, excitement gave way to sadness and we said (temporary) goodbyes in tears.

I retreated from the city then, headed towards Providence, Rhode Island to stay with close friends who generously offered me the opportunity to create a small sanctuary in their spare room. This has been helpful, and I can begin to feel myself recovering, but I’m still having trouble grounding myself in the here and now or focusing on the new tasks at hand. For one thing, there are so many, and for another thing, they are so vastly different from what I’ve just done that mentally changing gears so radically, so quickly, under so much pressure, is actually painful.

When I moved my self and my life half way around the globe to Sydney last year, I felt optimistic about what I would find. Sadly, I didn’t find what I wanted. Now, having moved myself and my life all the way back across the planet and then some, I’m determined to make what I want—because it doesn’t exist yet, and no one knows what it’s going to look like…except me.

My hosts, Emms and Zac, are nothing short of a godsend. They are literally a healing warmth of a magnitude I could not possibly express adequately in words. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving in their home, I fell ill. Of course, this is not at all a surprise considering my physiological history for exactly such mind-body connection.

My attempts to focus on my writing (for my second and much more advanced web development book on CSS I’m authoring; my first book was much more 101-level) have been only partially successful, but I’m encouraged by this anyway. As Emms told me last night while cooking a pasta dinner for us all, “Comfort yourself with the standards of the world,” a piece of advice she wisely preceded with, “Now’s the time to focus on only the most important parts of your chapters.” This, all while taking my hand every time my eyes unexpectedly overflow with the salt water I feel like I’ve been storing up in them.

I’m a little…not annoyed…chagrined at the admission that yesterday was the first full day in more than 4 weeks that I didn’t cry at all. Not only this, but earlier today while my hosts were at their day jobs and I mainlined enormous quantities of tea as though it were a blood transfusion, I couldn’t stop myself from crawling backwards in time towards happier memories. I cried again, embarrassingly loudly since no one was home, and resigned to let my head rest for a while instead of forcing it further into failing attempts to create reusable patterns of CSS code for styling semantic markup.

To help with the memories, I’ve been playing MGMT‘s Kids on repeat for what must be an hour or more now. I first heard it on Australia Day (apparently Australia’s almost-equivalent of America’s Columbus Day), which Sara and I spent with Janek and company at his house on a tropical, warm, rainy day in Sydney. The radio was playing all day but the only song I remember was this one because, somehow, it stood out like a spotlight. I remember laying on the couch in the living room with my head in Sara’s lap, eyes closed, as she pet my head and I purred along with the kittens in the far corner of the room. The memory is emblazoned in my mind’s eye as a vivid still frame.

When Zac came home and gave me a hug to comfort my tears, he remarked on the song. “It’s always weird to hear this song,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Emms and I went to college with them—the band.”

And now I have two memories.

My flight from Sydney to New York City was less than good, better than terrible. I already knew I hated United Airlines, now I’m just more committed never to flying with them again. More than that, I’m frustrated that my flight was so dependent on choices Sara’s family made for her without consideration for me. If little else, I’m happy to be finally out of reach of their influence.

It’s been weeks, literally, since I haven’t cried at one point or another, usually multiple, in the day. I’ve been falling asleep in either tears or unmatched stress and restlessness—each has benefits over the other. Last night was no different.

Today I have errands to run for the KinkForAll New York City event I’m helping to run tomorrow. I’m extremely proud of the work Sara and I have managed to accomplish on it not only for the first time ever in our lives but also literally from the other side of the planet.

Simultaneously, I’ve been chasing and feeling continually frustrated by failing to make significant-enough progress on writing my book on CSS. My co-author Joe has been fantastic, and one particular employee, Clay, from the publisher has also been equally supportive. However, the rest of this project feels extremely precarious and that is endlessly aggravating.

It’s aggravating because it was a project I sincerely wanted to see done well, and have been working toward for a long time. I quit my day job something like 6 months ago now in order to focus on getting it accomplished successfully, but I am now further behind than I was then. Despite my best efforts, life kept throwing me curveballs to the point where I already know it’s not going to be the book I wanted it to be. I’m extremely angry at…everything…for that.

As if that weren’t enough, as many already know by now, Sara and I are no longer together, for reasons I’d rather not discuss quite yet. As painful as this would be in general, this is even more painful when seen in light of the fact that it’s one of the reasons my book has suffered. The book isn’t some great money-maker for me, but rather an opportunity for professional exposure and recognition that I’ve been working towards for 8 years—that’s how long I’ve been making money in the web development industry. To have that opportunity suffer pours salt into wounds that moving to Sydney in the first place had already re-opened and which the loss of this relationship is a 3^rd degree burn.

All in all, I’m struggling to keep professional commitments afloat, organizing a first-of-its-kind unconference for the sexuality communities in New York City, ending a 4-year relationship (with the person I’m organizing the unconference with), and moving across the planet. All. At. Once.

I want to change the channel off of this ridiculous soap opera, but can’t. Instead, I keep playing everything in fast-forward in my head until I can again see a point somewhere in the hopefully not too distant future where everything I’ve worked on is successful and I’m peaceful once again. Please let that day be soon.

I just took a little Happiness Formula test and the result I got is unsurprising:

Slightly below average in life satisfaction

People who score in this range usually have small but significant problems in several areas of their lives, or have many areas that are doing fine but one area that represents a substantial problem for them. If you have moved temporarily into this level of life satisfaction from a higher level because of some recent event, things will usually improve over time and satisfaction will generally move back up. On the other hand, if you are continually slightly dissatisfied with many areas of life, some changes might be in order. Sometimes we are simply expecting too much, and sometimes life changes are needed. […] Some people can gain motivation from a small level of dissatisfaction, but often dissatisfaction across a number of life domains is a distraction, and unpleasant as well.

For obvious reasons there’s been a lot of work done about trying to understand happiness. Everyone seems to have their own way about it, too. Something in this citation from my test result gave me a flashback.

When I was about 14 years old, I was a regular attendee of the Mood Disorders Support Group of New York (MDSGNY, for short). It was filled with people nearly twice my age, battling similar issues in much the same way that I was, with mood disorders ranging from mild depression to severe bipolar disorder and even frighteningly notable dissociative disorders. A common thread of advice that was given to us was that “people like us simply can’t expect to achieve the same accomplishments that people without these difficulties can.”

I found it insulting, and I was consistently questioning why that assumption was held so tightly with such a prevalent view. No one would ask why, or even seemed at all distressed by the fact. It was simply a matter of fact to most of the other attendees, and they seemed content with their resignation to accept it.

For a long time I’ve been struggling with understanding how other people seem so simply “predisposed to happiness” whereas I feel as though I am cursed by being “predisposed to sadness.” A short time ago, I wrote this:

In the search for answers people can come up with so many different rationalizations. It’s endless. The other day, I went to another party that I didn’t have a great time at through no fault of the very awesome hosts. This is becoming a trend I don’t like.

So, naturally, I instinctually come up with (endless) rationalizations to explain why. Every single thing I come up with is pure crap, of course, because it doesn’t really matter why I had a bad time since (surprise) it doesn’t change the fact that I had a bad time. No reason even has the potential to make me feel any better at all except for reasons that hinge solely on my own failings, because those are the only ones in which the situation was anything that “I could have done differently.”

Naturally (I have to imagine), thinking of my own failings makes me feel even worse. The net result is a cycle of thoughts that makes me feel bad and not good and in no way able to be happy about anything. And then I start to get quiet and go inside and want everything to stop.

This is such a typical thing. Everyone does it but from my vantage point it looks as though people react differently to such internal thoughts. I can’t see how they do that.

Most recently, it’s my relationship and social satisfaction that has seemed doomed to failure. I saw an interesting article on the BBC news web site about just such a thing: that researchers believe accepting sadness and resigning oneself to deal with the difficult times instead of believing in a fantasy where such sadness is simply gone, may in fact be one element of successful relationships. Another interesting quote from the article was this:

“The field of mental health perpetuates this myth with the very concept of “mental health,” which implies a state without suffering,” they say.

In other words, the very idea that sadness and difficulty is a sign of “mental illness,” judged only with the one-dimensional simplicity of the binaries of “mentally healthy” versus “mentally not healthy,” is worse than simply incorrect, but rather actively harmful.

In relationships, I have an unflinching confidence in myself to be able to “stick with it” through the bad times, but a persistent fear that my partner will never do the same. No other partner has proven themselves capable of this; each of them has high-tailed it and ran, and none want anything to do with me anymore.

It feels so circular.

A friend of mine recommended the blog of Penelope Trunk to me the other day. It was a wonderful recommendation. In one of her articles that I read, she says of the job hunt:

When it comes to career schemes, we simply do not have accurate imaginations about what life will be like for us in different situations, said Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University, when I interviewed him. Our most accurate information about what will make us happy comes from snooping in on other peoples’ lives to see if they are happy. And the best way to watch other people is to be in a variety of offices. Gilbert calls the informal process of judging other peoples’ happiness “surrogation,” and he says, “surrogation is the best way to predict if we’ll be happy. Observe how happy people are in different situations.”

This seems incredibly applicable to other arenas, such as personal fulfillment as well as social satisfaction. I’m heartened to see that my hard work and continuous efforts mimic this approach, even if I’m clearly not happy most of the time yet.

So, I don’t know. What makes you happy?

If

By Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Am I asking too much? Why can’t I just go to parties and have a good time?

The thing about being strong is that being strong means not getting what you want or what you need and yet being okay anyway. When I was young and, of course, even these days, I don’t always get what I want or need. I can do it, but I don’t like it. When I was young, my father would regularly tell me to be generous. The thing about being generous is that it makes it easier to be strong. That’s what my father was trying to teach me, I think. That’s really a very smart thing to teach a child.

Oh my god! This can not be happening to me. I simply can not deal with this.

There has been an ongoing issue at my work about training. After the absolute disaster at the last engagement I was on, I was promised three weeks of training–something I’d been asking for since after I finished my “official” training that I felt didn’t really help me at all because of the unorganized, utterly abysmal experience that was. Then it was two weeks. Then it a little more than one. Then it was just cancelled, and I was next put on an assignment that allowed me to work from home.

This working from home thing was awesome, because it meant two things. First, that I would get the chance to actually use the product I’m supposed to be an expert in supporting as opposed to looking over someone’s shoulder while they use it because they don’t want me touching their computer network due to the company’s security restrictions, which is what was happening at the disaster client. Second, it gave me the chance to work from home (duh), which is honestly not something I really care that much about for any reason other than the fact that it meant I don’t have to dress in ways I don’t feel comfortable and maintain this mask of someone who I’m not for the sake of the business. Admittedly, that is a big deal, but it’s not a dealbreaker, y’know? (I don’t actually have any problems being professional, but there’s a huge difference between being myself professionally and being a certain kind of professional that has to fit into the molds of the B2B corporate American mold. I can be professional, but I will never fit into that mold, not by a long shot.)

The really annoying thing about getting the chance to work from home, however, is that all this opportunity to spend at home is happening while Sara is in freakin’ Australia on the other side of the fucking world! Sara has been gone since january 24^th (and I missed her a ton immediately), the same day I fell awfully ill with the flu for half a week. It’s been an unbelievably long amount of time and the whole experience, for many reasons that I won’t go into here, has been harrowing in ways I wouldn’t have imagined to the point that I’m insanely anxious about simply getting to see her again because the thought fills me with a crazy sort of unimaginable fear. (I feel so stupid for being this scared about it.)

Now she is finally returning, though because of flight delays I don’t know exactly when, and I expected a call from her some time this morning but haven’t yet gotten one and it’s already 2:30 PM, so this whole airline delay thing may very well cut into our weekend plans. I have already booked flights for myself to Maine and for us to come back on Sunday night. I had to juggle my plans around because this next week at work was planned to be a formal Oracle database training intensive, which I have been looking forward to ever since my first day on the job when I learned about these training intensives because one of my bosses told me I had just missed (by a couple of weeks) the week of intensive Python training taught by Mark Lutz, the author of Learning Python, Second Edition. In brief, I cancelled my Monday day off that I would have spent as an additional “welcome back” period with Sara in Maine that I had asked for (and earned because of the fact that I worked the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday) in order to attend this Oracle training–because I wanted to.

Now, I just got an email from another engagement manager (a boss, basically), that they want me to fly out to Washington State so that I can be there on Monday through (probably) Friday. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?! If I am made to go all the way across this fucking country on the first week of Sara’s return (this upcoming week) for a client who has offered me no real idea of what the fuck I’m supposed to do instead of the training everyone else is getting and that I was expecting from everything I was told at my interviews (I literally asked people “Why did you join this company,” and everyone told me because the learning opportunities were immense–which is true, the opportunties are immense and wonderful, but I want some of them too, damnit!), then I am seriously considering simply saying no and quitting my job on the spot. I simply don’t think I’ll be able to handle that, and with all of this turmoil and absolute torture this job is putting me through, I don’t think I’d feel as if it were such a loss (except financially).

I feel like every single fucking thing is going wrong right now. I don’t feel as though I have a damn shred of support (I know I do really, but it’s so far away), an ounce of understanding (again not really true, I have friends who can understand, but I don’t think Sara really can on anything but a cognitive level–not to say she doesn’t have struggles or that her battles are less important or easier than mine, but she does not have these struggles that I have and by that very fact simply may not be able to relate experiencially to what I’m going through), and the worst luck (and please don’t tell me to count my fucking blessings, that is not what I need right now; I know damn well what my blessings are, thank you). What makes it so unbelievably painful is that the whole of my experiences is so much less priviledged than Sara’s, who’s just been on a wonderful vacation for six weeks and is returning to the wonderful feeling of coming home for a weekend ski trip and to her boyfriend who is supposed to be ecstatic to see her. And I am ecstatic to see her again, but I am so stressed out and emotionally high strung right now that I feel as though I wish she isn’t going to have to put up with this from me.

I spoke for hours with my friend who’s staying with me (after her own horrendously painful breakup the week Sara left for Australia) and she told me that I have to start thinking about myself, not worrying about what kind of a burden I’m going to be on Sara. This is smart, and is probably what I should do, but it’s so hard for me to do that when I have this incredibly powerful urge to just focus all my energy on making everything good for Sara. (Why is that such a powerful urge? Oh my god, for many reasons, all of which are valid and many of which are perfectly healthy, but none of which I’m going to go into right now.)

My friend said that I should want to get pampered from Sara for a little while, have her take care of me, be treated to thoughtfulness and compassion and empathy, and that I should let go of all these stresses I keep taking upon myself like worrying about whether or not I’m going to be happy enough for her so she has a good time. Again, this is smart and makes sense; I can’t possibly have a good time or expect Sara to have a good time with me (which is what I want more than anything in the world right now) if I’m going to be obsessing about the question all the time. But I’m really scared.

I’m scared not only about this weekend but the future as well. What’s going to happen if Sara gets accepted to a school far away? Besides the point of fact that means she’ll be leaving New York, it makes me feel like another knife of how differently priveledged Sara and I are is once again thrust into my heart–not by Sara, just by the situation. I would feel much, much, much better about the whole situation where she feels like she wants to go to graduate school for creative writing if I could understand what the real driving force behind that motivation is. I have to know that if she leaves me for school (I evidently have major, major abandonment issues–not surprising considering my childhood with divorced parents and whatnot), she’s doing it for a reason that’s near and dear to her heart.

Not that I think she’d ever do something so big as moving to Australia for graduate school for any other reason than one that’s near and dear to her heart, but it will be easier to take if I can at least understand–not necessarily agree with–her choice of action and why that specific action of going to a graduate school is the right one for her to make, versus something like getting a full-time job and actually getting into the mindset of writing professionally–not just learning about writing–as I know she can do brilliantly. It comes back to the feeling of resentment (and I feel more guilt for having this feeling of resentment in the first place than I ever thought I would ever feel guilty about anything ever (especially since I constantly tell Sara that guilt is not a useful thing to dwell on–we both have our guilt complexes, me from this, and her from being more priviledged in life than I have ever been)) over my being forced by the Fates to fight a hellish battle for every scrap of happiness and capability to follow my dreams that I can get, whereas Sara has the good fortune to prolong her schooling–something she enjoys–and put off the dreadful experience of having a so-called “real” job (it is viscerally disgusting to me that a “real” job is always seen as something you don’t want) and putting up with the rest of the crap of living in the so-called “real” world (again, I want to vomit thinking that the “real” world is so full of strife all the time) for yet another four years (or more, if she goes for a Ph.D. in Writing in Australia).

(As a sidenote, holy shit, that was an insanely convoluted parenthetical paragraph. Also, I don’t actually wish for her to get a job she hates, of course. I would hardly wish this hell on my worst enemy.)

Again, it’s not that I think Sara doesn’t have her own stuff to deal with. But there is simply no arguing the fact that on many scales of measurable priveledge, she got dealt the better hand. She is brilliant, a constant inspiration to me. And she is so amazingly healthy. No other person I have ever met or ever heard of in my entire life, without exaggeration, is so glowing with the unmistakable aura of a uniquely qualified intelligent mind such as hers is and has not gone through a great deal of very measurable pain and suffering as the source for their genius, the likes of which is obvious to everyone who hears about their suffering. That is the case with me. I am very, very smart. I match Sara’s awesome strengths in many ways, such as self-awareness and intelligence, kindness, and skills in our respective interests. But I have so many still-open scars that have gotten me to this point. Her body is enviously relatively unscathed by the harsh realities of life.

I don’t want this whole thing to sound like a self-pity party–because that’s not what this is supposed to be, but I can’t not feel this way right now. I’m working on it, god, I’m really working on it as hard as I can because I don’t want Sara to have to deal with this huge amount of utter shit that’s in me. I miss smiling. I miss being happy enough to just listen to music and hum to myself. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

And of course, I miss Sara. My god, I miss Sara most of all.

Sara just called! Right as I was publishing this entry, Sara called. She had heard my rambling, crying message I left for her and called me back saying that she was sorry for saying that she’d call me this morning because she was thinking in California time, and I’m on New York time, so when she meant morning she meant California’s morning. (D’oh!)

However, also bad news is that because of the airline delays it is looking like she may not be able to get to Maine until 10 AM Saturday morning, which absolutely changes our weekend plans…. I don’t know what else to do about this weekend, my job, or anything right now, except to go through the motions as normal and so I’m just going to wait things out until I can see her and talk to her face to face and actually hold her in my arms again.

Helen Fisher is an anthropologist with Rutgers University, specializing in gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. Her most recent book is “Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.” In this wide-ranging talk, she outlines the bio-chemical foundations of love (and lust), and discusses the natural talents of women, and their new significance in the modern world. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 24:13)

However, listen carefully, and you’ll hear her also make a case for polyamory, something I’ve written about before. Helen says:

However…these three brain systems, lust, romantic love, and attachment…aren’t always connected to each other. You can feel deep attachment to a long term partner, while you feel intense romantic love for somebody else, while you feel the sex drive for people unrelated to these other partners. In short, we’re capable of loving more than one person at a time.

It’s a good talk, and definitely worth a listen.

Yet this evening I spent a wonderful, if short, dinner with a few friends. I had the chicken soup, as I’m still nursing myself back from the clutches of an evil cough and cold.

It’s hard to remember how much of a resource they can be at times. It’s even harder to remember that the friends I (apparently) have that I didn’t really know I have are a resource too. That is to say that it’s hard for me to remember that my definition of friend is really other people’s definition of best friend or close confidant, and that this discrepency means I have more friends than I think I do.

Which is nice. Especially when these people offer great conversation and the ability for personal insight. (Aforementioned insight involves relationship queries that, for the time being, I do not feel like writing about.) I’m looking forward to our next pot luck party.

And in a few more weeks, my life will change drastically yet again; the other day I was informed that I had been officially hired for a new job in (what else?) tech support for Macs.

Even though I am very excited, and internally I feel like jumping for joy and throwing boxes of confetti everywhere, other people’s reactions to this news have been so animated that it feels more appropriate if I just smile and nod. Someone’s got to keep a level head about it. There’s a lot of paperwork to fill out and all sorts of dates and times and things to confirm. It’s certainly helpful that I’ve recently gotten myself so much more organized.

Sometime near the end of this month I’ll be starting training, a several week process that—I believe—requires that I get ACDT and ACPT certified. I’ll be taking these courses at the Apple campus in California, so this is also a heads-up that I’m going to be out of town for a few weeks soon. (I wonder if the classes will incorporate any information on the new Intel iMacs and MacBooks)

In between all of this preparation regarding new employment, I’ve been doing several web design projects, as well as my usual bouts of tinkering and researching. I’ve had quite a full plate and been enjoying successes in all these areas. As an added bonus, I finally got my new cell phone today which means that I can now be reached at the cell number you have for me. I’m thinking of getting the black swivel holster for it as well.

Unfortunately, Sara’s not been as happy as I have lately, though this contrast between our respective mood baselines has been enlightening. It’s sad that I seem to need to see someone else depressed to notice the fact that I haven’t been depressed in a long time, but it sure does highlight that fact. It also indirectly highlights quite a few others that have shown me just how far along I’ve come from my not-so-distant and very depressed past.

1. I’m able to self-motivate a lot better than I used to be able to do.
2. I’m able to keep timed committments a lot more reliably than I used to be able to.
3. I’m far more able to foresee, manage, and generate financial income than I used to be able to, even if most of my sources of income still rely heavily on connections from family and friends. (That is, I’m able to perform more money-making actions.)

In any event, I’m looking forward to the rest of 2006 with a little more confidence than I faced 2005 with.

It’s just one night. She’ll be back with the car tomorrow. In the mean time, however, I find myself wishing I still had cable television service.

Earlier today, after I spent the day at the Bronx Zoo, my moods took a dip and I felt my head begin to spiral out of control. I feel like I’m drowning…like falling into black ooze, I later told Sara. It’s frustrating; I’m so still and quiet on the outside and I’m screaming on the inside. And then I’m screaming at myself, telling myself to talk so that other people around me—so that you—can understand me. …It’s hard to talk or to move. I feel like stone.

I see no way for me to do that moment justice by describing it. Frozen, I squeezed her hand when she passed by to check on me. She stayed with me for the next half hour telling me a story until I could speak again.

Thank you, love.

Things To Do

• Museum of Natural History
• Magnolia Bakery
• Rollerblading
• Single-tail
• Rue des Crepes
• Cloisters
• Guggenheim
• Chirping Chicken
• Heroboy
• The Met[ropolitan Museum of Art]
• Renfaires! :)
• LARP
• Road trip
• Sail

She shopped for fabrics at a store on 39^th Street. After that I took her to Heroboy (and thus struck it from our list of things to do). Once we had eaten (our first meal of the day), we walked through “commercialism central” and stopped at H&M and Old Navy to get me new clothes.

I now have three new shirts, which each fit me rather well and I’m happy to say look “hot” on me (w00t!), and six new pairs of boxers, which I just wanted because I don’t want to do laundry yet. Shopping was fun because it made me feel accomplished; I completed something I had been meaning to do. It also had strong tones of “coupledom,” this feeling I keep having moments of in the best possible way.

It unnerved me that I had suddenly found a new relationship so quickly after breaking up a short while ago. Without any doubt, however, the best part about this relationship is that it is the first in which I feel I can be completely self-expressive, the whole of who I am, and trust that all of that is not too much to handle; when she pushes, I push back—when we fight, we call it a draw. Athena and Apollo.

The rest of the night was spent with Sarah at her place of work. It really pays to be friends with the bartender! The three of us went out for a late dinner after she closed up at around midnight and spoke of personal history and future plans.

Summer is upon us. I love summer.

My father is understandably concerned. I am keeping a close eye on myself as well, and I’m doing my best not to let things swing too far in either direction. I’m also trying to do my best to maintain that balance between work, socializing, and personal time that I was so adamant about earlier.

Being Social

The past couple of days have swung heavily in the social direction. I suspect this has more to do with the fact that, all of a sudden, most of my friends and acquaintances are actually of college age and, not surprisingly, are graduating college this year. (Just my luck, right?) They all feel it too; everyone seems to be in this bittersweet melancholy mood, bracing for change.

I’ve spent a lot of time with Sara lately, which, of course, meant profuse amounts of introspection and self-reflection and conversation about introspection and self-reflection. Sin City on Thursday night was a lot of fun, but more fun than the movie was the hand-holding and the various other forms of cuddling.

End of the Year College Party

Friday afternoon and early evening sported more conversation between Sara and I over breakfast (which, for me, was a cobb salad that is probably still in her suite’s refridgerator). Later that night, starting from about ten o’clock, her suite hosted an end-of-the-year party. Several things struck me about that party.

• I knew way more people than I would have thought. Not just knew of them but was, sort of, actually friends with many of them. A surprisingly high number, actually. Of all the things going on for me right now, realizing that I’m actually social will be the hardest to get used to. Here’s a list of folks off the top of my head:
  • Jeff was there, and—get this—I actually first met him back when Juliana had invited me to be a naked extra in The Naked Show several years ago. We really connected when I started talking about my old office/tech support job, since that’s what he’s currently escaping.
  • Sara, Sarah, Sarah, and Sarah were all there. Yeah, that many Sarahs. One Sarah I had first met (extremely briefly) the night of Hamlet last week. Another was the one Sara and I took to see Sin City the day before. The other Sarah was one whom I had wanted to get to talk to for some time because she’s a new kind of techie I do not yet know well—I biomedical engineer, I think. Anyway, conversations with all four were nice.
  • Tall German guy who apparently knew more about me than I did about him. The party last night got that sorted out (we talked and whatnot) so now I can actually say that I know a little about Oliver.
  • Emily, another person who knew more about me than I did her. We joked about Judaism, parents (nothing too bad, Aba ve Ima), and alcohol. (Mental image: hyper Jewish girls. ‘Nuff said.)
  • I also got approached by another fine young man whom I vaguely knew but had not really spoken to before. We conversed about CV, its future, and my suggestions for the organization.
  • Melinda attended, and so did Al, whom I know because Melinda got me to attend the Columbia Philosophy Forum discussions. It was when Al walked in that I felt that familiar “It’s a small world” feeling.
• Parties are fun. Let me repeat that, and this time remember who’s blog you’re reading: parties are fun. Of course, I had a great time because I was with friends, but the point remains; I think I can finally relate to all those “normal” kids who really enjoyed partying. Sure, it wasn’t exactly my kind of party, but it was still fun.
• I’m an incredible lightweight and for many reasons (not least of which is safety) I don’t drink alcohol. Nevertheless, I downed a small bottle and a half of Woodchuck (which is evidently not a bird) and still actually had a good time. For the record, yes, thoughts such as “I’m buzzed; that means I need to be extra careful now” were front-and-center in my head.

Back to Work—Sort’a

Today I met with Jon about one of the side projects we’re working on together. I have a bunch of templates to design and build now, which is good because it gives the work aspect of my life something fun to latch on to and be excited about. I also exchanged emails with Dana about the NYCwireless web site, though I’m not as clear about what needs to happen on that project.

Also, yesterday I met with Cal (the man who emailed me after seeing me on 43 Things) and he spoke a lot about business, as well as several other things. He seems to be a really remarkable person and I readily admit that I’m pleasantly surprised by that. I’ll be looking into a suggestion of his, namely to get myself a “Doing Business As” form for Maymay Media.

Tonight, I’m headed down to a bar (a bar!) to meet with a friend (one of the Sarahs). Before that, however, I’m going to hop into the shower because after Squash today (my uncle and I played 7 games; I won 3 of them!) I desperately need it.

I’ll probably add stuff every so often as I find it and deem it helpful. Be aware that some of these resources are decidely local to New York City, since that’s where I am. If you live elsewhere, however, there are certain to be polyamory groups near you. (I know of quite a few around America and even in Europe, so feel free to ask me for the links if you’re interested.)

Sorted in order of (my) perceived quality and introductory importance so that a newcomer can simply run down the list, the polyamory resources are:

Online Poly Resources and Sites on the Web

Polyamory? What, like, two girlfriends?

The must-read intro about what is (and is not) polyamory. This is the single most immediately beneficial document I have ever read on the subject.

Additionally, xeromag.com has a whole bunch of other extremely well-written and informative guides to polyamory. They are each very helpful. I guarantee you these documents will help create an important foundation for talking about and dealing with polyamory and the concept of “open” (or perhaps “not-quite-normal”) relationship(s).

Some of the other articles at xeromag are:

• Never Do This: Poly Mistakes: How to screw up a poly relationship even if you are compassionate and well-intentioned.

  This is the other must-read guide, written in negative form. It’s also got some great refridgerator-worthy items. It informs you (the easy way) about some of the pitfalls you might fall into when trying to build stable, happily non-monogamous relationships. (Reading this over recently made me sad…for obvious reasons.)

• Dos and Don’ts for Poly Relationships: A guide for poly relationships outlining the fundamental dos and don’ts that every poly relationship needs.

  When I get a printer, I intend to put some of these on my refridgerator because they’re useful for every-day relationships as well.

• Poly Myths: Debunking the myths about polyamory.

  This is a good place to point people when they start talking about why polyamory can’t ever work, and how the whole thing is just thinly-veiled promiscuity or sexual greediness. Believe me, you talk about this stuff enough and someone’s going to tell you these things. Of course, whether or not they read (and hear) it is up to them.

• Poly Relationships for Monogamous People: What it might mean if your partner just told you that they’re polyamorous.

  Obviously, this is a good article to point your spouse or partner to if you’re coming out as polyamorous. It’s written in that same question-and-answer format as all the other articles and has some very good advice for what could come next.

• What Your Partner Wants You to Know: …but might not be able to articulate.

  This article is not a substitute for your own words, but it does do a good job of helping you formulate your thoughts and provides a good vocabulary from which to draw.

alt.polyamory home page

The original polyamory resource, which grew out of the old alt.polyamory usenet newsgroup. The most immediately beneficial portion of this site is right at the top of the home page where the FAQs are listed. These are long-standing documents which are frequently pointed to. They’re also very beneficial for newcomers and serve as helpful reminders for folks in polyamorous relationships. These are important to know.

Loving More FAQ And Terms

Polyamory has many names, because many people have moved towards the idea on their own and in their own way. There is no “one true way” to love. This is a online magazine published by one such group of people who term the concept “Loving More” (or LM). Their FAQs are helpful, too.

Polyamorous-NYC

There is only one best way to learn about anything, and that is by doing. When you’re ready to interact with others who are polyamorous, this is a great place to go to meet people and learn more. Note that it is not a sex club, but rather an educational organization intended to nurture a prosperous polyamorous community in New York City.

How to Educate Your Therapist About Polyamory

Published at the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality in Volume 5 on April 16, 2002, this document is an outline of a talk given to the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and includes some important notes for physchologists and therapists as well as their clients.

Tristate Poly

This is an online organization similar to Poly-NYC (above), though there is no “membership” per-se. I’ve found that this means that not everyone here will be truly polyamorous; I’ve met swingers there as well, and swinging has very little to do with polyamoroury. (Swingers can be polyamorous, and polyamorous people can be swingers, but there is a huge distinction between these two concepts and one should take care not to mix the two.) Nevertheless, it is good to know that this community exists and is somewhat active as well.

PolyMatchMaker

This is an online personals site devoted to helping polyamorous folk meet one another. Note that it is not a sex or porn site (very much unlike the FriendFinder network of adult personals sites); that means no profanity or sexually explicit material is allowed on PolyMatchMaker. This site is about meeting people, not finding random sexual encounters. Swingers should go elsewhere.

Spice!

Spice! is an online comic strip that portrays the life of a polyamorous family with children. It’s the only comic I’ve ever found of its kind, and it’s not that bad either. The artwork is cute, and the jokes are decidely poly-centric. (Like this one, and this one, and this one for instance.)

LiveJournal Polyamory Community

This is a community of online diarists who write about their experiences and thoughts with and on polyamory. People post new entries frequently, and many members comment on others’ entries offering support, advice, and feedback.

Subspace

Subspace is a web site for and by people who practice both BDSM and polyamory. They have a collection of articles, links to other articles, a decently active message board, and even a poetry archive.

Books and Other Printed Literature

These are polyamorous resources published in books or other printed literature. Some cost money, some do not, but they are all helpful. (Some book listings borrowed from Franklin Veaux’s poly links page)

The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt

The definitive guide to infinite sexual possibilities and polyamorous relationships. Includes an abundance of background information, supportive validation, and practical advice on how to deal with the realities of a poly relationship (yes, including jealousy).

Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits by Deborah M, Dr. Anapol

An excellent resource for polyamorous people. Focuses more on polyfidelity than on other kinds of polyamory, but another all-around recommended read.

The Myth of Monogamy by David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton

Written by a husband and wife team of behavioral scientists, this book explores non-monogamy from a behavioral, genetic, and moral standpoint. The book is not hostile to monogamy, but it makes the statement that in humans, a relationship model is a matter of both biology and choice. It argues that monogamy is not more inherently “natural” than non-monogamy.

Movies and Video Material

When Two Won’t Do (directed by David Finch, circa 2002)

This real-life documentary made by a couple (and inspired by grappling with issues in their own relationship) takes you on a trip across America with them as they discover first-hand how people have “open” relationships.

If you know of a resource I’ve not listed here which helped you a great deal (especially when you were first learning about polyamory) then please drop me a line. (You can either comment on this entry or email me as meitar at a domain called maymay dot net.) Naturally, I also hope that this page might some day help others find what they need.

(Here is the first article in the series.)

• On Wednesday, the movers came to take the bulk of Danica’s belongings to her new apartment. Despite earlier insistence that I would not help her out in the morning, I ended up waking up slightly prior to eight o’clock to help her disassemble the sofa and gather a few other things. The movers were out of here by nine o’clock, and Danica left shortly thereafter to meet them at her new place.

  I spent a great deal of the day surfing online and trying to do work. I was too tired to really be productive nor did I feel capable of going to the gym, but in the end I did manage to switch the Maymay Media weblog template over to the new design and fix up the home page a little. I still need to do a lot of work on that site.

• Later that afternoon, just before it started getting dark, Danica returned to the apartment. She started packing various other things she left here (evidently there’s no such thing as “moving day” for her) as I was on the computer. In the evening, I decided to come downtown with her to help her take more things on a single trip.

  We left the apartment at around 9:30 PM, and I did not make it back home until almost two o’clock in the morning. The trains were running local for some reason, the stuff was heavy, and the elevators in the station were acting up. Eventually, we made it to her new place and set her things down.

  I got to meet Georgi, her new cat, who took to me instantly. (I’m a cat person; they like me.) Then we went out for dinner (pizza) at Two Boots. Saying goodbye was awkward and Danica wanted me to stay at her place for the night. Nevertheless, I took the long, boring subway ride I know so damn well back home and got back online to check email before what was supposed to be a decently-early bedtime.

  I actually didn’t go to sleep until 8:30 AM. I was tired, but somehow I couldn’t get used to the emptyness of the apartment, so I sat at my computer all night importing as many of Danica’s CDs she still had here. She said she’d be back early this morning to come and pick up more of her things. By the time she arrived I had been sleeping for several hours.

• She woke me up, um, rather sexually sometime around noon. She was moody pretty much from then on all day today. She later confessed to not taking her medications for almost two weeks now because she can’t find them anywhere. This was not really a surprise considering the monumental and drastic mood swings she’s been having today. (Crying, laughing, crying, laughing, you know the drill.)

  She packed more of her things, but not all of them. (Yes, there really is that much…stuff.) We ordered Indian takeout for breakfast (er, lunch, actually) and then she packed some more. She left moments ago in tears, saying that she was angry at herself for not getting as many things done today as she had planned. (That always happens, though. Even to me.)

So due to my extremely long Wednesday and total lack of sleep, I completely fucked up today. I had intended to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Christine (she called me yesterday and we made plans) but I had to break them before I went to bed in the morning since I knew I would be useless today. (I sent her a SMS, which I really hope she received.)

After that, I had wanted to go to the Web Design Meetup, and had I done so this would have been the first Web Design Meetup that I attended. As it stands now, however, I’m going to have to wait another month since there’s no chance in hell that I’ll be able to make it this time anymore.

This is really, really frustrating because it feels like yet another day going by that I don’t have my life in order. I imagine Danica feels similarly, but at least I can handle it, well, not that badly. And now to forget about everything for a few hours to prevent my head from hitting the keyboard.

The other day, I went shopping for some housewares. I got myself a new kettle, Brita® pitcher and some filters, some large tupperware, scissors, and other assorted household necessities. I spent an outrageous amount of money (including groceries for the week), but it felt more than good to actually get that stuff over and done with.

Next came household maintenance, including vacuuming (still need a new vacuum cleaner), taking out the garbage, fixing my paper towel holder thingy which fell off the kitchen wall, dishes, cleaning the bathroom a little, and yet more. Danica has been clearing her stuff out of the way for the past couple of days now and it finally began to show some visible progress two days ago. While the majority of the floorspace is still littered with her stuff and large cardboard and plastic boxes, there is actually more space to spread my own things out now.

Most of the cleaning involved picking up discarded tissues, toilet paper, and napkins that had been left by Danica. I tossed an empty toilet paper cylinder (at least she had replaced it on her own this time), did some of her dishes, wiped down the table and kitchen counter, collected some of her reciepts and papers into more manageable piles, and put some of her knick-knacks into her moving boxes. It will certainly be a relief not to have to continue to do this sort of cleaning up after her. (Note to self: if I get a roommate, ensure that they are capable of actually keeping a tidy space.)

I don’t have nearly enough crap to fill up the whole apartment, but having extra space is always nice. She has called the movers and set a date—this upcoming Wednesday, which would be the 9^th of March—for the (major part of the) move. This means I intend to collect no less than one-and-a-half week’s rent money from her immediately, and I left a note for her to that effect just now.

Nights are Quiet

Interestingly, Danica called me about an hour ago and told me she would not be coming home tonight. She is spending the second night in a row tonight babysitting a co-worker’s pet. In fact, she is adopting the pet. When she called and told me that she had been given cat food and booze, I told her to remember that the cat food is for the pet and the booze is for her, and that it was very important that she did not mix the two up.

Keeping a sense of humor about such things is very helpful. It’s also easy for me to do when I’m exhausted. I only managed to sleep about three hours last night and still kept my Squash date with my uncle. Playing Squash was an intense workout, but it was also very fun. I’m looking forward to another game next Sunday.

It’s still very hard for me to be alone here. When Danica is fully moved out it will mark the very first time in my life where I am truly, completely alone. I will somehow have to make a home of this house, at least for the next year, and right now that seems impossible to do when I have to do it all on my own.

In Other Personal News

The other noteworthy events that have happened over the past couple of days are fading from my memory very quickly. I have little desire to save them from slipping away, however, because I feel they are mostly superfluous to everything I have already written about with one exception, which is still too half-baked and personal for me to feel comfortable sharing with the world. This is the reason for my lack of intense self-reflection lately.

Instead, I have been a bit of an online social butterfly lately, engaging in various debates on online sites, friends’ blogs, and the like. One particularly interesting conversation took place with a pastor’s wife and involved the controvercial Vagina Monologues play. I was proud of myself for showing such intense and fierce loyalty to my friend in this discussion.

Short Self-Studies on Abraham Maslow

I’ve also been doing some very general research on a one Abraham Maslow who is most famous for his theory of the so-called Hierarchy of Need among living creatures. I never heard of this before, nor of the man, but apparently everyone else has.

Reading a few articles on his work made me feel exceptionally bright; I have been articulating many of the same things as he said years ago for a long time in various forms. In fact, I was reminded of the time when Charla first introduced me to Ayn Ran.

She had said, Are you sure you’ve never heard of her before? I assured her I had not, and wanted to know more about why she was relevant to our discussion on ethics and morals. She told me, and I will never forget this because it makes me feel so validated (and smart), Because you’re saying everything we learned in our lecture today about her. Those who call me arrogant are absolutely correct in their assessments.

Anyway, while reading about Maslow’s theories, I was very glad to notice many traits of what he termed self-actualizers in myself. I noticed both the positive traits and the negative traits, however, so this self-study has not helped me reach any conclusions to the question, “Would I really prefer to be an average person?” (Sometimes I ask that question hourly, usually triggered by different things, and usually set aside with the temporary conclusion that no, I would not prefer it.)

Nevertheless, it was educational, informative, and now I have some ammunition to back up what I’ve been saying about people and their motivations, wants, and needs (and the difference between the three) for a long time. Personally, I found plenty of his work to be extremely simplistic, but Maslow himself admitted to this and this mitigates my scorn of some of his methodologies and conclusions. There is no doubt that there is much ground left to cover for future philosophical psychologists.

Hell, maybe I should be doing that instead of writing computer code for a living.

Back to the Practical

In the meantime, however, I have a dental appointment scheduled for eight o’clock tomorrow morning (er, this morning now) so there isn’t much time to be contemplating what my calling is. I’m a little pissed that I haven’t figured that out yet. I know, I know, patience is a virtue.

After the dental exam, I don’t have any concrete plans for the day. My calendar is full of Meetup meetings, starting with Tuesday’s Mac Meetup Group (which I currently organize) and continuing every day with a different group until Friday’s Rubik’s Cube Meetup (which I also organize, but which currently has only one local member—me! Come on and get out here folks, I’ll teach you to solve it yourself in a matter of days). I am hoping to meet some interesting people this week.

I desperately need an extended social life. I love you all (I’m speaking to my frequent commenters now), but none of you save for family is in New York, and now that I have my own bachelor pad, I should probably be putting it to good use with parties and whatnot. Or at the very least haul my ass off to other people’s apartments for parties.

This seems like as good a way as any to expand my social horizons, so I’m going to see what comes of it. Of course, I have no interest in getting to know people I don’t like, so clubbing and hitting the bars are out. Since I don’t go to school or have any other structured social activity like a nine-to-five, that pretty much forces me to get creative.

Feel free to pass any suggestions you might have my way. Many thanks, and a Gmail account to you and a friend of your choosing if your suggestion nets me a new acquaintance.

Catching Up on Work

I managed to do some work today. In the morning, I was actually woken up by a call from a client who I do very minor recurring work for. She asked if I had gotten her emails and had been wondering if she sent them to the right address since she never heard back from me.

My bad, of course, so I apologized and told her I’d get to work on her web site right away. I did, and managed to finish all of what I needed to do in a matter of hours. (Like I said, minor, minor work, despite having been piling up for the past week or so.) By 5:30 PM I was killing time again when my mother called me and told me to come over to her apartment tonight.

Short Visit to My Mother’s

I left for my mother’s at around eight o’clock in the evening. Once there I made myself dinner (er, lunch, no, actually it was more like breakfast) consisting of toast and tahini along with two chocolate doughnuts and a few pastries. I watched some TV briefly, and left for home sometime shortly after ten o’clock.

When I got home, the house was dark and empty as I had left it and as I expected. Danica was working the closing shift at work today and I didn’t expect her home for another forty-five minutes or so. This morning before work, she had left the house before I woke up and finally gotten the keys to her new apartment from the realtor.

Danica Pushes My Buttons

When she returned, I greeted her at the door for a moment before returning to my computer. I was listening to some random selection of music from my iTunes library and, after Danica took off her shoes and set her things down, one of the first things she did was ask me to lower it temporarily while she listened to a CD she was inserting into her computer. She plugged her headphones into the computer after I lowered the music.

Three: Randy’s Song to Danica

I asked her what it was and she responded that I probably didn’t want to know. This meant one thing: Randy had given her something to listen to. Sure enough, moments later she held up a plastic CD cover on which severeal lines of text were scribbled in all-caps black permanent marker. It was a song on a burned CD that Randy had made for Danica.

She offered a paltry and rather unapologetic Sorry, Mei… which I sort of scoffed at. I turned back around silently to my computer and resumed my own music. Perhaps defiantly, I simply didn’t care to accomodate Danica’s desire for a quiet environment so that she could hear his song.

Two: Danica Asks for Cooking Advice

She listened to the song, I heard her sigh and sniffle, and then she went to the kitchen. She began preparing dinner for herself from the chinese take-out leftovers we had kept the night before. Then she came to me and asked my opinion on which type of oil that we had in stock would be best for making fried rice.

I answered a very curt, I don’t really care, to which she responded,
Okay…thanks anyways. She went about making her dinner and I went about wasting my time online. Before she had finished with dinner, I entered the kitchen partially to do the dishes and partially to apologize for my earlier curtness.

Attempted Diffusion

I told her that I was sorry for being so curt but that I had done so because I was pissed off at her contemptible apology earlier. I also noted that I had long since stopped believing what she says (long since being read as since our break up). This upset her and she left the kitchen to call her mother.

I finished up the dishes (including the plates and the pan she had just used) and went to sit at my computer again. From there, I could hear her talking with her mother. Much of the conversation Danica had with her mother revolved around the current living situation, her work and finances, and me.

One: Danica Talks to Her Mother

As usual, I wish I had a tape recorder. There are just so many inaccuracies in the form of “not the whole truth” that I could write a whole blog entry merely listing each one along with the full context. I can’t even count the number of times I felt like getting out of my chair, grabbing the phone away from her, and filling her mother in on the rest of the facts. And I’m only counting the things that were said directly about me!

Somehow, Danica effortlessly and indignantly justified her spin as, and I quote, [My mother] doesn’t need to know all that! This is, by the way, exactly why I no longer trust what comes out of her mouth. I have heard her do this with so many other people about so many other things (and I’ve even mentioned this before) that I’ve finally learned to no longer believe what comes out of her mouth at face value.

The thing that finally got to me, though, was when I heard Danica talking to her mother about trying to get back her share of the security deposit she paid me when we moved in to this apartment. As she was discussing it with her mother I deduced that her mother wanted to know why I wouldn’t or haven’t given it back. Danica told her that if she talked to me about it, I’d just bring up all the money she owes me on various other things.

Two things about this pissed me the fuck off. (Yes, I actually just emphasized “the fuck” in a sentence.)

• Firstly, I have already gone through this whole damn security deposit nonsense with her before and there is really no need to repeat myself on the matter.

• Secondly, this whole issue is completely redundant as I have already written her a check which she immediately shredded upon reciept.

Of course, that tiny tidbit of information miraculously never made it into the phone conversation she had with her mother. It was at that point when I could no longer sit idly by as such misinformation about me was strewn around. I got up, knocked on the door, and pushed it open when Danica ignored me and continued talking with her mother.

I very loudly (hoping that her mother might hear) insisted that she tell her mother about my check which she had shredded. Danica responded by nodding at me and saying, and again I quote, Okay, okay, I’ll tell her.

Bzzz! Wrong again! Not only did she not tell her mother about this insignificant detail (remember, her mother apparently doesn’t need to know about this, despite her obvious insistent inquiries), when she got off the phone and saw me staring incredulously back at her, she said it’s okay because I convinced her to let it slide.

Boom: I Rage

Excuse me?! It’s okay because you convinced her to let it slide? <sarcasm>That’s not only taking credit for being such a generous and compassionate ex-girlfriend,</sarcasm> it’s actually nullifying my wholeheartedly and unduly generous attempts to make things as hassle-free for you as possible. Well, excuse my French but fuck you too!

And that’s exactly what I told her, multiple times, in a variety of different ways, using various colloquial euphemisms, though none of them gender-specific, as far as I can recall. I screamed at her as loudly as I could, citing almost all the aforementioned reasons why I was pissed off. I told her I thought she is in need of some desperate help, that she is confused about many things and doesn’t understand that she lacks even a shred of integrity, and that she will continue to spew nothing but crap from her mouth until she wisens up and changes her ways.

I stomped right up to her and screamed these things inches away from her face. She backpeddled a little, obviously taken aback that I could be so loud and rageful. Indeed, I have never before unleashed this sort of anger on her and had never raised my voice to such an intense ferocity for as long as she has known me.

I felt the burning flames behind my eyes as I screamed and towered over her. My pupils turned to coal and my throat felt sore (I’m still recovering from that cold) but I still screamed at her. It didn’t last so long, about five minutes or so, but I was talking very fast and can’t even remember all of what I said.

When I was through, I sat myself back at my computer. Danica went back into the bedroom and picked up her phone. I warned her that if she were calling Randy she had better do it from outside, but she told me she was not calling Randy.

Instead, I can only assume she called one of her cousins. I could hear most of the conversation and I was not happy about that, but I refrained from doing anything I might have regretted later such as forcing her out of the apartment or grabbing the phone away from her. Oh, how I wanted to, though, how I greatly wanted to.

The Cleansing Flames

I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. This always helps steady me when I am in a rage because it reminds me of who I think I am and how I think I should behave. It is hard to actually do rageful things when you are busy looking at yourself in the mirror.

The anger, and especially the bout of screaming rage I discharged at Danica, felt very cleansing. It was as if the rage had sparked a fire that was burning away at the past year and a half the way a forest fire might level acres of land. Like most things in nature, however, this fire was constructive rather than destructive; it freed up all that space for something new and green to be reborn in its place.

After Danica talked with her cousin, she called a friend from California. As they talked, I continued to look at myself in the mirror and lean against the bathroom sink. Everytime Danica mentioned Randy, or how controlling she felt I supposedly was by the end of our relationship, I felt that fire burn away a little more inside me.

Finally, she finished talking with her friend and turned off her cell phone. I heard only silence coming from the bedroom but remained in the bathroom for some minutes more. When I felt calm enough to walk out into the hallway, I noted that she had fallen asleep with the light still on.

I entered the bedroom and turned off the light. I then left, closing the door the rest of the way behind me and went back to my computer. Of course, that’s when I started writing this blog entry.

Danica’s in bed, sleeping now. Despite having been awake a mere thirteen or fourteen hours, I am actually quite tired. Of course, despite being tired, I don’t want to go to bed and have to lay next to her.

One thing’s for sure: I am happy she is leaving. During my rage, I told her that every day you stay here I’ll miss you less. I now want to add: every day you’re gone I’ll think about you less. And that’s how it should be.