what have I become?

My sweetest friend, to say the least -- to steal a verse, to be becoming something else. I've been reading Hegel lately. At times, I totally understand where he's coming from. I understand that he wants to totalize the system of philosophy, that he thinks everything which has come before is a product of the system of philosophy. I understand that he wants to dialectically deconstruct reality to explain it, thereby concreating evidence that reality is indeed real, and that we as conscious beings have the knowledge base to define the perplexities of said reality. However, what I don't understand is how, through cyclical observation, one can define anything outside of definition. I believe Derrida described it best (and a few other metaphysical instructors have too) that anything outside of the infinite can be labeled JUSTICE, and we are not able to define it. We can only appreciate it for its omnipotence, its ever present essence, it's closure around the system in which we prescribe to, and its imminence. It is the now that we can not grasp. Thought itself is a past tense activity. Reaching for a ghost can only occur if you see the ghost, which is a product of thought, and therefore a product of experience that's trained us to reach out. Hegel makes me upset when I think about his teleological viewpoints. I guess, Marx does the same thing to me.

I want to yell into someone's chest. 6 inches away from my mouth. I need a body to absorb my screams right now.

My dreams have been fucked up lately. Last night, I was raped by two of Mindy's friends. Later in the dream, she told me the raping was a validated act which I deserved.

the stranger:

The afterlife will be a place where we can look back onto our mortal lives. We are all guilty in the end. We are all condemed to death.

there is no new. there is no old. there is only is.

Centripetal cycles spin us on a Mary-Go-Round -- though we never move at all. We twirl and whirl around until we're sick of it, then get sick from it. As we look up towards the sun, so many oscillations of fire engulf the eye's pupils, dilating the mind's consciousness -- though we never see the light. There was a moment in time when space was proof enough for our feeble minds-- that the new never was known, and the old was written in stone -- though this time has come and gone. And what is left for us to ponder? What more can we analyze? Where will our pensive thoughts lead us when we always come back to where we started? I'm sick of circles, sick of cycles. Let the instant be my guide and let my mind wonder into the depths of infinity. Let me slay the monster while becoming the monster. Let the abyss look into me as I swim deeper into its bottomless belly. It's time to move on without moving. It's time to let go of time, while continuing. It's time for the infinite. Let us see the light. Let us be the light. Let us travel faster than the speed of light. We shall pitch our giant tent to house the instant of love. We shall destroy the circus we've built around us, in the instant of anger. We shall create a graveyard to always remember that which we bore, that which we have murdered. Let me die. Let me live. The world is destructive, the mind is deconstructed. There is no truth without the lie. There is no lie without the truth; however, there is an is with only the is. And that is where our graveyard shall be planted: in grave yards of dead flowers and beautiful stars -- within the instant of the is.

question:

Outside of yourself, does outside exist?

at home.

I am sitting in my old bedroom. I am laying on Mindy's couch. It's 2:30 in the morning and I am waiting for my friend to pick me up so we can journey back to the land of the lost. It would be a lie if I said I felt apathetic to life right now. I feel quite the contrary actually. So much has happened in the last week, while at the same time, not much has changed.

When I wrote earlier about synchronizations (here), I was contextualizing what had happened to me last Tuesday. I met a new friend Tuesday night. However, on my way to the meeting, I saw Mindy and her friend Eli walking towards me as I got off the train. It was one of those 'what if i saw Mindy today' instances that actually happened to come true. We walked towards each other for approximately 20 feet, but she didn't see me. To me, it seemed as if we were looking directly at one another. However she must have been looking right through me. As we approached one another (honestly, we were 3 feet away from each other), I stopped and said hello, but Mindy and Eli kept walking by. I felt like a specter in her life. I felt like I had dreamed our entire encounter. I felt like a ghost haunting my old lover.

But I was on my way to meet my new friend, so I didn't let this instance of my old life deter this new beginning I was about to embark upon. The discourse shared was exciting. I felt like new horizons were waiting ahead of us. We shared thoughts and histories which flowed delightfully. My old neighborhood opened up new possibilities and attachments to thoughts and emotions. I was moving on, and I was happy to do so, or so I thought.

Alexia called around 12:30 AM, right after I said goodbye to my new friend. She informed me that our mutual friend had passed away that night. What a contrast to the happy emotions I was feeling. The news hit me like a punch in the stomach. It was hard to ingest. At first, all I could say was the word "fuck". All I could think was that there should have been someone out there looking out for her, someone to take care of her. That's what friends are for, right? Why wasn't I that person? Why wasn't someone there to save her? But in all reality, demons don't wait for friends to call. Our past haunts us like the specter in which I had felt like earlier when I saw Mindy. Our memories are tainted with human emotions the minute we establish them as thought. We can not escape our memories. At very best, we can cover them up with drugs and denial. But the past will always be there waiting for us in the shadows of our heart.

And so, why you may ask, am I here at my ex-lover's apartment (my old apartment)? I'm here because I had nowhere else to go. It's wet outside, and the ground smells like human stink. I can not escape my past nor could I resist embracing it. It's very hard to humble one's self. But a rich man knows no embarrassment. Mindy is asleep in the other room, and I am awake, contemplating who I am and what I am doing with my life. Why survive? Why not let life win this ever constant battle? Can the self be more powerful than nature? I think Nietzsche would argue that the self is nature, and nothing more, though nothing less. That with this great honor comes great power, if one can accept the responsibility of power. But are we not slaves to the divinity that created us? Won't we all end up dead like my beautiful friend, like my beautiful marriage, like the beauty that we love to destroy? I do not have any answers to these questions. All I know is that I am sitting in a dark room, waiting to be picked up, because I feel obligated, and rightfully so, to attend my friend's memorial service. She was an angel, lost like so many that came before her. It's almost serendipitous that she died is Los Angeles. I think, that is the hill I'd like to sit upon before I lay my head to rest. But until then, I have other demons to battle on many other hills. And for right now, I will lay my head back down on this couch, a couch which would be meaningless to anyone else besides me and my memories, and wonder what Mindy is dreaming about in the room next to me. Or maybe, I think I'll save myself the energy and not give that demon the pleasure of winning this battle. I will bow out to instead contemplate the more important things in life, things that actually might progress me further into my abysmal self. Yes, escape can be a healthy thing sometimes. So sometimes we all need to run away from our self by running into our self. For better or for worse, we have to wander into the our cerebral depths to understand just how vastly haunted our secret self can be.

life

Life is the external mirror in which vanity abuses to examine the secret self. When the mirror is broken, we slice our selves with the shards of existence to watch the blood run red rivers.

A song.

This was our happy ending
This was our tragic song
Together we were defeated
Grown together we were wrong

I continue on and dream
In the plight of our men
They scream to me in foreign tongues
In signs I never understand

We were children embracing
Swaying we surely danced
No wonder we were punished
Together in these forsaken lands

We've always been a tragedy
Becuase we think in terms of comedy
We dream in our own binary
We live our self fulfilled prophecies

And the world keeps on spinning
And the time's never change
And the days keep going by
The only difference is who we blame

A broken record repeating
And the needle's stuck in your arm
We try to sing the words we know
To choke on our bloated tongues

The devil's inside your pocket
Singing gentle desperate songs
Your wallet's inside your gaping mouth
And your heart's not where it belongs

Born defeated and we're dying
The floods will wipe us out
You're money can not save you now
You're love is full of doubt

So hang on to your loved ones
Hang on to your tears
You'll need them both again someday
To sing away your devil's fears

-sid

the correct response to life:

Bring it on!

synchronization

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order."
- Carl Jung

This presentation of the human mind is brought to you by the the letters "C" "H" "A" "O" and "S" as well as being brought to you by the numbers "1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...".

What is it about our lives that drives us to fulfill the lack in which we innately desire? In other words, why survive? Why is it that there must be conflict within the power hierarchies of the self so that we can achieve the levels of intensity we so desperately desire for our own survival? Can we fulfill our void with anything other than conflict? Is not life always strategical, a computation of binary sets historically defined, continuing to be redefined, conflicting with one another, which outputs rhetorical dichotomous results? There can not be chaos in strategy. There can only be unpredicted variables of binary sets. Yet a variable is still a sign, and can be placed in an equation to predict trajectories of thought or action.

But what about spontaneous actions? I doubt spontaneity exists. Spontaneity is a construct of the mind, an excuse to believe in free will. Does not the moment a decision is made bring organization to the action? The length of time spent on decision making is irrelevant to the ultimate action of the decision. Naivety can no longer exist as well. We never begin; quite possibly, we are always beginning.

happy warm feelings

hmm...the title says it all I guess.

She says move on. I say I love her.

"There is nothing you can do or say that will change the way I feel as there is nothing I can say or do to change the way you feel." These words echo through the chasms of my soul. They haunt my dreams, causing me to suffer every day and night. Not even my naps are safe from her tongue which cuts through me like the knife she carries with her. Only, my soul is not an empty cavern of long lost thoughts and wishful thinking. Tears mixed with warm memories pool together and pour out of me and into a sea of unfamiliar faces. I do not hide my face when I cry. In public, I allow those who dare to stare into the the eyes of this hurting man the opportunity to cherish their own happiness. That is my gift to the unknown soldiers with whom I share this battle ground. That is their reward for being brave enough to share a moment of pain with me.

She said she has looked into the eyes of my kind before. She thinks I am the same as the others. She believes in the cycle of her own fears and doubts. But she is wrong. As I was wrong to believe in my fears on that dreadful night, she is wrong to believe she can no longer trust me. This is not self pity, this is self empowerment. It is not de-powering to examine your naked fears, to share in the nudity of the self. Love is a space where you can define your fears to another, where you can grow from the pain of understanding your self, your weaknesses, your history, and your fuck ups. Love is a space where you and your partner can work together to mollify your differences, where you can smooth out the blemished psyche, together as a unity. Love is more complicated than a stupid fearful drunken letter and its repercussion. Love is more complicated than battling your own doubts. Love is not giving up on happiness. Love is not giving up at all.

the dream world

The common repsonse to lonliness and depression is sleep. We can kill the day by entering the dream world. But for me, sleep is much crueler than the time I spend awake. Every night, Mindy and I break up. Some nights, we get back together. Either way, I re-live my fears over and over. I wake up in the morning freaked out, trying to piece back together some sort of understanding as to what's real and what's not. The saddest mornings are when we get back together in my dreams becuase that's when I have to convince myself it didn't happen. "You lied to yourself again" I'd tell myself. "Go on, get out of bed. She still doesn't love you, and you're going to live with that". I try my hardest not to continue the dreams where we get back together, to wake myself up from those taunting thoughts. The longer and more believable they are, the harder it is for me to accept the fact that they were imagined. But I must accept them as not real. Otherwise, I'd be in real trouble.

Of the Friend

"And often we attack and make an enemy in order to conceal that we are vulnerable to attack."
-F.N.

the X

Is it possible to erase matter? Is it possible to totally eradicate a specific existing sign? When we write our thoughts, when we formulate thought into linguistics, when we write a word, draw a line, make a statement, can we metaphysically play god and erase that sign from existence? There can be no erasure. Yet it is possible to cross something out, or cover it up, to morph that sign into a different meaning. Since meaning is a fluid and subjective device, we are able to transcend signs so that they continue to exist yet intend to mean something different than what their original intention had been. To cross out a word, to cover up a line, to turn around and reconstruct meaning through the simple device, the X, we are able to transform signifiers into completely new signifiers. This, I believe, is called a contextual shift. Crossing out signifiers reestablishes form, thus reestablishing intentional meaning. This is not to say that there lies any truth to either meaning, uncrossed or crossed out, however, the intention of the sign is where we find ourselves asymptotically approaching what humans call truth.

I was considering what it means to be an ex-boyfriend, an ex-husband, an ex-lover. By using the X we are essentially crossing out the context of our relationships. We never forget the history of the actions; moreover, we never allow the words themselves to forget their own history. Our system of linguistics is built in a way which allows a historicity of language, an institution of hegemonic relationships between reestablishing signs. Lacan once wrote, "A human without language is considered clinically insane". Language controls our memories, or rather, the signs of language allow the human mind to develop a sense of history, of a past and present. Without language, the mind could not interpret signs and therefore could not differentiate the stimulus input. (Language here is not necessarily words, but rather a system of categorization for input and definition as output).

And so, with the X, we can continue to exist with our histories, never forgetting, but rather, re-contextualizing and re-categorizing our relationship with the signs we use to construct our reality.

Overwhelming sadness.

The sun is shining brightly today. The clouds are big puff balls of cotton. The wind is gentle and the temperature is toothsome. If I were any other man, I'd say it's a perfect day. But alas, I get to be myself today, which means I won't be enjoying nature's delicious adjectives. I awoke this morning, saddened by my loss. It seems that's how the day shall shape itself. Sadness looms over my head, a foreboding cloud of despair. I'm not trying to be poetic, nor am I trying to feel sorry for myself. These words aren't being written so that I can understand and express myself. No, I'm writing this text to waste time and to kill this disturbingly contrasting day in which I have to exist within.

I tried watching a movie the other night. The film was about a family who's father was an alcoholic tuff guy. One of the sons was joining a gang, the other son was sent to social welfare, and the daughter wanted to be a writer. The family was poor and had no way of keeping itself together. Eventually, the writer-daughter killed herself after being raped by the father's best friend. The father beats the shit out of the mother, the gang-son gets initiated into his gang, and the social welfare kid becomes "a man" by leaving home. It was a terrible movie to be watching at three in the morning by myself.

Yesterday I took a trip to the Golden Gate Bridge to walk across it. It was a simple distraction at best. The weather has been wonderful here in the city, especially on top of a couple hundred foot tall bridge where you can see a panoramic shot of the city. But no matter how distracted I try to make myself, something always pulls me back into my depression. From the middle of the bridge you can see the cliffs where Mindy and I were married. I think about the wedding a lot. It's strange to think that we made promises to try to work through the hard times, to embrace each other with our love when our fears get in the way of life. I just wish we weren't walking away from this like it never happened. I feel like we can work through this, but Mindy seems to have already committed to it being over. Well, I guess it's sort of ironic. The one commitment she's not afraid of is the one which tears us apart. I'm not mad. I'm just overwhelmed with sadness. I love her so much. I guess love isn't enough these days.

p.s. - I need to find my sense of humor in all this. I'm turning into a very sad person.

tonight.

Tonight, I hurt something wretched. Tonight, I am a loner. Tonight, I feel like I could lose myself in my thoughts. Tonight, I feel chained to my emotions. Tonight, I'm not good enough. Tonight, I am my worst enemy. Tonight, I married a quitter. Tonight I am a quitter. Tonight, I am loathsome. Tonight my body aches from stress. Tonight, I can't succeed. Tonight I'm hopeless. Tonight, my dreams are destroyed. Tonight, my heart is heavier than lead. Tonight my face is crooked. Tonight, my eyes are vengeful. Tonight, no one is good enough. Tonight, the world seems no larger than the monitor I stare into while typing these thoughts. Tonight, I feel pain. Tonight, I feel embarrassment. Tonight, I feel alone. Is there nothing else tonight?

just a phrase

If your kisses won't hold the woman you love, then your tears won't bring her back.

Give a mile and they ask for the sea.

I haven't been eating very well lately. There's just no appetite left in me. Today, at around 4:00, I realized I hadn't eaten anything in the last 20 hours. My stomach hated me. So I went where any good suburbanite would go to eat, SUBWAY. However, when I got there, there was a man at the counter mumbling to himself about how he couldn't get a sandwich because that particular subway didn't take EBT cards. He was getting real angry over this dilemma. The man behind the counter look pissed off because apparently the mumbler had been there for a while, cursing at the employee about how unfair his life was. So, fuck it, I thought. I'll just buy you your sandwich so you can eat, and so could I get my grub. I offered to pay for his meal thinking he'd be modest about his order and just get something small, something to tide him over. But of course, he orders the most expensive thing on the menu, and wanted to make sure it came with a drink. How fucking audacious can one be? When someone gives you a mile, you can't ask for the sea. That's just not cool. But, god damn I was hungry, so I went along with it. I don't feel used or taken advantage of. It was my decision to go through with the purchase, and whatever, let the man have his foot long roast beef gourmet meal. The only thing I was disappointed in was that when he was ordering his sandwich, he turned to me and said "these people don't understand english". They were fucking American employees who just happened to have asian ethnicity. What a fucker, I thought. You racist son of a bitch.

I left without accepting his thank you.

the last phase

mindybuhl.com

Lads and Lassies:

While lamenting over my current situation, I came to a very decisive and important decision. In the past year, I've done two very stupid things while under the influence of alcohol. First, I went to jail because I was driving drunk. I thought that chapter of my life was over. However, I came to realize, my marriage is dead because I was stupid enough to think alcohol would fix my problems. When Mindy left to see her friend at the hotel, I drank myself retarded. That was when I wrote a letter to my ex-girlfriend, stating that I never married out of love, and that Mindy was an emotional coward, etc. (Let me remind the jury that these were my fears expelled into words, nothing more. There was no truth to that letter except for the fact that I was drunk and afraid. I loved Mindy so very very much.) And so, Mindy feels she can no longer trust me, ever. Well, the conclusion I came to while driving home last night, was that alcohol has been behind the two fuck ups of my life. Therefore I am quitting drinking. Fuck that shit. The love of my life is gone because I drank a bottle of Rum. Was it worth it? Never. Do I regret it? Yes. Am I so very sorry? I am.

no title

It's cold in the summer time. Home no longer feels warm enough to want to go home. The naked streets are burning, and I want to spoon them. The gardens have frozen over, and the trees are dead wood. Happiness has long left these lands, and the burden of despair weighs heavily on the chest of any man brave enough to step outside.

The curtain goes up. Let's set the stage.

A thin man walks in the park, waiting for the seasons to change. "I thought this was summer?" he asked bitterly. There is no answer. A breeze hits his cheek and his face melts into a pile a lonely thoughts. A raven calls from the distance as the moon tightens its grip on the sun. "Can we live forever?" a voice questions from what seems to be inside you. The lands burn bright red as all the toilets flush into sewage. A homeless stranger to this summer sits in the center of the universe, while man wanders loudly, drowning silently. "Where God, where are you?" yells a child not seen or heard. "Where is your lover tonight?" God replies to the invisible son. The sugar cane fields failed us, dear lord. And love lost its invitation to our hearts. But the parade continues to march along 4th street and the innocent questions rattle around inside our minds. "Can you feel it?" a girl quietly points to an untouchable star. "Can you feel the light?"

The curtain closes. The stage is set.

fruitcake

Ah yes. Today. Well. Today has been a nice day. The day started early. The alarm clock went off at 5:50 AM, but we didn't get out of bed until 7. (I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I think everything's gonna be alright, that we're back together, that we're happy again. Well, not really. Mindy felt sorry for me last night for not knowing exactly how to get the Q's place on the bus at 2 in the morning, so she invited me back to the apartment. It was a plutonic nap. But damn it if it doesn't feel nice to lay next to someone you love. False hope? Maybe. Instant gratification? Damn striaght.)

I couldn't fall back asleep this morning. I didn't want to anyway. I jumped out of bed, fed the cat, and washed my face. You had to go to work, which you dreaded immensely. Some day you'll get that long nap you've always wanted, but for now, there are puppies and kitties to be saved. We walked to where the trains picked up and said our good byes for the day. It was sweet. I mossied my way to a coffee shop, picked up a mocha, and walked back to the apartment. I've been working on a design for an armband tattoo lately, which I may get tomorrow, so I continued my drawing while quasi-watching the movie "Snatch". God Damn Brad Pitt is sexy in that movie. Not sexy in the "hey I'm Brad Pitt; look at me" sexy, no, he's sexy in the "I'm a dirty Pikee who'll always be better than you" sexy. I couldn't help myself feeling insecure about my non-existent stomach muscles. So I did what any insecure man would do: sit-ups.

Around 10 o'clock I walked to Haight Street to ponder stuff. Very pensive I was. No shops open in that neighborhood until 11 AM, so I sat down with my book "Thus spoke Zarathustra" for an hour. I realized I'd been wearing the same pair of pants for a few days now and decided to go pants shopping when the stores opened. The only two stores I looked in were buffalo exchange and crossroads. I was very pessimistic about prospects for a new pair of shiny pants. I'm no good at shopping. However I did find a sweatshirt and leg warmers. God I love leg warmers. The leg warmers fit snug as a bug on my arms. Mmmm....Anyway, I was almost running late for lunch so I walked over to meet Lauren.

Walking over the Lauren's house was a bore. So I decided to do some cartwheels on the sidewalk. An innocent gesture of fun. However, while in mid cartwheel, a white van pulled next to me as 3 men shouted "FRUITCAKE!" I thought it was funny. They did not.

Lunch was yummy. It was vegetarian chicken tofuy stuff. Lauren is a nice girl. Her boyfriend was upset with her last week for being too attracted to him, but that blew over and now their relationship is burning brightly. (Ugh, I really use some shitty metaphors.) The restaurant was close by to your work, so I thought long and hard about bringing you Vegetarian Wan Ton soup. Oh how I wanted to give you this bowl of yumminess. But then I thought, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe she will be getting Gyros and French fries today. Maybe I would somehow embarrass her if I showed up at her work. So I didn't get the soup. I hate my mind sometimes. I think too long and hard about the unimportant things in life.

We took the train to the museum of modern art, which just happens to be right next to my work. The art was...at best...eh. I always enjoy the permanent collection in museums better than the contemporary crap that's being put out there. It seems, to me, that the gap between modern art and postmodern art is too expansive, that there is no way to connect the dots anymore. One artist, who I really enjoyed, was Marilyn Minter. Her paintings were, to say the least, amazing. The works were based on imperfections of visceral images concerning the figure, mainly focusing on ambiguous close up shots of the models. You should check out her work.

Then I came to work early and took a nap on the couch in the break room. I didn't sleep deeply, feeling awkward to be lying in a room by myself at work, where anyone could have walked in and drawn penis' on my forehead. But, lucky for me, no one did, and I made it through the day, so far, without a penis on my head.

-c

Thoughts on Problems

“There’s no problem that can’t be solved. There’s only people who won’t work on problem solving.”
-My neighbor.

Everyone has problems. The whole world is full of problems. Wars, catastrophes, tragedies, disease of the mind and body, etc. are all problems waiting to be solved. Art school trained me to deconstruct the world in terms of Producers and Consumers. There were the people who materialized creative expression, and those who went to the store to buy creative expression. The position played in the role of Producer and Consumer was relative to who’s buying what, when and how, however when you think you’re on the producing side, you form a sort of elitist mentality which separates you from the other side of the dichotomy. But I am no longer in Art school. And the roles of Producer and Consumer no longer make sense in the context of my life. I no longer need to justify what I like to do by alienating those I’m creating for.

And so, today I have a better dichotomy to think in terms of: Those who solve problems, and those who do not desire to problem solve. Art is a problem. Life is a problem. Marriage is a problem. There are problems all around us all of the time. The conscious and unconscious decisions we make daily are problems the brain contemplates and solves.

All problems are solvable. Some can be solved quickly, in the blink of an eye even. In fact, the act of blinking is the body’s way of problem solving which helps nourish and protect the eye. Easy problems like, “should I cross the road?” or “where can I use the bathroom” are questions that don’t even seem like problems to us, but they are.But then there are some problems that require time and patience, hard work, caring, forgiveness, love and nurture. These are the problems that feel most rewarding when solved. To cure a disease like AIDS, to land a human on the moon, to paint “the last supper”, to grasp meaning and fulfillment out of life, are all ways to obtain a feeling of completion and success. Human brains are equipped with a reward system, which acts as chemical doggy treats for the mind. When we accomplish something, when we problem solve, when we fulfill the mind’s cravings and desires, dopamine is released inside our synapses and we continue to progress as a problem solver.

Problems are not human specific. They occur in every level of species, in every element on this Planet. (I can’t say for sure if problems exist outside of our world because maybe the universe has no problems. Maybe things are the way they are, and the way they should be outside of Earth.) But live beings, in fact, problem solve. A beaver makes a damn in a creek, a monkey uses a stick to help eat bugs, and human builds an elevator to travel hundreds of feet off the ground. Problem solving is a beautiful thing.
--------------------------------
I’m really bored with this stupid writing. Sorry. I’m going to stop burping this crap out of my brain. This was just a way to help me cope with the day. I packed a lot of things today at the apartment. I threw out my desk and a few other bits of furniture. I still shake from time to time. My neighbor saw me moving the desk so he decided to take it. He then asked where I was going. I told him that Mindy wanted to be alone, that I had to leave. He suggested I seek the help of a spiritual healer and I was immediately turned off by the conversation. He also suggested that there probably was another person behind her wanting to leave me. I wanted to punch him in the face for saying this. But I did appreciate his thoughts on problems and how people cannot solve problems if they aren’t interested in talking. Wars are fought, people hate each other for a bit of time, and if the politicians didn’t sit around a table to discuss a truce, the war would never end. I don’t know how this really relates to Mindy and I. I just wish she weren’t so convinced about us not working this out. Even though she says things like “I’ll find you later” and “we’ll still be friends”, I just have a self-loathing feeling that it’s over, done, never to be again. I feel so saddened by this feeling. My heart feels like mush; I guess that’s a good thing because it can’t break anymore. The shards of my broken heart are no longer sharp. My heart is a puss filled goo glob.

oh the irony of it all

Emily's Response email which I forewarded to Mindy:

Mindy,
I think god hates me. Instances just keep happening that beat me up when I'm down. I want to share this with you, not because it'll will make a difference in how you see me, but because it's most likely lesson number five thousand and three in Bob's "why relationships suck" book.

Emily wrote back:

what the fuck?....what letter? what words? do you mean ages ago?.....I dont think I got any words recently. WHat happened? I'm confused. I know you love this woman. ah, I dont know what to say....what did you do? I have no idea what it was
that she read or what shes thinking. God, the LAST thing I want to do is be cause for damage in your relationship
with Mindy...and I dont really know if thats what has happened but it seems perhaps it has. I am a memory, I know that, and I think thats fine and beautiful...you're a memory to me too...a really fucken special one! I believe that you saved me and I will never forget that, my life has changed so much because I met you. And I'm not in love with you anymore, as I know your not in love with me, but I was in love with you...and I dont see that there is anything wrong with that. I have kept in touch with you because you hold such a dear place in my heart and in my history. I dont want to damage love. If you have to cut off contact with me to save your marriage then do it. You're not a bastard, and perhaps you fucked up but you have the ability to
mend things. Relationships are crazy, love is terrifying and its hard to be reasonable and clear headed. But we learn so much. Fix it Chris, I believe you can. I am in love with someone, and it's hard some of the time, I get a bit crazy, but I haven't been this happy for such a long time. This is good and healthy. So I think...from your Email that you have to say goodbye to me...? Please repair your love. I will resist the urge to say hellos to you...but you'll never leave my soul.
-------------------
And so, Mindy, the letter never reached Emily. It was lost into the ether.
HA HA god. That was a good one. You got me good.

-Have a wonderful night Mindy.

Emily,

Those words I wrote you. I'm sorry, but they were not true. They were the culmination of my fears for my marriage with Mindy. Yet I still wrote them to you.We had such a terrible night that night. I thought she literally hated me. She left the house late that night to go to a hotel to hang out with an old guy friend of hers. I got drunk, jealous, bitter and mad, then wrote to you. Then I left the house. I did not tell her where I went. When I came back, I spilled my heart to her as much as I spilled my guts to the toilet. Mindy found that letter a few days later on my computer. She can not trust me. I understand. I made a mistake. I damned our marriage. I lied. We are broken up. I am moving out of the apartment and into my friend's parent's house. In a few months, if I have enough money, I will move back to Los Angeles. I have no friends here in San Francisco. Nothing to support me in this very dark time. I'm destitute. Emily, you have become a figment of my imagination. Someone I loved a long time ago. I used you as an outlet for my darkest fears. I'm sorry for that. I don't know why I didn't tell you sooner about Mindy and I. I was concerned about your feelings, I was concerned about Mindy's heart. I'm not used to discussing new loves with old lovers. It's really hard for me. I think you're a wonderful person Emily, an amazing artist, and have a beautiful soul. I hope you are happy and in love with someone. You deserve at least that. I'm trying to be friends with Mindy right now, I'm trying to make sure she knows that those were fears in that letter and were not true. But there's nothing I can do or say to strike them from her heart. As she is afraid of being happy and committed to me, I was afraid of my own feelings for her. I'm such a bastard. I fucked up Emily. I've made too many mistakes in too little a time. But I did marry out of love. Our marriage will never be one of those mistakes. I loved her so much. She's not a coward Emily. She's so strong. I'm so jealous of her ability to deal with this. To be decisive. She is so wonderful. I'm ashamed. I am a shame.

Thank you for everything Emily. I'm sorry it came to this.
-c

----2nd email to emily robinson.

the exchange enducing closure- part two

"It's amazing how, even in a short amount of time, a plethora of items and feelings can be exchanged. From your favorite hooded sweatshirt to the proclamation of eternal love and telling each other your dark secrets."
- Gator

On August 23rd 2004, just before Mindy and I began talking online, I wrote a blog about the process of breaking up. It spoke about the merging between two people and how the artifacts of the relationship conflate together as well. Here's the link if you want to read the post.CLOSURE. But I never felt like the text was complete for some reason. Maybe it's because at the time, I was talking about something in which I had no experience. The context of that blog was relevant to Merci and I breaking up, but Merci and I didn't share too many personal possessions. We lived together for a month and then our relationship ended. The separation process only lasted a few days. We exchanged house keys, a few shirts, a couple of books, and a lot of sad glances.

However Mindy and I had lived together for the last 7 months, sharing our entire lives and possessions (that's what people do when they live together, they try to become this single entity). When we were in Los Angeles, our possessions still had a "mine" and "yours" feeling to them, which neither of us minded. When we moved to San Francisco to start a new life as a unified love, they became "our" possessions. Everything became our bed, our dresser, our toothbrush, our dishes, our bills, our pains, and our experiences. Using the word "my" inside the house became taboo. If I were in "my" chair, Mindy would half jokingly call me out on it. Or if she claimed I couldn't use "her" computer, I felt strangely about that separation.

In the past article I wrote that I thought these trinkets help build the framework of love two people share. I'd like to correct myself on that statement. The possessions have nothing to do with the love two people share. Love is not material. Memories can be stored away in the visual connections of material possessions, but nowhere inside a dresser does love exist. Nowhere inside a sweatshirt does one find true love. It's not the bed that's forcing you to miss your ex-lover's smell. Memories are triggered by the physical stimulus of objects. Emotionally charged memories bridge the connection between the object world and the ethereal world of thought.

Right now, I'm in the process of boxing my things from "her" apartment, to be placed in "my" new residence. I've tried throwing out most I could in terms of possessions. They make me sick with sadness. No, I make me sick with sadness. The material artifacts are excuses my brain uses to confabulate meaning of this situation. The keys I keep with me will soon be her keys. The shower I built in the bathroom will no longer be the place where I bathe. Our home will soon become her temple, as long as she can withstand the blood stains we left behind from the sacrifice of our love.

These are hard realizations for me. However, beyond the possesional aspect of our relationship, what becomes the most difficult, yet most important concept to grasp, is understanding that there were never any possessions from the beginning, ever. Mindy was never "my" wife. I was never "her" husband. The construct of possession is only a construct of the mind. We never own anything or anyone. I wonder even if we own our own thoughts. Maybe they own us. I digress.

eh

I've been down before. I've been alone most of my life. If I'd not been physically alone, then at least I felt psychologically alone. Some would say I take for granted those around me who continue to bless me with their love, and that if I appreciated their company better, I'd understand how supported and surrounded I really was. However, I feel that life is an interaction, which reflects your thoughts into a public space, bouncing around from person to person, hug to hug, smile to smile, and then back into your private thoughts again. The bridge between public and private, secret and ubiquitous, is a void which concepts like love, friendship, family, and even words themselves must cross. In all matters dialectical, a response to an initial input must be obtained, and the process of communication can only occur if the translation of thoughts cocoon into said action then morphs back into thoughts. The statement suggested that if you're friends love you, you’re going to be “OK”, doesn't hold true without your interpretation of their love. Take Terri Schiavo for example. Her neurological inabilities could not allow her to interpret and respond to her friend and family's love. She became destined to lose herself in the abysmal depths that intersect public and private psychosis. In a way, she became timeless, disjointed from thought, action and response. To the public, she lived 15 years in a vegetative state, 15 years of being fed by a tube in her stomach, 15 years of neurological solitude. But to Terri, she lived only one instant, one moment, as a singular being because she couldn’t distinguish the difference between time and space. Was this a brain defect or was it a blessing?

There's a natural paradoxical order to which our world defines meaning to words like "meaning" and "truth". But there can be no singular meaning in the paradox of our existence because of one very key aspect to reality: Time. Time separates our moments. Time allows the void between instances to exist and grow into infinite proportions. Without time, we could not separate one from two, me from you. But I wonder whether or not there is any separation between moments at all? Does time separate itself from the moment in which it affects? After all, can there be end points to an infinite system? The age-old question, "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" is a perfect example of the separation between moments. The answer is irrelevant, but the process of thought that surrounds the question is what complicates our theory of time. We as humans want to believe that there is a past, present, and we hope for a future. Linear time allows our brains to process thought and action, to determine what comes first, to chroniclize our existence so that we can come closer to prescribing meaning to our lives. We live for Truth. We die for Truth. We want there to be a life and a death, a Heaven and a Hell, this and that, a beginning and an end. We support a teological system because the thought of infinity frightens us. The thought that you and I are actually the same person, that we exist in the same instant as the same entity, confuses our brains. We want to believe we are different, unique, individuals, awesome at what we can accomplish on our own. Can one have the “I” without the “other”? Is there a reason we’ve yet to figure out consciousness through science? Can thought come before action? When I tell my finger to move, parts of my frontal lobes light up to tell me to tell my motor functions to move my finger, then eventually those signals get passed down through my spinal chord, into my fingers, the finger moves, and a message is sent back to my brain saying “good job.” But was my initial frontal lobe action a product of free will? Or was it fate, a consequence of organized chaos. Can there be a wrong place at the wrong time?

Ouroboros, the symbol of completion, of wholeness, of infinity, is the graphical representation of the human plight for meaning. The snake, eating its own tail, is birthing itself in the same instant it destroys itself. There is no separation of moments, no interpretations of actions, and no responses to interpretation. It's not a cyclical representation of the nature of the universe, but an allusion towards a greater universal suggestion: There is no distinction between space and time. Everything that ever was will always be. Humans are not born and they do not die. However they are always beginning and they are always ending. Choice co-exists within the instant as it allows humans to determine which vantage point they want to see the snake from.

Anyway, I thought I was going to write about something having to do with my heartbreak, but this is all I could poop out. I have another 6 hours at work; maybe I’ll try again later.

A few days later

The last three days have been bi-polar for me; I'm up for a few hours, then I fall hard on my face. But that's to be expected. The pain in my head is the consequence of the neurological process of breaking up. The cells in my brain are dying, which isn't anything new or different than what they do on a daily basis, but with heart break, it's like sending your cells in full reverse when they're charging foreword at a million computations a second. The pathways are re-routing, computing alternative processes that will help for the survival of myself. The brain is the most narcissistic of them all.

I woke up with Mindy this morning, shaking and doubtful. The mornings are conceptually difficult for me, but physically refreshing because the burning in my head goes away with sleep. That's not to say that it doesn't come back in the morning. We slept arm in arm but awoke on our separate sides of the bed. Sometimes I wish I weren’t such a restless sleeper. It'd be nice to wake up in the same position I go to sleep, especially when I’m holding the one I love. Before Mindy left, I had to press my lips to hers. It was the only cure for my shakes. We kissed as I pondered my own feelings and passions. Was this a goodbye kiss? Was it THE goodbye kiss? Was it a sympathy kiss? I had to feel her lips to mine. I won't be going home tonight. I will be sleeping at Mike's parents house for a while. I don't know the next time I'll be at that house. Mindy will have her space and I will have to find myself in this city of heartbreak.

San Francisco has been a difficult city for me. 5 years ago, my girlfriend Karen broke my heart here in this city. Not intentionally though. She was in love with two people, and I couldn't cope. It took a few months to recover, but I did. Now, Mindy and I are separating, and my heart has never been so smashed. I can't blame Mindy for this. Not anymore than she can blame me. I've listened to her words, even though she doesn't think I have. I've been just trying to deal with my emotions. It's hard to articulate logic when emotions run high. I hope she understands that.

After Mindy left, I went to Quicksilver's place and passed out on his table. He was sweet to me and let me sleep there. When I awoke, we went to get breakfast. It's still hard for me to force myself to eat. However my legs feel weak from the lack of nutrition so I had to stuff something in my mouth. The creape tasted dry and swollen in my throat. He dropped me off downtown where I tried selling some art for a while. I got kicked out of Union Square but I didn't let that get me down. I tried selling again but no one bought any works. I did get a page drawn in my sketchbook though. The line quality was shaky.

Work wasn't far away but I was too early to start. While walking to the Academy, I stopped into Walgreen’s and bought a pocket lint brush. My shirt was filthy from the cat wrestling on top of it last night. While brushing my shirt off, I saw a punk sitting in front of the Academy and decided to talk to her. Her name was Kat and was a fashion student in her third year. The conversation was awkward at first, but by the end, we shared a few laughs.

Its not like I want any sort of relationship with ANYONE, I just need a few friends to help cheer my spirits. This city has become the city of heartbreak for me, so I need to find a way to make it a city of friendships. I've been in contact with a few friends from Los Angeles to help me through this. They've all been compassionate and understanding. None of them think badly of Mindy. They know that these things happen. It’s a delicate situation, but to reassure me that I'm not alone in this. They've all had their hearts broken at one time or another.

It's strange, when you're in the midst of hardships, nothing can convince you that other people have been down like you before. You feel so isolated and alone in your pain. You contemplate terrible ideas, thoughts of death and suicide. But they're just thoughts controlled by the immense pain and agony of those brain reconfigurations. It gets better, then bad, then a little better, and then bad again. I just have to remember that I'm a good person. My intentions were always good. I never meant to hurt anyone, that this is life. These are the consequences of choice. It is amazing and beautiful as much as it is sad and ugly.

I hope we can figure this all out. I guess we'll have to. I love her.

the beauty of a blink

Prologue:
Words just muddle our emotions. In fact, words have probably been the downfall of mankind. I heard once, that before words, before we started communication with a verbal language, there was no war, there was no poverty, there were lush lands, peace, freedom, love, everything we as a society have always strived for. But, on the other hand, without documenting those days with words, how can we be certain of this utopia? Well, the fact that you communicate better without words, with body language, with eye communication, with a hyper consciousness, helps confirm the belief that words are everything we've never wanted to be. What's in a name? What's in a word? Nothing. No truth, no god, nothing. Language is all subjective, arbitrary, and probably takes us further and further away from happiness. Like the word beautiful; how cliche' is that? No one can use that word without thinking, it's been said before, in film, in music, in art, in life. But a romantic kiss, a smile, a touch of the skin, now that's beautiful!
--The first email I sent to Mindy

Story

I feel like I just came down from an eight-month acid trip. These overwhelming sensations and symptoms of a prolonged abuse of my neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin are: tingling in my extremities, blurry vision, sweating, head pounding, the inability to eat, tremlous convulsions, incurable stomach aches, sounds echoing around me, the lights burning my eyes, my jaw half way open half the time, then clenched tight the rest of the time. However these body aches are nothing compared to the mental anguish of my broken heart.

It's been 8 months since I last updated this journal. And where's the irony you ask? Where's the punch line? Well the last entry I wrote here was the beginning of what now seems to be the consequences of this broken heart. These are the symptoms of a depressed, sad, and lonely man. Here I sit, at a new job, in a new city, without any friends, and with my home life, in shambles. It was all I had to hold on to. The world seems so myopic and macabre when you're lover no longer loves you.

My wife, Mindy Ranee Buhl, married to me for 4 months, has decided she isn't in love with me anymore. It's a thought that's been festering and swelling inside her for quite some time now. She hadn't touched me in over a month. She had no interest in loving me. Her lack of self worth overpowered her ability to be in love. But why give away the whole story in the beginning of this entry? To whomever may read this, I'll try to tell our story tonight, in its entirety, and then be done with it.

Mindy and I began talking to one another in late August. Or rather, we started typing to one another; you see, we met over the internet, on Friendster actually. We chatted on IM for a few days before either of us had the nerve to call one another. I'm pretty sure it was I who called her first. I remember that she told me she couldn't talk very well, and in fact, if the reader of this memoir has read the prologue, like a good reader should do, I can assure you that words were our enemy from the beginning. I was afraid she was mute. I thought she couldn't even use her mouth to make sounds. But when I realized the silliness of those thoughts, I got the courage to call. And we talked. It was soft and sweet. It was from our first conversation that I knew we would be lovers, though I had yet to recognize that love.

After a week and a half of conversations, I couldn't stand not being next to her. It was driving me wild. Her life stories, her tender docile voice, her willingness to try and understand me was pressing my heart out of my Los Angeles box in and into her San Jose trailer park. You see, she lived with a friend's parents at the time, a half way place between her last fiancé' and her next stepping stone. Little did I know that I would be that stone. (Side note: my heart feels like stone typing this.) Driving on a suspended licensee with my friend TK in the car, we charged out of Los Angeles and made our way to San Jose. At 2 AM, I was finally there, with the girl I would months latter, be married to. She was more beautiful than I could have ever dreamed of. She was then and still is, my Angel. Words can't describe the aesthetic of the goddess that is Mindy Ranee Buhl. For those you who still can't picture what Mindy was to me, imagine her as air you breathe, the blood that courses through your body to keep you warm at night; picture her as the fondest memory you have of your mother. This is what she became to me.

To say the least, we hit if off. But I was still a bit skeptical of her intentions, a running theme throughout our relationship I guess. It wasn't until my second visit, one week later, did I know that we would be together for a long time, maybe forever. However now, in retrospect, I was foolish to think she'd love me forever. I was stupid to ever make any assumptions at all. (My head is spinning right now, excuse the break in story).

=============
Why doesn’t she love me? I've tried, so hard, with all that I had, to make us work. I gave her space when she needed space; I cuddled her when she wanted me pressed against her. I kissed her gently, and then hard, then however she wanted. We vowed to be committed, how could this have happened? She says she has issues, that her past haunts her, and that she can't love me if she doesn't love herself. She's been hiding her emotions behind the shrapnel of her explosive past. I won't go into detail of her past, to keep what's precious intact, but I wish I could help her cope, to deal with her history.
============

It was then that Mindy and I devised a plan to bring her to Los Angeles. Mindy was to live with me until I saved enough money for us to move to either San Francisco or Seattle. I remember the diagrams I drew up to prove to my roommates that Mindy and I wouldn't cause any commotion and would only be staying until late December. One was a picture of me holding a chart stating how much Mindy meant to me, (THIS MUCH by the way, as I wrap my hands behind me so that my fingers can encircle my body. Infinitely). The other was an enlarged photo I took of her the first day we were together in San Jose. I still have that photo in my studio. Mindy hates it, but it means the world to me. The roommates could see my conviction. Mindy and I were in Love and nothing was going to stop us from obtaining the love we so deserved.

Then she was there, in my house, in my bed. No, not my anything, it was ours. This was the beginning of us. The start of the single entity we'd vow to become. We worked our stupid jobs only to make ends meet and make the savings we needed to leave the city. I wanted to quit my job so badly. Mindy disliked her new vet job because of all the stupid idiots who'd come into her work and burp out the most remarkably asinine statements. I think one person even called her a cracker. But we didn't wake up in the morning because we liked our jobs, nor for friends, nor to hear the latest news update, but we arose for the love we shared. (I hope this presumption is correct, oh god do I hope this).

The proposal wasn't at all what one would consider your classical and traditional engagement. The suggestion of marriage became a pertinent issue vacillating from the back to the front of my thoughts. I loved her. I wanted to commit myself to her, to make this work, or at least to try. I wanted a relationship that lasted longer than 10 months. There was no doubt in my mind that I was completely madly in love with her. I wanted to be married to her. When I was out buying the ring for her beautiful finger, I got into a skateboard accident. I entered the diamond store all bloody and bruised. I thought it was funny when the sales person came to shake my bloody hand. I didn't know anything about diamonds, but was docile as ever. It was an honor to propose. I proposed to Mindy on the back porch of the house we were living. Subtle as it may have been, I was as sincere as one gets. (Again in retrospect, this amount of commitment is what would eventually assist in causing Mindy to back out of her love for me.) She even had a ring for me, which I wasn't expecting.

I was a list maker. There seemed to be so much I had to do before we moved out of Los Angeles. We had to sell my car, pack up our things, find a replacement roommate for the house, make more lists, and finally, plan a wedding. It wasn't going to be a big wedding, just a beautiful one. In fact, it was going to be the most beautiful wedding in the history of weddings. And it wasn't going to cost us anything. (Maybe it cost us our marriage? No, that can't be it.) The wedding was to be held in San Francisco at the Sutro Bathes inside a cave at sun down. Simple, no? Well, to save you time boring you with all the details of my planning, to say the very least, it WAS the most beautiful wedding ever.

Though, before I digress too far into the story, I must add that before we were married, we spent one full week away from each other. She was in the Bay Area and I was in LA working my last week at the racetracks. It was a terrible week. I missed her dearly and she missed me. I don't mean to romanticize this story too much, and after all, I am a miserable wreck while writing this, and everything seemed so much clearer before Mindy and I were fighting, but we truly missed one another for that week. However hitherto what is now the remains of a once happy marriage, I couldn't even begin to comprehend what missing her might feel like. The gut wrenching pains of mental agony are unbearable. They keep my awake at night and put me in a daze during the day. I want my lover back. I want my angel. I'll do anything for her.

Sorry. I'll try not to do that again.

The week away from one another passed and we were reunited once again. The wedding was in a few days but it didn't need much preparation. I was nervous and stressed. She could tell. She's always been able to tell if there's something wrong with me. It’s too bad I'm an emotional retard when it comes to the discourse of feelings. We were asked to write vows for one another, about one another. She couldn't do it. Mindy said she couldn't speak of her love for me in words. I understood, I thought. I sympathized. (I now question what her vows would have been if I hadn't helped write them for her.) The vows weren’t really all too important anyway. It was the placement of her ring on my finger and vice versa that signified our bond. I placed her ring around my heart; she placed her heart in my ring. It was touching. The sunset beautifully as we walked together, arm in arm, man and wife.

Exiting the cave was the most brilliant and amazing feeling of my life; to be unified with such a sweet bird was to be one with a goddess. We flew directly towards that sun set. (And maybe that's why we caught on fire and are dying now... god I want to hold her).

We never really had a honeymoon. I wish we went to Hawaii though, I wish I could have given her that. Soon after the wedding, we found a place to live in the Lower Haight district in San Francisco, CA. It was to be our new home, our first home, our only home. I liked our home. She did too. (However, today, April 12th was the day I realized my home was not at all in the walls of that Victorian apartment, but immured in the heart of the one I loved. Without her there, it isn't home at all.)

The intimacy between Mindy and I was phenomenal. We were lovers, and did what lovers do. I wanted to give her everything and anything she ever wanted; and I tried so hard to be there when she needed me. If she ever designed a perfect husband, I wish I were it. I wish I were Mindy's perfect lover. I remember Mindy once asking me, "If we ever break up, will you promise to come over and love me?" Two things about this frightened me. First, it was the first time the "if" theory surfaced. "If" can be a strong thing. "If" can ruin a marriage. "If" can ruin a life. And the second thing that scared me was that she actually enjoyed making love to me. It's hard for my feeble mind to understand such an anomaly, but I tried to believe she would want to touch me forever.

Then there was Lillith. Lilly Pie became the newest member of the Buhl-Donham family. She was 8 months old, tan and black colored, and had the smelliest gas that a kitty has ever had. She cleared rooms. But, beyond her gassy tendencies, she was a beautiful kitten that Mindy and I were to raise together. That was it. That was our family. It was nice.

We soon started working for Quicksilver on his metaphysical convention. Mindy and I worked together for the first time, ever. It wasn't easy for me. I'll tell the truth, it's hard for me to focus on work when my lover is in the room. Concentration issues I guess. The convention wasn't easy for either of us. We flew to Los Angeles to work at the Hilton Hotel. We had just set up our home in San Francisco, and had to leave the apartment and our cat in the hands of Mindy's friend Patricia. During the convention, I think Mindy felt for the first time, aggression and animosity towards me. She wasn't receiving the attention she deserved. I became a workaholic, and she had to pretend to care about this shitty convention. (I'm so stupid. I should have given her anything she ever wanted. I guess I'm paying for it now. It's so hard not to blame myself for this. It's so hard to think that I can't have her heart. I feel so fucking gross.)

===================
Maybe Mindy just isn't interested in me? Maybe I'm not that interesting of a guy? I thought I was at one point. This move has been hard on me. I uplifted my roots and replanted myself a new CRINDY being. I'm sure it's been hard on her too. But that was the commitment, I thought. To help each other in hard times. It hurts...but I know now that to help her, I have to let her break up with me. God fuck shit....fuckin hell. I won't cry at work. Not here.
===================

After the convention, we flew back home to begin our life...again. We both started looking for work, and were trying to understand what married life meant to us. We spent a lot of time together and things seemed to be getting a little awkward. Sex had become an issue because of birth control problems, dinners were spent in front of a TV watching movies, and the time we spent together wasn't as romantic as we both wanted it to be. I'm sure of it. It is very possible that I assumed that she would be there for me, always, and took advantage of our love. I'm not sure. This part of the story seems hazy. I can' t quite understand what happened to make her fall out of love with me. But that's not the point of this text. I digress.

An interesting night that seemed to be an intense emotional debacle for us, was a night when we went to an art opening. I didn't know anyone there, except for a pseudo friend, but wasn't feeling sociable enough to talk to anyone. Mindy and I were psychologically alone at a social event. Mindy disliked my attitude, and I felt depressed. This night was a foreboding symbol of how Mindy and I coped with each other's emotions; not well at all. (I want to change, I want to tell her everything, and I want her to know who I am, to have her stop prying my feelings from me.)

Mindy got a job at a Vet clinic, and I got a job working in a computer lab. Awesome, no? No, it's not. We work opposite hours. She works in the morning, and I work at night. We never see each other except for on her lunch breaks, sometimes. (I'll quit, I will if it'll help us.) But I wasn't going to work these hours forever. I was going to pay my dues to the job, then get the hours I wanted. That was the plan. I wanted to have my nights with my love, as I thought she did. But she doesn't. In fact, these work hours will assist her in what she wants. It's so sad for me, but I know it's what she wants.

Which brings me to two days ago. The tension in our relationship was building, crescendoing into the dynamics of what has now developed. We went out to dinner that night because neither of us wanted to eat at the house. The Thai food we got was terrible, but what was worse than the food was the look on Mindy's face while we sat there in silence. She hates me, I thought. She's bored of me. She doesn't love me. I can't make her laugh. We left without eating much because the food was too spicy. I have more digits on my extremities than words we spoke that night. Then, her friend, whom she hadn't seen in years, invited her for tea. Wonderful, I thought. But what started up as a gesture of my love, to let her fly freely, turned into one of my violent mood swings. It wasn't that she went out without me, I'm not that selfish, it's that before she left, she asked me if it bothered me. Again, to anyone else, this may have been a normal thing to say, but for me, it meant that it should bother you, I want it to bother you, why doesn't it bother you. There was so much unspoken meaning behind those simple words. And the worse part is, she most likely didn't mean it like that. So I went out, drinking, too much, and came back thinking I could talk rationally to her about our relationship. Fucking jackass I am. I did as much spilling of my heart as I did spilling of my insides. (I'm sorry for that). This got us nowhere except up to yesterday.

April 11th: I went to the Sutro baths, the place of our marriage, to watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. God I wanted her there with me. The sun set beautifully. I came home to speak to her. To crack open this tense void we'd developed. Today, was the day we started speaking to each other. She spoke of her loss of love for me and how she didn't want to hurt me. I spoke of my inability to see it coming and how it hurt real bad. We cried. It hurt. It still hurts. I want to kiss her now, I want to make love to her, I want to be interesting and funny and sensitive, and remarkable to her. I've learned so much about my feelings for her in the last two days. But I think it's too late. I want her to get better soon. I want her to still love me when this is all said and done. I won't hate her. I love her. She is my life, my wife, my everything. She thinks she is not my everything, but she is. Mindy Ranee Buhl, who became Mindy Ranee Donham for four months, no longer can bare the burden of loving me. And I have to deal with it.

Epilogue:

April 12th: I realized today that there's so much beauty in one blink of an eye. The healing power that a blink can deliver can soothe the most treacherous heartache. Held between two points of open, the closing motion of a blink cleanses the soul and allows time to pass. Time is sometimes all we can hold on to. And that is that.