our lives are our punishments

I'm coping. I'm really tired, but it's really late again, I've stayed up making music again, and that's the way it goes. RW says, "[Bananarchist], I'll let you in on a secret. Everyone is a bad worker." RW broke a heart tonight but in a humane, decent way. It had to be broken; year-long relationships with no futurity are pointless when you're 28. My bandmate Steph C. got her heart broken on Sunday too. She texted while I was on the El-bus-El nightmare from O'Hare to Division to say that her Harry, who was also mysteriously absent for a spell from her life, got back in touch with her to tell her he didn't love her any more and wanted her to get out of his life. CH is in love woes too, and the soonest she can find a good outcome is January 2010. SL survived a bomb threat in her relationship this weekend. RA is Googling Jennys to see whether they are live-in lovers or merely lesbian friends of her target in Phuket. What's happening?

RW speculated that the heartache that has become community property is the result of the Second Great Depression. "The economy definitely made me think about my future," she said. She suggested we go to the library and read history books to find out how people became tycoons after the Great Depression, so that we might walk in their footsteps. 

I told my parents. This was their reaction: "Of cause that is good chose for her, if she feels happy together with a man.  We hope someday you will find the Mr. Right for yourself.  No matter what we support you and wash you have happy life too." I drafted a petulant little response along the lines of, "That's the last time I ever try to tell you about my life; you never understand me; you're homophobes; I wish you would care that my feelings are hurt instead of just gleefully celebrating [That One]'s hasty return to squelching, bloody-cuticled heterosexuality," but my senses overtook my passion and it became the fifth or sixth email that I drafted but did not send that day. I drafted and redrafted versions of mean emails to [That One], slept on it, and settled on this:

Send back Love Marriage; it's important to me. My address is 123456 N. XYZ St, Chicago IL 60642.

Heard some news about you. Not impressed. Don't write back, just send the book. Best of luck.

CH complimented my good judgment and restraint - and that's saying something because many of my major decisions in the last few months were made upon her sound advice - but that was before she read the above email.  I don't think I will ever get my book back, but the email was more about getting my dignity back anyway. I waver between extreme vindictiveness (e.g., how to best deploy those afterhours photographs?*) and a desire to commit tortious behavior against [That One], but, as a friend writes, "you know what we used to say all the time about people we didn't like: 'her life is her punishment!' i used to think this was a very catty statement, but i no longer feel that way because of the deep truth of it!" I don't quote this in just a catty way (but catty for sure too; because yes, good riddance, lovers, may you enjoy each others' company on your way to the bottom). I mean this in a chickens-coming-home-to-roost way. I have treated my lovers so badly in the past that it is only an infinitesimal slice of karma for me to receive now what I have given before. Our lives are our punishments. I can't say any of this is too surprising. 

So, it just settles into anger, maybe a touch of despair. [That One]'s excommunicated best fag - he got the boot too, long ago - urges me to fight for what I love. Maybe it's just a test? Maybe you need to push back? Maybe she's merely confused, loves you after all, needs to be prodded back to her senses?  The conversation left me sniffling at Gmail.  He didn't seem to understand that [That One] just had her Sarah Palin moment. Up until August, John McCain seemed a bit off-the-wall but maybe viable as a moderate Republican, if you had to vote that way. But then he chose Sarah Palin.  He either (1) committed a crass act for political gain, or (2) truly believed in the viability of the nonsense-spouting contender from the Pacific Rim.  Either outcome would reveal the man to be insane.  And that's how it is now. If best fag is right and this is [That One]'s sick ploy to get me to work harder to be with her, or her way of freeing herself from me so that one day we can try again, then no matter how much I love [That One], and it pains me to remember that I do, I cannot return to the terrible judgment, irrational excess, and pride that would have to underlie that decision. If best fag is wrong and [That One] truly believes that her Pacific Rim contender is the next President of the United States of America, then [That One] is an erratic, unpredictable lunatic, and I cannot return to that lunacy. So that's it - it's over. 

This is clearly an angry blogpost. It may not be up for long. I know it makes me look ugly, but one can only cultivate one's easygoing blog image for so long before the truth pokes through. I have taken leave from my senses. Autumn is the season for faster walking. Autumn is the season for freedom. I continue to feel free, but free like Operation Iraqi Freedom; not quite there yet. I will find my solace at the end of this long train of conscious hours that stretches limitless to the vanishing point. 

Meanwhile, I found the time to record a pop song. The thirty seconds between 1:24 and 1:54 maybe the catchiest pop I've ever written. The rest is just so so. The balance between vocals and guitars is all fucked up unless you use headphones to listen to it. In fact, don't listen to it unless you use headphones because otherwise it's embarrassingly bad. It's about NK in 1996, and [That One] in 2005. 

* Don't worry, [That One],. Even though you made a carnival of my heart, I would never.