the beating of your heart baby

i think it's amazing how a day can start out one way and end up another. so, tomorrow i was supposed to meet with kate and give her the two dogs for a while. firstly because i will be in NYC this weekend, and then at stratford the following weekend, and needed someone to watch the dogs. secondly, to do the other half of the "shared custody" of our dogs who have grown to love each other so deeply over the past two years.

so, tonight i was in the middle of my keep-myself-busy chores of laundry and vacuuming when she called wondering if she could come get them tonight. at first i was dismayed at seeing her for the first time since we broke up without a full day of mental preparation, and then i was lamenting the fact that i would be losing my last night with ella for a while, and sara possibly forever. but, she came over and we talked.

there was a range of possible outcomes in my mind for our meeting that have been kicking around as the day approached... what happened was probably the best i could have hoped for. this time around there is no hostility, no adversarial nature to our new situation. there is no one-sided desire for the relationship to continue. it was basically two people who love one another, both trying to accomplish the same thing in their own lives, and doing so armed with the knowledge that we must do them on our own. i cannot believe how good i feel. i started the day under such a heavy cloud... and i couldn't shake it all day. and now, having talked to her instead of maintaining the awkward silence that ensues when a breakup occurs. i just feel good about the situation, confirmed in the fact that we feel the same way, and have the utmost respect for one another. so kate, should your eyes ever happen upon these pages, thank you. i love you. i hope we both find what we're looking for.

you take the good, you take the bad

so yesterday i was at lunch with my friends from work, and my cell phone rang. the caller id displayed a number i did not recognize, and normally i would not pick up such a phone call... but last friday i spent my afternoon driving up to grand blanc to audition for a television commercial for my employer. so, i picked up. the conversation was both exhilerating and confusing. it was a woman with an advertising agency, asking me where she could fax some forms i needed to sign.
"well, i haven't actually been contacted about being cast..."
"well plan on it, because i was given your name and phone number."
so i gave her my email and work fax number. got back to my desk, checked my messages, and had a message from a casting director with the i-group. so, i called her back, and i will be appearing in a national television commercial.

as to how much i appear, well that remains to be seen. still, it made my day, and frankly i could use it yesterday.

so, now the bad, as the Facts of Life theme tells us in such a wise manner...
i give my exgirlfriend her dog back tomorrow. it's complicated, and i don't really expect anyone to understand, but when we separated, we really wanted to keep our dogs together. my dog ella grew up with her dog sara, and they are true sisters in love. originally kate stated that she was going to give me sara, so the girls could stay together. i never really believed she would be capable of such a thing, as she's had sara longer than she's known me... but i understood the motivation. i thought briefly about giving her ella, and i know she would love her so deeply and care for her better than i probably can, but right now i need to stop hemorrhaging things i love. my dog is my daughter, and i don't think i could live without her right now. of course, i did get home to an entire cushion from my couch having been shredded and all over the house... i probably could have parted with her at that moment. =) but only for a short time. anyway, to the original point... tomorrow i will be giving kate both dogs while i go out of town for the weekend. then we'll see. i have really become attached to sara over the past two weeks, and my heart will break when she leaves.

a little torn

i'm having trouble with this blogging thing... i've always been a journaller, a private book of writings that contain records of significant and insignificant details of my life. but there, in any of my dozen or so journals, is the naked truth. designed from the beginning to be the complete and unadulterated truth, i can record my deepest feelings, without regard for who will read them. my journals were designed to be for my eyes only, although i always had a fantasy about sharing them with my future children, and should i be blessed to marry a woman who i knew could appreciate them, for her.
but this blogging thing is somewhere in between. i don't have any delusions of becoming a hotspot on the internet for people to log on to and see what's going on in my life... sort of the Truman Show, but it's still out there for anyone to see. and frankly, for the people who i don't know, and will probably never know who may happen across my writings, that's fine. i don't mind sharing my most naked feelings with strangers. it almost seems romantic to think about. but what about the people in my life who i *do* know, who may not be fit for such information.

this is of particular interest right now in my life, as i've just recently been left by my girlfriend. so my initial instinct is to make this blog a digital version of my journal, to keep my hand from cramping, and allow quick little updates and short versions of entries as they come to me, instead of trying to pack them all into an end-of-the-day type summary.

a good example of this happened to me tonight. she was basically living with me here in my house, at least 60% of the time. the other days and nights spent at her parents home. she's just recently graduated, and started working full time, and so her life in enough of a state of flux that she was sort of a gypsie... floating back and forth between the two locales, depending on outside circumstances. but she still had half of my closet, and an entire nightstand in my bedroom. she had rubbermaid containers filled with clothes, and shoes and other necessities. the moment happened tonight as i changed the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. i remember specifically that she bought the supplies last time she was at the grocery store. and this is the type of thing that really makes me sad. there are still frozen "lean cuisine" dinners in my freezer that she bought for me. and when i open the freezer door and see them, i have this vision of her in the store, pushing a cart down the isles. she's in the frozen foods section, sees the frozen dinners, and thinks enough about me to buy them. i imagine the conversation with herself in her head: "oh, those would be good for nights when he has rehearsal, and i'm not there." these are the things that kill me now to think about. i actually took one of them out yesterday, held it in my hand, and looked at it and said "karen's ziti... i'm not ready." referring to the Sopranos episode when janice offers to heat up bobby's late wife's last ziti she made before she died.

i just miss her. and it is my tendency for things like the toilet paper, or the frozen dinners, or the other groceries she's bought that are in my cupboards to idealize our time together. and they make me think that we have made a mistake. that these little moments were signs that we've let something truly great slip away. but it's not the truth. it was so damn close... but i know that i will be a better man after this painful process. and while a part of me hopes that my new self that emerges, and her new self that emerges from these ashes find eachother again, and find the piece that was missing has been found, i can't count on it. there are so many things in my life that i need to figure out, and fix, and organize, and *be* that i can't go back to her now. i would never evolve, and neither would she, and we'd find ourselves further and further entrenched in unhappiness, albeit unhappiness infused with great moments and flickers of destiny like the frozen dinners.

in a vain effort to stay young...

so, here I am. writing a blog.
I am not old by any stretch of the imagination, but I also don't consider myself to be on the cutting edge of anything... computers, music, science, medicine, etc. and beginning a blog now is by no means *getting me* to the cutting edge of anything, but it's a start.

I owe this new beginning to my friend Eric Gielow, in an indirect manner. I stumbled upon his blog after looking for some current contact information for him, and became enchanted by the idea that his musings, however pertinent or interesting to anyone else, were out there... holding down a little dark corner of the internet for any old stranger to happen upon.

And I'll be honest, I have thought before about starting a blog... but I think it's my little pet fear that I'll do it, and no one will ever read anything I write. But at this point in my life, I'm starting to become sick of not doing things because of these stupid little fears. So, I'm starting a blog. and if you have stumbled into my little dark corner of the internet, I welcome you. In the following you will find: a) that I won't be capitalizing forever. I'd like to say I will, but I know myself better than that. b) some form of unfiltered brain dumping from yours truly c) movie discussions, semi-daily journal-type entries and essays on the current state of affairs around here.