tablesaw | Entries tagged with love

ojouchan and I have broken up and ended our engagement.

You may or may not know that we've been having troubles and were taking a break. This is not a break; it's over. Please don't question the finality of the decision.

Our friendship remains essentially intact, but it's very difficult for each of us emotionally.

Comments are open, but I'm not entirely comfortable saying much about this publicly yet. I may reach out privately if I haven't already. I may set up a filter to process this.

Please also keep in mind that my family reads this journal and are finding this out too. Mom, Dad, I may not be ready to talk immediately.

The first of three fanmixes for

whedonland. This one is for the Dollhouse pairing of Topher and Brink. Links go to MP3s where freely available, and to streaming versions for everything else.

Anonymous Friend: An Ill-Advised Topher/Bennett Playlist

Anonymous Friend: An Ill-Advised Topher/Bennett Playlist

( Songs, links, lyrics, and notes )

Current Mood: geeky

I've been trying to write a letter to Ex, but it's not happening. Well, something's happening, but it's not the letter I'm supposed to write. Ex got married last week, and I have yet to say anything about it. The problem is that every time I set down something, I start pouring out my own issues, which isn't the point. And trying to cut all of that out leaves me with something so stiff and impersonal that it's almost and insult. Not what I want to say at all.

(For those just joining us, here's some background for my relationship with Ex and my relationship with Ex after my relationship with Ex: 3/17/2002, 6/22/2002, 9/19/2002 and possibly some other entries I can't find.)

Ex and I became close friends in Washington, D.C, where we attended one year of college together. At the end of that year, we both moved to different colleges, but we kept in close contact, thanks largely to her weekend job as a secretary at a business with a liberal toll-free-phone-line policy. Eventually, on a visit to LA, we started dating, and tried to continue it long-distance off and on for a while.

Breaking up with Ex is directly tied in to my ultimate crash at the end of a very long slide into the depths of depression. I can clearly trace back my depression to my Sophomore year in high school, but I'd always managed, generally, to keep things more or less balanced. Leaving school cut me loose in many ways, and I just got very, very bad. Depression severely warped my perception of reality in the months after I graduated from college, and I alienated my friends and family until I was pinning a lot of my life on my relationship with Ex. That relationship was falling apart because, well, I was falling apart; but I couldn't see/accept it. Eventually, on a long-before-scheduled trip to her home town where she finally, actually, firmly broke up with me, I had a complete breakdown.

Since then, I've been able to put my mind back together to a certain extent, though it's still a journey. Anyway, I need to get back to Ex.

At the end of our "relationship," Ex started seeing someone, whom we will call Xi (because I like saying "Ksaie!"). Considering what I've told you above, and even guessing at my mental state at the time, you can imagine that my view of Xi wasn't very pretty, or very accurate. A lot of my residual rage from that time is directed at him.

If you've looked at my "research" posts, you'll know that Ex and I have been in touch with each other for about a year now, through web journals. I guess this may be a new and interesting use of the Internet, but it's been good for me. I've gotten used to Ex being in my thoughts in new situations, ones that don't involve me being a ranting madman. But with this wedding, I realize that I haven't quite gotten closure on that time in my life. I've moved on, but there's still a little bit open.

I feel like I need to see her again, to solidify the communication we've had since the break up, to know that it's real, to have something slightly more like what we had before things got strange, back when we were friends who could talk for hours about art, philosophy, anime, and anything else.

Also, I need to meet Xi again. No, not again. I don't really think that first time counted. I think I'm better off assuming that I never met Xi and that what I remember from meeting him was just an elaborate imagining from my brain which bears no resemblance to reality. Ex really only talks about Xi tangentially in her journal, so that doesn't really give me a whole lot to go on. I feel like I need some reality to counteract the nightmare of three years ago, so that I can actually see why my friend is marrying him.

Wow. Three years. It's been a long time. I haven't really caught up with that part of my life. It feels more like a year ago. So much wasted space.

I'm still iffy on the letter, so here it is. Any and all suggestions are appreciated before I send this out: ( Read more... )

Current Mood: wistful

These entries that involve Wendy are locked for two reasons. One is that there is at least one person on LJ who is obsessed with her and was able to cryptically deduce that I was seeing her. The other is that she doesn't want to hear about it on my journal (which she reads), and she has asked that I screen any such statements from her friends, many of whom I now read and now read me.

Anyway, I've had That Dog's Retreat from the Sun in my CD player for about a week, ever since

pbmath mentioned it in a comment. Anyway, it's had a strong hold on me ever since, and I haven't been able to get it out of my stereo or my head. And it's not surprising, since the album's themes play upon my own current issues: infatuation, physical distance, miscommunication, emotional distance, and violins. It's also very upbeat and singable.

So, interested in getting inside my head? Here's some of what I'm thinking about, in lyric form:

( Retreat from the Tablesaw )

And that, until further notice is my soundtrack.

Current Mood: demonstratively canine
Current Music: "Slow Dog" — Belly

My last entry was written quickly, in a fury at LiveJournal for deleting my original post. I quite forgot that some of the information in the lost post was important. Like the fact that Wendy and I broke up last week.

I wrote all about the stuff leading up to it, but I don't feel like writing them again. I didn't feel like writing them in the first place, but knew that I had to do it anyway, to get it out of my head. Now, they're mostly out, and I don't want to repeat it all over again. But, in terms of the aftermath, Wendy's really depressed right now, was already, independent of the break-up. Like much of her depression, it's keyed into employment, or lack thereof. But now, she's also trying to deal with her first "amicable" break-up. One which doesn't leave one with the aid of deep loathing for the other person involved to get through things.

She woke up in tears, and cornered me on AIM asking why the relationship would be over if we're still fond of each other. Well, that's not prescisely true; she knew the reasons why. When we broke up, it was clear to us both that communication between us had a tendency to fall to pieces at a moments notice, so we were both mentally ready to go back to being friends, but now she's wracked with guilt that she may have screwed up something good.

I know we're still friends, but I don't really feel capable of being the main person in charge of helping her get over our relationship. I've got my own getting over of it to do. Beyond that, I'm also worried about her feeling depressed.

So, this is still very disjointed, but maybe that helps a little bit more.

The other day, I had a sudden overwhelming urge to read "Judas Danced" by Brian Aldiss. I knew which book it was in, SF: Authors' Choice. After my fever for this chaotic tale was abated, I noticed something odd. Scribbled on the inside of the paperback cover, I found the following, in pencil and in my hand:

Don't do what I did . . .
You keep saying,
It's OK, I can live with that
It's OK, I can live with that
Then you go: "It's too much
I can't live with any of it
You have to change everything."

I haven't a clue what it means or why it's there. I don't even know if the words are mine or if I heard someone else say them. All I know is that it was when I had this book out, which was during the last two years of college? It's very likely that I copied this down during my "Race, Gender and Performance" class with Catherine Cole [Archive link, 10/26/10], since I used another story in the book, "Day Million" [dead link changed, 10/26/10] by Frederik Pohl as the source for my final project in that class. Does anyone recognize this fragment at all?

SatNYTX: 13:45. Very fast, but there was one crossing of words I didn't know.

~~(LJ note: The update page doesn't seem to allow me to select a userpic right now. Hope that gets fixed.)~~ (Update: It's back.)

Current Mood: Racked

I wake up slightly to the sound of the river passing over my head, water that would cause flooding and gridlock and agony for the city while I slept. My body is wrapped in sheets and quilts, and my eyes flick between a grey cloudy light and black cloudy dark, and my mind drowns in the sound of rain, and my soul is disgorged like an overbloated corpse from the sea of dreams. A sudden splash of impetus twists my body like a rag, and my arm falls onto the empty side of the bed, resting on something other than mattress. And for a less than a moment I feel a warm body, peaceful, her oblivion to the tempest outside offering me a sweet, second-hand solace, a warmth to fold myself into. Soon enough, though, the form defines itself: cold, small, rigid. It was my dictionary, left at my side during a recent bout of insomniac solving.

Thank you, Life, for interrupting my dreams with a taunting metaphor. No, really, it made my day.

My life isn't empty. But it's not as full as it could be. And as long as there's an empty space next to me, it'll be filled by whatever's handy, usually from my bookcase. A book has many things to offer me, of course, but what have I to offer it?

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: "Duchess"--The Mother Hips

I was smoten.

Current Mood: smoten

I'm taking a break from putting things into boxes. Not only because I'm a bit tired and need a breather, but also because a little while ago, I took a few things out of boxes.

I have a box that I'm keeping for a friend. It's a box of evidence of a relationship. I've had it for years now, and I've never really looked at it, but today, while I was evaluating what, from my life, to keep and what to discard, I was drawn to the small cardboard box of mementos. I flipped through. All in all there wasn't much, but there was a large stack of communiques of various types, neatly stacked.

I didn't read the emails. I didn't want to or need to. I was already struck with how meticulously clean they were. They didn't seem to be folded or crumpled or to show any other marks of mishandling. They were pristine except for occasional stray notes, doodles, and periodic underlining of the text. It surprised me that my friends had been able to organize these aspects of his life so delicately, ultimately making it possible, then, to put it all into a single box to be given to someone else for an indefinite period of time.

I simply don't function like that. It's hard enough for me to keep my financial information in the same place where I could be expected to find it within five minutes. But I couldn't decide to be jealous of my friend's ability or glad that I lacked it. On the one hand, having that information organized, one can always refer back to something. On the other hand, always having the information at hand means, in a physical, or perhaps geographical, way, being unable to forget. There's always something there to remind you.

I have mementos from past relationships. A few are on display, like the only picture I have of a girl from Montana, but most are hidden behind, around, below, within the maze of information that is around me at all times. And it's times like this, when I'm moving or cleaning or otherwise sifting all of my possessions, that these physical memories, stored outside of my brain, come back through my fingertips and speak.

Somewhere in that room, or possibly in boxes somewhere that I packed months ago, there is a picture of an old ex-girlfriend, exer than Ex. She's in high school, getting ready for, I think, Homecoming, wearing a green dress and looking lovely despite an obvious weariness in her eyes with the process of having her parents photograph her before the dance. Attached to it is a photograph taken of the two of us in Georgetown on some night out with a group of friends. I'm wearing a winter coat and my insulated arms hold her close; her black leather (faux-leather?) jacket wraps around my arms as well, and the dark clothing with the night flash makes her clear face luminous beneath mine. And when I find it, as I always do, I'll hold it in my hand and remember when I held her in my arms, when I fell in love, when we studied together and I couldn't stop staring at her pale shoulder, off of which her shirt had slipped, when we first kissed, sitting on a bench on the Washington Mall, when I cried, when she embarrassed herself and my friend in front of me while drunk, when she lied to me. And when I find it, as I always do, I'll ask myself whether I should simply let it fall away from me, into a dustbin and out of my life. And when I find it, as I always do, I will place it carefully into whichever pile I've designated for things that I'm not sure what to do with, where it will be covered by stray notes, or postcards, or newspaper clippings until I find it again.

Current Mood: mnemonic

So, as I mentioned earlier, Ex has begun reading and commenting in my journal. I'm actually kind of glad. This may be a way to painlessly restart a friendship, from a distance.

She also directed me to her own webjournal. I don't feel comfortable giving the address even in this smaller area, but let me reprint a section I found early on.

( I tried to work out (alone, in my head) a breakup that I had a long time ago... )

As you can imagine, this struck me pretty hard. But really, I don't have anything more to say, I think, than what I posted as a response:

( So, yeah, I found you... )

I don't think there's much more to say, and I need to get to bed. Must wake up for Survivor Thailand, you know.

Current Mood: melancholy

While dictionary browsing, I found this:

sex kitten n (1958): a young woman with conspicuous sex appeal

I want a sex kitten.

Now let me unpack that a bit. I don't want in the sense of ownership. Nor do I want an actual kitten to have sex with (thank you very much gutter-minded ones). But I would like to date some one with conspicuous sex appeal.

I found it interesting that, even as I let my lizard brain do the thinking, I didn't want to go out and find someone solely on the basis of their perceived "sexiness," instead I wanted to find someone brilliant and beautiful and then be lucky enough for her to be a sex kitten as well. It's almost the inverse of

swisscheesed's "Well, it's nice that you have a brain," where it's the brain that's the pleasant afterthought.

( Back to life... )

Current Mood: flirty

Vacation is ending, and I feel very alone.

I woke myself up at five a.m. to watch a sunrise that was obscured by clouds that weren't on the horizon last night and will be gone completely by the time we check out of the house at ten. Nobody else in this house or, apparently, any other nearby house had the desire to try same.

Two nights ago I slept in the lounge for the same reason, to set my alarm for five a.m. with the hope of watching the sun be on the wrong side of the day. I stayed up late drinking with my housemates and fell asleep to the susurrations of a slightly more than tipsy woman and her devoted lover, who stood a hawklike vigil over her while she drank water and whispered herself to sleep. The whole thing left me feeling odd.

I miss Ex, more right now than I have in a while, undoubtedly due, in no small part, to the fact that two of the most beautiful and brilliant women I've met are here in this house with me, both of whom bear a more than passing resemblance to Ex. When one walks by, glowing with love for her beau, my body twists in memory and anticipation. But I don't wish that Ex and I were still together and lying together on the beach, nor do I wish that one of the women here were with me instead of her actual boyfriend. I want something more encompassing and more fundamental.

When Ex and I broke up and I had my life-shattering breakdown, I lost a lot of people I love, not just Ex. "You have to love yourself before you can love anyone else" says an old saw, and I've seen enough to know it's true. I lost loves and friendships because I wasn't able to give them the love I once did. And for quite a while after that time, while I was rebuilding myself, I certainly didn't miss the requirement, the need to pour out love I didn't yet have.

It's about a year and a half later, and I've started to ache. It started when veek visited. She came to LA with an openness to be loved and a life I now envy so much, a life with many people with whom she can commune. I responded more earnestly than I could have expected, more emotionally than I had in over eighteen months, leaving my weak and trying to find, again, what I was missing.

I worry now. The ache of love shakes me all over, and I am not certain I can stay alive if warehouses of compassion must be left untouched to mold and mildew.

How do I tell the people here (and only certain people, at that) that I'd be willing to lay down my life for them? It's not so much a matter of friendship and camaraderie or good conversations and shared experiences, it's instinct. How can I do it without needing to disclaim, "And I'm not a crazy stalker-type, honest!" And how do I become a friend again when, within hours, everyone will once again be hundreds and thousands of miles away?

There's one person here, possibly (hopefully) two, who knows how I feel, and that is a blessing. I'd probably be feeling less disoriented today if I'd had a chance to talk with either of them earlier yesterday.

I want a lover, today, so that I can hold her in my arms and tell her that I love her and that I will always love her and that I would do anything for her and that I would lay down my life for her and that I would go to the ends of the earth for her and that I would turn my back on Heaven's gates if the politics of God and the afterlife prevent her from entering Paradise. I want to hold her and while doing it, also say the same to so tell her so many others who wouldn't or couldn't understand.

The sun is up, and the clouds are gone, and I have to pack.

I've still had a great time, and enjoyed this week as much as, if not more than, any other vacation in my life, but card games and Clone Wars can wait for a while to be recorded, this can't. I hope you understand. See you at home.

Current Mood: lonely
Current Music: "Could it be anybody?"--The Beatles

My feet have been cleansed, following the mandate of Christ. The cryptic is now pretty much finished and is waiting for its solvers. (I'll update the puzzle when I get home to the same link as listed yesterday. Thanks again, davidglasser, for pointing out some simple errors.) And there's actually been work today, a Court pleading that needed a grammatical tune up.

But returning to the Triduum, Holy Thursday has a very unusual Mass for Catholics. Holy Thursday is the feast celebrating the Last Supper, when Jesus created the sacrament of the Eucharist, around which the entire Mass is structured. So Holy Thursday is a big important feast day. But it's also leading up to Christ's death, which is generally regarded by theologians as a major bummer. So the Mass goes a bit weird. In the middle, the priest shows his humility by washing the feet of the congregation (or, more usually a representative dozen). Then later, the consecrated Host, in the Catholic tradition the true Presence of Jesus Christ is taken in adoration, accompanied by several beautiful Latin hymns, around the church and into the rear of the church by the tabernacle. Then it's over and they turn off the lights. Literally. Depending on one's point of view, it is either the most anticlimactic moment in the Liturgical year, or the best cliffhanger, preparing the attendee for the Passion to come in the rest of the Triduum.
( some personal, non-religion-related musings )

Current Mood: craven

On page 360 out of 656, and I am falling in love with a fictional character.

This has not happened before in a novel. Occasionally (well more than occasionally, really) I've been afflicted with an infatuation for a fictional character on the big screen, or more often on the small. Both of these were different, though, because dramatic characters are necessarily infused with the reality of their portrayors. Buffy the Vampire Slayer may be an amazing character, but adoration for Buffy is siphoned off to Sarah Michelle Gellar, who embodies her, whose life and intelligence create Buffy week after week after week.

Mere minutes after I write "The way to this man's heart is through his vocabulary," I stumble upon a girl who dreams fantastic words. Further, she is entirely made of words; there is no corpuscular reality to distract from my feelings toward Rosa Luxemburg Saks, who lives solely in the pages of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Of course she is beautiful, but that is an afterthought, and redundant. Anyone who is so intelligent, who possesses a Promethean power of thought, cannot be anything other than beautiful.
( salactor )

Current Mood: enamored

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Tablesaw!

It's the saw of the table!

It's over.

Anonymous Friend: An Ill-Advised Topher/Bennett Fanmix

Vent

Lyrics: The Infection That LiveJournal Can't Stop.

Some Information.

Try to Remember.

Vignette.

While I wasn't looking,

Physical Evidence.

Rex.

Sex Chekhov.

Alone on the Outer Banks

Diamonds in the souls of our shoes.

Lampedusa.

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April 2025

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