fryerworks

Drawn out? Yes. But did it go on as long as I expected? No.

Circumstances have made it harder to keep a daily journal of the experience than I thought. But no matter. I can tell you honestly that Monday and Tuesday were nothing to write home about, anyway. But for sake of keeping a thorough journal of the past week, I will now dig into my memory and recount those two days to the best of my ability.

MONDAY (Day Four)

At this point, school is over for me. Summer hasn’t started, though, because I’ve got a class to go to tomorrow night and two essays to drop off for two other classes. So when I wake up whenever I want on Monday morning, I’ve got nothing planned for the day other than a work meeting at 1:15 PM and, later, my shift that starts at 8:00 PM. I can’t remember much of what happened when I wasn’t fulfilling those two responsibilities. I was adjusting myself to the new arrangement I’d set up downstairs. At some point during the day I found a way to incorporate my computer into the hub of technology I’d surrounded my bed with, so all of a sudden I had everything of value to me in one central location. Right now, if you can imagine, I’m lying in bed with the keyboard on my lap while typing this journal entry on the screen of the HDTV I put myself in debt for. So I remember trying to figure out how to make this arrangement work comfortably and logically. So far it seems perfect. I even got the internet hooked up (but not until Tuesday night–which is why I haven’t posted),

What else?

It’s going to be hard to look back on this time of my life without shaking my head and wondering why I was such a chicken-shit about the whole thing. I mean, of course, yeah, sure–breaking up with anyone is hard. But my friends at work, Bryce… everyone was getting tired of me complaining about how unhappy I was most of the time and how much I wanted to be single. So I’ll look back on how I acted and just want to smack myself in the back of the head. I should have just ripped the band-aid off all the way at once. Oh well. What happened must have happened for a reason. I remember telling Bryce something like this, “The more time I let the idea of being broken up settle, the more she gets to experience life alone, the less abrupt and shocking it might feel when it finally ends.”

Bullshit. I know. But I’ve gotten good at making excuses.

The work meeting was fine. Nothing wrong with getting paid for an hour of sitting around listening to the bosses and managers talk about the current state of affairs. I went back home to play GTA IV with Bryce for a while before he had to leave. Then I guess I probably just sat around and did nothing of significance. I drove to work and had a pretty good night. Work ended and I drove Rosa home and then came back to smoke with Alyssa and Michelle in the parking lot. Good times were had. Michelle decided she wanted to ride her bike home, however, which was kind of strange because she’d stuck around for another thirty/forty minutes when she could have just gone home whenever she wanted. Alyssa was particularly perplexed by this. We figured Michelle got so stoned that she wasn’t thinking clearly, that maybe she wanted some alone time to calm herself. I got the feeling she wanted to take the long way home as a “fuck you” to her boyfriend, who’d called her during the smoke session and sounded like a total prick.

So I just drove Alyssa to her friend’s house and went back to my place. I was asleep soon enough.

TUESDAY (Day Five)

Tuesday was a bit more eventful. I’ll just skim through the details.

Woke up at eleven or so. Had school to go to. Got a ride with Bryce. Got dropped off McDonalds, had lunch. Walked to the campus library. Saw Megan on the way (who tells me she’s going to New Zealand with Emma in July). I tell her about Amy. We promise to hang out more this summer. I go into the library. I print my Philosophy Final. A kid from my Freshman Seminar class (Robby?) sits at the computer next to me and we have a short conversation about the future. I write my final paper for my music class. I print it. Then I leave the library and bump in Sarah. We talk. We head back into the library to sit and talk some more. She’s doing well. We talk about Amy. We talk about school, the future, her job, my job, her boyfriend, her moving to a new place, plans for summer, etc. She goes off with her sorority friends. I leave the library. Those two finals I printed out, I drop them off in my teachers’ mailboxes. I buy a book from the bookstore (”No Country For Old Men”) and find a place in the Salazar study room to read. I read for over an hour. Brendan enters. We talk. We go into Coleman’s room a few minutes before class starts. Class starts. Class drags. I sit by Fig, this girl I had a class with last semester, who–like a few other people I’ve briefly shared encounters with–I find it incredibly easy to act like close friends with. Class ends. Fig asks me if I want a ride home. I say yes. We talk about her life–since I knew very little about her–and I find out she’s older than I thought. I’m guessing 26 or 27, no more than 30. She’s set to be married and move to Texas, yet she has so many doubts. We’re in the same situation, kind of, and share similar dislike toward relationships and obligations. We get to Santa Rosa. We hotbox her car. We exchange e-mails. She leaves. I go inside. Bryce and I try to figure out how to get his stuff downstairs like mine. It doesn’t work out. The night passes. He falls asleep. I smoke the last of my pot and find a way to stretch the ethernet cable down to my computer so I can have the internet. Success! I fall asleep eventually.

TODAY (Day Six)

I knew today was the day. Not only was this the first official no-plans day of Summer, but today was the day I’d talk to Amy. The last bit of vocal communication I had with her was on Friday morning–not counting a voice mail message, some text messages, and that letter she wrote. So today I knew that I’d see and talk to her about our situation. Thankfully I had Bryce to coach me through the morning as I constantly jumbled ideas around about how I’d go about this. What I told him about how the number one greatest concern I had was the idea that I would be leaving Amy at the worst time, that she’d have nothing to fall back on, that this would demolish her–he responded to by convincing me otherwise. She has her mom, her brother, and she has Nancy. Having that in my head, the idea that breaking up with Amy would not destroy her as I often assumed, really helped level my emotions to a manageable state. At around 11:00 AM I texted her that I wanted to meet at Starbucks when she got off work. Bryce later evaluated whether or not I intended on leaving first or if she would leave first and we tried to figure out where I should sit–but I knew that no matter how much I planned this out, it would happen however it happened. I busied my mind with internet stumbling and videogames. I also made plans to hang out with Kayla and Ashley tomorrow, which I think was a good idea because I figured if today’s events went horribly, horribly wrong–I’d have company to be with tomorrow.

Anyway, Bryce went off to work and I got to preparing some loads of laundry. Then 3:00 PM came. At 3:30 I rode my bike to Starbucks and got there much earlier than I expected. There weren’t any good cheap sunglasses in the nearby Safeway. I didn’t know what to do since I’d gotten there much earlier than Amy, so I found a shady place behind Panda Express and read some of my new book. At around 4:30 I got a hot chocolate and blueberry bar from Starbucks and waited for her inside. She was there not long after.

This moment was so incredibly vital, I can’t even explain.

Do you know how hard it is to care about someone so much that you stay with them only so they don’t get hurt? I care about Amy. I will always care about Amy. But I had to look at her across the table and I had to keep my head out of that trap, which I so easily fall into. So we started talking casually about work, about finishing our finals, and about how she was reading “Pride and Prejudice” and how I’d just picked up “No Country.” The conversation was good. I was happy that there was no bitterness. But the longer we talked about other things, the more obvious it became that one of us was avoiding the topic. Then we went outside to find somewhere to sit and ended up on the curb in the shade of a tree. We hardly said anything at this point. I was trying to find a good way to transition. I told her I’d gotten her letter, but then didn’t say anything about it. She said I could write her a letter, if I wanted. Tired of not saying much, we got up and walked over to where I’d locked up my bike. Now it was time to talk. I knew it. Now or never.

But fucking Christ, it was so difficult.

How it went down is like this: She said, “You can say what you need to” and I was like, “It’s hard.” Then some time passed. Then I kind of fell into my Dr. Phil pattern of analyzing our relationship from an outside perspective, which was actually useful in this case. Amy was positive about some of things she mentioned in the letter, stuff about going to counseling to figure out her emotional instabilities. She was also viewing the summer as a time of relaxation and introspection. Good, I said. Good. This is the time to do that. I reminded her that when we broke up the first time, it was because we weren’t letting each other experience college. I said that breaking up now is like giving ourselves time to figure out who were are before Real Life begins. I told her I don’t want a relationship right now because I need that time–as does she (I made sure I didn’t make it a “it’s not you, it’s me” argument)–to figure out what we want. She said, though, “I’m not sure where that leaves us,” and I lightly danced around the answer until I felt it best to say it outright. I don’t want a relationship right now. She asked, “Will you ever be ready?” and I said, “Yeah–I mean–I think it’s a natural human desire to be in a relationship. I just don’t feel that so much yet” to which she replied, “Well I think I’ll be waiting.”

The end.

I rode my bike home and she drove back to Rohnert Park.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. I’m a little unsettled by the idea of having a whole summer without any responsibilities, only because it’s been a long time since I’ve had so much free time. I think I’ll read more. I’ll ride my bike more. I’ll try and get Jose to give me more hours at work. I’m hoping to hang out with friends more. I want to write. I want to do whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want to do it. So I think I’ll wrap this up here and play GTA IV and then watch movie and call it an early night. I’m feeling a bit strained.

And you–you need to make sure you’re where you want to be. If you’re not, then you need to do something about that.

At 8:30 this morning, I woke up with a sore throat and the feeling of a disemboweled pumpkin on Halloween. I’m not hungover. Not anymore. Not after waking up at 5:00 AM to puke. Those two cherry bombs probably did it to me, though I was asleep by the time they did whatever it is they did. The bartender described them as “cherries soaked for three days in vodka” and that he’d added a “secret ingredient” that he refused to share. This guy, this bartender, is wearing that biker guy’s outfit from The Village People and his chest has more hair on it than I have on my whole body, clearly visible since his leather vest is unbuttoned and two sizes too small. Maybe because the cherries had to be digested before having an effect, that’s why I didn’t feel much drunker than I already was when we left Guerneville around midnight.

After Sarah (not Sara) was done making out with her girlfriends at the last bar, me and Adam got her to join the rest of us in the truck so that we might finally leave. Don’t get me wrong. I was having a good night. But I’d decided at some point earlier in the day that today was going to be a day when I didn’t think about Amy too much. Sundays are the days when I usually hang out with friends and today was planned no differently. I’m grateful, too. Otherwise I might have just gone home and done homework and laundry, and that shit is boring. So instead of that, I forfeited myself to the whim of the moment. Whoever had a good idea about something to do, I went with that. From Michelle’s plan to go smoke at Danny’s house after work to Sara (not Sarah, who came later) telling me there was a plan to go to Guerneville that night. Just so you know, this small town north of Santa Rosa holds annual “Women’s Weekend” events that invite all of the lesbians and gays of the area to get drunk and express themselves with no inhibitions.

It’s already Monday, obviously. I came home too intoxicated and tired to write out a comprehensible entry. Bryce was asleep in the loft, too, so I didn’t want to wake him up. He’s a funny sort of person when you wake him out of a REM cycle, and so I figured I was done being awake anyway. Plus, there was this envelope by my bed with my name on it in Amy’s handwriting. I didn’t read the letter inside until I’d gotten into bed. I debated whether or not I should post a copy of the letter on another page but then decided not to. Amy starts the letter off saying that she feels like a big part of her was ripped out zombie style (and I appreciate her ability to connect to something I’d understand) in that she feels like losing me is to lose a big part of her life. Just so you know, I was totally aware of that fact, and a lot of me never said anything about breaking up with her because I knew of how big of an impact that would have on her life–good or bad–considering she doesn’t have a social network to rely on, like I do. So I know that she’s freaking out right now because that’s like having a television and then Comcast turns off your cable and all you have is a big box.

The letter then went on to list a number of things that she is willing to change about herself in order to make the relationship work. What the letter sounds like is one of those rare situations when you are trying to bargain for something and all of your demands are met at the expense of the other. She promised to not be my mother (saying I can “smoke pot” or “quit school” if I wanted to) and she promised to change herself, too, by seeking counseling to deal with her emotional instability. I just… I read this letter, which ended with her telling me to take my time and that she’d respect whatever decision I came to, and I was slightly impressed that she was able to bring up some of the key things I hate the most about any relationship in general. There, of course, was the implication that this event is ongoing–just as I expected would happen, since I know me and I know her–and though there is no deadline now, there is the fact that there must be a deadline eventually. I still dread that moment. I am too passive aggressive.

It’s funny that the day would end with that letter, too. Because I’d basically avoided thinking about the situation at all. I woke up at 8:00 and lied in bed for a few more minutes, wondering if I should ride my bike or kill the planet–choosing the latter, and then went to work at 9:00. I’d forgotten that Carissa’s shift was being covered by Danny, so the morning played out a little differently than usual. Sara and Michelle and Shelly were still there, at least, and so I started my Sunday just like any other Sunday. Except Michelle told me she had a surprise for me after work (hint: it’s marijuana) and then later we made plans to smoke with Danny, a sort of carrot on the stick that helped me get through the day. You know about Michelle. Danny, who’s gay–just so you know, is nineteen and complains about everything. But he’s got a good sense of humor and exists on the same plane as I do, bonded over our connection to the coffeeshop culture, so it is always fun to find a way to hang out with him–though this is only the second or third time it’s happened.

What I learned when I was smoking with Michelle and Danny was that I shouldn’t get ahead of myself so quickly. I shouldn’t already have these strong feelings for her because, for Christ’s sake, I’m still working on ending a relationship that I don’t want to be in because I just don’t want to be in any relationship. What I learned from this part of the day was that I want to be good friends with Michelle. That’s all. In the future, maybe we’ll grow so close that something intimate happens, but that’s not my concern anymore. I just want to have a good time no matter what happens. No more trying to force things. No more focusing on one point and overlooking everything else. Whatever happens will happen. This part of my life shouldn’t be about figuring shit out or getting stuff done. When else will it be okay to have $6.03 in your checking account and a week until your paycheck and fourteen dollars from tips in your wallet? This is the time of my life that I’ll look back on the most fondly, the time when opportunities and choices are the most available to me. What I learned when I was smoking with Michelle and Danny is that my friends are my family and my home is Santa Rosa and that’s all that matters. That’s all I want right now. I’m not so enthusiastic about the idea of answering to someone, of having that significant other, of looking out for someone else.

Because then days like Sunday will happen with greater consistency and with less stress. When I dropped off Michelle and went home, I rearranged the apartment a little and had a beer and let my high run its course. Then I called up Sara and we met at A’romas and walked down to Toad In The Hole to have a beer. Cheers to Bryce for introducing me to Stella Artois, which apparently is on tap everywhere and I never noticed it, because that’s what I drank all day. Sara is like an older sister to me and we got to talking about Amy, about work, about her relationship, and saw the end of a basketball game that some other patrons were especially excited about. Then we went back to A’romas and got snacks and, after Adam called, we meandered back to Toad In The Hole with T.J. to have another beer and some garlic fries with Adam (Sara’s boyfriend) and Chris (Adam’s friend). Those two left to get Chris’ girlfriend (Sarah) and T.J. had to get to work, and then Sara and I went to Rodney’s to buy $20 of weed for Carissa, who we met up with around 6:00 PM when her shift ended. I went with Carissa to her house so we could smoke a bowl and play Need for Speed: Most Wanted with her roommate, Justin, who I got to talk with about GTA IV and this mission where you have to kill these three strip club owners. Adam came and picked us up with Chris and Sarah in the truck and we went to get Sara from her house. Then, thirty minutes later, we were in Guerneville looking for a parking spot. At the first bar we each had a beer. Then we tried two others that night. The other Chris got progressively more drunk while his girlfriend, Sarah, got progressively more intimate with these other two girls that happened to be at every bar we went to–friends of hers, I guess, who she made-out with passionately. Other Chris became a silent, brooding character that was so smashed that he’d stumble and mumble all over the place incoherently. I had weird moments when I realized that my parents were doing this same sort of stuff when they were my age. Carissa and I were stoned and drunk and carefree, so we did all right during the night, but even Sara and Adam were having problems behind-the-scenes that made most of the night awkward. After the two cherry bombs, we left Guerneville.

The letter from Amy concluded Day Three.

Now I’m trying to think of how to respond.

Before I start writing, I need to get high. I’ll be right back.

During the first bit of work, I was banking on the idea that I’d give Alyssa a ride home and she’d already alerted me of the “bomb-ass hash” she had for us later. I only drove because it was so hot outside I figured saving the planet wasn’t worth the sweat and exhaustion of biking across town. Since it was pretty much freezing outside after work, I’m looking back on that choice as the correct one, even if Alyssa wound up getting a ride with someone else and I got stuck driving Rosa. It was nearly 12:45 AM by the time we got done, anyway, and I have to get up at 8:00 AM tomorrow to get to work at 9:00 AM. So I figured it was a good thing disguising itself as another disappointment among the crowd of unwanted disappointments that invited themselves into my life today. Because I really should be asleep right now. I don’t usually work Saturday nights. It’s a big difference to close at midnight instead of eleven. You know that cheated feeling you get from daylight savings time? It was like that. By then, though, I was already in a bad mood.

<<< Rewind.

I went to bed around 5:00 AM last night and woke up at 9:30 AM today. Bryce was up and active, getting ready to go to work, and I woke up with an unnecessary urge to get out of bed. I should have just stayed in bed. I should have rested. Maybe that’s why the day turned out so poorly, being unrested and all. So Bryce is up and we get a little time to talk or whatever. Then he goes to work. Around this time, I begin to check my phone for missed calls about once every half-hour. I’m checking to see if Amy has called or sent a text message. Most of me dreads the idea of communicating with her, but the part of me that anticipates it and knows it will happen eventually–if not today–is the part that keeps me checking. A lot of me wants to not care so much. I could just never talk to her again. But there’s that goddamn strand that feels prime for cutting, but neither of us will pick up the scissors. So I don’t call her. I just keep checking to make sure she’s not calling me.

Today I had plans to do some homework for finals. And I did that. Congratulations to me–I finished my English 401 final and turned that shit in, just to get it off my chest. I hardly proof-read my essays, caring only that I show an effort and complete the assignment. Of course, I didn’t get that all done until nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, just before Bryce got home from work early. At around eleven or twelve, I smoked a little to ease my wandering mind and tried to just relax, but the thoughts kept coming. I kept checking my phone. Nope, no calls. Nope, no calls. I spent a depressing amount of time just surfing the internet when I wasn’t doing homework. I learned nothing. I achieved nothing. I didn’t even do laundry. Being high for part of that time was helpful. If anything I got some strange enjoyment out of the feeling that I had no obligation to talk to Amy today if I didn’t want to. I thought a lot about what she might be thinking or doing.

In all honesty, today was a shitty day. This wasn’t depression. I have yet to feel remorse or sadness, other than regretting the break-up wasn’t smoother. That’s what dragged me down today. I knew she was going to call. I knew she would. I mean–sure–she had a reason to call. I just eventually looked down at my phone around 5:00 PM and she’d called and left a message. Habit made me erase the message after listening to it, and I wish I hadn’t, but I remember her saying, “I’m sorry if you’re mad at me about something” and “I really need that bag I left at your house.” Her apology made me angry. I don’t think she has any idea of how distanced I put myself from her. I feel like she expects me to come see her tomorrow night, no questions asked, because that’s the normal routine. I think she’s going to call me tomorrow, around 1:30 PM after I get off work, and she’s going to ask me what I want to have for dinner–or at least ask me if I’m coming over. This is why I probably won’t answer the phone. Fuck it. No. I WON’T answer the phone. I managed to get Bryce to bring the bag with him when he went to be with Nancy, Amy’s roommate. When I got home from work today, Bryce and the bag were gone. I felt releived.

During the day I moved my TV downstairs so I could play the Xbox or watch a movie without feeling like my flesh was boiling in the concentrated heat of the loft. Now there’s a big disorganized mess downstairs that I don’t want to deal with. I should really just be going to bed. I’m surprised I’m allowing myself to write tonight. But I said I would. Bad or good, I feel like writing this down. Maybe it’s so I can get these thoughts out of my head. People are good listeners, but no one really understands your situation exactly. I think this is just a chance for me to have a dialogue with myself. Today was shitty day, though, and even I can tell that I’m lacking the enthusiasm that I felt yesterday. It’s like–if I use Bryce’s metaphors–I’ve still got that band-aid stuck on the hairy part of my arm and I’m unwilling to just rip it the rest of the way off. And how can the wound heal if it doesn’t get any air? So I’m just lumping around most of the day–thank God I finished some of my finals work otherwise I’d feel really useless–before work, constantly checking my phone and thinking about how nuts it is that I’m actually in this experience right now. Who would have thought this would actually happen? It’s like I’d been in line for this event for so long that I forgot what I was waiting for when I got there.

Michelle came by A’romas oday, too, with her boyfriend and maybe some other people. I couldn’t look at her. Even when she was standing on the other side of the espresso machine, behind the bean grinders, I couldn’t get myself to actively talk with her. I asked her what she was up to and I couldn’t listen because new-girl Karen was telling me something about a drink tag she’d written. So I barely talked to Michelle. I’d say that it’s ridiculous for me to feel hurt by someone like Michelle, who probably has no idea that I’m interested in her, who was doing nothing wrong. But I can’t help it. It happens sometimes. I kept telling myself to have patience. That if anything was meant to be, it would happen on its own. I think I did the right thing by just pretending she wasn’t there with her boyfriend.

During my break at work I sent this text message to Amy: If Bryce goes over tonight, he should have it. We will talk soon. i want time to figure out if i want to be in a relationship after what we talked about.

This was after her voicemail message. This was maybe three hours later. After that, she never sent back a message or called. I’m walking a thin line between being that bastard jackass that I never want to become, and cushioning the truth to be as painless as possible. At least I’m trying my best not to give hints toward salvation of the relationship. I’m already neck-deep in this disaster and I need to just dunk my head under and get it over with. But not now. Not today–I guess. Maybe tomorrow.

And the name of the band that played tonight was Solid Air. What does that shit even mean?

Kayla made me feel better. She sent me a text that said: Epic. i cant believe she sent you that text. is this for real? i’m happy you shared that with me, and i hope you’re okay. stick to your guns, friend. Then I said: Crazy huh! I think we might have to get breakfast at that place by aromas like last time or its not official. To which she replied: Absolutely! im so excited for you. ashley wants to play pool with us thursday after 4 sometime. how bout it? maybe we could do thursday brunch? im done by 10.

I’m having deja vu of Spring ‘06 when Amy and I first broke up. It was random that I’d consider meeting up with Kayla at that same restaurant I went to with her and Emma when I told them I had broken up with Amy. Then we went and saw Final Destination 3. That feels like a long fucking time ago, now. I can’t believe I’m back in that same spot again.

So there’s not much else to say. Amy called that once and asked for her bag and wanted to apologize. I don’t think she knows what she was apologizing for, even if there was something to apologize for in the first place. We’re done. I didn’t say it directly, I guess, and we never agreed on anything (a lot of me had wondered if we had to have break-up sex before it was official, but I’m not so sure about that anymore), but I feel it on my end of the relationship and I’m just tormenting myself by not finishing the job. When I said this could go on for a long time, I wasn’t kidding. My expectation about tomorrow is that part of her expects I’ll come over, like I said, and part of her has no idea why I’d choose otherwise. I can’t decide if she’s ignorant or uninformed, and that’s why her tone carries so little of the defeated sound that mine does, because she still really wants to work on it.

Today sucked. Plain and simple. Nothing was accomplished other than me piling all of Amy’s pots and pans and other kitchen utensils on the table in the dining room. When the time comes, I’ll be ready to bring all of her stuff to her, or to let her inside to grab it–whichever is more convenient for the moment. I’m betting that might happen next weekend. I don’t know. Right now that topic hasn’t been discussed. I think today sucked also because I’d slept so little. And here I am again, pushing the limits of my well-being by avoiding sleep, just to write all of this down. It feels good, though. If anything, it lets me rant and it lets me complain and it lets me clear my head. I’m sure that no matter what happens, the universe will correct itself from this hiccup and a new path will light up. It usually does.

Amy called this morning to apologize for last night. Apologize for what? For breaking up with me? Part of me thought maybe she’d forgotten, or that she’d just been so upset and angry that she’d Freudian-slipped and wanted to pretend like it never happened. But then the tone went serious. She remembered. But did she mean it? I didn’t know how to handle this conversation. Plus, I’d stayed up to smoke pot and watch Will Ferrell’s greatest SNL moments. Then I’d set my alarm for 11:00 AM and slept ’til 10:30, when she called. I was half-asleep when I spoke to her. Some of me thought I was still dreaming. We don’t get anywhere over the phone so I ask if she wants to stop by my place and talk before she goes to work. She does. I’m quick to gather my thoughts and prepare myself for what could be the last conversation I have with my girlfriend. And we might mean it this time.

I won’t explain Amy as a person. I won’t tell you about what happened on Thursday. There’s no need to get you that involved. All you need to know is that Amy and I are different people. Not because she has a vagina and I have a penis, but because–if I had to simplify all humankind into two groups, I’d put all the people who habitually use drugs in Group A and those who don’t in Group B. There is something unique about those who prefer drugs, some intrinsic desire to seek intoxication or lucid experiences. Healthy? Who gives a shit, not to give away the answer to: What group are you in, Chris? I enjoy drug use. I seek it out. Does Amy think I still smoke marijuana? Even after that powerpoint presentation of marijuana’s potential damaging effects? She doesn’t know that I do. Group A people hardly get along with Group B people without a varying amount of disdain between them. Amy and I haven’t been in the same group since she last tried pot with me sophomore year in the dorms. Too bad, I think. She could have used something to relax her this past semester.

I’m sitting by the pool. I just opened the umbrella above the patio table because the 11:00 AM sun has already baked the city in eighty degree heat. She parks just beyond the gate and enters the scene. I’m careful not to smile. I have my sunglasses on, thankfully, and she can’t see my eyes with the glare. My hat, lowered over my forehead, adds to my emotional elusiveness. We talk. Kind of. I honestly can’t read the situation very well, wanting most of the time for her to just get up and leave, wanting most of the time for her to just break up with me and move on. But I know she won’t say the words. I know I’m too chicken-shit to say it. So we talk. Kind of. I get to say a little bit more this morning, now that she’s not throwing shit at me and knocking my DVD’s all over the floor, and that doesn’t go anywhere. I talk myself in circles, talking like I’m Dr. Fucking Phil, like I’m psychoanalyzing myself. When I’m done explaining why I think we’ve arrived at this place in our relationship, just rehashing old arguments I can remember us having, we’ve left the pool and walked back to my apartment so that I could grab my bike and walk with her back to her car. These are awkward moments, you can imagine. At her car, she wants to know what we figured out by this conversation, if anything, and I don’t know what to say. In a hushed voice wavering on imitated sadness, I say some of the following phrases: “I don’t know what to do. I thought it would get better this summer. We’ve been so stressed out. We’ve grown apart. I don’t feel motivated to fix things.” All of this is true. Plus, I just really want to be single right now.

She’s gone off to work. The last thing we said to each other was, “I gotta go.” and “All right. Fine.” Sometime before that, however, she asked me, “So are we done?” and I said, “Yeah,” and she said, “Okay. Great.” That was not the most official way to put it–the conclusion felt like it lacked the final blow, like the fatalities of Mortal Kombat.

I ride my bike to work. I’m taking the road the exit spills onto and in my head I’m honestly wondering if Amy is going to speed up behind me and run me over. I wonder if she’d be so angry with me, so hurt, that she would kill me in a moment of insanity. Last night I was afraid she’d stab me. Honest to God. I thought she might have stabbed me. And today, riding my bike, I think she’ll gun the engine and chase me down. But she’d gone the other direction, thank God. I made it to work in one piece.

Kim and Jose are good people to work with if you’re in the middle of an awkward break-up. First, you have Jose who has recently been campaigning for you to break up with your girlfriend and date Michelle, the new girl. Jose won’t shut up about it. Kim tells him to cut it out, that he’s embarrassing me. But I like that he is so forward about the idea. I like that idea. It wasn’t Jose’s forceful attempts at match-making that put the idea in my head, though. The girl has been in my head for weeks. She’s a spunky little 20 year-old stoner, who more or less matches my ideal qualities of a prospective partner–though the idea of dating is far from my current interests–or at least someone to mess around with for fun. I’m not assuming anything about her character. I don’t know if she would feel the same way, considering she has a boyfriend right now, but I have been hoping that such an event might take place where we would become intimate. Take from that what you want. But maybe I’m just trying to say I have a crush on her. Look, now you’ve made me go off topic.

Kim is good to work with because she’s just an older version of us (and by “us” I mean the younger employees like Alyssa, Michelle, Sara, Olivia, and some others) in that she smokes pot, lives a very casual lifestyle, and relates pretty well to the daily struggles of the modern twenty-somethings. I like her. She can have the occasional moment, but otherwise I have no problem with her. I have no problem with anyone, really. She and Jose snap at each other sometimes, though, because they’re both power players. They enjoy holding the reins. Jose usually wins. You can’t beat the guy, he’s a loud gay Mexican with a short temper and snappy personality. But he likes me because I’m the closest thing to a gay guy next to Danny, who is gay. Take from that what you want. The point being I’m on everyone’s good side and everyone was there to support me and listen.

Michelle is break-coverage, meaning she comes in around 3:00 PM. I’ve been there two hours, telling the story of my relationship situation with Kim and Jose. Kim gives me good advice and motherly attention, speaking both from her own experiences with marriage and the lives of her grown kids. She tells me what I’ve known all along. She tells me that “honesty is the best policy.” I’ve been bending the truth for Amy for so long that I don’t know how to be honest with Amy. This means, of course, that if I’m asking Kim for advice about how to break up with Amy, then I still think we haven’t broken up, that by a thin strand we’re still considered dating. We didn’t exactly officially agree on anything. There was an interrupted feeling to the whole situation, like we hadn’t signed a form to seal the deal, that we had left the topic open for further discussion.

On the way to work, she sent me the text: U know what i dont want to break up i am gonna work on it! So i will c u on Sunday night!

After that tricky rhetorical move, I felt trapped in a corner. I thought I’d found a way out of the maze, and there I was facing another dead-end. Was I going to just give up? Again? And why did she use exclamation points? I couldn’t read it as sarcasm or legitimate excitement, like “Oh, Chris, I was just kidding. Let’s talk about this. I’ll make salmon for dinner on Sunday. See you there!” Most of me figured it was a bitter fuck-you in disguise. Like, “Hey. You can’t make up your mind because you’re too fucking retarded, and so let’s just fucking forget about it and pretend like nothing happened. Deal?”

Nothing particularly interesting happens at work. Jose tries to embarrass me when Michelle gets there. I enjoy the attention. I really do feel like Michelle and I would be great friends, or more, if she’d break up with her boyfriend. She’s told me that she’s unhappy with her relationship, annoyed with him for some of the same things I’d been annoyed with Amy about. She wants some space. She recently realized that you can’t change people, you can just find someone that already has those qualities that you want. She finally feels like an adult, like someone in charge of their existence, like someone who wants to really start living. Michelle is where I was a month ago.

Off topic. I apologize. And then for a completely random turn of events, I agree to go see Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian with Kim. I haven’t hung out with Kim outside of A’romas before. The list of people I’ve socialized with outside of work is about five or six, including Angelina–my first A’romas crush. So it was interesting to see her outside of work. One of the first things she asked me was if I smoked pot. Are you kidding? Whenever I can. “Good shit,” she says, and then I pack a bowl. We pick up sandwiches and sodas and head to the theater parking lot, eat the sandwiches, smoke another bowl, and then gather our stuff. Because it’s so random, it seems like a commercial break in the drama. But lest you forget, Kim’s the motherly type with practice in the topic, so we chatter back and forth about my situation with Amy, her marriages and divorces of the past. I find out she’s from Santa Rosa, from a farm, and lived for ten years in Los Angeles, after which she moved back to Santa Rosa. Now she works in a coffee shop. I like her. I like talking to her because she is honest when she responds. It was just really bizarre to get high with her and go see the Chronicles of Narnia sequel. I don’t know why I underlined the name of the movie.

During my break at work I sent the text (revision #4): i cant give you want you need. I dont want to change. so how do we fix that?

She replied: I dont know, but i dont want to lose u. I want to work on it and i think we should get through finals and then talk.

Well this is when my mood changed. This was when I went from feeling trapped to feeling freed. It took me quite a few attempts to get the right text together while I sat in the back office during my break. Jose came in and stared at me, shocked, and said, “You better not be calling her.” He was excited that I was in the process of breaking up with Amy. You should have seen Olivia and Sara, too, when I saw them in the back office and Jose told them I had broken up with her. They started hugging me and rubbing against me, jokingly–they’re both like older sisters–trying to comfort me. I love them–they’re awesome girls. Jose started up about Michelle and then the girls started imitating scenes when Michelle would bend over in front of me or grind against me. You don’t expect to go to work and get a quick lap dance. Anyway, this response of hers hinted toward a plea, which is different from the command she’d sent the first time.

I am really losing the chronological narrative here. I apologize. Anyway, I went and saw a movie with Kim and then she dropped me off at A’romas around 9:30 PM. I go inside to say hello–mostly to Michelle–and feel confident enough to arrange plans to meet up later after they’ve closed the shop. First I make sure Alyssa will be down, since I don’t quite know if Michelle is comfortable being alone with me yet, though we are loosening the proximity limits of first impressions. Then I go to Michelle, who has this adorable story to excitedly tell me about tripping on the mats and injuring herself on the dishwasher. I make sure she’ll hang out with me and Alyssa. When I work with them Monday nights, I usually give them rides home, since neither owns a car. Though I’ve vouched to drive less and give my bank account time to recover from this drought, I figured four bucks of gas would be worth hanging out with Alyssa and Michelle and getting stoned.

Then Bryce, under the vague details that Amy and I had broken up, is asked by his girlfriend–Amy’s roommate, Nancy–to go out with me and do something, to console me, because she (and Amy, I presume) is worried about me. My phone had been turned off when I was in the movie. When Bryce got home, my bike was gone. Last time Amy and I broke up, I went on a long solitary bike ride across town in the middle of the night. Bryce assumed that I was on a similar quest. Through the grapevine, I bet that presumption went from Bryce to Nancy to Amy, and sounded like I was actually official about my decision. Was I actually serious? Through Bryce I got the impression that Amy was under the impression we had really broken up. Or at least that’s what it sounded like.

The funny thing is, I never assumed it was serious. I’m writing this right now, and I still don’t think I’ve officially broken up with her. I still feel like there’s a strand between us, a very weak and frail piece of string blowing in the wind, like a spider-web, and it’s been tugging at my mind all day. Maybe that’s why I felt the need to fill my mind with weed and beer. Bryce took me out to the town and we walked from the Last Day Saloon (which was depressing empty) after drinking a beer each all the way to the downtown plaza. We had a good talk. I didn’t want to repeat myself for the third time and so I gave him the cliff-notes version of Chris Fryer’s State of Mind. He was understanding. He made me choose between the metaphors: Getting a tattoo of an eagle and then, after finishing the wing, saying ‘Fuck, ouch. Stop. I’m done. That’s enough’ and looking at it with regret—or—Getting halfway through pulling off a band-aid and just waiting a second before ripping it the rest of the way off, something you should have just done in one move, but hesitated. I chose the second one.

We made a couple GTA IV references and had the usual outwardly scattered yet subtly philosophical discussions. When I think about me and Bryce, I think of two guys who know the world they exist in and realize their position within it, and don’t really align themselves with any particular group. We are both fairly existential when it comes to existence and destiny and whatnot. We used to smoke together before the Iron Curtain fell. The two of us, just young consumers in a small city, going to college, paying rent for clogged shower drains and no dishwasher. The fact that he likes RPG games more than I do and he is consistently happy with his relationship are the two biggest differences between us. But he gets me. He has that voice of reason that differs from Kim’s because it adheres to my selfish view of the situation. I needed some guy time, anyway. Thanks for the beer, roomie.

When 12:30 AM came around, I turned of GTA and hopped into my car with my stash and bong. I thought the bong would be like icing on the cake, since everyone knows that bongs are better than pipes when it comes to getting fully baked. Plus, I want Michelle to know that I’m a dedicated smoker. I want her to realize how much we have in common. I haven’t felt this immediately bonded with someone since Angelina worked at A’romas. Someone that has the same idea about life as I do–desiring a formless and free-flowing schedule that lacks the responsibility to answer to someone. Time to figure out who you are as an individual. Both of us got into relationships around 18 years old. I don’t think I actually felt like an individual person until after a few months of living in an apartment and making good friends at work. That was well into the second attempt of my relationship with Amy. Becoming a real person who finally has total control of my choices and over the rest of my entire life, I knew that Amy was not going to be compatible with the future I was envisioning.

At 1:00 AM, Alyssa and Michelle are in my Jeep and we’re hotboxing to the point where Michelle vanishes in a haze in the backseat. When we open the back to put in Michelle’s bike, a cloud of smoke billows up toward the stars and Alyssa says, “I hope the cameras can’t see. We should have driven farther away.” But it was too late by then. We’d already been sitting in the parking lot for about a half-hour, smoking two bowls from the bong. They had a story about a meeting they were forced into by Rosa and Martha, the two recently-promoted Night Managers who are too particular about their job descriptions. Alyssa and Michelle were accused of talking to the customers too much, which I clearly learned from their explanation of the meeting was a false claim and a result of misunderstanding. That’s not really important to the story. But throughout, during appropriate moments, I made pinky-promises, handshakes, and gave high-fives to both girls, paid extra attention to things Michelle said and tried to always respond, and made sure to tell them that I was “95% broken up with my girlfriend.”

We talk about people at work. We talk about… I don’t remember. Mostly we talked about the after-work meeting that they continue to bitterly discuss throughout the night. Anyway, we were pretty stoned and after the second bowl we decided against packing another and got on the road. I’d already put in the four bucks of gas, which hardly pushed the needle out of the below-red mark. I just learned to ignore the low gas indicator light in the way people ignore CHECK ENGINE warnings. Anyway, I only drive once or twice a week. This summer, I’m going to be riding my bike to work most the time. Unless Amy asks for it back, considering we picked it up from her mom’s house, and could belong to Amy, for all I know. Hell, other than thinking she might stab me last night, I thought she’d also wind up asking for the bike, the pots and pans, and the Xbox 360. I’d give those things over if it meant we’d be broken up, though, honest.

I drop them off. Michelle first. On the way there, she has a disappointing phone call with her boyfriend that ends in her moaning and saying, “Sometimes…” without finishing the thought. I can totally relate. I could hear him talking to her because I’d turned down the radio and was eavesdropping with Alyssa. He sounded like a dick. I said goodnight to her as she walked her bike to her house and felt that it was a particularly improved goodbye from earlier smoke sessions. Maybe I was just high on the idea of being single again. Or just high. The chase was on again. I hadn’t felt this urge to pursue a girl since meeting Ashley after my first break-up.

I just edited out a little of the last paragraph because I thought it made me sound like a jackass. I don’t want to come across as a jackass, though I am completely aware of the fact that I am a jackass. I feel that way, at least. I feel like I don’t have a good excuse to break up with Amy and that I’m just doing this for no reason at all. But I don’t normally do this stuff. This stuff is fucking hard. I know she’s upset. I know she doesn’t want to break up. I know she feels that strand between us, too. But I can’t back up now. I can’t. When I’m in the best mood, usually at work–surprisingly, I look around and realize that I don’t want to be with Amy because Amy would not appreciate the fact that I want to live a homely little life in various cities working at social hub jobs like coffeeshops and bookstores, just making a living socializing and experiencing, so that I can write books in the meantime. I want to sleep, work, write, and have fun. I’m banking on the hope that I will be published and meet valuable life-long friends. But I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I want that life and I know it will work for me. I don’t know how often I’ll jump from city to city, but I know it’ll be when I absolutely out-lived the excitement of the place. Maybe I’ll meet people who move around the country with me, like Carissa did with her friends who moved with her from Arizona. A handful of them are trying out the California climate in Santa Rosa. I suspect they might migrate again, someday, or at least some of them. Maybe this drive to hop from city to city is my quest for the city with the best connection to my personality. I can’t do San Francisco because I don’t feel eccentric enough. New York sounds too formal. Los Angeles is just Northern California with more skyscrapers and smog. I liked Seattle when I visited friends there for a week, but it lost its appeal after that. Now I’m thinking of trying Chicago, St. Louis, or Denver. Denver is an interesting choice because I have an uncle that lives out there and I’ve seen it before, but I enjoyed the wide-spread urban feeling that seemed to exist on every street corner, unlike the confined urban spots of most cities. I don’t know. I’m just rambling now. Basically, I’m sorry if I sound like a jackass.

After I drop off Alyssa, I park and head toward my apartment. Bryce is asleep and I creep upstairs to take off my backpack and hide my stash. I take a piss and then, halfway through the piss, I decide that I want to write down a journal-like record of this day. It was such a strange day. It started with me going to bed last night thinking about how insane it was that I had just broken up with Amy, that this was the night before my first day as a single guy in over a year. I’m having deja vu of the time I broke up with Leorah (who I tried to be explicitly clear to about not actually being boyfriend / girlfriend) by not talking to her and sending her a cruel letter about how her friend accused me of playing with Leorah’s feelings as though we were dating, and I reminded her that we were definitely not dating. And then I never talked to her again and deleted her and her friends from my Facebook friend list.

I’m interested to see what happens tomorrow. I think she’s actually going to be too busy to call me. I don’t want to call her. Her last text message said, “i think we should get through finals and then talk” and that’s not until next weekend. So I’m going to use that as my excuse if she decides to fight about that anytime soon. Anyway, I want her to realize that I wasn’t the right guy for her. I know I can’t give her what she wants because I’ve been trying to do that–by changing who I am in the process–for months. Not only will I eventually snap because I’m hiding so much of myself from her, but she wants to move in together and get married and have babies, and I don’t know about all that.

This night will end with me stripping down to boxers, getting into bed, and sleeping until some late hour of the morning. I’ve silenced my phone so no early morning phone call from Amy wakes me up in a bad mood. I’m going to be as ignorant of the situation as I can and just ignore those guilty feelings, that goddamn strand tugging all the time, and wait until I’m absolutely ready to talk to her. Okay–I am a jackass.

I don’t know if I’ll write any more after tonight. If I go back on my word (DON’T FUCKING DO THAT, I have to remind myself) but if I do–if–then I’ll be too embarrassed to confess that here. Or if nothing happens and this gets uninteresting fast, then I’ll post a little conclusion and end it immediately. But if this draws out like I think it might, then I’ll be here every night reporting it. I don’t know why. It feels a little masochistic. But I’m a writer. I fucking love this shit.