hmmm. need to not look at blog. i know how it makes me feel. have i said this before. goodness. i do really enjoy constant torture. it's like i'm just starting to feel really good about things and my life and all that. and so i have to make myself experience all that pain all over again. i wonder if it's because a lot of my favorite couples seem to be breaking up. that makes me long again for that perfect person to spoon. that's when i miss her or that connection the most- at night. it is my favorite part about loving someone, falling asleep in their arms, smelling their scent and just knowing that everything is right in the world because i have this amazing person on my side, loving me, and i have them to love.

i just never thought i would be in this position with her. it's more like i'm amazed, i feel like i've landed on this other planet, without her, and i have to learn how to get around and communicate with the locals.
crazy.

it's true that loving someone can make them beautiful. i've been going through old pictures trying to put my portfolio together and of course i keep finding these old pictures of her. and now all i can see in her face is a hardness and a meanness that wasn't there before.

i feel like i've been clawing my way up a shear cliff for several months now. and i've finally reached a ledge. just realizing what about this whole situation sucked made a huge difference. and in a big way. like i felt the light bulb click on. and i realized that she has problems too. this wasn't all me. i didn't get a chance to communicate with her, she wouldn't let me, gave me no clue what was in her head. and i became desperate to hold onto her and find out. and she saw that as depenedent. and that was it. she wussed out, chickened out, and waited until i was up here to tell me something that should have been done in person. i mean. that is seriously. fucked. up. if you are supposed to love someone and trust them, what kind of trust does that show? no wonder i was a wreck. i had no real warning. no inkling. no wonder i was breaking pots and kicking things and punching walls. and now i feel better. lighter. not totally healed, but like i know where i am going now. and that feels great. i can hear about her and her new girlfriend without totally losing it. in fact i feel kind of bad for her, she doesn't know what she's in for. and i realized that i just don't want a friend like that. someone who cannot express their feelings. i'm not a super whiz at communication, but i don't shut down completely and keep people out. her tendencies toward that certainly reinforced my own. and i look back on our time together and think that it was great. if we hadn't descended into weirdness and had worked on our issues, which i don't think were insurmountable, things would have been great. but we didn't and here we are. i feel great about where i am. i get a little sad when i think about what could have or should have been, but it isn't weighing me down. plus i'm getting tons of sex. and that doesn't hurt.

stacy asked me last night when i knew that my relationship to m was over. i said, when she broke up with me. i had no idea until then. and i've been blaming myself ever since for not seeing the signs. yesterday josh said, yeah we had no idea either. you got a raw deal. she really chickened out on telling you. and it was like one of those moments that you are waiting for in the whole breakup recovery process. just waiting for someone to acknowledge that yeah, this person should not have broken up with you in an email and should have told you what was in their head beforehand. and he said that he thinks that she can only communicate with her camera and that that is her biggest weakness. i'm not so sure but it did make me realize that she simply cannot talk about her feelings. i knew this from day one. and i was so in love i just ignored it or overlooked it. and look where we ended up. i even remember telling her at some point not to let all of her issues pile up and to tell me as they happened. oh god. i have such sympathy for this new girl. because right now it's all champagne and roses but in a few months when they want to talk about something real she won't be able to. and that sucks. so i spent all of yesterday walking around chicago just feeling ripe with possibility. like i can imagine the type of girl i want to date from now on. she will be intelligent, i mean she needs to be able to hold a conversation with me about books or politics. not super brainy, but smart. and easygoing. although a little moodiness is ok too. and she wants to do things in the world, isn't just content to sit at home and collect a paycheck, 9-5. really has a mission. and she'll be cute. and fun and really dorky. and she will yell at me when she's mad and won't t bottle things up. she'll get me and understand my commitment to my work. she will be able to laugh at herself and she'll look at me when we are in a crowd of people and we will be laughing at the same people, without having to say anything. and we'll love hard and intensely but still be able to step away and spend some time doing our own thing. and she's coming soon, i can feel it.

i do not need my friends telling me that this was not meant to be. i need them to listen. i need them to hug me and not say anything. i don't want to hear about her new relationship. i don't want to hear about how we were not right. i do not believe it. and i don't want to hear it.

well i woke up in a minor panic this morning and i can't seem to get rid of it. i should never have looked at those pictures. goddamn it i know better. honestly. it's like i enjoy torturing myself. now these images are seared into my brain and i just want to forget them. ugh.

i took a nap this afternoon by pretending i was someone else and i didn't have to remember any of the last couple of months. or last couple of years for that matter. it was the only way i could relax. i don't know i just don't know.

did i ever mention how my mother thought my relationship with m was very dependent? well, she did. she mentioned it a few weeks ago when i was telling her about my latest email to her. and i'm not sure what she meant. that i was dependent on m? financially, yes. emotionally, maybe. to the detriment of the entire relationship? i don't think that was the intrinsic problem. i don't think that was why we didn't work.
i've been trying hard not to overanalyze the issues here. i'm trying to let the lessons just come to me, instead of forcing them. and i know that even if i forget every reason why we are better off apart i will still have learned something if i remember what i need to be happy. that's the biggest one. it's funny that i'm only acknowledging it now. but i have spent a lot of my life unhappy. and it seems liberating to know that that is a choice and not an accident or twist of fate. i can really choose things that work for me. wow. duh.

longing....
that is what i'm doing today. wanting.
i decided that i will not contact her until i know i have no ulterior motives. and when the hell will that be. because, i still know. that i love her. and i can't seem to shed that. i can look back on those bad days and the times she drove me crazy. i can see that we had problems. all of that makes sense. but i remember when i realized i loved her and we made that commitment to each other. she was the one, and i was hers. and that was it, inviolate. i never questioned our love. rock solid. i used to call her my touchstone, that she grounded me when i was off in the clouds or lost in my own head. but it was really us i believed in. i never thought i would have to remake my life over, have to figure out how to live without her. and when i did i realized that i was missing things that i needed. but that doesn't seem to make this go away. and i am not totally sure that i want it to.

i am going to confess something here. i'm still totally in love with her, or the idea or her. or the idea we had of each other. or something. but there you are.
the new girl was up for a few days. with her cat. and i had a great time, she's fun, easygoing, and we laugh a lot together. i don't plan on this being longterm so i'm not really paying attention to the things that are not right. you know, just letting it slide because i know i will be gone in two months.
so she was here, naked in my bed. i was going down on her. and i had this flash, this sudden revulsion. she doesn't taste right, she doesn't feel right. her breasts are too big and i could care less whether she orgasms. i just thought i don't want to be doing this right now. it's too soon. i love her, not this girl, who smokes and tries to kiss me.
i really thought about sitting up, yelling stop!, and then kicking her out. that would have been the smart thing to do. but i didn't. i just went at it. and then realized that making someone come that i don't care about means nothing to me.
watching m have an orgasm was almost a religious experience. i loved her so much when she let me in like that and it happened more and more rarely that i treasured it even more. and i became accustomed to her. i idolized her breasts and her pussy and right now i just want all of it back. i want that intimacy. that connection. i want to care and love for the person i'm fucking. i'm way too old for this casual shit. or maybe it's just that i've seen the other side and this is nothing compared to that.

been feeling a little stressed and paranoid lately. like now that the other photog is back i tend to think that they are talking about me behind my back. i don't have any evidence to back this up. just a feeling. and i've been spending almost no time with d lately. at least bri and i talked the other night and he said he thinks she's up and down too. which make me feel better. i mean everytime she has a little snippiness in her voice i automatically start thinking it's something i've done. and i'm trying to stop that. it's just all this crap lately. i think i need a vacation. a little one. but i don't see that happening anytime soon....maybe a little more sex with you know who. that's on saturday. and for the first time since i've been here i'm actually looking forward to getting off of work. and having some time to myself.

i've been seeing the one night stand girl an awful lot lately. not sure what this means besides fun. lots of sex. i mean tons. constantly. and that's ok. but i am so fucking tired right now i can hardly stand. and sore. i'm very sore.

is it necessary to have a fucking moment, every day?! i thought i was over the crying thing. guess not. a few old emails just set me off. i really have to make a concerted effort not to think about my old life. that's how i think of it in my head. i have to concentrate on the here and now and what's good about that and there's a lot there. it's true. but every now and then i drift back to a lazy, florida night. mosquitos humming, air thick and syrupy and us, kissing in the shadows.

so i called the one night stand. i couldn't decide if i should or not, and so i did. i guess, when in doubt, just do it. so i did and i went down there and spent the night with her and she came up the next night to my place. and she's great, lots of fun. very open and funny, and great in bed. and some part of me needs this, to be desired by someone. needs it right now, but not in a relationship-way. it's just interesting contrasting her with m, i mean it makes me realize how closed off she was while we were dating, in a million different ways. and if i couldn't unlock her, than maybe we weren't right for each other. because having sex with tina is a completely different world. it's raw and fast and is all about lust, and fucking, and that's great. because i missed that component. i never felt like m wanted my body, i never felt like she even understood that concept. and i know she didn't because she told me many times that sex was no big deal to her, she could go without it. and i didn't understand that. well, i guess a little bit of it rubbed off on me because my libido has shrunk, or maybe i just realized that sex in a really great relationship is so much better. so much more intense. so while i'm having fun with tina, i'm extremely guarded because i don't want this to go any further than it has. i just want to get off every once in a while and that's it. but if i was hoping that i would think less about m through this, i was mistaken, because i'm thinking about her more than ever, things are occurring to me that i haven't thought about in a while. and i guess that's ok.

and then i went down to work grab a couple of things and i just had to rant to brian. which i think i'm doing a little too much of, but i told him i was glad that he was so cool and that we could talk and all that. because he's been telling me about his ex issues as well. so i said i just didn't understand why she wanted to keep talking to me, i mean that's what breaking up is, right? i am honestly confused on this question. and, bless his heart, said that it was probably that she realized she had made a mistake by letting go of such a fabulous person. and that was just what i needed to hear.

argh, got another one of those, "give me my stuff back bitch" emails that i love. it probably wouldn't have bothered me too much except that today is rodney's last day. and i'm getting sick and feeling a little down and so i had to cry it out.

so today i came (finally!) to the realization that i like my life without her. i've been thinking about how i became the submissive person in the relationship, how i gave her so much control. i'm still not sure how it happened. but it had to do with me thinking she was beyond perfect, and unable to do anything wrong in my eyes. a dangerous attitude. and i thought she had a lot to teach me. and she did, but both of our attitudes made that next to impossible.
so i was washing the dishes, and watching avi play around on the floor and loving the fact that it was raining outside and i was cozy inside. and it just occurred to me. i am so very ok with where i am. it may seem simple but these days that wins me major points in my own mind. i've had to reclaim the parts of myself that i entrusted to her. some are in better shape than others.
and she keeps looking at my blog. i have a feeling she has posted something on hers that pertains to me or my email, but i have no desire to read it. i refuse to rise to her bait (if it's even there) and instead am spending time doing what makes me happy and living in my own skin. i don't want someone in my life right now, and that's a new one for me too. i thought i was so lonely, but i'm really not. sure, i love contact and touch and i'll probably hook up with some more random girls soon, but i sure as hell do not want to let someone into this comfortable, safe place i've worked so hard to carve out.

argh, so after last night's im debacle i sent her an email, i decided to keep it off of my blog and keep it personal. here's what i wrote:

"listen, I'm not declaring peace, but I'm not declaring war either. I need space. and I need time. and I need you to stop contacting me. breakups aren't clean or easy. people get hurt and mad. and I'm both of those things right now. and I don't think that's a very good basis for any kind of friendship. I don't know where I will end up after all this is over but I know that if we keep trading nasty jibes like last night we will never be able to be friends. ok? I'm trying to be honest here, please respect that."

but i'm still pissed off about her iming me and goading me into shit. two months may be enough time for her, but it certainly isn't for me. not even close. so i'm confused. she fucking wants to berate me about blogs that i'm writing that she has to defend. bullshit. why aren't all of these people talking to me? only about 10 people look at my blog a day, and i know most of them. so don't feed me a line. if it made you mad, say so. but i still defend my right to say it. i'm not going to sanitize my feelings just to make her feel comfortable. so being able to move on from this feels healthy, but i don't need her telling me shit like breaking up with me allowed her the possibility of a healthy and positive relationship. i'm sorry but i was not the one stopping you on either of those counts. yes we had problems. no, our problems were not me. and that's how i feel when she talks to me. that her position is that i am a negative horrible person whose insecurities damaged our relationship beyond repair. well i don't buy that. because i know her too well and i know myself. and i know that relationships are not that easily explained.

more than anything i don't understand why she cares. or maybe she only cares about what other people are thinking or talking about her. fuck that. because you don't dump someone in an email, after two years and then think that you can talk to her and im her and there won't be any residual feeling there. because there is, there always will be. and why can't she fucking see that i've kept most of my shit off of there. not for her but for me and if i wanted this to be an all out web thing i could dump every fucking thing out there for everyone to see. but i haven't, and i won't. i just wish she would fucking leave me alone. and that's a new one.

stop fucking iming me, stop breaking my heart, and stepping all over me. why the fuck do you care if i'm angry or you have to defend your fucking actions. that's what happens when you break up. things are rarely clean or easy. and i am not in your fucking face about every blog entry you write so get off my fucking back. in fact i don't even read your blog anymore, and there's a reason for that. so if it's going to get your fucking panties in a twist than just STOP READING it. and get over having to explain. this was your decision, you fucking deal with the consequences.

let's hear it for one night stands, cute girls named tina who don't wear underwear, and motor city pride.

CLARIFICATION: it totally rocks to be kissed by a fabulous, soft, wonderful girl who doesn't want anything except to rip your clothes off and make you scream. and reason #346 why girls rock, because even when they just want to get in your pants they will walk around and help your drunk ass find your car. twice.