And then there were none

Christi has moved out. the walls are basically bare. she left one of her grandmother’s paintings, perhaps by accident. she also took the imac, which is hers, but i can’t see what use she might have for it, not that it matters, as it does belong to her. she left behind a little terra cotta horse that her grandmother gave her, a replica of the ones in those imperial tombs. her grandmother was one of the first american tourists allowed into china.

She said she left some stuff behind. It was too much for just one day and just one pickup truck load and just one broken heart. as hard as this is for me, it must be much harder for her. She’s doing the best she can and so am I.

There is nothing I can say that I haven’t said. There is nothing I can do that I haven’t done. I need to be quiet and give her space, which is perhaps the hardest possible thing.
I don’t want to find a new relationship, just a series of meaningless flings. I’m out of meaning to share. New love seems too hard right now. I want to simultaneously forget and remember. I want to forgive my tresspasses as I forgive those who tresspass against me. I thought a few months ago that I could get away from my problems by moving far away, but my problems were wiley and followed me. I cannot avoid the crushing pain of existance, I can just find ways to ameliorate it, to face it head on and survive, to know that I am stronger than pain and that I can stand alone and prosper and then stand with friends and be truly blessed. I have wonderful friends.

Still accepting applications

While applications are being received and processed, to date, no single candidate has been chosen and there is still time for you (yes, you) to apply. Preference will be given to applicants that actually live in California or are at least within hundreds of miles from here. All applications will be kept stricly confidential and the final candidate must agree to a non-disclosure agreement. (I know it’s hard not to kiss and tell, but such is life.)

In the beginning

I remember when I first fell in love with Christi. We were both 18 years old and freshwomen at Mills College. She was studying music and I was studying computer science. We lived down the hall from each other in Mary Morse, the freshwoman dorm. I was dating an art major who had a nice room at the very end of the hallway. In the evenings, she liked to brew a huge cup of coffee and hold court. People would come sit around her room and we would pass the big cup of coffee around. I remember the excited way that Christi would exclaim “coffee” and how she would smile and her eyes would sparkle as the cup got passed to her. She was so funny and so enchanting. I remember telling my girlfriend one night that I hoped that Christi would come over. She said, “I don’t. She drinks all the coffee!” Who could begrudge a cup of coffee to somebody’s who brown eyes percolated so happily?

Christi was facinated with sound. She would walk around tapping on things, looking for new sounds for percussion. She would tap everything, lightpoles, street signs, pieces of junk. I was facinated and I started tapping thigns too. She changed the way I looked at sound. I list John Cage as one of my major influences, but really, it was John Cage through Christi. All sorts of sounds could be beautiful and could go into music. Christi so brilliant. I was convinced that she was going to be the greatest composer who ever lived (actually, I still think this). I was following her around and telling her that I would write her biography when she was famous. I remember one time, we were in one of the three places that Mills used to dump junk and she picked up some glass object and smashed it. She was looking for glass things to break. She had been a tiny bit distracted as she was combing through the junk yard, but the glass smash focussed her attention. She said, “oh! that made a nice sound! I wonder what it was?” That was the moment I fell completely in love with her.
We weren’t dating (I thought christi was straight) but were spending all of our time together. A receptionist in the dorm told us we were like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb and Christi and I got into a very chivalrous argument about who was whom, each insisting that the other was definitely not Tweedle Dumb.
I had already declared to Christi that I was going to live with her after school. she was so beautiful. so smart. so talented. She had such a beuatiful smile. She was always smiling. she was the closest friend I had ever made. I was wondering at how strongly attached I felt to her and how it was odd that it was completely platonic.
One night, after several months of this, Christi told me she had a huge crush on me. So we started dating. she wasn’t out, so she didn’t want me to tell anyone right away, but everyone who saw my huge smile just immediately knew.
Clearly a lot has happened and changed in the nine years since then, but Christi is still the smart, enchanting, beautiful, talented person that she was then.

adventures

Christi is having a lot of exciting adventures right now and I’m happy for her. I think she thinks that being with me would mean having to give them up. And it might mean a bit of compromise on some things, but on the whole . . . we live on seperate continents. even if we were together, i couldn’t control what she did when i wasnt around. I wouldn’t want to.

So I went to have breakfast with Christi this morning. Spent the whole time trying to convince her that it would be a good idea to try to work it out. I’d been telling people that even when I did stupid things, it always seemed to me at the time to be reasonable. Well, as I sat in the restaurant, untouched food cold in front of me, manically explaining how things could be really great because we’d both learned so much, I was …um… kind of aware that i was not being reasonable or even rational. This didn’t exactly put christi at ease, or convince her. I’d think “I have to stop. maybe if i just say it a different way!”

Yeah, so she’s kind of extremely mad at me. We tried talking about my mom being sick a little bit. She said she was hurt. I didn’t come back with “my mom died!” which was my previous responce. I said that I was sorry I had been so angry, etc. She explained that, no, she was hurt because my mom had died, as in, it was really hard for her.
I blinked a bit. It surprised me to hear her say it. But I don’t know if it was a wow-she-was-upset-about-that-too kind of surprise or a that’s-really-not-what-i-expected-her-to-say kind of surprise. I mean, I got kind of caught up in my own devastating loss of my mom and wasn’t really foccussing on how it was affecting other people. On the one hand. On the other hand, of course it’s obvious that it would have upset Christi. She knew my mom for 7 years and they loved each other. I don’t think I would have failed to notice that, but I dunno. I feel very confused right now. And my memory from times of stress is all jumbled and unclear. This morning is jumbled. A year ago is more jumbled.
Christi really does not want to work it out and I need to accept that. Just because I think we could and should is not going to change her mind, no matter how I say it or how many times. Harping on it for over an hour is just going to make her not want to talk to me at all.
I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.

I need very much to have a tumultuous, reboundy-type affair. Now accepting applications. I’m in California till the 22nd. Why not have some short-term drama?

Christi is gone

She’s gone to La and Ellen is using my room for other guests, so by the time I get back here, everything that Christi decides is hers (things get blurry when they’re acquired together and i don’t care about stuff so much anyway, just symbols) will be gone.

I’m still breathing

Other minds festival

is this weekend. christi and I are both planning to go. It’ll be the first time I see her since breaking up with her. I feel anxious about this. but I beleive it will be ok. i really want it to be ok. i’m really glad that i’ll get to see her.

After many plane delays, gate changes and a cancelled flight, I am now, finally, in Berkeley.

I don’t understand why people get angry and yell at gate agents about these things. there were weather problems. being angry won’t change anything and yelling at a person won’t cause a plane to appear. given all the indignities of life, late planes seem so small a thing.

Sometime in the last year or so, I quit being angry. I was an angry youth. It didn’t serve me well (see yesterday’s long post). I’m glad for this change.