Moving on by going backwards
I feel as though this summer so far-- or the entire last year, possibly-- has been a believable but unsustainable dream that I've just woken up from. Hi, real world! Good to be back!
For instance, there's Kempo. If you comb through my last year or so of diary entries you'll find sprinkled phrases like "Kempo is still great" and little mentions about how effortless our relationship was. Past personal precedent should have made it obvious that this couldn't possibly last. Something so easy and drama-free was obviously doomed.
Kempo was visiting for a week to celebrate my birthday and spend time with me before heading off for Comic-Con. The first day of her visit was, well, great. Housemate Paul had purchased Rock Band and we had a great time. How great! I didn't hear the inaudible ticking of the Relationship Doom Clock, however, as it counted ever closer to the ONE YEAR mark, immune to all the greatness. But something in Kempo obviously sensed it, because the next day, she was Very Concerned. Essentially, she was trying to imagine us taking the Next Steps and being Together Forever, and it wasn't squaring away in her head.
There was a long conversation about many things. Even coming to terms with one issue would inevitably raise two more. Obviously (as the conversation took us to the early morning hours) a lot was discussed, but in the end I think the really big one was this: I like Goleta, and she doesn't. In fact, she wanted to live somewhere with constant clouds and frequent rainstorms, probably hundreds of miles away; I want to live, um, right here, in this spot where I am currently typing.
There were other seemingly larger issues-- for example, could I prove that I love her? Could I believe in God and magic? Would I want a family of adopted children?-- but it would be very hard to ever work them all out if we were always in different cities. Having resolved none of these biggies, we slept on it.
In the morning she asked me to take her home. It wasn't working out and there was no sense drawing it out, apparently, and I was still waking up as she was packing up her clothes and her toothbrush. There was much crying. She didn't want to be friends with me if we couldn't be a couple; I've learned my lesson about trying to argue somebody out of this position. There was more discussion on the drive to her place. Nothing was making any more sense. I pulled into her driveway and there was more crying. I didn't actually drive away so she invited me up. We made another couple hours' go of it, treading in the same circles, again not sure how we'd go about being Together Forever when we wanted to live in totally different places. Hugs, crying, hugs. She waved to me from the balcony as I drove away. Painful, painful, painful. I tried to ground myself with thoughts like "a girl who is so into superhero comics deserves to make some comic book guy very happy." Whereas I had to constantly be reminded of the difference between Plastic Man and Mr. Fantastic. F'rinstance.
The next day she sent me an e-mail wishing me a happy birthday and luck with everything. I saw this as a good sign until I noticed that she'd De-Friended me on Myspace... a catastrophically bad portent, considering how much stock she put in Myspace.
I buried myself in video games for a few days until I felt okay again.
Also: as cheering-ups go, it's hard to beat shucks taking me to Disneyland with a park-hopper pass robust enough to allow me to do everything, then do everything again, then do my favorite things a few more times. This was originally more of a "happy birthday" than a "cheer up" thing, but it expertly served both purposes and then kept right on going. 3D Toy Story video game ride? Yes, please.
Kidney update: the tingly numbness thing is not happening anymore and the pain is very slowly getting better as time goes on. Many clinic visits, half a bottle of vicodin and an x-ray later, nobody really knows what the deal is there. Best guess is that the weekend when it was really really bad, the stone passed without my realizing it, doing some damage on the way out that's still healing. It's certainly better than it was, so that's good.
Finally, Staples didn't like me being sick for so long and took the opportunity to quietly replace me with somebody who would presumably be better at selling the fucking Staples Rewards Cards. (Oh, the nonstop fun of being an "at will" employee.) They didn't feel the need to inform me of this and I only found out when I went to log into the company web site to look something up and my login was no longer valid. Well, it explained why they were being so curt when I'd call, I guess. I tried to feel even a tiny bit bad about how it had gone down, but realizing I never have to set foot in there again only seems joyous no matter how I spin it.
Of course this would have screwed me completely if Far West had not called me up and asked if I wanted to work for them again. I said, "uh, yes?" and they said "cool, see you tomorrow." Remember Far West, my on-again-off-again employer for many years? My favorite job ever? Where I sit down and listen to music for eight hours while I put tiny things in other slightly larger things, For Science? Well, that's what I do for a living. Again. I could not be happier about that, really.
So, I'm single and I work at Far West. How 'bout that, eh? The persistent lack of household reggae band members is the only thing stopping me from being completely certain I've slipped into a Groundhog Year portal that wants to make sure I get it right this time.