Hey, kids, long time, no post!
It's been about 2 1/2 years since I last posted an entry on LiveJournal, so here's an update. I'm going to start by discussing the relationship that developed, and then faded. Some of you may already know most or at least some of what I'm going to post, so if that's the case, consider it to be a refresher. :) Oh, and as a warning, this is very long, so I'm putting a lot of cuts in. You may want to read it bit by bit, and take a nap part of the way through. lol
In late 2005, I began talking with a wonderful woman named Karen on The Dizzy Edge message board, whose life I guess I technically saved. I'll elaborate later if anyone is interested. We talked quite a lot, and she fell in love with me before we ever met. In 2006, she sent me a letter and postcard while on vacation (which took a month to arrive, which was no fault of hers), and for my 28th birthday, she sent me a very nice card, as well as the deluxe remastered edition of The Cure's Faith, as well as a stuffed dog that she bought at a Build-A-Bear shop, who she named Robbie, after Robert Smith of The Cure.
Karen came to visit in March of that year, and stayed for about five days. I think that she surprised my father quite a bit at the airport when she gave me a nice, long hug, since I hadn't yet told my parents the nature of her visit or our relationship. During her stay, we talked, went to see The Sisters of Mercy in Toronto, and took a walk around Goat Island, where I showed her both the Canadian and American Falls. She enjoyed herself very much. Due to flight issues at the airport, she called me and asked if I would be okay with her spending the night at my place (she'd been staying at a motel up until then), and I was happy to accommodate her. However, on my way to return my mother's car to my family's house, I sprained my left ankle on the walkway next to my apartment, so when she got back, she found me icing said ankle, which was a dark blue color by that point. We went back to my place, and slept on the single mattress I at the time (I now use a larger one). In the morning, despite my injury, I escorted her out to her rental car, and didn't go back inside until she was out of sight.
At some point in March, I think, I found a flyer in a bunch of ads that had come in the mail. It contained a discount promo rate for Northwest Airlines flights (I won't fly with them anymore, but that's another story). I used to to visit her for a week in home city near Springfield, Missouri. We had a beautiful time, and grew much closer, and it was here where I fell in love with her. I had a chance to meet her mother, who approved of and liked me, and Karen's dog Roxie. Both of them grew to consider me part of the family. I also had a chance to meet her mother's dog, Snoopy, but that was the only time that I'd meet him, as he unfortunately died before my next visit.
In addition to showing me around the Springfield area, Karen and I traveled to Kansas City, Missouri in her corvette (which she'd named her "Cure-vette", and has since traded in) to see The Dresden Dolls perform at the Second Chance Prom event at the Madrid Theater. We stayed at a nice hotel, in a room with a jacuzzi, and checked out a couple of places before and after the show, including a nice music store, which was unfortunately in the process of closing. We wore formal wear to the show, and she looked absolutely beautiful in her dress and gold-colored jacket. After the show, we had a chance to meet drummer Brian Viglione, who is one of the nicest people I've ever met. In retrospect, we didn't stay long enough, but that was my fault, as I was in a hurry for us to get back to Springfield.
On the night before I went home to Western NY, I asked Karen if I could sing her the Cure song One More Time. She said yes, so I did. As I finished, I broke into tears, and said to her, "I don't want to go," to which she replied by simply holding and comforting me. I left the next day, telling her that I'd be back.
We continued talking online and on the phone until her next visit, which was in June. We were supposed to go to Toronto to see Snow Patrol, but they'd rescheduled some of the dates due to, if I remember correctly, problems with their lead singer's voice. Instead, we just hung around the Niagara Falls and Buffalo areas. Nothing much to report for this visit, except that I added a bit to her stress level with my procrastination.
We talked more online and on the phone until I went to visit her again. I ended up missing my flight so I had to reschedule for later that day. This was to be the first of my missed flights, but thankfully the only one on this trip. This time, I had a chance to meet her Uncle Joe, who I got along with well enough. Also, I was unintentionally making Roxie into a house dog, and inspiring her to hang out more upstairs, instead of her usual spot, in the basement. The construction of the house wasn't typical, so "upstairs" was the main floor.
Karen and I went to St. Louis to see The Dresden Dolls again, this time at The Pageant, as the opening act to Panic! at the Disco. We went there in the GTO (which she's since traded in for a Jeep Liberty!) that she'd gotten after trading in the corvette. St Louis had just been nailed by a heavy windstorm, so power was out to a lot of places, and had only just been restored at our hotel, which was a Residence Inn by Marriott, by the time that we got there. Great place with great service. Anyway, I dressed up for the show, as I wanted to represent The Dolls well while I was photographing them and P!atD. I'd been fortunate enough to score a photo pass, thanks to The Dolls' tour manager, which is good, because The Pageant is pretty strict about it. It was a great show. Afterward, we headed over to the Lucas Schoolhouse for the St. Louis date of the indie short film festival that The Dolls' Amanda Palmer had organized, called F**k the Back Row!, where after the films were done, she played a set of cover songs, and was joined by Brian for some of them. Before Amanda went on, I went up the wrong stairway, and ran into them at the top. I said, "Oh, hello,", to which Amanda responded with, "Good evening," in a German accent. Brian then kindly opened the door for me to go into the performance area.
After having learned my lesson in Kansas City, I opted to hang around St. Louis for a few days after the show. We checked out a bunch of places, including the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi River. I went just short of stepping in. Karen has a photo of me on the Missouri side, which I have yet to see. We also went to a club for their '80s night, but I found out that Missouri does things much differently than in the Niagara/Buffalo region. Around here, you have to leave at closing time, and maybe not until a bit after that. Around there, they shut off the music and direct everyone to the exits up to anywhere from 15-30 minutes before then, and expect to have everyone except staff out by that time. Not quite as much fun, especially since closing is 3am in St. Louis and 1:30am in Springfield. I'm still shaking my head over the latter. Oh, and they definitely like their alcohol, as you can find hard liquor and wine at virtually every gas station and supermarket, including Wal-Mart, which has about five supercenters in the Springfield area alone.
After coming back to the Springfield area, we had a bit more time before BOTH of us flew to the WNY area, so that she could go to a three day family reunion with me. Our flight left an hour late from the Springfield-Branson airport, so we got to Detroit late. we literally hit the jet bridge running, and aside from a short trip on the tram, ran most of the way across the airport. This was hard on her, since she's not in good shape, so when we got to the gate, she pretty much collapsed on the floor after we found out that the door to the plane had already been closed, and they wouldn't let us on, even though it was still at the gate. It's a good thing that she was tired, because she was so angry that I would have had to restrain and stop her from jumping over the desk and attacking the gate agent. Thankfully, there was a flight leaving for Rochester, so we hurried over to that gate. We weren't thrilled with that option, but at least we weren't getting stuck in the airport overnight.
After getting back to Niagara Falls, and getting some sleep, we headed to the reunion. She got along great with my extended family, and everyone really liked her. She was also rather happy at my reasoning for keeping a couple of Missouri state quarters, which was that I knew that I'd be back there. However, I again stressed her out when I acted like a real dick on the way back from a trip to Red Square in St. Catherines. I was overly and unnecessarily critical of something, what, I can't remember, but it bothered her terribly. Sigh.
We talked online and on the phone more until my next trip there in November, but before then, I really hurt her when I signed a new lease on my apartment, since she'd expected me to move in with her when it ran out at the end of August. I'd barely begun to think about moving, as we'd met less than six months before, and the logistics of a move would have taken a couple of months to deal with, which she probably didn't know at the time.
Anyway, I stayed for about two weeks, and had a chance to bake a couple of pies for Thanksgiving, one of which I partially burned due to erroneous instructions in the recipe that I used. I met some members of Karen's father's side of the family for the first time. I'm not really sure how that went, but I'm sure that the burned apple pie didn't impress them.
Shortly before this trip, Karen had decided to get ferrets, which turned out to be a good idea, as they're cute and fun to play with. We didn't have to worry about Roxie eating them, as she associated their natural scent with skunks, which she'd had unpleasant encounters with before. Speaking of Roxie, during this visit, she began looking at me whenever Karen asked her to do something, as if to ask me, "Should I do what she's telling me to do?" Heh.
We had photos done professionally at Glamour Shots, and the staff there could practically feel our love for one another. After I'd left, she got a call from the regional manager, telling her that they liked one of the photos of us so much that they wanted to blow it up to poster size, and hang it on the wall at the Springfield store for a couple of months. Karen gave them permission. They later gave it to her for free. While I was still there, we went to Justice Jewelers to pick out rings, as I wanted us to be able to show our commitment to one another. As the ring that we wanted wasn't in stock in our sizes (we chose matching rings), we had to wait for them to come in.
Karen bought a copy of Diablo II for me to stay occupied while she was at work. I, uh, seriously vegged out on it, so I decided not to play it at all on my next trip. Also, she put me on her phone plan and gave me a cell phone to use, so that I could call her (I didn't have long distance on my home phone). Additionally, Karen's mother bought me a nice looking trenchcoat that was on sale for the holidays as an early Christmas gift.
It was about this time that I made the decision that was going to move to her city to be with her. I thought that I could wait until the lease was up, but I should have gone full throttle in moving myself to Missouri. Just another thing that I deeply regret.
Karen visited me for a few days around Christmas. We exchanged gifts and the rings. One of the gifts that she gave to me was a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, A Charmed Life - First Christmas Together "Promise Tree", which said "Our First Christmas" on one side, and "2006" on the other. I hung the ornament on the Christmas tree, and we just stood there and held one another as a little display I had played tinny Christmas music. It was the most wonderful Christmas that either of us had ever experienced.
January of 2007 was the beginning of a major upheaval in Karen's life. The most serious ice storm ever recorded in southwest Missouri hit. It destroyed multiple trees on her property, and knocked out power and phone service to parts of the Springfield metro area for up to a week and a half. She called me early in the morning, and I was really groggy, as I'm not used to being woken around 7am. I asked her, "Do you know what time it is?", which isn't the most sensitive response, but I wasn't exactly clearheaded at that moment. She said yes, and then, sounding very scared, talked with me for a short time. I could hear trees falling in the background. I would have been willing to stay on the phone with her, but I was still sleepy, so I didn't argue when she said that she was going to go. She felt very hurt by my lack of calls to her during that time, and when I denigrated her region's response to the ice storm. No, I shouldn't have done the latter, but as to the former, phone service , cell and land line, sucked due to some wires and cell towers being damaged, so there was no guarantee that I could even get through. I'm not a mind reader, so I didn't find out until months later that it had been restored within a few days.
Due in large part to the ice storm, Karen lost her job of six years, despite having one of the best performance records of anyone at Banta Foods. She spent the next several months taking website design courses and deciding whether she was going to become self-employed or go to work for another company. She eventually chose the latter, and joined Karmak in August 2007, the company that she'd worked for before Banta, as a tech support specialist. In the latter part of January or early February, her best friend of about 20 years came out as a lesbian, which devastated her husband of around 15 years. More on that in my next LJ entry. Also, at some point, I was talking with my parents on my cell phone when I got into an argument with them, hung up, then tossed my phone at my bed, while it was still open. Unfortunately, the phone hit the wall next to the bed just before landing on the bed itself, so, um, the phone didn't work anymore. Karen was not happy about that, but later replaced it with a RAZR, which I still have.
In early February, I went to Club Diablo for an '80s night. During this time, I saw a girl who looked lonely, and I asked her if she wanted to dance. I didn't think anything of it because I'd asked Karen multiple times if she was okay with me dancing with other women as long as that was all that I did, and she'd said yes each time. It would have been fine this time, except for the fact that this girl tried to kiss me THREE TIMES, and I stopped her from doing so each time, but at no point did I tell her that I was in a relationship. Karen almost broke up with me after I told her the next day, but I was able to salvage the situation long enough to make another trip out there later in the month. Before going, I had flowers delivered to her for Valentine's Day, which helped somewhat.
Without getting into detail about missed flight issues again, one my fault, and another one that wasn't, I finally got there. I did my best to save my relationship, and thought that I'd done a good job during my three weeks there. Karen and I had plenty of time together, as she was still out of work at the time. We watched tv, went to a movie, went out to dinner a few times, and just enjoyed one another's company. Near the end of my send to last trip there, I got a call from the airline, basically telling me that my flight home no longer existed, so they were going to reschedule it, free of charge. Quickly thinking, I had them schedule it for the day after it was originally supposed to be, so that Karen and I could see The Crüxshadows in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Ego Likeness and Ayria opened for them. It was a really good show, and Rogue was even nicer than Brian of The Dresden Dolls, which is hard to pull off. Both of us were very tired after the show. Even so, I stayed up when we got back, getting ready to get my flight that morning. That was an awful mistake. I'll get to a nearly complete list of my screwups later.
I left the Springfield area in March with every intention of coming back, but it never happened. Karen was supposed to come visit for a few days in April so that she could meet my brother, who was going to Cherry Point, NC for training before deployment to Iraq, but she canceled at the last minute due to one of her friends, the husband of her best friend, having a nervous breakdown and having himself committed to a psych ward temporarily. I played down his safety concerns to try to get her to come, but it didn't work. I shouldn't have done that, but she also played down the danger that my brother would be in when he entered one of the worst places in the world for Americans to be in. He's my only brother, and I was scared that he might not come back alive, which would have devastated me. However, I'm happy to report that he came back to the US safe and sound in late January of this year.
Karen and I continued to talk in May, but less frequently, and not quite as cordially. I still loved her, but the distance made my feelings wane somewhat. It did the same to her. In mid-June, we decided to take a break from the relationship. Really, a break is all it was supposed to be, but that's not quite the way that it turned out.
If you're still awake and reading, thanks for staying with me. I'll get into the post-relationship stuff and my screwups in a day or two.
In late 2005, I began talking with a wonderful woman named Karen on The Dizzy Edge message board, whose life I guess I technically saved. I'll elaborate later if anyone is interested. We talked quite a lot, and she fell in love with me before we ever met. In 2006, she sent me a letter and postcard while on vacation (which took a month to arrive, which was no fault of hers), and for my 28th birthday, she sent me a very nice card, as well as the deluxe remastered edition of The Cure's Faith, as well as a stuffed dog that she bought at a Build-A-Bear shop, who she named Robbie, after Robert Smith of The Cure.
Karen came to visit in March of that year, and stayed for about five days. I think that she surprised my father quite a bit at the airport when she gave me a nice, long hug, since I hadn't yet told my parents the nature of her visit or our relationship. During her stay, we talked, went to see The Sisters of Mercy in Toronto, and took a walk around Goat Island, where I showed her both the Canadian and American Falls. She enjoyed herself very much. Due to flight issues at the airport, she called me and asked if I would be okay with her spending the night at my place (she'd been staying at a motel up until then), and I was happy to accommodate her. However, on my way to return my mother's car to my family's house, I sprained my left ankle on the walkway next to my apartment, so when she got back, she found me icing said ankle, which was a dark blue color by that point. We went back to my place, and slept on the single mattress I at the time (I now use a larger one). In the morning, despite my injury, I escorted her out to her rental car, and didn't go back inside until she was out of sight.
At some point in March, I think, I found a flyer in a bunch of ads that had come in the mail. It contained a discount promo rate for Northwest Airlines flights (I won't fly with them anymore, but that's another story). I used to to visit her for a week in home city near Springfield, Missouri. We had a beautiful time, and grew much closer, and it was here where I fell in love with her. I had a chance to meet her mother, who approved of and liked me, and Karen's dog Roxie. Both of them grew to consider me part of the family. I also had a chance to meet her mother's dog, Snoopy, but that was the only time that I'd meet him, as he unfortunately died before my next visit.
In addition to showing me around the Springfield area, Karen and I traveled to Kansas City, Missouri in her corvette (which she'd named her "Cure-vette", and has since traded in) to see The Dresden Dolls perform at the Second Chance Prom event at the Madrid Theater. We stayed at a nice hotel, in a room with a jacuzzi, and checked out a couple of places before and after the show, including a nice music store, which was unfortunately in the process of closing. We wore formal wear to the show, and she looked absolutely beautiful in her dress and gold-colored jacket. After the show, we had a chance to meet drummer Brian Viglione, who is one of the nicest people I've ever met. In retrospect, we didn't stay long enough, but that was my fault, as I was in a hurry for us to get back to Springfield.
On the night before I went home to Western NY, I asked Karen if I could sing her the Cure song One More Time. She said yes, so I did. As I finished, I broke into tears, and said to her, "I don't want to go," to which she replied by simply holding and comforting me. I left the next day, telling her that I'd be back.
We continued talking online and on the phone until her next visit, which was in June. We were supposed to go to Toronto to see Snow Patrol, but they'd rescheduled some of the dates due to, if I remember correctly, problems with their lead singer's voice. Instead, we just hung around the Niagara Falls and Buffalo areas. Nothing much to report for this visit, except that I added a bit to her stress level with my procrastination.
We talked more online and on the phone until I went to visit her again. I ended up missing my flight so I had to reschedule for later that day. This was to be the first of my missed flights, but thankfully the only one on this trip. This time, I had a chance to meet her Uncle Joe, who I got along with well enough. Also, I was unintentionally making Roxie into a house dog, and inspiring her to hang out more upstairs, instead of her usual spot, in the basement. The construction of the house wasn't typical, so "upstairs" was the main floor.
Karen and I went to St. Louis to see The Dresden Dolls again, this time at The Pageant, as the opening act to Panic! at the Disco. We went there in the GTO (which she's since traded in for a Jeep Liberty!) that she'd gotten after trading in the corvette. St Louis had just been nailed by a heavy windstorm, so power was out to a lot of places, and had only just been restored at our hotel, which was a Residence Inn by Marriott, by the time that we got there. Great place with great service. Anyway, I dressed up for the show, as I wanted to represent The Dolls well while I was photographing them and P!atD. I'd been fortunate enough to score a photo pass, thanks to The Dolls' tour manager, which is good, because The Pageant is pretty strict about it. It was a great show. Afterward, we headed over to the Lucas Schoolhouse for the St. Louis date of the indie short film festival that The Dolls' Amanda Palmer had organized, called F**k the Back Row!, where after the films were done, she played a set of cover songs, and was joined by Brian for some of them. Before Amanda went on, I went up the wrong stairway, and ran into them at the top. I said, "Oh, hello,", to which Amanda responded with, "Good evening," in a German accent. Brian then kindly opened the door for me to go into the performance area.
After having learned my lesson in Kansas City, I opted to hang around St. Louis for a few days after the show. We checked out a bunch of places, including the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi River. I went just short of stepping in. Karen has a photo of me on the Missouri side, which I have yet to see. We also went to a club for their '80s night, but I found out that Missouri does things much differently than in the Niagara/Buffalo region. Around here, you have to leave at closing time, and maybe not until a bit after that. Around there, they shut off the music and direct everyone to the exits up to anywhere from 15-30 minutes before then, and expect to have everyone except staff out by that time. Not quite as much fun, especially since closing is 3am in St. Louis and 1:30am in Springfield. I'm still shaking my head over the latter. Oh, and they definitely like their alcohol, as you can find hard liquor and wine at virtually every gas station and supermarket, including Wal-Mart, which has about five supercenters in the Springfield area alone.
After coming back to the Springfield area, we had a bit more time before BOTH of us flew to the WNY area, so that she could go to a three day family reunion with me. Our flight left an hour late from the Springfield-Branson airport, so we got to Detroit late. we literally hit the jet bridge running, and aside from a short trip on the tram, ran most of the way across the airport. This was hard on her, since she's not in good shape, so when we got to the gate, she pretty much collapsed on the floor after we found out that the door to the plane had already been closed, and they wouldn't let us on, even though it was still at the gate. It's a good thing that she was tired, because she was so angry that I would have had to restrain and stop her from jumping over the desk and attacking the gate agent. Thankfully, there was a flight leaving for Rochester, so we hurried over to that gate. We weren't thrilled with that option, but at least we weren't getting stuck in the airport overnight.
After getting back to Niagara Falls, and getting some sleep, we headed to the reunion. She got along great with my extended family, and everyone really liked her. She was also rather happy at my reasoning for keeping a couple of Missouri state quarters, which was that I knew that I'd be back there. However, I again stressed her out when I acted like a real dick on the way back from a trip to Red Square in St. Catherines. I was overly and unnecessarily critical of something, what, I can't remember, but it bothered her terribly. Sigh.
We talked online and on the phone more until my next trip there in November, but before then, I really hurt her when I signed a new lease on my apartment, since she'd expected me to move in with her when it ran out at the end of August. I'd barely begun to think about moving, as we'd met less than six months before, and the logistics of a move would have taken a couple of months to deal with, which she probably didn't know at the time.
Anyway, I stayed for about two weeks, and had a chance to bake a couple of pies for Thanksgiving, one of which I partially burned due to erroneous instructions in the recipe that I used. I met some members of Karen's father's side of the family for the first time. I'm not really sure how that went, but I'm sure that the burned apple pie didn't impress them.
Shortly before this trip, Karen had decided to get ferrets, which turned out to be a good idea, as they're cute and fun to play with. We didn't have to worry about Roxie eating them, as she associated their natural scent with skunks, which she'd had unpleasant encounters with before. Speaking of Roxie, during this visit, she began looking at me whenever Karen asked her to do something, as if to ask me, "Should I do what she's telling me to do?" Heh.
We had photos done professionally at Glamour Shots, and the staff there could practically feel our love for one another. After I'd left, she got a call from the regional manager, telling her that they liked one of the photos of us so much that they wanted to blow it up to poster size, and hang it on the wall at the Springfield store for a couple of months. Karen gave them permission. They later gave it to her for free. While I was still there, we went to Justice Jewelers to pick out rings, as I wanted us to be able to show our commitment to one another. As the ring that we wanted wasn't in stock in our sizes (we chose matching rings), we had to wait for them to come in.
Karen bought a copy of Diablo II for me to stay occupied while she was at work. I, uh, seriously vegged out on it, so I decided not to play it at all on my next trip. Also, she put me on her phone plan and gave me a cell phone to use, so that I could call her (I didn't have long distance on my home phone). Additionally, Karen's mother bought me a nice looking trenchcoat that was on sale for the holidays as an early Christmas gift.
It was about this time that I made the decision that was going to move to her city to be with her. I thought that I could wait until the lease was up, but I should have gone full throttle in moving myself to Missouri. Just another thing that I deeply regret.
Karen visited me for a few days around Christmas. We exchanged gifts and the rings. One of the gifts that she gave to me was a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, A Charmed Life - First Christmas Together "Promise Tree", which said "Our First Christmas" on one side, and "2006" on the other. I hung the ornament on the Christmas tree, and we just stood there and held one another as a little display I had played tinny Christmas music. It was the most wonderful Christmas that either of us had ever experienced.
January of 2007 was the beginning of a major upheaval in Karen's life. The most serious ice storm ever recorded in southwest Missouri hit. It destroyed multiple trees on her property, and knocked out power and phone service to parts of the Springfield metro area for up to a week and a half. She called me early in the morning, and I was really groggy, as I'm not used to being woken around 7am. I asked her, "Do you know what time it is?", which isn't the most sensitive response, but I wasn't exactly clearheaded at that moment. She said yes, and then, sounding very scared, talked with me for a short time. I could hear trees falling in the background. I would have been willing to stay on the phone with her, but I was still sleepy, so I didn't argue when she said that she was going to go. She felt very hurt by my lack of calls to her during that time, and when I denigrated her region's response to the ice storm. No, I shouldn't have done the latter, but as to the former, phone service , cell and land line, sucked due to some wires and cell towers being damaged, so there was no guarantee that I could even get through. I'm not a mind reader, so I didn't find out until months later that it had been restored within a few days.
Due in large part to the ice storm, Karen lost her job of six years, despite having one of the best performance records of anyone at Banta Foods. She spent the next several months taking website design courses and deciding whether she was going to become self-employed or go to work for another company. She eventually chose the latter, and joined Karmak in August 2007, the company that she'd worked for before Banta, as a tech support specialist. In the latter part of January or early February, her best friend of about 20 years came out as a lesbian, which devastated her husband of around 15 years. More on that in my next LJ entry. Also, at some point, I was talking with my parents on my cell phone when I got into an argument with them, hung up, then tossed my phone at my bed, while it was still open. Unfortunately, the phone hit the wall next to the bed just before landing on the bed itself, so, um, the phone didn't work anymore. Karen was not happy about that, but later replaced it with a RAZR, which I still have.
In early February, I went to Club Diablo for an '80s night. During this time, I saw a girl who looked lonely, and I asked her if she wanted to dance. I didn't think anything of it because I'd asked Karen multiple times if she was okay with me dancing with other women as long as that was all that I did, and she'd said yes each time. It would have been fine this time, except for the fact that this girl tried to kiss me THREE TIMES, and I stopped her from doing so each time, but at no point did I tell her that I was in a relationship. Karen almost broke up with me after I told her the next day, but I was able to salvage the situation long enough to make another trip out there later in the month. Before going, I had flowers delivered to her for Valentine's Day, which helped somewhat.
Without getting into detail about missed flight issues again, one my fault, and another one that wasn't, I finally got there. I did my best to save my relationship, and thought that I'd done a good job during my three weeks there. Karen and I had plenty of time together, as she was still out of work at the time. We watched tv, went to a movie, went out to dinner a few times, and just enjoyed one another's company. Near the end of my send to last trip there, I got a call from the airline, basically telling me that my flight home no longer existed, so they were going to reschedule it, free of charge. Quickly thinking, I had them schedule it for the day after it was originally supposed to be, so that Karen and I could see The Crüxshadows in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Ego Likeness and Ayria opened for them. It was a really good show, and Rogue was even nicer than Brian of The Dresden Dolls, which is hard to pull off. Both of us were very tired after the show. Even so, I stayed up when we got back, getting ready to get my flight that morning. That was an awful mistake. I'll get to a nearly complete list of my screwups later.
I left the Springfield area in March with every intention of coming back, but it never happened. Karen was supposed to come visit for a few days in April so that she could meet my brother, who was going to Cherry Point, NC for training before deployment to Iraq, but she canceled at the last minute due to one of her friends, the husband of her best friend, having a nervous breakdown and having himself committed to a psych ward temporarily. I played down his safety concerns to try to get her to come, but it didn't work. I shouldn't have done that, but she also played down the danger that my brother would be in when he entered one of the worst places in the world for Americans to be in. He's my only brother, and I was scared that he might not come back alive, which would have devastated me. However, I'm happy to report that he came back to the US safe and sound in late January of this year.
Karen and I continued to talk in May, but less frequently, and not quite as cordially. I still loved her, but the distance made my feelings wane somewhat. It did the same to her. In mid-June, we decided to take a break from the relationship. Really, a break is all it was supposed to be, but that's not quite the way that it turned out.
If you're still awake and reading, thanks for staying with me. I'll get into the post-relationship stuff and my screwups in a day or two.