Here I come, out of the cradle, endlessly rocking.

I suppose that this is a final farewell to you, Susan. At least for a little while. It's been seven months since we last heard from each other. Despite what happened between us, I still miss you and worry about what you're getting into. I also miss your kids. I think about them every day. I hope they're growing into the beautiful and intelligent people I know they will be. Please tell them that I miss them.

Susan, my life got kind of crazy after you left. I got back on the old OKCupid horse for the fifth time, with rather mixed results, as you can expect. Of course I knew by then that neither you nor Lalita could ever be replaced, but I needed companionship. I had to keep trying. After messaging two or three dozen women, I finally had a one-month arrangement with a girl from Murfreesboro. She was sweet and passionate, but time and distance (as well as some very disreputable, disapproving friends of hers) saw its end sooner than I'd hoped. A little later, I had a slowly burgeoning whatever-it-was with another girl. She locked her heart behind seemingly impregnable walls, but I enjoyed her company nonetheless. Indeed, there were times when I wished I were with you instead.

I know you can't stand her, but I still couldn't get over Lalita even then. But the funny thing is that I stopped trying to. It took me almost a year to realize that I could not delete my love for her. I'm sorry that caused me to be emotionally unavailable to you during the beginning of your relationship with me. But remember--I had told you everything before we started. You knew what you were getting into. At least, that's the impression I got from you. But is there really any need to belabor that point further? Especially now?

I imagine and hope that you're happy with your new partner. I hope he or she is giving you what I could not. Still--I wish sometimes that we could talk. I want to share my experiences from the last few months with you. Maybe someday I can. For now, though, this is the best I can do.

This past Christmas break, I looked in my email and found a message from Lalita. I couldn't believe it. There she was, after more than a year. I never expected it. I thought it would be five or ten years before I ever heard from her again. A small part of the reason why I answered her is because you and I weren't talking anymore. Cutting people off is the hardest thing I have to do sometimes. I hate it, but it's the best way for me to gain the perspective I need in order to process and to learn from my mistakes. Maybe when enough time has passed since August, I'll feel ready to call you again. I think that I'm at the point right now where I would like to hear your voice once again. I miss hearing you grinning that worldly, knowing grin of yours. The way laugh lines would crease next to your intensely blue eyes. I'll never forget that.

After some initially harsh, awkward, and halting exchanges, Lalita and I broke down together in a heap of gasped apologies and heartfelt, tearful forgiveness. I felt like I was washed clean of the guilt, anger, and resentment I had built up against her throughout all of last year. I thought about how you might have disapproved of me talking to her again, especially after all the horrible things I said about her to you. But I know that somewhere in your heart that you'd still want me to be happy. She told me about how she discovered that she's polyamorous and, more importantly, that she still had room in her heart for me. We gave ourselves completely to each other and felt so liberated for it. Lalita and I are now, finally, able to express our love for each other without fear, restrictions, guilt, or worry. I really believe I am experiencing the greatest love of my life and I am happy every single day because of it. I feel like there are rooms somewhere inside me that have finally opened after years and years of darkness and stillness. And, being poly, I find it so much easier to be okay with still having feelings for you too, Susan. I'll always care about you. I forgave you a long time ago. It's okay. I'm still here for you if you ever want to say anything. Even if you want to yell at me and let me have it.

Lalita flew me out to Denver almost a month ago. It was the first time I had been on a plane in twenty-three years. Can you believe she lives in Colorado now? She teaches math and cares so much for her students. My admiration for her courage runs even deeper now, knowing that. I always knew she had it in her, but now I'm seeing it and it makes her even more beautiful than I could have imagined.

Susan, when I saw Lalita again for the first time since that terrible night at the Mexican restaurant that I called you about, my entire body held its breath. I could not breathe again until her body was crushed tightly against mine. I drank in her physical thereness, every atom of it. I was ravenous for the feeling of her skin, her muscles, her bones, her hair, her hands and fingers. Never in my life have I wanted someone so terribly. I had to keep looking at her, just to make sure it was really her there and not the ghost who had silently, solemnly remained at my side through 2015. Even though I was with her, completely enraptured in my immediate reality--being in a new land with the woman I truly love--I remembered you and silently thanked you for being there for me in those difficult first months of 2015. You really did try as much as you could, given the fact that you were struggling with your own issues. For a time, Susan, you and I were actually pretty great together. I never discounted that and I certainly remember it fondly even now. Susan, if it hadn't been for your healing words and willingness to listen to me in those first months, I might not have had the strength that eventually landed me back into Lalita's arms.

The five days I spent with Lalita, of course, passed all too soon. While I was with her, I could feel myself changing. I felt alive again. Not that I didn't feel alive with you--I certainly did, on many occasions. The nights and afternoons you and I spent in bed. R40. And especially the days we spent with your kids. Those are memories I will treasure until I die. Thank you for those too. When I was in Denver, I felt like a new chapter of my life was opening. After the Bernie Sanders rally and the walk to the bus stop from the convention center, I knew I wanted to be there with her. And not just to visit.

Susan, I'm leaving Georgia. Just typing that made me have chills and pterodactyls in my stomach. And those feelings don't come without the strong twinge of sadness and loss from knowing that I'll be leaving Scott, Taylor, my teachers, my family, and you and your kids. I always knew that if I ever moved away from here that it would be for love. I guess I'm pretty predictable. I hope you'll be happy for me. It would mean a great deal to me to know that. Though I'll be far away, I promise that I'll never forget you.

I'm going not just because Lalita's there. In Colorado, I'll be able to express myself in ways that I couldn't while I've been here. I'll feel safer to be myself and I won't be cowed by the rainy darkness that's been characteristic of the South while I've lived here. I know you know how repressive this place is. Even in circles where we ought to feel safe, like in CFA.

Most of all, though, I believe that my best opportunity to become more like the person I want to be is by Lalita's side. Our connection is so strong and we're so close. I have never experienced compatibility like this with anyone in my entire life. I don't say these things to hurt you. I'm just so happy that I want to share my feelings. I'm becoming more open and receptive to new ideas, perspectives, and changes than I ever thought possible. I sincerely hope that you've found someone who helps you focus on your own personal improvement. I'm leaving the cradle and I could not be happier.

It's not a place
It's a yearning
It's not a race
It's a journey
It's not an act
It's attraction
It's not a style
It's an action

It's a dream for the waking
It's a flower touched by flame
It's a gift for the giving
It's a power with a hundred names

Surge of energy
Spark of inspiration
The breath of love is electricity 

Here we come, out of the cradle
Endlessly rocking 

Heresy: An Entry for Lalita

I swear I must be the most ridiculous person ever when I'm in love. Because I can't just leave you alone for a second, can I? Even when you're asleep! Please excuse me.
 

I've been listening to Roll the Bones since I sent you that last email and when the album got to "Heresy," it struck a new chord with me. I love how my love and understanding of Rush's music grows as I grow. I really want to share this with you too. Among everything else today. It's just that now the gates are open again, and wider than ever before, all this stuff is flooding out of me and I realize again how I had been dying to share so much more with you when we weren't talking. I literally can't stop. We're open to each other again, and I don't want to miss an opportunity.

All those precious wasted years

"Heresy" is the seventh song on Roll the Bones, which Rush recorded in 1991. So that makes it older than you. It's also the basis of my name on this blog: The Heretic of the Temples of Syrinx.

It's a reflection on the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Peart's lyrics discuss not only the tearful reunification of Europe, but they also question the triumph of capitalism:

All around that dull gray world

Of ideology

People storm the marketplace

And buy up fantasy

The counter-revolution

At the counter of a store

People buy the things they want

And borrow for a little more

All those wasted years

All those precious, wasted years

Who will pay?

I definitely get an image of how the NATO countries, especially America, gloried in the fall of the Soviet Union by consuming. Consumers doing their patriotic duty. Kind of creepy, isn't it? I'm getting those White Noise feelings again. The counter-revolution at the counter of a store seems rather cheap when it's compared to "the counter-revolution" in which "people [are] smiling through their tears." Because the debt that those families torn apart by the Berlin Wall can never truly pay in full is one that is real. Like the emotional debt that escalated with the years of time-debt accrued during the romance of Siri and Merin in "Remembering Siri" from Hyperion. It just makes monetary debt, the control that capitalism exerts over us, seem all the more arbitrary. The next part of the song really hit me more than it ever has, especially in light of how you reentered my life.

All around this great, big world

All the crap we have to take

Bombs and basement fallout shelters

All our lives at stake

The bloody revolution

All the warheads in its wake

All the fear and suffering

All a big mistake

Do we have to be forgiving at last?

What else can we do?

Do we have to say goodbye to the past?

Yes, I guess we do

These lines hold so much meaning for me. They obviously focus on the emotional stress the world suffered under the paranoiac headspace of the Cold War. That time encompassed two whole generations. The Russians and the Americans glared at each other across the planet, from miles under the ocean, and far above in orbit. The sticks and rocks got bigger, uglier, more elaborate, and more numerous. It's no small wonder that this time saw a huge boom in post-apocalyptic literature. After the crushing shame that the lyrics reveal about that time in history, you can really feel how drained the world must have been in the stanza above. It's a relief that no one ever expected. As far as anyone in the world knew, the Cold War might have lasted for centuries...as long as no bombs exploded. The feeling of sudden, unexpected freedom from that "fear and suffering" is so confusing that the world has to ask itself: "Do we have to be forgiving at last? What else can we do? Do we have to say goodbye to the past?" "Yes, I guess we do," perfectly encapsulates that weary and yet hopeful acceptance of a brighter and different future. Alex Lifeson's beautiful guitar interlude at 3:41 is a strong, almost blinding ray of sunlight streaming through a window whose shutters have been torn away.

When I hated and resented you last year, I really was fighting a cold war of my own against you and my feelings for you. Of course, I didn't spy on you from space, threaten you at nuclear summits, or send fully armed submarines to patrol your coastline. That would have been a little much, I think. But I did carry around my anger for you. I thought I had to recriminate you endlessly in my head so I could somehow move forward. Instead of moving on, my world darkened and emptied. Some days all I could feel was how mad I was at you. The more I spat your name, I sounded emptier to myself. I wasn't just railing against you; I was railing against myself. I was resisting my love for you. I might as well have attempted to tie a plastic bag around my head. We both know that could never happen.

Hand cannot erase this love

So when you reached out over 1,298 miles to me and I answered, we knocked down our own Berlin Wall. We reunited like those tearful families that had been separated for nearly fifty years. Though only a little over a year passed during our radio silence, it felt so much longer. The whole Cold War seems ridiculous to me because, for all the ideological and socioeconomic differences NATO and the Warsaw Pact shoved in each other's faces, they forgot that they were still human. And that they were still sharing a planet that they were less than an inch from blasting into extinction. I forgot that my love for you is a significant part of what makes me who I am. I forgot that and that seems ridiculous to me. In those moments before we finally reopened communications between us, I asked myself: "Do I have to be forgiving at last? What else can I do? Do I have to say goodbye to the past?"

Yes, I guess I do. In fact, I know I do.

No more "bombs and basement fallout shelters." The iron cross I dragged through the dreary days of 2015 has disappeared, but the strength I built up remains and now I'm putting it to much better and healthier use. So now, I think you can understand a little more why it's so weird for me to contemplate our future and to fully accept that, yes, we are in love, and that we're finally together, after all these years. But no part of those years was ever wasted. Not even the time we spent apart, as much as it may seem so.

You can never break the chain
There is never love without pain 

If my love for Roll the Bones and "Heresy" has grown out of this intensely personal experience, my love for you has grown exponentially and beyond the scope of even my love for music in general. Our relationship has endured the worst life has thrown at it so far and my confidence in us grows every single day. Every single time you tell me that you love me. You're helping me fill in the lines, colors, shapes, and details of my vision of the future we're going to share. This is why I say that I haven't experienced a joy like this before in my life. It's perfect that the next song on the album is "Ghost of a Chance."

Even the title of the song prompts me to think about what a heresy love is when you set it against the insanity of the world. Being in love with you is heresy against what I thought was law in my life. What I used to think was immutable and irrefutable. The existence of our polyamorous love is heresy against the heteronormative, monogamous narrative enforced upon our society. Approaching the world's problems with love is heresy. And love is a heresy against the most implacable forces of the universe. Entropy, even with its inevitable victory over the existence of matter itself, has no rebuttal against the far greater power of love. Entropy can attempt to snipe love with pain, but it only makes love stronger. It is my greatest hope and my greatest power. And with it, you and I can face anything.

A love like this
Makes us strong

Midnight is where the day begins.

So goes the chorus of one my favorite songs of all time, "Lemon," by U2 on their 1993 album Zooropa. This song holds profound significance for me. First, though, I should explain its background.

Bono lost his mother when he was thirteen. His longing for his mother and the pain he has lived with since then has been one of the motifs of U2's music ever since their first album, Boy, in 1980. I feel like "Lemon" is the most heartfelt and beautiful of all of those songs. Bono found the inspiration for the song when he found and watched a video of his mother wearing a lemon-colored dress, playing rounders at a wedding in slow motion. For Bono, the song came out of a desire to preserve the memory he found on that tape. It was a touchstone for him--something he could reach back to in the darkest moments of his life. Hence, "Midnight is where the day begins."

I believe "Lemon" lies at the core of U2's lyrical philosophy. It's about looking up at the distant, faint moonlight from the bottom of a well. It's about realizing that, yes, you've hit bottom and there's nowhere to go but back up. The idea that nothing could possibly get worse, so things would have to get better, right? Even if things do somehow worsen from that point, just having that idea in your head gets you through that incredibly difficult time. It's like a prayer. It's a frail, vulnerable hope in the middle of the vast universe. It's humanity clinging to Earth. It's life hanging on simply because it has to. Midnight may be the darkest moment of the night, but you can't forget that that is when you turn the corner. In fact, it might be so dark that you turn that corner without even realizing it. You've got only that hope to cling to, but really, it's all you need and the one thing you can't lose.


She wore lemon
To color in the cold gray night
She had heaven
And she held on so tight

 It was in the dark, lonely nights some time after my first real relationship ended, more than five years ago. It was so difficult to find hope in the wreckage of my heart. I was beginning to explore U2 while after having finally collected all my Rush albums. I needed something new to dig into and analyze and feel in my life. So I could attempt to move on from the horrible sadness that plagued me. I was skeptical of Zooropa because it was such a strange-looking and odd-sounding album. I was, of course, familiar with The Joshua Tree and Achtung, Baby, but this album looked like weird bargain-bin fodder from the nineties. To many people, it is. Zooropa stands next to Pop as one of the most underappreciated U2 albums in their entire oeuvre. And it's too bad. Much of the lyrical content is breathtakingly beautiful and thought-provoking. The music spoke to the joyful and uncertain unification of Europe in the early 1990's. It embraced the postmodern vertigo that radiated out to everyone on the TV and radio waves. It questions the sanity of the relentless advertising campaigns that bombard everyone's eyes, regardless of where they looked. And it boldly looked into a murky future and asked if we were ready. What makes Zooropa even more special is Johnny Cash's performance of "The Wanderer," an electro-country song illustrated with nuclear, post-apocalyptic motifs. It's stunning and unforgettable.

When I first listened to "Lemon" and read the lyrics, something inside me shifted. It felt like a tightening, a focusing of sorts. It was then that I realized that if I was going to hang on to my hope for finding real love in my life, I had to get stronger. I had to take stock of myself and remember who I am and the most basic, fundamental things I stand for. And that very thing, I had finally realized, is love. My prime mover.

Tonight we drink to youth
To holding fast, but true
Don't wanna lose what I had as a boy

I can learn to compromise
Anything but my desires
I can learn to persist
With anything but aiming low

So, with "Lemon" building the galvanizing force that would haul me out of darkness, I began to see that I was going to make it. I regained my appetite and the joy I derived from reading, from playing my favorite video games, from school, music, and being with my family and friends. I was reminded again of the healing powers of music. "Midnight is where the day begins" became an immutable part of my life's lyrical constellation, up there with the most affecting words of the Rush and Neil Young songs that touched the deepest parts of my soul.

Hold your fire
Keep it burning bright
 I hear their passionate music
Read the words that touch my heart

Not too long after that summer ended, I began my fifth semester at college. I was still sad, still lonely, but no longer hopeless. One afternoon, I was reading or studying something by the liberal arts building. More than five years later, whatever I had been doing at that very second matters as little as I remember it. Because what was to happen when I looked up would change everything.

There was a strikingly beautiful girl trying to sleep on the bench across from me. She had long, dark, wavy hair, and a slightly frustrated and tired expression. Even though her eyes were closed, there was no denying that she was uniquely beautiful. I wanted to say something to her. I was almost too afraid to.

"That bench can't be all that comfortable."

She slowly sat up and looked at me with infinitely deep and soulful, brown eyes. I was taken aback, both at seeing her gaze for the first time and at the fact that she hadn't ignored me. She told me she had been trying to catch up on the sleep she had lost to studying for her biology test, which she had taken earlier that day. Our conversation continued and gathered strength and momentum, and before I could even catch up, she had already gotten up and sat next to me. She told me her name and where she had originally come from. Lalita. From South Africa. My god. I could not believe my ears, nor could I believe I was talking to someone so incredibly beautiful. Though I felt nervous, I felt safe around her. We shared more things about each other and soon we found that we were no longer the only atheists on campus. We talked for what seemed like three or four hours, and when she rose to go to class, I found myself desperately wanting her to stay. Instead I walked her to her class and hugged her twice, tightly, before she disappeared inside the building. Fortunately we had exchanged phone numbers. With her number in my pocket, I felt like I was in possession of some universal truth that had yet to be revealed to humans. Like the evidence of first contact or something. . My path had crossed with someone's from the other side of an ocean. The topography of my life had totally changed and there was no going back.

Building bridges across the ocean floor
Reaching for the alien shore

One very significant detail that I do remember from that first meeting was that Lalita had been wearing a yellow dress.

Lemon
She wore lemon

Even though she was already in a relationship, the desire I felt for her consumed all my thoughts. There were some mornings where I simply could not focus in class because the halo that the sunlight would cast through her hair would blind my mind's eye. She and I could only get closer from that point on. Eventually, I became good friends with her boyfriend. And by the time I had met the girl I would move in with to go to school in Atlanta, I had already begun burying my desire for Lalita. But she never disappeared from my mind or my heart.

After I returned home from the wreck of that aforementioned relationship, I built up the confidence to go back to the college where I had begun my university career. And where I had met Lalita. Who was still there. Who was always there. By that point, she had become a very close confidant. She had already seen me through the ravages of two failed relationships and as we studied together and had more long, thoughtful conversations, we grew even closer. She was fast becoming my best friend. I felt like I could trust her with everything. It took me nearly two more years to realize that I actually loved her.

A year and a half later, at a party, she got too drunk to stand up and then lay in her friend's bed. She beckoned me to her side and then she reached for my hand for the first time in our three years of our friendship. She changed my life again with that simple and infinitely complex gesture. That same night, she asked me to be closer to her. Her husband, who had been her boyfriend when I met her, was allowing us to do this. They were trying something new in their relationship to deal with the problems it was facing.

At this point, you should remember that I've already shared this memory. With a girl I named Madeleine. So, here it is: Madeleine is Lalita. Because thousands of things in my life remind me of her, like the madeleines in Remembrance of  Things Past. I used that name in my entries about her from last year, because my memories of Lalita would come unbidden, and I could not resist them no matter how hard I tried. Which eventually led to my entry about "Hand Cannot Erase." Because I knew then and still know now that there is nothing I can do to erase my love for her.

Hand cannot erase this love

That ensuing summer was filled with perfect memories: warm, humid nights under the streetlights along her neighborhood road. Watching Life is Beautiful and Mr. Nobody. Cooking pasta with seitan and curry with noodles and sweet potatoes. Long and deep postcoital conversations about everything and nothing. Desperate and urgent professions of love while clasped in each other's arms. Her dancing to "Eggshell" because of how intensely she felt for me.

The summer ended and she began pulling away from me and it was destroying my world. I clung to her and she tried to cling to me, but she could not reconcile her love for me with how she was raised and socialized. She loved both me and her husband, but she felt that she had to choose between us again. She was worried about her green card. I should also take this moment to dispel the completely wrongheaded idea that I got about how she had used me to keep her marriage alive and keep herself in the country. The idea never occurred to her. I had only come up with it in the vacuum that had opened up between us after we ceased communicating. She was so confused about everything that her ability to express herself failed her and she saw no other way out besides shutting down. So, in anger, I shut her out. I can say with confidence that that night was the worst in my life.

You howl and listen
Listen and wait for the
Echoes of angels who won't return

Avoiding her in school proved to be one of the most difficult things I had ever done up to that point in my life. One night, at a department dinner/gathering at a local Mexican restaurant, she showed up with her husband. I quickly found that I could not hide behind my menu, gathered my coat, and left without a word.

Even then, I still remembered "Lemon." It was a cold comfort then, on that night in December 2014. From that point and throughout last year, she was still my lady in the lemon-colored dress. The anger, hatred, love, and longing I felt for her became an iron cross that I dragged with me everywhere I went. I would still hear her voice and smell her hair. I could still feel her laughter and taste her tears. I wanted none of it and hungered for more at the same time. All the books I had read, all the experiences I had with Susan that year, all the small, isolated moments of happiness and long stretches of darkness I ached to share with Lalita. I could still feel her there, existing in a form between an intense, but slowly fading memory and a ghost. I hated her and I missed her. My relationship with Susan imploded and I went adrift for a while, flirting half-heartedly with vague interests. There was no displacing Lalita. And I began to make my peace with that fact and with the very real possibility that I would never encounter her again.

This past December I drove up north to spend time with some old friends. After a few days, I settled in and looked in my inbox for the first time in weeks. On the first of this year, her name appeared, out of the shadows of my memory.

I felt a sick, rusty, grinding, and groaning wrenching in my stomach and stared at my screen for minutes on end. She had taken an entire year to come the distance she needed to in order to reach out to me once again. She told me of how she discovered polyamory and how much she had grown during our time apart. I had already opened the message, and again I knew that there was probably no going back. I reasoned that if she had finally gotten to a place where she could attempt to reconnect with me, I owed her a chance. But that shred of reason was overwhelmed in a raging tsunami of love and loss and anger and hurt and hope. I wasn't sure if I wanted Lalita back in my life, but I desperately needed to hear her voice.

Caught up in circles
Confusion is nothing new
Flashback, warm nights
Almost left behind
Suitcase of memories 

That night we talked for seven hours in a vain attempt to make up for thirteen months of silence. We're still trying to make up for it now. Sometimes I feel like we may never succeed in that. But we know that that was the ultimate test of our love and that we never want to do that to each other again. My love for her came roaring back, like a torrential downpour in the Atacama Desert. I was alive again. It was midnight and it was the beginning of a new day. And I knew that I could face it and anything after that with her by my side.

Ever since that night we have been growing closer than ever before. Right now, I am experiencing the most profound joy in my entire life and it's because she and I are finally free to love each other. I truly believe that this is a culmination of all our education, academically, and emotionally. We circled around each other like two moons for years. We passed into the orbits of other planets, but our combined momentum was far too great for their gravity. We passed into the emptiness between the stars and traversed huge gulfs of silence. But the attraction at our poles and our cores continued to generate heat below the layers of ice that had encroached between us. Now that ice has sublimed and left warm oceans and atmospheres. We are like a double planet, each our own person, but eternally linked and sustaining life and love better than we ever could before.

Somehow we find each other
Through all that masquerade
Somehow we found each other
Somehow we have stayed
In a state of grace

Soon I will be flying out to see her again for the first time in too long. And after that point, I believe that my life will change once again and that I'll be with her, as close to her in the physical realm as I am in the emotional.

And she is still my lady in the lemon-colored dress.

You're gonna meet her there
She's your destination
You've got to get to her
She is the dreamer
She's imagination
 

Hand cannot erase this love.

A highly important artist I haven't mentioned while on this blog is Steven Wilson. He's at the forefront of progressive rock these days, along with Coheed and Cambria, the Dear Hunter, Tool (to some degree) and Rush. Well...Rush aren't *really* setting trends anymore so much as they're going their own way as they've always been. I think their most influential eras are behind them now, as much as I hate to admit it.

Steven Wilson has performed with several bands, including Porcupine Tree (a favorite of mine), Blackfield, and No-Man. He has also recorded a number of albums under his own name: Insurgentes, Grace for Drowning, The Raven Who Refused to Sing, and Hand. Cannot. Erase. Early on, his music was under the influence of Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, and an assortment of psychedelic drugs. Just try Voyage 34 and On the Sunday of Life if you'd really like a taste. You'll soon find it's one not easily acquired. I don't mean to take away from the quality of his work, though. Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson began to shift their musical style into albums that featured more focused songwriting and tighter arrangements. That part of their catalogue starts with Stupid Dream, which is just excellent. The music gets only better from that point. It's my favorite point of their career, featuring brilliant albums like Lightbulb Sun, the quintessential breakup album, In Absentia, a story told from a kidnapping necrophiliac's point of view, Deadwing, which muses on the nature and many facets of death itself, Fear of a Blank Planet, a sort of twenty-first century coda to OK Computer, and The Incident, an epic in which a woman escapes from a poisonous, dangerous religious cult.

 (My favorite PT album.)

(My favorite Steven Wilson so far. Still have to listen to the others, however.)


Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree, to me, are like a fusion of Radiohead and Rush. They've got Radiohead's particularly British pessimism about modern technological trends and Rush's complexity and thoughtfulness. When a close friend introduced me to them, I couldn't get enough. I breathed, ate, and slept Porcupine Tree albums for four solid months two years ago and now that I've met a girl who's a much bigger fan of them than I could ever hope to be, I'm doing it all over again.

Hand. Cannot. Erase. is a concept album based on the disappearance of Joyce Carol Vincent. Her family and friends loved her, but somehow, they managed not to miss her for three years in which she quite literally wasted away inside her apartment and died. This concept is perfect for Steven Wilson's lyrical and musical style as he is one of the artists who are the most effective at portraying intense loneliness. The album sees the character puttering about in her apartment and reminiscing about intensely emotional days long gone by. The most poignant song in that vein would have to be "Perfect Life," which shows her remembering a time when she spent a few months with a girl three years her senior. The lyrics are so haunting:

She was 3 years older than me,
But in no time we became friends.

We'd listen to her mix tapes,
Dead Can Dance, Felt, This Mortal Coil.

She introduced me to her favorite books,
Gave me clothes, and my first cigarette.

For a few months everything about our lives was perfect.
It was only us. We were inseparable

But gradually, she passed into another distant part of my memory,
Until I could no longer remember her face, her voice, even her name.

The way I enjoy music is that I make it a part of my life. Music, for me, becomes a conduit for me to remember how I felt at certain parts of my life. It's always a highly emotional experience for me. Put simply, music is my time machine, and it can take me anywhen I like. I've got playlists that take me back in time to the beautiful dreams and terrible nightmares from years ago and then playlists that fling me into the future. I don't often spend much time in the present when it comes to music. And, yes, it's something that I've been working on. I will argue, however, that we are our memories and our potential. I'm very in touch with my emotions in the past and the present.

So the way I'm connecting to Hand. Cannot. Erase. is through my healing from the damage Madeleine caused to my heart. Music has always been one of the strongest positive forces in my life for as long as I can remember. Film scores like those from Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and Children of Dune helped me survive the cruel trials of high school and then Rush came along while I was in college and swept me away for good. Radiohead and Everclear took me by the hand and led me through the darkness while I was going to school in an alienating city far from home, and U2 never failed to remind me that it was going to be okay.

So, too, will Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson help me heal. And especially Hand. Cannot. Erase. in this case. "Perfect Life" doesn't exactly bring me back to the hazy summer I spent with Madeleine; it's more a part of my ongoing reflection of how those events unfolded and the way I feel about them now. She and I did share our favorite books. We talked endlessly and drank together on summer nights that were so full that it was exactly like getting far too much of a good thing. For those few months our lives were indeed perfect. We were practically inseparable. I thought I was living the perfect life.

My new friend, the girl who loves Porcupine Tree more than I, shared her feelings about what the phrase "hand cannot erase" means to her. It's stuck with me ever since that night. She said:

"A hand cannot erase many things. Love, hate, pain, happiness. Yet... It can contribute to
 such feelings. The song is about lovers either covering up they don't truly care, or slowly
 drifting apart...a hand can inspire such feelings, but never erase them."

I listened to the album a few more times after she said that, and the more I turned the phrase over in my head, the more I realized how right she was. Though I loved Madeleine for a long time before she touched my hand the night she wanted us to get closer to each other, the days when I could finally, fully express those feelings to her began at that very moment. Her hand inspired those feelings, but my hand cannot erase them.

Hand cannot erase this love.

Neither could she, despite how mightily she tried. There are very few things your hand can erase, like dry erase markings on a white board. Maybe some pencil markings on a surface. But love, if it's truly and intensely and honestly felt, can never be erased. A human hand is capable of starting and building a great many things and even destroying them, too. But it can never truly erase anything. "Hand Cannot Erase" just shows how weak a human being is in the throes of love, for better and for worse. Love is far more powerful than we'll ever truly understand. And that's what's still killing me. I'm getting better, but there's nothing I'll ever be able to do to erase the love I had for Madeleine completely from my heart and my life.


A love like this makes us strong.

That line has helped me realize that I don't regret giving her as much love as I did. Someone told me a long time ago that feeling guilty about having loved someone isn't right. You felt those feelings at the time and they were real and nothing and no one can ever take that away from you. Even though it hurts like a bitch, it's not wrong. I believe that's true because having loved and been burned from loving someone makes us deeper and stronger for the next person, who hopefully is far more deserving of our love.

Bruised and burned,
We won't lose heart
Just because 
Life gets hard.

There There (I'm Going Nowhere)

Fellow Radiohead nerds will recognize the reference and then sigh. As well they should.

I watched a few films that helped the words fall into place for what I promised I'd write the other day. But we'll get to that later.

I took it upon myself to watch a few romance/relationship dramas on Netflix over the past few days. I watched Perfect Sense, starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, which is set in an unusual end-of-the-world scenario where all humans lose their senses one by one. The romantic leads undergo relationship crises that are pretty honest and those events unfold against the backdrop of a world that struggles mightily against the end of civilization itself. It's pretty much my kind of movie. Obviously.

I also saw Comet, which depicts another apocalypse, but on a much smaller scale. It stars Justin Long and Emmy Rossum (gorgeous, witty, hilarious, and real), and though the scope is smaller in comparison to Perfect Sense, the way the world the two leads have created for each other still faces a heart-rending annihilation. [spoilers] Seeing Dell's (Justin Long) world literally falling apart because he comes so close to losing Kimberly (Emmy Rossum) forever made me appreciate my friendships and the depth of actual love [end spoilers]. It's one I'd definitely see again.

Did I mention that I really like Emmy Rossum?

Oh yes.
 
The best one I saw, though, didn't have any science fiction motifs. Odd, right? It's this movie:

Copenhagen has a strange premise: [more spoilers] a jerkwad man-child from America goes touring around in Europe in search of his grandfather, ends up traveling alone because of his winning personality, and then runs into a fourteen-year-old Danish girl who, through her uncanny wisdom and maturity, gets him to finally grow up. The acting could not be better and the film made me care very much for the main characters, even though the male lead starts out being as horrible as a twenty-eight year old asshole can be. The fact that the film is set in a foreign country won me over almost immediately. I'm a huge sucker for romances abroad. Cases in point: Life is Beautiful, Like Crazy, and now Copenhagen. I can't help myself. The best part about Copenhagen's story arc is that it leaves what will happen to the two leads up to the viewer's imagination [no more spoilers]. The ending refuses to be feel-good in the everyday manner that many romance films usually are. The ending made me think about my own personal growth and it showed me even more about strong love can really be. It instantly became one of my favorite movies of all time. And I'd love to watch it with a good, honest, sweet, and kind girl someday.

 In each of these three movies, the characters do everything they can to be there for their lovers--even when they get upset, hurt each other, and leave for a while. None of these movies depicts perfect relationships, and there's a healthy helping of that good ol' human suffering that comes with love. I don't believe love would be what it is without pain. In "Secret Touch," a song Rush recorded on Vapor Trails, the lyrics say the exact same thing:

You can never break the chain
There is never love without pain

The characters in those movies I mentioned come to learn that in fits and starts and that's when their relationships deepen. And they move continents just to be able to be near each other. That's my take on it, anyway.

So, of course, unfortunately, I have to begin this part by saying that the past relationship I had didn't get to that point. As far as sticking together through pain and hardship, she eventually gave up. And we didn't even last that long. Just like last time, I'll be changing her name because it's the Internet. I'll call her Susan.

Back in September of last year, while I was trying my damnedest to put my feelings for Madeleine away, and failing at it miserably, I suddenly found myself trapped in the intense, blue gaze of a woman with long, brown hair and a curious smile. It was at my college's secular club meeting. I had to talk to her right then. I asked her for her name and whether she liked books. Susan and I were texting each other ridiculous jokes within the day. She threw my world into breathless disarray. I was still working on a huge paper. I wasn't over Madeleine yet and couldn't see an end to the sadness she brought me at that point. And I wasn't sure at all if I wanted to be in another relationship.

So then I did something I had never done in all my time chasing after girls and being in relationships: I made an attempt at being careful. Taking my time. Usually, it takes almost no time for me to fall for a girl and get into a relationship with her when the dominoes really start falling. However, this time, because my heart was in such a state of post-apocalyptic ruin (like in the December entry I wrote), I was reluctant to jump at the chance to get with Susan. I made conscious efforts to avoid touching any part of her and especially to avoid hugging her at any point in our interactions. Though she piqued my curiosity and a significant part of me ached to collapse into her and completely let go, I felt worried and like making up an excuse to get out of her presence because I was so afraid. She has two children and back then, they were part of the reason why I was so afraid of dating her. I didn't see myself as being anything remotely resembling a father figure and I didn't want to waste her time and become just another man in a long line of men who would just disappear from their lives.

But then Halloween came, and I went to a party and saw Susan there. I had come there with Madeleine and her husband and seeing them together crushed me harder than ever. So I got drunk, and before I left the party, I kissed Susan. One week later, just after Madeleine utterly destroyed our friendship forever, I sought comfort in Susan. I could feel the dam beginning to break. A few days after I graduated, she asked me to be her boyfriend--to which I had said no before. Because I wasn't ready. She pressed the issue, however, expressing her fear that we'd slip away from each other because we wouldn't be seeing each other in school any longer. Eventually, I relented. But I still wasn't ready.

There's always a siren
Singing you to shipwreck

Steer away from these rocks
We'd be a walking disaster

Just because you feel it
Doesn't mean it's there

There there!

I let her know from the very beginning that I was still healing and that the process could take a long time. She assured me that she understood and she said, for the first time out of many more times, "I'm going nowhere." She promised she'd stick by me no matter how long it took. I said that she was very sweet and thoughtful for the sentiment and her words, but that I couldn't reasonably expect that of someone at the beginning of a relationship. People have rebounds all the time. I didn't want this thing with Susan to be yet another, but it was doomed to be, despite our efforts. That, right there, is only one of the disastrous effects Madeleine's betrayal had on my life. Her destructive choices reached far and wide and ended up wrecking another relationship, not to mention several other friendships I'd had because I was once friends with her. I have very few friends remaining from my time in college because of Madeleine. I never guessed that she had the potential to poison significant parts of that chapter of my life.

I just realized that I didn't explain what those destructive choices were. Remember when I said that she was having trouble with her husband and that she wanted me to help her by getting closer to her? She was upset and jealous and wanted to feel something, so she used me, knowing very well that I had incredibly intense feelings for her. She knew that I loved her. That I would actually do anything for her. I eventually put it all together: her student visa had run out so she got married to extend her stay in America. Her marriage was critical to her becoming a naturalized citizen, so she stepped on me to ensure its survival. She took the easy route of using me instead of putting forth real effort with her husband to save her marriage. When I wore out my usefulness, it was time for me to go. I have not talked to Madeleine since and I don't plan on doing so at any point in the future, near or distant. In my entire life I have not suffered worse, deeper, and more lasting betrayal.

Now that I've explained that, the reason why Susan and I broke up will make more sense. Just this past summer, Susan and I attended a cookout with a local freethinking group and when she went off into the trees with a friend at the edge of where the party was, I became very worried. I've been with girls who did similar things and it was almost always to go make out or flirt heavily with someone else. I feared Susan was doing just that so I went over to where she was and very clearly put out the message that I didn't trust her. It wasn't her I didn't trust--it was just a reflex left over from repeated injuries from the past. Looking back at how our breakup played out, I believe that was when I lost her.

At that point, she had been putting up with my healing process for over six months and it was then when she decided she'd had enough. After I left to go see a friend up north for a few weeks, she broke up with me over the phone. She said she wasn't happy, and it was for the exact reason I had for turning her down in the first place. An ironic turn, but not a surprising one.

The worst parts about this are that Madeleine is still hurting me more than nine months later and that I won't get to see Susan's kids anymore. I really liked them and could, for once, see myself maybe, possibly, hopefully being some kind of paternal figure for them. And yet.

For once, I'd like to be friends with someone for a while first. I want love more than anything else in this world, but I don't think I can handle being pushed into another relationship again. I'm getting older and that kind of shit is past being tiring. I want to be with someone who gets it. Someone who will actually listen when I say "no." And treat with me with that level of respect.

But now, more than getting into another relationship, I just want a female friend I can hang out with. Someone I can play video games and watch Netflix with. A girl who's up for drinking with me and talking about everything and nothing far into the night. I really don't want too much more than that for the foreseeable future. A girl who would rock out to my Rush albums with me would be heavenly. But I can take living without that for a while.

I'll be as okay as I can be for the time being. I was able to reconnect with a couple of old friends, so that's some better news. Soon I'll have a real job and then I'll start reaching out online to find that new female friend. It can't stay this sad for too long. I'm only twenty-five and there's too much ahead of me.

This is the Heretic and I can learn to close my eyes to anything but injustice. I can learn to get along with all the things I don't know.

And More Than Eight Months Later...

Clearly my blogging habits haven't improved since Xanga.

This would be a problem, of course, if anyone read this at all. And that's what this thing has in common with the old one.

No hard feelings. Not really.

Without the constant pressure of impressing and satisfying adoring fans, I can take as long as I like to put a few words in. So it's not really a problem.

It's not odd for me to wax thoughtful during such late hours as these. Quite a few things have happened despite the fact that my life has decelerated considerably since I graduated from college.

Oh, right. That.

I got my B.A. in English. I'm pretty proud of it and I don't regret any of the effort and time I put into it. I got more than I wanted out of my pursuits and the gifts haven't stopped coming. The conversations I have with my friends whilst analyzing media have been greatly augmented by my education. The gift of critical thinking keeps on giving as well, but the balancing act between descending into deepening shadow and performing the mental gymnastics necessary to continue to look at the world in a positive light is becoming more precarious as I age. So I guess one could call my studious avoidance of the current rat race for president cheating. If he or she wanted to.

That stuff's mostly theater anyway.

I also left Facebook. It was like leaving a loud, bustling party as discreetly as possible, but without telling anyone. I believe that quitting it cold would offer me the most peace. Besides--I was on the last stretch to completing the second version of my Dune paper, and did not need or want one more distraction. Since I haven't bragged enough yet: my professor loved it. It compelled her to read Dune. That made me incredibly happy. I hope she's gotten around to it. I think I'll ask her about it sometime. Preferably after I've secured something more or less resembling an actual job. So I can have something to say about my post-college life that amounts to more than playing Fallout games and binging on Pretty Little Liars for months on end.

I don't hold that those are necessarily bad ways to spend my time. I'm quite tired of our culture's habits of skewing the values of productivity and leisure. In my opinion, life's too short to spend the rest of it dashing from one task to the next, trying to fill up the days with stuff. Stuff that would be deemed by most to be worthy of the time spent. I believe it was Tolkien who said that if we spent more time enjoying good food and laughter than pursuing and counting gold, the world would be a happier place. So, within the limits unfortunately imposed by our capitalistic system, I'm going to try to be happy by doing absolutely what I have to and not much else. What I'd really like to pour my energy into is love. And furthering my personal education by reading, talking with people, and experiencing life. That matters much more to me than amassing a large heap of money. Even though the cost of living continues to increase. The mocking bastard.

But back to the reasons why I left the website that's got the world by the things it Likes. Though I had been suffering from this effect for years, I didn't actually realize it until last fall. Scrolling through the updates from people I went to school with back when Pangaea broke up made me, at best, irritated and at worst, depressed. For many different reasons. Another picture of a baby dressed up in a Star Trek or Dr Who costume? No, thanks. Sigh. You traveled outside of the country and apparently feel the need to post every grinding detail of it? I really don't care. Sigh. There's no way you actually seriously think Wal-Mart is incredible. That notion in itself is incredible. And please stop inviting me to play Castleville with you. And, yes, unfortunately, envy would eventually get the better of me as I scrolled further down into manufactured disappointment with my own life. I learned three things in Social Psychology nearly two years ago:

       1. People like to be liked.
       2. People like to be right.
       3. People want to belong.

And there's nothing wrong with those basic desires. They're fundamental to human existence. But unfortunately, Facebook gives people the tools to go ham on pursuing those three desires and that's where its soul-vacuum flips on. My heart would sink every time I saw another picture of an engagement ring or a bridal veil. The smiling crowds and smooching newlyweds. That news wouldn't have hurt nearly as much as if I'd heard it from someone via word of mouth. It's the kind of situation where I would say "Wow. That's great," and move on with my life. But with Facebook, the party continues with the posting of hundreds of photos that hit the heart like a blast of microscopic flechette rounds. Questions like What am I doing with my life? and Tick tock. Why aren't you married yet? would materialize and flood me with more disappointment. Of course, I could hide such posts, but it was like living in a house with a major ant problem--no matter how much I tried to get rid of them, they just kept coming. And that's something to expect at my age. This is the part of life where many people get married, and that's a fine thing. For them. I hope so, anyway. However, Facebook created feelings of panic and despair that weren't supposed to be there in the first place. So there you are.

Moreover, I saw this girl I went to high school with in the same semester I was sweating over my Dune paper at a department store. As I had not seen her for about four years, I wanted to catch up with her, and when I began to tell her about the things that had happened to me in that time, she stopped me and said something like "Oh, it's okay. I know it all already. I've been checking up on your Facebook." I cannot even begin to describe the revulsion I felt in that moment. What's the point of us even being friends when you're stalking me on Facebook and not even bothering to say something? Maybe I'm still stuck in the twentieth century.

It's kind of funny how fascinated I am with the future, considering that when the real thing manifests itself, I find myself utterly alienated. This'll bode well for the rest of my life.

People unintentionally (hopefully, for the most part) hurt others by posting their lives' greatest hits on a daily basis. Who knows how many people felt sad about their own lives because I posted about the beginning of a new relationship or a new job? Nothing reminds you that the universe couldn't care less about your life quite like when you really sit down and think about the pointlessness of the whole thing (that thing being Facebook). I hold that we can create meaning in our lives and make it through that way. So, to me, by that point anyway, nothing I or anyone else posted meant a damn thing. When I finally realized that Facebook was doing little else besides standing in the way of my happiness and peace of mind, I had to leave.

Everybody leaves
If they get the chance
And this is my chance

I'll hit the bottom and escape
Hit the bottom and escape
Escape

Gamergate and the two catastrophic breakups I endured last year only exacerbated matters. Again, I could have hidden them too, but their comments on others' pages would still appear and I couldn't handle it. The world has already moved across the street and next door. Facebook squeezed the people who hurt me into my personal space and I wanted no more of it. So I left them there as well. And I'm much more at peace for it.

I filled in for teachers at the middle and high schools in the area to pay for gas, food, and a few Aphex Twin albums here and there up until about June. Settling into the changes in my life proved difficult sometimes. I miss being able to go out to lunch with my friends before my afternoon classes. I miss studying for Shakespeare tests with my desperate classmates. And discussing semiotics and cultural norms around the big table in the conference room in the English Department wing. I had the chance to connect with some very sweet sixth graders while filling in for a science teacher at a middle school, though I had only two days with them. Most of my stint subbing earlier this year consisted of reading at the teacher's desk and occasionally passing out worksheets or tests. The teachers with the good classes are very lucky.

I began my long return journey into fantasy reading by devouring The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss and now I'm rereading The Fellowship of the Ring. I plan to finish the rest of The Lord of the Rings, to read The Magicians by Lev Grossman, possibly read Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe, and then begin the Harry Potter books again. Some days it's hard to abide my science fiction books' languishing on the shelves. But don't worry, my pretties--I won't be gone long.

There's one more thing that I probably should mention that would bring us up to date. But what I'm going to say hasn't come together yet. I need the right words to fall into place first.

This Heretic is getting a bit drowsy cruising the shadowy, neon-lit streets in The Sprawl of cyberspace. I wanted to make some kind of cyberpunk reference, but seeing as how that fell on its face is evidence that I'm running on fumes. I'll be back relatively soon.

Post-Apocalyptic Ruins

Sorry about not delivering on my promise to write about why I love Chiastic Slide and LP5. It's been more than five months since I've updated. It seems that the habits I had at my old Xanga haven't really left: promising to write things and then taking months and months to say that I won't really be doing that at all. And, of course, who could forget--writing about my relationship woes? But we'll get to that in time.

However, like I said in the first entry, I will definitely still be reacting to and sharing the media that I've been consuming. Lately I've found myself drawn to the post-apocalyptic genre of fiction and other media. All throughout this year I have been reading young adult dystopian fiction and listening to very spare and empty-sounding music. And, of course, a good bit of apocalyptic fiction and sci fi. This year, I read: the Hunger Games trilogy, Feed by M.T. Anderson, Article 5 by Kristen Simmons, Free to Fall by Lauren Miller, Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, The Postman by David Brin, The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, The Dog Stars by Peter Heller, and then Uglies and Pretties by Scott Westerfeld, the latter of which I'm getting close to finishing. I've still got Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven on loan from the library.

Of those I particularly enjoyed The Hunger Games, Feed, The Scarlet Plague, and The Dog Stars. I liked the first two books so much that I included them in a paper that I wrote for my Young Adult Literature class in the previous semester. They're both such excellently written commentaries and criticisms on our media-overloaded present society. They do what sci-fi does best: extrapolate on certain trends, project them into the future, and let them play out on that stage to show us where and who we could be if we let them continue. The Hunger Games shows just how Orwellian our society could become via the magic of television and advanced surveillance technology. Feed, now one of my favorite books, presents an America that has rotted from the inside out due to capitalism. The environment lies in smoking ruins, the animals have moved into the cities, and the rest of the world's countries look on in shock and disgust at what the United States has become--and all the while, every single person is distracted by gee-whiz technological gewgaws. That should seem eerily familiar.

The Scarlet Plague and The Dog Stars deal with slightly different premises. They deal more directly with the end of civilization itself. Jack London's novel is one of the first official post-apocalyptic novels, like Mary Shelley's The Last Man. It's rather short, but so vivid in its description of the utter destruction that the plague wreaks on San Francisco. The Dog Stars deals with the same premise, but it focuses on a man who flies a plane in order to patrol around the lands adjacent to the airport where his ally and dog live. The perspective offered in this book is much more personal. Obviously, there's a theme of loss in much of the post-apocalyptic genre--loss of the human population, loss of modern conveniences, loss of societal structure and government to name a few. But the main character deals with having lost his wife and others in his life. I would say more, but I couldn't spoil the novel. It's really quite beautiful, but not without the grit and resounding emptiness that will remind a reader of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which is another incredible novel. I'm going to get myself a copy of The Dog Stars sometime. I'd definitely love to read it again.

In my last entry I wrote a lot about Autechre and their far-future, mechanical soundscapes. In fact, I'm currently listening to "Leterel" from their third album, Tri Repetae. It sounds to me like a lonely robot trundling through the empty streets of a giant, ruined city. The mechanical whooshing and clacking suggest the robot's movement and the warm, sad ambience behind it makes me think of faded and tattered billboards, rusted cars and buses, extensively cracked pavement on the streets, fallen skyscrapers and their steel frames sticking out like the bones of giants. On their Garbage EP, which came with my copy of Tri Repetae, are "Bronchusevernmx24" and "Vletrmx21," sonic sisters of "Leterel," exuding eerie emptiness and a vague, distant pang of loss that is centuries, perhaps millennia old. Another electronic album in the same vein that I've been listening to is Dead Cities by The Future Sound of London (FSOL), another one of my favorite electronic groups. This album more obviously deals with the post-apocalyptic theme. It provides a very interesting contrast to Lifeforms, the major FSOL album that came out before it. Where Lifeforms is literally exploding with bizarre, busy, alien life, Dead Cities wanders through the empty world that humans leave behind after destroying themselves. I say that they destroy themselves due to the fact that two of the tracks on the album, "Herd Killing" and "We Have Explosive," hint at it pretty heavily. I got into FSOL almost two years ago. I listened to Lifeforms a great deal, collected its adjacent EPs, and then listened to Dead Cities and its EPs nearly once every day, especially while at work. Happy stuff listening to the ruins of civilization rotting away while washing dishes and pushing garbage around. I'm a weird kid.

After writing that, I just realized how much I haven't actually shared on this. On my Xanga, I used to do that a lot more. Looking back at it almost puts me right back where I was, but other times I feel like I shared way too much. After all, what you post online never goes away, regardless if it's innocuous comments on some forum or nudes. On that note, I've been quite careful about avoiding providing the latter. Fortunately.

But before I get to that, I should explain why I'm so interested in the post-apocalyptic genre. Why are the ruins so appealing to me? Why am I so fascinated with the collapse of civilization and the drastic decrease of the human population? Maybe it's my introverted nature looking for some damn peace and quiet. I think I can safely say that the genre's recent increase in popularity has had some influence. I've been thinking about this and talking about it with others for a while, and I've found that immersing myself in these dark, bleak futures is a way for me to work out and find comfort with my own loneliness and loss. And it's a way for me to explore my more pessimistic ideas of the future. I hope that the human species will go on and evolve as it travels through the universe more than most things--please don't get me wrong. I guess, though, growing up has changed me somewhat and my fascination with this genre has taken up residence next to my love for science fiction featuring more hopeful futures. This would also explain why I love Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon so much. It combines both of those parts of my science fiction worldview, projecting the evolution of humans two billion years into the future. Our species does indeed progress, but not without being beaten back by disease and war multiple times. No matter how many times civilization collapses, though, the humans still find a way forward.

I worry a great deal about the future, possibly more than I should. Not just about where and with whom I'll be, but also about the general state of the world. I wonder often whether I'll be living in a future similar to the post-apocalyptic books I've read. I sincerely hope not. Having witnessed the damage a tornado caused in the town where I live brought me very close, and I would really prefer not to have to experience that ever again. My experience with this genre so far has shown me that it really does not take all that much to knock over this house of cards that humans have built. In respect to the entire 250,000 years that our version of humans has existed, the last dark age is uncomfortably recent. It also reminds me that nothing is permanent, not civilization, and certainly not even relationships, regardless of what sort.

Which would finally bring me to what I've been putting off until now. A considerable part of the "loss" I've been working out by traveling through these emptied worlds is related to the last couple of relationships I've had. One mistake from Xanga that I'm not repeating is using the real names of people I've had relationships with, so I'll change them for the purposes of this blog. And to decrease the amount of embarrassment that may or may not find these people. Just like before, I'm writing to help exorcise these feelings, but this time I'll be more careful.

Sometime in August of last year, I met a girl who worked with me and got closer to her in the following months. I'll call her Zoe. I found her nerdiness and warm, trust-inspiring features to be very attractive. I arranged for her to move in with me to help with the complications in her life. I shared my friends with her and took her to school. This relationship somewhat mirrored one I had a few years before that, but that's way too old to talk about here. Zoe seemed wonderful. She appeared to be very accepting, understanding, and unassuming. However, as in any situation like this, one really gets to know someone once they spent a great deal of time with them. And, following suit, I began to see the cracks in her brilliantly crafted facade. As spring came, her own self-loathing became a bludgeon that struck me every time she had an outburst. On many occasions Zoe pushed me to tears, even when I tried to help her. We came very close to breaking up at least twice. Later, I found out that she was still in love with someone else and that was the final straw. I kicked her out of my house and then out of my life. My friends told me that she had talked to them behind my back about me and that seriously devastated me. I cut off all communication with her and walked out of my job without looking back. There were a few good memories, but the keen sense of betrayal and loss of trust overwhelm those. I have not heard from her since and hope that I never do again.

Unfortunately, the relationship with Zoe wasn't the only one that would fail this year. I entered an intimate relationship with a girl I'd been friends with for years. I will call her Madeleine. When I first met her, she bowled me over with her beauty, intellect, and kindness. I wanted her instantly. I can't describe her with too many details as it hurts too much and would not be wise on this entry. It will suffice to say that she became one of the closest friends I've ever had and one of the most important women in my whole life. My love for Madeleine only grew from that day forward, even though she was already in a relationship and I had to bury my desire for her. Moving away to college in Atlanta and getting involved with other girls helped that a great deal, but my love endured regardless.

This past summer, though, she was having problems with her partner and wanted to do something to alleviate the pain, to offset the effects those problems had on her. So one night she revealed her true feelings to me and bowled me over again. My head swam with the sheer improbability of what had happened. I couldn't believe it for a while. Not much later, she told me that she wanted us to be closer than we had ever been. I was reluctant, but she said that we had her partner's blessing. At the time, it seemed like I had a golden opportunity to be with her. Madeleine and I unearthed the deep feelings I had for her and I took a great risk. That summer she and I made some of the most beautiful memories in my life.

My last semester at college began and things changed. Her partner didn't want us to be close anymore and she had to hold up her end of the compromise. Which put me out in the cold. The feelings we had for each other were too strong to ignore and because of that, we held on to each other despite the changes in our situation. Just a few weeks ago, the last breakdown in a series of breakdowns that I had been experiencing over her ended things right then and there. I left her house without saying goodbye.

Through the storm we reach the shore
You gave it all but I want more

I can't live with or without you

I know she regrets what she did because she told me so again and again. I just wouldn't acknowledge it until it was too late. If I ever forgive her for what she did, it won't be for a long time. I don't know if our friendship can survive this. Time will be the ultimate judge of that.

Well I can see what you mean
It just takes me longer

I can do what you do
You just do it better
And I can cry like you cry
It just makes me sadder

It's really not easy to look up after all this. However, my life is about to change again: I'm graduating soon and that means I'll be doing some real grown-up work not too long after. I can only hope that the new routines and challenges can distract me enough. Knowing how much my mind churns, though, I'm not too confident of that. At least I deal with these things head-on. I can't imagine what it's like for people who run from issues like this.

As always, thank you to those of you who made it to the end of this. I'll be back sometime to reflect on more things.