2002-10-24 - 2:42 a.m.

It's always hard to write something here whenever something huge goes down between myself and the (ex).

I'm always tempted to write about it, but of course I won't (and, yeah, I feel bad about breaking several of my rules two entries ago, but it's something that happened, so it's staying up).

I'm also tempted to write about something arbitrary that happened to me that day, or some random thought that recently occurred to me, but of course I can't do anything light, due to the gravity of the situation.

So what to do? Something like this, I guess--offer up some kind of cosmic shrug to the world--do some meta-writing, I guess.

Still, it's kinda like an art student out of ideas, submitting a blank canvas and calling it essence of nothingness, or something else similarly pretentious.

I should probably be a man about all this, but it's uncharted territory, and it takes so much goddamn effort.

It sucks that we�re all, each of us, alone in the world when it comes to pretty much everything. It sucks that all of us can�t see into the future, or at least have concrete images of each potential path, could know the equal and opposite reaction to each potential decision, mistake, venture, or drawn breath.

If it was just me, I could kinda look up to people and figure it all out. I could mimic the techniques of the successful and avoid the mistakes of the hopeless.

But you take anyone who just makes mistake after mistake after mistake--that person is almost guaranteed to have a good heart. And we all know that people who always make the right decisions are almost always out for themselves, be they execs, or moralists that feel good about themselves for giving change to the homeless, or old ladies who have, for their entire lives, never put themselves in a position where they would have to actually decide whether or not they would, under uber-grey area circumstances, choose evil.

And not every moment is an experiment. But some are, and those are the scary ones.

That�s why I try to stay safe. Conservative. As much as I love people who take chances, as much as I crush on people who aren�t afraid of anything, as much as I idolize people that do what they want to do, when they want to do it, I can�t. I really can�t. I�ll never.

I�m all talk.

I�d like to have said every moment is an experiment, which would have made sense. I mean, it just sounds good. But it�s not true. It�s like something you stick on your fridge, or more accurately, a weird leftist political e-mail you receive, don�t delete, promise yourself you�ll read later on, and then, three days later, delete.

Frankly I�m terrified of being the guy from Sam Coomes� waltz:

I mean, imagine that? To have done something so totally fucked up that you ruined the entire rest of your life? And that moment, when you realize it?

I�m telling you--if you don�t do anything, this cannot happen to you.

Yeah, you might waste your entire life, but you�ll never have to go through the hell of living the rest of your life with that one thing hanging over your head forever and ever and ever. To forever own that one horrible thing, to have it define who you are.

Like our old friend mongmaster, I�ve been thinking about evil lately. Just yesterday, I ranked everyone at work in terms of how evil they are. Not in terms of how much I hate or like them personally, mind you, but in terms of how much actual evil is inside of them. The best and the worst were pretty apparent, and the intellectual exercise of ranking them was amusing, but not very challenging. The middle part, comparing one relatively evil-free person vs. another, was very difficult. C. (from work) and I were right in the middle of the spectrum of evil, and I was playing the game with her, which added another (political) level of difficulty to the exercise.

I decided that the best tie breaker would be which one would sell out the other first? Of course, I lost that one--of course I�d sell her out if it came to my own skin. Of course, she�d sell me out too, but I would crack first, and both of us agreed on this.

Isn�t that the best way to figure out how evil someone is? You should play it (by yourself, probably) and think about your friends in any given circle.

I dunno--should I wrap this up? I�m really trying to establish myself here as someone who is terrified of the consequences of any major action, lest they work against me, or cause another any sort of pain. I�m also more evil than probably about half of the people on this planet, and that�s a liberal estimate.

So what�s the point?

Actually, I�m glad I asked. I used to read the comics in the Boston Globe every day when I was a kid. And, yeah, a teenager. I still would if there was a paper (not the Metro!) handy. I dunno, I mean, back then, I read other parts of the paper too, but I never missed the comics. I even read Garfield, just so I could hate Garfield a little bit more, each and every day.

And I loved Zippy. But I never really got it. That was OK, though. I knew that there was something there, and I knew that, given time, I�d get it. One week, and for the entire week, Bill Griffith (the cartoonist), ran a series called �How To Understand Zippy.� I cut each column out and studied them, and all of a sudden, I got Zippy.

I know I ain�t no Zippy, but it would probably help everyone I know if I explained myself more. Again, there�s the effort thing, as well as the trying to tell your dad why you like rock n� roll kinda embarrassment factor (not that I�m trying to compare my friends to my dad, it�s the idea of fruitishly going on and on about your feelings and emotions around someone who probably cares very little about what you�re saying or why you�re saying it).

I dunno I dunno I dunno. Maybe I�m destined to be Peter Pan for the rest of my life. Maybe everything I do, despite opposite intentions, makes every thing worse and worser and still more worse.

But I haven�t killed anyone yet!

So I�m still gonna write here.

I�m really sad that the (ex) is going to stop her diary project. Yeah, I guess I�ll talk about that now. I kinda have to--the window of opportunity to communicate with her about this is quickly winnowing, and I should probably just say some things.

And yeah, that�s a problem I have. Oh--I�m busy at work, and there�s too much to say. Any e-mail I send to her would have to be at least twenty pages--I can�t just send her

Don�t worry about it, dudeski. Everything�s chill..

So I�ll say here, cause this forum, this diary podium, this serene village I can visit nightly, which turns ugly every full moon, is often how we communicate with each other. Sick or healthy--you be the judge. Remember, we can�t see our paths.

So I�ll say here that I�m sad that the (ex) isn�t showing us all what she can do anymore.

I mean, it�s sad. It�s just fucking sad.

And I feel terrible, �cause it had to do with something I said.

See what happens?

So, yeah, maybe I could have been a man and maybe I could have voiced my just concerns, eons ago, in a more mature way.

But maybe, if I did, the (ex) would have written her diary just like mine--poignant observation every now and then, kinda worth reading, but in the end, a historical example of an above-average diary at the very moment that on-line diaries were just starting to become a part of mass-culture.

Dude--the (ex), and her saga? She was on fire when she was writing that thing. Who was I to fucking stand in the way and say as an admirer of creativity, you�re writing is very good, but as someone you love, I simply must order you to stop, because it occasionally hurts my feelings?

I mean, what�s more evil? I think we all know the answer, and I�m glad I chose the route that was less evil-ridden.

There�s no way I could impose my if you can�t say anything nice, don�t say anything at all rule there, and I don�t think that, if I had put my foot down, anything would have changed in that regard--just gotten more hostile.

And yeah, Anna, I know it was a big deal and all, but I pretty much consider this matter blown over, don't you? If anything, it proves that you can�t spend six years with someone and then have it just go away.

I don't think you should give up your diary, either. I mean, it's really healthy for you to have one, I think, and it makes you happy. Yeah, sometimes you say some things that might upset folks, or me, but people do that all the time, with or without diaries.

I thought your saga was just that--a self-absorbed and scandal-ridden, oft-ironic, oft-melodramatic foray into the depths of your psyche, combined with the backdrop of your own personal history. It was certainly riveting for you to write, and for others to follow, and of course for me, some of it was tough to swallow.

But I enjoyed reading it, and regard it as one of the major works of Anna who I am very privileged to have actually met.

Your diary on the whole, is a work. I mean it. It�s a medium you�ve settled into very well, and in such short time. You�re really fucking good at it, too (jealous), and it would really be a shame if you abandoned it �cause you couldn�t think of a better form of penance, like talking over beers.

I don�t think that it�s necessary to stop doing something that you�re truly supposed to be doing because you inadvertently, perhaps carelessly, hurt someone you love. And especially when that person inadvertently and carelessly hurts people all the time.

And especially giving up something you love over something I wrote. I said what I did say because, at the time, I thought that it needed to be have been said, and perhaps in just that way, at the very least in that way because it�s apropos to the way I operate.

Build, build, build. Scared to talk about the issues. Hope my good example will set the tone. Passive-aggressive. Ignore the problems and hope they fly away like pigeons you don�t feed. Offer it up.

That�s just my style. Play it right for a long time and the world will eventually change for you. It never does, and you know it never will, but at least it�s not an evil way of going about things.

That�s why I never replied, here, to any of your entries that dealt specifically about me.

And of course I wanted you to have your space. We all owe that to each other. You needed to write that shit down. You needed it to be heard by people. That�s you. That�s fine. Sometimes, what you wrote bothered me, and I wanted to defend myself, but I honestly felt, and still feel, that stepping in the middle of someone�s creative process is just plain goddamn wrong.

If I did that, I�d be Ike, and you�d be Tina, and nobody wants that.

Of course, what you�re going through isn�t just about me--gotta remind myself every now and then to put the ol� ego through the pencil sharpener--file down the dull tip, decrease the size of the pencil.

Let�s meet for coffee in the morning or beer in the evening. Talk--that�s gotta happen. I�m not upset with you--I was upset at the moment with something you did, that you did at the moment too.

I dunno--it�s kinda weird--I almost wanna meet up with you to make you feel better about whatever asshat that made you feel bad in the first place.