the girl vs. the cat

It wasn't until hours after I got home from HORSE GIRL'S farm that I stopped to ponder her dumping me. At first I didn't even care to ask why. But as the intense sadness caused by the death of Stone wore off, a mild anger took its place; I'd only been dumped one other time in my life and I wanted to know why it was happening again. I called and left a message on her machine.

Last night, after playing a show with Quintron and my DJ friends, and having a great time at new World Brewery hanging out with Karolina, I came home to an email from HORSE GIRL, explaining why she'd broken up with me.

HORSE GIRL recently moved back to the Bay Area from Washington DC, where she lived with her boyfriend of four years. She expressed to me that she moved partly to get away from the relationship. She has been here about two months, we dated for a little over a month. In the midst of our seemingly happy burgeoning relationship, her ex-boyfriend is coming to visit. So I'm out.

I have a tendency to invest in admirable women hard and fast, blind, just for the rush of the passion. It so often ends in such a big, beautiful, heartbreaking wreck that, though HORSE GIRL was a beautiful dream of a woman, I went to her slowly. I even worried she might take my emotional mosey as a sign I would never open up to her. But she so often expressed her admiration for me, that I assumed I was doing OK. The breakup was very much a surprise for me, which probably just means I wasn't observant enough.

Two days before, she had told me she wished I kissed her more often. Why would she encourage me to come closer, to more fully give myself to her, when she planned to set me aside like a plastic cup at a keg party ("Hey, will you guys watch my drink while I go pee?"). Thankfully I did not kiss her more.

I imagine how I'd feel right now if I had given in and touched her, kissed her, loved her more. I would have crumbled had I gotten used to her comfort and support and love. If I had invested in her, only to find out I was a temp, something to distract her from her real life, I would have been devastated. Right now, I am merely disgruntled and suspicious.

Early on during the day, before our break-up, she commented that I looked vulnerable in my sadness. She noticed: I wonder how that played everything.

And I wonder how long ago she found out about her boyfriend's visit? And why she waited until the day before he came (the day my cat died) to tell me I would no longer be needed. It seems she should have let me go sooner, or later, if just for appearance sake. Maybe she felt she needed a superficial replacement right up until she met him at the airport. I suppose I relate to that.

But this, my second time being left by a woman, was not very painful. Just disappointing in that I was a merely an appendage to a situation in other people's lives: "some guy (I, she) went out with for the short time we were broken up." It disappoints me that I could spend so much time with someone and still not be treated with special consideration. I guess everyone would like to think that their own unique hue of gold blinds and mesmerizes anyone exposed to it.

But the dichotomy of love today (at least as I've experienced it) is that when you are smitten in an instant, sleep together in a week, and love each other by the first month, it's relatively easy to let go. Because, despite the seeming closeness, you've often managed to somehow remain strangers.

But I will not let this embitter me. I have examples wherein people see my worth. Some people have valued me. Some women have shared themselves with me and recognized that in some cultures, that constitutes a bond worthy of special care. This time I was merely a distraction. But I will not hesitate to throw myself into another relationship with irresponsible, passionate abandon, next time I feel the urge.

I came home yesterday on my lunch break and made a little gravestone for Stone. Someone at work told me that other animals would dig him up if I didn't.

I cried and painted, "STONE --- 95 to 00 --- we will miss you" on a flat rock in the Friendship Garden. I think that's it. No more crying.

I get carried away with crying. I'm not sure how healthy it is, but I almost enjoy crying as much as laughing. The catharsis of wordless, unambiguous expression: I get so fucking sick of words.

So, especially in situations like the death of a pet, when crying is a valid release (as oppose to say, crying when I'm dumped, which I feel silly and guilty for), I just go until it's gone. Till I'm dry. My appreciation for crying is crazy so I'm stopping it now, even though Stone deserves my tears more than most of the people and things I've cried for.

I feel guilty for his death, valid or not. Until he came to me less than a year ago, he was an indoor cat. But after one afternoon in the paradise of the Friendship Garden, he was lost to his wild instincts. From then on, he cried to go outside in a high, annoying voice like air escaping the stretched end of a balloon. You couldn't ignore him and he wouldn't stop until you let him out. I often yelled at him to shut up. I wish I hadn't yelled.

I knew he would eventually die outside; I told him that often. But I always considered it his choice. I always thought that, if he would have had the faculties to make a choice, he'd have chosen a short, exciting life in the Friendship Garden over a long lazy life in my small apartment. He would have risked his life for freedom. He was very very happy in the garden. Much happier than when he lived indoors with my EX GIRLFRIEND. But I still feel guilty for introducing him to the dangers of freedom.

My EX-GIRLFRIEND doesn't yet know he died. If she knew, she would blame me, accuse me of irresponsibility. It's her voice I hear in my head now, when I blame myself for Stone's death.

If she did accuse me, I would most likely vehemently deny responsibility for his death, exhaustingly defend myself, and in the end, the sound of my own voice would have talked me out of any trace of guilt. Overcompensation is magic.

Several times I have urged MY EX-GIRLFREIND'S SISTER to tell MY EX about Stone dying. I told her to email her, call her, you have to tell her. I felt such a strong desire to let her know her cat had died that I questioned whether it wasn't coming from some malicious place: some desire to inflict pain on her. I don't think that's it, but I backed off, just in case.

I'm never getting another cat unless I live on a farm myself.

As soon as I finished burying Stone, I came upstairs and cried and wrote about him. I would like to close the end of this eulogy with an excerpt from that unpublished diary entry. A thank you to my downstairs neighbor THE PERFORMER'S GIRLFRIEND who cried with me when I found Stone"

The neighbor girl downstairs was around when I found the body, stretched out and melting in the wet garden. She cried.

For 20 minutes I stood leaning on the shovel, 20 yards from the body, wondering how I could go through with it. "I can't look at him," I spit and snotted. The neighbor girl volunteered and for a second it seemed feasible to let her dig the hole: I would have done it for her if it meant she didn't have to look at the body. No one should be forced to stare at their rotted loved one for the half an hour it takes to dig a death hole.

But I pictured her boyfriend's face when he came home and she told him that she buried my cat because I was too emotional, too wrecked."