The New York Times has a fascinating article on romantic love. It particularly caught my interest because of an analogy I made almost a month ago:

It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.

The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers.

"When you're in the throes of this romantic love it's overwhelming, you're out of control, you're irrational, you're going to the gym at 6 a.m. every day - why? Because she's there," said Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and the co-author of the analysis. "And when rejected, some people contemplate stalking, homicide, suicide. This drive for romantic love can be stronger than the will to live."

[...]

In a follow-up experiment, Dr. Fisher, Dr. Aron and Dr. Brown have carried out brain scans on 17 other young men and women who recently were dumped by their lovers. As in the new love study, the researchers compared two sets of images, one taken when the participants were looking at a photo of a friend, the other when looking at a picture of their ex.

Although they are still sorting through the images, the investigators have noticed one preliminary finding: increased activation in an area of the brain related to the region associated with passionate love. "It seems to suggest what the psychological literature, poetry and people have long noticed: that being dumped actually does heighten romantic love, a phenomenon I call frustration-attraction," Dr. Fisher said in an e-mail message.

One volunteer in the study was Suzanna Katz, 22, of New York, who suffered through a breakup with her boyfriend three years ago. Ms. Katz said she became hyperactive to distract herself after the split, but said she also had moments of almost physical withdrawal, as if weaning herself from a drug.

"It had little to do with him, but more with the fact that there was something there, inside myself, a hope, a knowledge that there's someone out there for you, and that you're capable of feeling this way, and suddenly I felt like that was being lost," she said in an interview.

And no wonder. In a series of studies, researchers have found that, among other processes, new love involves psychologically internalizing a lover, absorbing elements of the other person's opinions, hobbies, expressions, character, as well as sharing one's own. "The expansion of the self happens very rapidly, it's one of the most exhilarating experiences there is, and short of threatening our survival it is one thing that most motivates us," said Dr. Aron, of SUNY, a co-author of the study.

If I had to pick the ten longest days in my entire life, two of them would be December 27th and December 28th, 2000. That was the day that things with Audrey came to a crashing halt and while they weren't entirely over, nothing was going to be the same again. Not for her and not for me. I was less than two weeks out of my relationship with Anna. Over the course of those two weeks I'd lost two futures. To be frank, I wasn't concerned about Anna. The day after things were over with Anna I allowed myself unrestricted emotion for Audrey. A couple days after that... things started to fall apart. It took almost a week for them to completely unravel.

It was unfortunately Christmas break at the time. Other than work I had nothing to be doing. I tried to sleep for hours on end. I wanted to go to bed and wake up when I would be over it. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way and sometimes you have to suffer through it. It's part of the process of expunging your dreams. It's part of a process of ripping a part of you away - of ripping the spine out of the life you had, lost, and suddenly needed to rebuild.

If I had to pick two more days to be in the ten longest, it would be April 25th and April 26th. A little over a month ago, I was at Applebees making the comparison between December of 2000 and what I was feeling right then. Among other things, it reminded me of one of the Carebear movies I saw when I was young. A little boy trying to learn magic was turned over to the dark side. to represent this, the illustrators put black bags under the eyes of the young man. The shy and timid boy was now brash and evil.

That's how I felt. Anger. Bitterness. Instead of being the product of some evil magic book's evil deeds, it was the product of fear. I hadn't realized how much of my life had been revolving around the cigarettes. I figured that since I was down to a few a day anyhow that I was 90% there. I figured that since last year in Florida I managed to go an entire week without a cigarette, without going crazy, and without much in the way of physical withdrawal symptoms (day three and four are a bit tough, but some advil and ephedra always did the trick).

But what I didn't realize was that the difference between quitting for a little while and quitting permanently is the difference between leaving your lover for a week on a business trip and moving out. It's different entirely. The cigarette during break at work had somehow become a part of my coping with the every day stresses of work. The victory cigarette after work was the bridge between work and play. I'd used them to digest food, to pontificate, and to relax. It wasn't a matter of numbers, as I'd previously thought, it was a matter of having that escape. It was a matter of her being home when I got there... even if we weren't ineracting nonstop when I did.

Just as in late 2000, the days were dragging on forever. The stresses of work - in both cases - were suddenly a welcome relief from the haunting ghost in the back of my head and the fear that it would consume me. I was afraid to run and I was afraid to confront it all. I knew my life was about to seriously change, which is hard enough, but I didn't have the first clue as to how it was going to change.

And then... and then... things get better. I forget what I really saw in her (temporarily, but that's another story). I find it hard to believe that I was ever a smoker. I do. After a month. It may be the strangest thing I've ever experienced. There are gaping holes in the middle of my day that I have to fill. There are still things I don't know how I'm going to cope with. But as even a little time passes I look back and I laugh at myself. And I shake my head and sigh.

And, oddly, I don't regret a minute of it.

And I hope I never, ever, have to do it again.

The Idaho adventure has had its ups and downs as has the relationship that caused it. Last November she and I had some pretty serious discussions in which we firmly established that we were not ready to take it to the next level. It was kind of weird because I was expecting to be by that point. Then something happened in December and a chain that had been attached to my ankle came undone. Over late December and January there was something of a sea change in our relationship. While there were circumstances that lead up to its beginning, nothing can explain exactly how it happened. But by the end of January, I was starting to feel ready.

There were only a couple of things I still had to do, both involving a trip down to Texas. The homecoming tour of Texas was everything I needed it to be and while down there I picked up the engagement ring - a family heirloom - and brought it back to Idaho with me. I wasn't sure exactly when I was going to do it, but I knew it would either involve Montana, Wyoming, or Utah.

Camille and I first met in Oklahoma, first kissed in Texas, first said "I love you" in Florida, and got started in Idaho. I wanted to add another state to "the list" (a sentiment not lost on her). When we started planning a trip to West Yellowstone, Montana, I asked her to get a room with high speed Internet if possible. She said that it wasn't that important. I pushed the subject and she started getting a little bit miffed, saying that we weren't going on a nature trip to hang around the hotel and play around on the Internet. Little did I know that she was planning to tell me that she had really felt the "sea change" too and was going to tell me in Yellowstone. But her plans were thwarted when we got to Yellowstone too late and never really had a chance to. My plans were thwarted by the lack of high-speed Internet that she didn't want.

By that point I already knew that I was going to use the web site. Had it not been for the site, I never would have met Kevin and Callie and without meeting them I never would have met Camille. She was also vaguely familiar with my blogging adventures prior to meeting me and thought that I seemed like a pretty cool guy. Using the site seemed appropriate. But that meant that Montana was scrapped.

I didn't want a pixelated proposal. I wanted it to be something personal. I also didn't want anyone seeing the proposal before her. There was also one other issue: while I'd always imagined the traditional on-one-knee proposal, she had said that she thought a discussion was more appropriate than a simple question-and-answer. So I wasn't sure that she would say yes. I was somewhat confident that she would assent in the end, but I didn't want to put the pressure of a public proposal on her.

So I decided that I would use the blog as a set-up and I'd use the posting area of the blog as a tool. I wrote a post of a precise length so that she would have to scroll down twice. When she had to scroll the window down I'd sneak the ring out of my pocket. When she scrolled textbox down (the only line below the scrollbar being the last "please turn around" line) I'd get on one knee as she turned around.

I knew that she was doing a rotation in Salt Lake City. I was reluctant to have Utah, of all states, as a member of our illustrious list. But that reluctance quickly dissipated when I drove down to Salt Lake City and instantly warmed to it. During my first trip down there, Camille was more talkative about "us" issues than usual. She had tried to tell me about her sea change, but I became evasive because I didn't want to have the engagement conversation that I feared she might be leading to. Meanwhile, she was afraid she'd said something wrong.

The following week was a difficult one. Not difficult for us together, but for us individually. But difficult enough that I began to reconsider the timing. Thought about proposing another out-of-state trip pronto. But things calmed down and the train got back on track. On Tuesday I called her parents to ask for their blessing, which they enthusiastically gave. They seemed more certain she would say yes than I was.

Friday I left from work down to Utah.

Now the posting area on Nucleus is set up in absolute lengths, meaning that the meticulously lengthed post wouldn't show up the same way on her laptop as it would on mine. That meant that I had to set my laptop up to call long distance to Idaho using a calling card, something I'd never done before. Camille (who has done this before) helped me out, but it was reluctant to work. She started getting a little bit agitated at my insistence on getting my computer hooked up asking why I couldn't just use hers. I avoided answering.

We finally got it set up.

While she slept in on Saturday morning I got to setting everything up. I changed up the post a little bit, got it set up, and disconnected from the Internet. When she got out of the shower, I told her that I had an "us" post that I wanted her to read. Since I'd agreed to get her approval on any post that involves our relationship, it didn't send up a flag and she sat down - towel in hair - and read the post. She scrolled down the first time and I got the ring out of my pocket and sat it behind me. She scrolled down the second time, confusedly turned around, and I popped the question.

It took her only a couple of seconds to say "Yes." As we hugged, she said that she didn't know what to say. I told her that she'd said the only word that really mattered.

It's funny how you can search high and low for that other person and you can prepare almost every aspect of your life to meet someone, but in the end you're just playing it by ear when you're struck back by the right person stumbling out of a tent at eight in the morning hundreds of miles from where either of you live.

I've probably spent more of my life thinking about the fairer sex than most guys have. I've thought about how to find them, how to relate to them, and what the right one for me might be like. I've dreamed up a constantly-evolving checklist of what the right person for me would be like. I have my doubts as to whether or not Camille satisfies every criteria of any of the internal lists that I've made.

But the funny thing is that with all of my cogitation, all my imagination, and all my creativity, if I'd set out to create the best person with all of the best attributes most suitable to me in the longest of terms, there is no way that I could have dreamed up anyone better than the person that I found, stumbling out of her tent on a chilly Oklahoma morning almost two years ago.

That's not to say that we've been perfect and no problems have poked their nefarious heads in our lives. But together we're fantastic at wading through the problems as they come up. Which is good because we have some difficult decisions ahead. Some sacrifices and compromises by both of us are inevitable. But what gives me the most confidence about us is how little doubt I have that she and I will be able to work through whatever problems arise.

Camille, please turn around. I have a question for you.

From the start of my trip back to Texas, there were two old flames that I intended to meet up with: Anna and Audrey. Together they comprise of two of the three romantic-type figures from my past that have had the deepest and most profound effect on me. I had to see Anna because she threatened to beat the living tar out of me if I didn't (and, of course, I wanted to see her anyway). As for Audrey, the way we parted last time was difficult and so filled with conflicting emotion that I felt I needed to see her when we were both finally on an even footing (and, of course, I wanted to see her anyway). Plans were made on Saturday with Audrey and Sunday for Anna.

But on Friday night it so happened that I ran into a third. When Scarlet Hicks sat at the table next to Ed and I at the Firehouse on Friday night, it not a particularly welcome event. Though really, once I did in fact ascertain that it was her (different hair, more weight), other than the occasional glance I didn't give it a much thought. Part of me felt like I should say something or at least acknowledge her presence. I would for anyone else, but... no. I was there to talk to Ed and watch Jason Boland play.

I saw her glance over enough times that I knew she knew who I was. She had a "come and talk to me" look in her eyes, but luckily Ed provided a good shield so that I could ignore her without being too too rude. But eventually my trips to the bar caught up with me. She was right at a bend in the crowd and I would have to make sufficient eye-contact with her as to acknowledge her presence... or bulldoze through the crowd for another route... or so obviously avoid eye contact as to be an idiot avoiding contact with someone standing directly in front of them.

So ahead I plunged. As I passed she opened her mouth and stepped a bit into the clearence. I nodded and side-stepped past her. Others have hurt me more and in the aggregate others have probably lied more to me, but once upon a time she took the cake in having done the most mind-bogglingly thorough job of of making a fool out of me.

If I'd thought about it (and were I more a prick) I would have asked for my Bleu Edmondson CDs back.

The next night the plan was to meet Audrey Elciem some time around 5:00. I called her work phone Friday afternoon to confirm plans, but the voice on the other side said that Audrey had called in sick. Audrey can have pretty fierce migraines and if she was struck, it was unlikely that I would get to see her. The prospect left me with a feeling of collosal disappointment. In some ways, of all the people I saw down there, she was going to be the most important. Not the one I was looking forward to, but the most important. We had unfinished business. Not words unsaid or feelings unexplored, but I guess a sort of equilibrium that kept evading us.

That she wasn't calling me back wasn't surprising. If she was having a rally migraine, she could literally spend the whole weekend asleep trying to recover. And unlike in times past, I wasn't angry with her. While part of me was saying "Surely she can muster the energy to call and cancel" most of me was saying "that's no so sure, pardner." And since I knew that she really did want to see me, I didn't take it personally or defensively. When she called at 3:15 or so and said that she was going to try to get a couple more hours sleep, I felt even better about it all.

Even so, as 5 and 6 and 7 passed, it nonetheless put me in a very uncomfortable, very familiar position. All of those nights in 2001 spent waiting to hear from her. Nights I'd pushed out of my mind, for the most part, started to tug at my serenity. I guess just like that song that still makes you think of someone long gone, the prospect of waiting to hear from anyone - much less Audrey herself - makes me think of a time in our mutual lives that we both wish we could change.

But I bided my time, visiting places that I didn't think I would get make time to: Deidrich's Coffee, my Briarwood Apartment, Cactus Records, and Planet Anime. When I made my way to the UH campus, she called. She was obviously feeling a lot better and we made the plans in double-quick time to meet at 8:00.

Seeing her again was great. Talking to her again was great. I'm not sure what I wanted from the conversation. I'm not a big believer in closure, so that wasn't entirely it. But I guess I was hoping that she would open her mouth and God's own voice would say "It's okay, Alex. What's past has passed and everyone moves on."

And in a sense I got that. Neither she nor God uttered those particular words, but I realized what I'd sort of known all along: she's been saying that for the past few months. Her new relationship, her apartment, the longer and longer time lapsed between emails. She's moved on and she's happy now and while I did the same, I can start feeling better about it.

And Sunday I saw Anna McLoed for what was a comparatively undramatic meeting. It was a welcome relief. She and I made enough peace with each other long enough ago that there's nothing for even me to be neurotic about. She's lost weight, she bought a house, and she's building a life for herself for once. She may not have what she wants most in this world, but she's doing what she needs to for the next time around.

When I was in high school, I took a class called "Positive Mental Attitude." If that sounds like a creampuff course with little more to offer than a slightly padded GPA, I thought the same thing when I signed up for the course. While it was the easy A that I anticipated, I must confess that there were elements of that class that have stuck with me. More elements than, say, precalculus, which ended up neither easy nor an A.

Coach Dawkins approached the class more seriously than other coaches approach their theoretically more weighty classes. He knew that most of us thought it was a joke, but he enthusiastically made us jump through all the hoops with lectures, discussions, and Zig Zigler videos. I'm not sure if I took as much away from the class as he had hoped, but there is one phrase that I remember quite clearly:

"When we're upset with ourselves, we will talk about ourselves in ways we would never dare talk about anyone else."

It's been a pretty rough week for me, self-esteem wise. I don't mean that in an angsty "I just can't beleeeeive in myself anymore [sob]" kind of way, but rather that there are tangible ways that I've screwed up in ways that could have costed me well over $1,000.

Last week, my folks got another letter from the Southern Idaho Bureau of Credit (SIBOC) that stated that I needed to sign an affadavit of forgery to settle the matter of a forged check. The only problem was that I sent them that affadavit almost a month ago.

I had intended to copy the affadavit two dozen times just in case they didn't get it. The only problem was that between the police station and Kinkos, I astoundingly managed to lose it. Within the first fifteen minutes of having it in my possession! I made a copy of the letter requesting the affadavit to send with the affadavit, but I realized before I made my second copy that the affadavit itself was missing. Knowing me, since I would be back at Kinko's later, I figured that I would just copy the letter then

So I had to call Detective Morgan and arrange to get another copy. He wonderfully obliged. To make matters worse, the reporting detective is the only one who can give me a copy, so I was wasting the Detective's time and not some secretary's.

Knowing me, after recieving the second copy I never copied it because it was so much hassle to get it I just wanted to get rid of it. Since I didn't return to Kinko's, I didn't have another copy of the letter requesting the affadavit either.

So after cussing up a storm about how irresponsible and lazy I was for not going to Kinkos like I had originally planned, I called Morgan and asked him for yet another copy of the affadavit, apologizing profusely and promising to go to Kinko's immediately after. He was wonderfully understanding and I got another copy of it.

Meanwhile last week, I took a trip to the lube place to get my car tuned up and to the bank to cash a paycheck. When I left the lube place, the check was missing from my car. Knowing me, I reasoned, I left it at the apartment. When I got to the apartment, it wasn't there. Knowing me, I reasoned, I either threw it away when I cleaned out my car. I can never, ever, ever clean out anything without throwing away something of importance.

So I wrote our HR guy at work and asked him to cancel the other check and reissue a new one. He wonderfully obliged and said that he would go ahead and give me the reissue with the next paycheck that was due to come out. I thanked him a million times while cursing myself for losing yet another thing, as I seem to lose anything of even vague importance.

The check turned a couple of days later. I stashed it away in my CD case so that I wouldn't throw it away when I cleaned out my car. By then the new one had been reissued.

I got the checks on Friday and went to the bank on Saturday, two hours after it closed. Unfortunately, I don't have a mechanism to deposit checks after hours right now (I lack the slips, envelopes, etc.)

Monday morning I was driving to work and I noticed two envelopes on the front seat instead of three (the three: the nigh empty SIBOC envelope with Detective Morgan's card, the original paycheck that was now void, and the new paycheck and reissued one in a single envelope). Naturally, it was the one with the two paychecks missing. Knowing me, I must have put it in my pocket after seeing that the bank was closed and it probably fell out of my pocket when I sat down in the slacks I was wearing (which happen to be slacks where things fall out of the pocket when you sit down). For fifteen minutes I hurled one cuss word after another at me for losing three paychecks in two weeks. I searched my car while driving 75 mph (the Idaho speed limit) down the freeway.

The check was in the envelope with the voided check. I put it there so that I wouldn't have to worry about keeping track of three envelopes and instead only keep track of two.

Meanwhile, when I got my stuff together to send to SIBOC, I decided to put it in my job-hunting folder since that was where I kept pertinent documents on the road.

That's where I found ten copies of the affadavit and ten copies of the letter requesting the affadavit. I'd gone to Kinko's after all and apparently safely stored them there so that I wouldn't lose them.

Probably the most prominant trait I got from my mother is her temper. Most people don't associate me with an explosive temper, but when I get my guard down it happens. Usually with inanimate objects or things that I know I can cuss out without it doing any damage socially. Inanimate objects and, of course, myself.

Over the past week, I found myself saying countless things to myself. Accusations of incompetence, laziness, stupidity. If anyone else were to say half the things to me that I've said over the past couple of weeks, there's a solid chance that I would never speak to them again.

"When we're upset with ourselves, we will talk about ourselves in ways we would never dare talk about anyone else."

It's no secret that organization is not my strong suit. I go to extreme measures to keep from losing things and then forget the measures that I go to and lose them anyway. If there's a solution to this problem, I really don't know what it is.

Yet apparently I did just about everything right. I put the first check in a safe place, placed the second check so that I wouldn't have to worry about keeping track of so much, and made all the copies of the documents for SIBOC that I needed to.

The only thing that I didn't do was sit back and stop to think about whether or not I had actually done these things to begin with.

Every throught that began with "Knowing me..." ended with something that I didn't do.

So maybe I don't know myself like I think I do. Or, if I gain a little more faith in myself about these matters and keep improving, I don't have to be the person I've always known myself to be.

Ora once said of me that I am "obsessed with justice." Given the circumstances that surrounded the conversation, it was an understandable remark. Things with Audrey had been seriously derailed and one of my first impressions was that I deserved it because I had broken Anna's heart. I don't know that I would use the word "justice," but I do believe in a sort of kharma when it comes to relationships. If you do the right things, something good will almost always come along. If you've been hurt, there's likely something that you did that created the situation.

When Anna and Pierce got together, my joy was three-fold. First for Anna, because she'd managed to get out relatively unscathed, swapping one technerd sasquatch for another. Second for Pierce, who'd apparently finally moved on from his impending divorce. Third for me, because while I wasn't off the hook, I was no longer responsible for a seriously wounded heart.

My faith in all of this was justified somewhat later when Audrey - who'd hurt me - was miserably in unrequited love with Michael, when I - who'd hurt Anna - was still fixated with Audrey, and Anna and Pierce - who'd just been hurt - were blissfully in love. It seemed that there was justice in the world.

Somewhere along the way, the justice has gotten, at least temporarily, lost in the mix.

A little bit ago, I made the comment that I am happy "whether I have any right to be or not." I regret saying that (despite the kind responses by TP and Heidi). Not because of what I meant, necessarily, but the feelings that it projected: guilt, self-loathing, and self-pity. Even in my kharmic sense, I have suffered for my sins and don't feel any guilt about being happy. There is, however, an uneasiness about it.

At some point later this week will mark the third week anniversary since Anna and Pierce broke up. Anna is down from calling me about it three times a day to one. After a while my shoulder became numb from the tears cried on it, but I still answer or return her calls because I made a promise that I'd be there for her. This is nothing compared to what I put her through until Pierce came along and what she's going through now.

But my hands are tied, in some ways. I can't dig too deeply into Pierce's motives and offer some insight because so much of it is so similar to my state of mind when things ended that it's not a comfortable place to go. It also leads to the conclusion that she's simply not ready for yet: that they're not going to get back together. She's not in denial, but the awareness of her words are betrayed by the lingering sense of longing.

Mostly, though, it confronts me with worry. I worry for her a great deal. With the exception of a month in 1996 and another in 2000, she hasn't been single since February of 1996. She's not a vineswinger, which I define as someone that cautiously clutches to a vine until she has firm hold of another and can (to mix metaphors) leave the sinking ship. She's either been lucky or a guardian angel has been watching over her. But the luck has ran out and the guardian angel has left the building. There is no one on the horizon which is only good because she's clearly not in a position to get into another relationship. Otherwise it's very, very bad.

This is the third time that she's been left. The first was a dolt who reallized his error less than a day later, but still roughly a day too late. Pierce and I, however, both left at four years give or take six months or so. Some of the concerns that he has now are the ones that I had then. It's officially a pattern. Given the investment in each relationship, it's not one that she can just re-aim until she gets it right. So far she's avoided this self-destructive line of thought, which is wonderful. I can't say that I was able to do the same when things didn't work out with Ora and then Audrey under similar circumstances.

My head knows that this will be good for her. My head knows that she's dealing with this remarkably in that mysterious way that she deals with such things. She needs the time to develop a stronger sense of self (by which, lest there be any confusion, I don't mean self-esteem). But as her heart betrays her mind, mine does the same.

Which brings me back to my vague comment as well as Ora's about justice. Of all the people that I know, Anna is among the least deserving to be hurt. She's fiercely loyal, extremely loving, and a great person who has never intentionally or negligently done anyone harm. Yet I walked away and therefore I am not in a position to criticize Pierce for doing the same (nor would I, which I'll get in to another time).

I've made many mistakes in my life and over the last year. Yet Eel has stood by me. But I don't believe I'm a lousy person nor that I am, all things being equal, deserving of unhappiness. Yet when my phone rings, and I see that it's Anna calling me again to share her unhappiness, it's infectious and reminding me that the world is not a just place and reminding me that whatever I've brought to the table with Eel, I've also gotten really lucky. With that in mind, from ring to click on the phone I find it extraordinarily difficult to bask in what is going right in my life while someone so much more deserving of happiness is in such pain.

It was December 11, 2004 when I first informed Anna that our relationship was in serious trouble.

She was, to say the least, averse to the idea of splitting up. We fought more in the days following that than we had in the four years we were together. She sent two people to try to talk me out of it. The first was Kaye, a 40-something friend and motherly figure to us both. I danced around explaining why I was doing what I was doing to her satisfaction and by the end of the conversation, she agreed that it was probably for the best. When Anna was informed of that, she started taking my pictures down off the wall. If anyone could explain to me what a dunderhead I was being, it would have been Kaye.

The second person she sent was Pierce. Like Kaye, Pierce was a mutual friend. Pierce had recently joined our circle (okay, it was a triangle with just the three of us) and we'd even talked of Pierce and Anna moving in together to get them both out of their parents' houses (Anna never moved out for college and Pierce was in the middle of a divorce). Given that Pierce's world was falling down around him, he was an unlikely candidate to convince me of anything.

We met at the IHOP off of US59. Neither of us knew how to begin. I didn't want to talk about it and Pierce was only there as a favor to a friend. Finally, he got down to business. The first thing he said about it was "Your reasons for wanting out of this relationship are bullshit."

He was right. For the first time since the whole thing started, I began to really work through the issues that Anna and I were facing.

As he worked through his perspective on my relationship with Anna and his general philosophies, the thought occured to me that we were sitting on the wrong sides of the table. I was sitting on the side reserved for the person that was with Anna and it somehow felt like he should be sitting on that side. He's was (as he is now) too independent to parrot anybody else's thoughts. His thoughts and feelings were his own and yet so incredibly compatible with what Anna and I used to have in common. We were definitely sitting on the wrong side of the table.

And so I wasn't surprised when Pierce and Anna got together less than two weeks later. It made so much sense it was almost too good to be true.

It's been three years and eight months or so since that conversation at IHOP. Their relationship is in serious trouble. Being close to them both, I've heard both sides of the story just as Pierce did that winter. I've heard her concerns and his explanations. Like Pierce back then, I want things to work out if they should. Like Pierce back then, I'm more than willing to listen and be a friend to both parties. Like myself back then, Pierce has questions that don't have very clear answers. Like myself back then, Pierce has the weight of the world on his shoulders and the heart of Anna in his hands.

In away I'd never hoped for or intended, I was right back then. Somehow, we've ended up on the opposite sides of the table.

I first saw the jacket at the University of Houston bookstore. I felt the odd need to touch it and when I felt the softest, nicest feeling fabric I'd ever felt. The red lettering of the school stood out marvellously against the dark blue fabric. Until I saw the price tag I just knew that I had to have it. Anna and I were both UH undergrads at the time and we were shopping for books together. When she saw the pained expression I had when I saw that the jacket cost $70, I'm sure she knew she just had to get that for me. She was making barely above minimum wage working at a cutesy gift store and it must have cost her a week's worth of wages, but I'd at least like to think that my overwhelming appreciation made it worth it to her.

I was keen to wear my tattered leather jacket at the time. Part of me was suspicious that it was all a plan to make stop wearing it. She was like that, at once considerate and devious. Devious in a benign sort of way. The leather jacket was ratty and its cuffs were held together by a clothes pin. The U of H jacket, on the other hand, was gorgous and something no one would mind seeing me in public with. Not long after that I ended up cutting the leather jacket up for a costume. It was no big deal because the only jacket I wore after getting it was the blue one. I lamented that I was only able to wear it a couple months out of the year.

Three years later, on the night we broke up, I was wearing that jacket.

Time has taken its toll my beloved blue jacket. The lining that kept the woven school name on it was coming out and the lettered stitching probably not far behind. The once dark blue color had faded into a less attractive washed-out grayish blue. It was still the nicest feeling fabric on the face of the earth.

I only brought up three jackets when I moved to Idaho. I thought about bringing more, but it felt redundant when I knew that any lined jacket would never be worn. In addition to being a great jacket, it was also one of the few articles of clothing with some real memories attached to it. It was one of the only two things that Anna gave me that I brought up, the other being the parting gift when I last saw her before I left. Though she and I have gone on to lead separate lives after we parted ways, it was a constant reminder of what we had.

If you've missed it, I'm using the past tense. In a couple of hours, I'm leaving the employment of the company that I work for that contracts out to OmniStar. The timing couldn't be worse as some time between leaving work on Thursday and leaving town on Friday, the jacket disappeared. I'd love to wave my fist in the air and curse some thief or something, but all evidence indicates that I left it in the break area at work with my clipboard, which is also missing. I checked the lost and found at work and it hasn't popped up yet. It's possible that someone turned it in over the weekend or that I might get it back through a lead that I have, but it seems doubtful.

I left a lot behind when I departed Houston. I left behind great music, collegiate football, my university, my city, two-thirds of my belongings, and countless loved ones. Now, it seems, I've lost yet another tie to my past.

"So what are we going to do?"

"Well... I could move to Idaho."

Dear Keith,

It's hard to believe that it's been four years. In all the confusion of my cross-country move, the date almost escaped me, but I've run out of ways to distract myself

I miss you. I'm sorry that I couldn't visit the site this year.

Best wishes,
Alex