heartbreak exhibit A

[pete]

it's been like a year since my heartbreak, so I thought it'd be fun to share some crap I've done during the time, as an exhibit.  you know, trying to make something out of it.  yeah.


a short

an account:

12/19/03
his biggest fear is this.  he called her at 10pm to see if there's any chance that he could see her before she leaves on tuesday (no).  She was sick as a turtle, her nose so stuffed he can't even picture her with a nose.  he began playing conspiracy theories in his head.  maybe she's laying next to that curly burly man who calls himself a filmmaker, but she assumes that exaggerated nasal voice out of sympathy for the voice on the other end of the phone, while caressing the voice on the other end of the bed.  why not, he's done this before, it's not hard.

everything she's done to him felt like something she's done to a million other men.  you should see the letter she writes.  each stroke so familiar, she can get a job on the side of the street alongside them sketch artists and Chinese calligraphers (you know, the guys who compose your name with a bunch of illustrated fruits and boats for meager wages).  he's probably just a big blank to her, same form, same paper, so she fills those underlines with the same ink.  the paper isn't born last night, he knows.

back to his biggest fear.  what if she wakes up tomorrow, still sick as a bug, and gets run over by a truck.  He will cry if that is the case.  That is his biggest fear.  He has so much to say to her.  Insignificant words that will not change how she feels about him one bit.  She, according to that well-rehearsed, pain-inducing letter, loves him so much.  BUT NOT LIKE THAT.  And every superlative in the letter, every detail she describes of him, every bit she loves about him, burns.  IF he were to translate that letter (and summarize at the same time) it'd go something like this: "dear you, ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow."
but why should he like her.  he wasn't even attracted to her.  she seemed crazy and ambitious to him at first sight, and then neurotic at second, and classy at third.  then one day he saw her crying and gave her a hug.  that was that, supposedly, but his friend had to spark up possibilities between them by saying stuff.  he gets swayed, then hormones kick in.  oh, as well as that jonathon richman of a summer feeling.

she has this intensity about her, where if you're hooked, even the most annoying attributes become "aw shucks".  Her eyes always wide with rage, hungry too.  He remembers once there was this other kid who wrote a poem that he coulda written 20 times better had he the package to sink to that shallow end of the idiot pool.  She, however was engaged (she's not a poet so he can't blame her, plus, it was summer, misjudgements happen just like that in summer in this part of the country).  He loved those eyes.  He vowed to get those eyes too.  He's never seen them like that again, regardless of his much more exciting public stunts, brilliant subconsciousness, or just plain obvious desperation.

He tried and tried.  For example, he looked deeply into their pasts and kept on trying to fit one into the other: look, both their fathers were architects before they gave those up; look, their birth dates mirrored each other's; both grew up playing piano, hated it, and sucked at it...but seemed to have ended up in that category of burly curly guys whom she claimed to "love."

Finally he gave up, he wrote her a song, then never played it for her, but rather just dropped it off on a CD.  She heard it, and told him everything he didn't want to hear.  Bummed him out ya know?  It was then too when her friends began giving him advices like he shoulda dressed well, shoulda made moves long ago...etc.  Advices?  More like sarcastic jabs.  He got pretty cynical.  He could only comfort himself by thinking about how angry she got at trivial things, how much better the other girls who'd rejected him were, and a rumour about her yeast infection.

Then he saw her again, yesterday.  She handed him that well-rehearsed letter.  She had that intensity that he instantly recalled.  HOLY CRAP.  The aftertaste stayed a while.  It always did.  It was an amnesiac type of intensity, the type that washed away all previous hindsights and bitterly crude observations made about her.  All of a sudden he felt like the guiltiest man in the world for those thoughts.  He wanted to cry, but he knew and everyone else who knew him knew that he'd only cry at movies.

Since then he'd been melancholy.  Playing songs didn't help.  Watching comedy didn't either.  Neither did reading that letter.

He wants to tell her that she has screws in her heart missing, and he has them.  And he thinks vice versa too.  Angry?  Neurotic?  Classy?  Total lack of attraction?  They seemed tiny by his new grandiose vision of missing screws.  Come to me baby, I've got the missing screws.  He claps his hands, here girl, here here here.

he went to her house last night, his friends again advised him on all sorts of moves.  He knew he'll never take them.  he went in, popped in a CD, folded clothes, recycled his comedy materials (golden stuff like arj barker and mitch hedberg), she was laughing hard.  Then she laughed equally hard when "a boy" from Germany called.  Freaking Germans man.  He delivered a foot massage (despite his fear of feet) that was incredibly un-intimate and lighthearted.  Finally she sent him home.  He had enough of her, he chose not to crash at the place, nothing was to happen anyways.  Right?  The cab ride home--you should have been there.  The streets became an arcade of flashbacks.  Quiet southern waltz guitar kicked in.  So long Alejandra, so very long.

the following sentences are all incomplete, just skim over them quickly:

Sitting in front of the art museum, sharing an umbrella, singing raindrops keep falling on my head while taunting violent cab drivers.  drinking coffee and talking beatles afterwards.  dega's pencil sketches.  Calling her in the middle of an annoying barbecue so she could see the harvest moon.  playing punching games on the subway.  standing awkwardly as other platonic guy friends hit on her.  impressing her and her sister at her apartment with a guitar.  writing that song.  running up to her after the first time they met and talking schooltalk and classtalk.  her photo collages.  that seemingly bogus story about the foreign exchange student getting it on with her.  "finding out" that she was beautiful through other guys in the school.  her eyes being teary.  being embarassed as she poured out her angry little heart in the middle of the park, on the last good day of autumn.  Then bumping into a high school friend who was confused.  bought her food.  bought him food.  complaining about her small breasts despite of the hormones she took ("just her luck" she said.)  wanting to learn spanish.  going online to find out all he can about colombia.  giving up.  getting over other crushes through her.  getting over her.  obviously didn't.  realizing she really didn't bring him pain, that it was all just an exaggeration, so the song would sound better.  then realizing that claim was false.

If he were a fruit, he'd be watermelancholy.

[ono]

A shame no one else has replied to this yet.  I enjoyed reading it.  At first I thought it'd be one of those cliche little boo-hoo-hoo breakup love stories.  There ARE too many of those.  But certain little things about distinct stories are what MAKE them distinct.  Don't know what you intend for this.  Probably just a way for you to vent, and everyone needs that.  Didn't check out the song or short yet.  I will when I have more time.

[kotte]

Truly enjoyed the song and the short.

The short felt stronger after reading the account.