guest speaker, unbeknownst to him

soho dogs
Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

i recently wrote about high roads versus low roads. and how i got very short-term satisfaction, yet long-term malaise, from giving in to unqualified temptation and taking the low road.

in spring cleaning my apartment and computer, i came across an email from an ex-boss. an email that i will soon copy and paste into this post, so that you can all learn how to act like decent human beings, and not sloppy, cheap spumante-swilling, be-breasted man lumps.

about ten years ago, i walked into an office for a job interview. when the suave, dark-haired, dark-eyed italian interviewee and i looked at each other, hardly able to muster the wherewithal to shake each others' hands, i knew i not only had the job, but that we just fell in love.

our favorite thing was to go take really long breaks and get gelato. he made me laugh. to the core.

but i didn't permit anything to happen. because he had a girlfriend of ten years.

his ten-year relationship was assy, as all ten-year relationships tend to be. but i told him that he would have to sort that out before anything could happen between us. i wasn't going to be *that* woman. essentially, i wanted to see if he could grow a pair.

he went on a "boys weekend" and he told me he would soul-search and come back with an answer. this is what he wrote:

"So....here I am in [undisclosed location]. Well the boys got together; the boys talked. Five mature men who seemed to spend a little too much time talking about oral sex, but we won't get into that sordid tale... I presented my conundrum, albeit in a hypothetical manner, and all these guys that always assumed that meeting another woman would just be a matter of feeling guilty about a brief but passionate sexual encounter were truly having difficulty wrapping their beer-soaked heads around the possibility of falling in love with another woman and thus having to make a decision. But to their credit they worked it through and came to the conclusion that the situation would indeed represent a pickle and that a monumental decision would have to be made.

Everyone agreed that it would be impossible and foolhardy to pursue both avenues simultaneously. In short, everyone agreed with everything you said. So I spent a lot of time gazing into the fire and staring across the lake and walking through the woods and looking thoughtfully at the stars, and... I just felt weary and sorta numb. So no decisions have been made, no action will be taken, no changes are afoot. Maybe I'll snap out of it and spring into action, or maybe I'll just plug along in this catatonic state indefinitely.... But at least I'm thinking about it and questioning things. I'm sorry that I have to be so thick and slow. I'm an emotional half-wit sitting around eating french-fried pertaters and fixing small engines and saying "uuuh-huuuh" to everything. I'm pretty disgusted with myself really. I'm not even feeling sorry for myself; I'm just disgusted with my brain and its pitiful thoughts. That's what came out of the weekend. I would have to, I think, go back even further than my current relationship to tear things down and rebuild. I would have to spend time alone for a while. I would have move away. I could not, I am beginning to understand, break up one relationship and start a new one immediately. So goodbye for now - I'm assuming that this will mark the end of your patience. Thanks for trying to change me. I'll let you know if/when it works. Ti voglio bene."

i accepted his letter of resignation. that's as high as it gets.