Post One Hundred and I've Messed Up The Count, So I Might Start Again: Epoch.

"The gorillas were a red herring to cover the real intentions of my proposition" he said. 

Six months of interminable self reflection has provided evidence suggesting (to myself at least) that I do things the tricky way. At an elemental level, I tie my shoelaces the long way, with two bunny ears. I avoid microwaves. I drive a manual car. I live in a house with a toilet so far away that, story has it, people are reported to have preferred to take relief in the shower. 

I've got quite the story for you. It involves my future happiness, an interesting life event, and undoubtedly another prolonged period of narcissistic speculation. My friends, in order to tell the story properly I need to take you back in time. 

November 2, 2011. 10:22PM. The night before my grandmothers funeral. I received an email from an interesting young fellow, a reader of this here blog. It went a little something like this:

Hi,

We have a mutual friend. I won't tell you who it is because life would be far too boring without mystery... We may or may not have met, I'm gonna go with no... If we have I apologise...

Anyway, I stumbled across your blog earlier this year. One of them at least, and I'm not sure where or why or which one, but I remember it happened. The aforementioned mutual friend sent me the link to it tonight, after a brief discussion of the perpetual existential dilemma that is my spiritual journey.

Long story short, wow. Like holy effing wow. Your writing, your thought patterns, your perspective: All amazing. I'm blown away.

I will read every single post tonight, I've just stopped to make more tea, and thank you for possibly being a part of the very first steps of my 'new direction' - whatever the hell that may be.

That and you listed Cream before Simon and Garfunkel. You've made my night.

Please never stop writing. The world needs story tellers now more than ever.

Thank you.

Chad

________________________________________

To this email I replied, quite happily, at 11:07PM:

Hey there C-Dawg,

Is Chad your real name? I ask this because Chad is a very strong name, and one that I'd remember. And, it rhymes with rad.

What a lovely email. I'll be frank; I'm having a pretty suck ass time at the moment so to hear this from you has made my pre-slumber moments much more pleasing. I just finished writing my grandmothers eulogy. She is newly dead.

Anyway, good luck on the epistemological and metaphysical super highways. I certainly hope that this mutual friend buys you beer, and me one too. Thanks Chad. Chad, what a great name.

Never stop reading? Yes. That is good. Knowledge gives you magical powers.

S.

_________________________________________-:

From this time onward, Chad and I corresponded with tantamount disposition. My life seemed naturally snagged unto his, like a pair of fishing lines cast too close. We wrote, less often at first, about our fears, our friendships and our misgivings. Some days I told him about the funerals I was on, and the families that I had met with. It was an unexpected and initially unconscious relief to have found someone, a stranger, who held an opinion that I trusted and respected. Through our friendship I felt respite and consolation, even from across the considerable distance that fell between us. Hail to the Internet. 

We shared our shitty youth stories, our shitty family stories, our shitty sex stories and our shitty health stories. I must add that it wasn't all shit that we spun, as we both have some people that we cherish and many a fun tale that we shuttlecocked across to each other in an increasingly rapid rally. 

Fast forward eight months, and thousands upon thousands of words later. I met with this arresting gentleman. When our eyes met it was comforting. I was apprehensive, and well aware that by meeting someone through my blog it could be well fucking awkward. What sort of weirdos read mortuary blogs anyway, AMIRIGHT? 

We came home and drank tea. He was hungover, and all I wanted to do was hold him.We talked endlessly. My social anxieties non evident, my composure strangely stable. We spooned. We held hands. We kept things PG, mostly out of uncertainty but also out of respect for each other. What fool would threaten ruin to an interesting relationship such as ours by having a one night stand with a long term pen pal? Pffft. 

I'm quite sure it was at this point that he ripped the heart out of my body and used it as a t-ball. If he knew at that point, I'm sure he made it as gentle as possible. Chad has a strong name and an equally strong character. He is humble, and intelligent and all sorts of accomplished. Add to that, he is all sorts of classically attractive. I stalked him long before I met him, but never would I have assumed that he might in turn find in me a perfect mate. 

He knows me better than anyone, I imagine, through these last few months of exchange. He has listened to my bullshit, at great lengths, and told me that he digs it. Hard. 

And now he is leaving the country. In four days actually. Indefinitely, on his own journey of discovery and development. Balls, I know. 

He once quoted "We should buy a castle, in a cloud, and remove ourselves from society, and be the great rescinded fairy tale the world deserves." I think this is an Edgar Allan Poe quote? I don't know. I should know.Either way, it's a fucking beauty. And either way, our story is bittersweet. 

Great timing, O'Connor. Fall in love, wish to marry and have babies and do all things you once condemned and rejected, with a handsome nomad that has rock solid plans to dominate the world and take nothing but twenty three kilograms of causal clothing.  

This is the first time that I've written about a relationship. It's very personal, and very exposing. I've loved before, wooed by ladies and gents and all sorts of people in between, but this is different. When we talk, or touch, or even just look at each other, it's un-fucking-believable. I do not know what this is. 

Is this what I've been looking for? Is this what they tell me about, the old man who's wife I just buried? That old lady when she handed me the hat for the man she loved? A good old fashioned, heart warming, spine tingling thrill of the chase. 

My eulogy is destined to be one with a crazy twist. My intentions are this: Saving starts now, as does the development on my proposition.... 

Do they need funeral directors in Antarctica?