2001-07-02 - 8:05 p.m.

history of K

hey kids. the word of the day is caffeine-o-licious.

so i've had some more folks contact me through this site, or about this site, or what have you.

first off, shopgrl, sorry i didn't respond to your message right off. thanks a ton for the good thoughts. you rock.

second, i got an email from someone, most of which i will respond to off-line (or on-line, just not on this line ... you know what i mean) but one question i think deserves to be dealt with here.

that question is "who is Kay[sic]?" (by the by, it's K which is short for something i won't be writing here.)

that is a can-o-worms question if i ever heard one.

*** Warning *** much bitterness, bile, self-pity and sadness coming up. if'n you don't wanna deal with that, please move along now.

if you're still here, then buckle up kiddies. it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

so something in excess of four years ago (it'll be five years in december. i know the date exactly but i won't admit to that.), i met K. it was a christmas party.

i was pretty much smitten immediately. crushing hard from moment one.

i remember playing darts with her in the basement that very first night, and thinking "god, i wish she weren't engaged. i'd love to date her."

i'm going to fast-forward here for a bit. K's engagement fell apart. there was stuff about Ed going on a cruise and meeting an argentinean woman and that sudden "i'm confused" talk that some of you might be familiar with.

anyway, K's life got shake-and-baked in a hurry.

jo3 was there for her.

then he was just there.

in a relatively short period of time jo3 and K were "hanging out".

i don't want anyone to think i am at all critical of jo3 about this whole thing. he's one of my closest friends in the world, and i have never been even close to objective where K is involved. there were times when i felt badly for K because of how things were going with her and jo3, but i'm getting ahead of myself.

this was right around the time that jo3 and i were starting to hang out a lot. for a period of months, the three of us spent a lot of time together. we'd get together at jo3's apartment and play music for hours.

i can't even begin to tell you how cool those jam sessions were. jo3 is a great guitarist and singer. K, well K sings like an angel. we'd play forever. i remember one night where we played "blood and fire" by the indigo girls, and after we finished the last chorus, we just kept playing for like another twenty minutes. K improvised lyrics, jo3 and i sang random backups, and we just played the hell out of that thing.

those were great times.

i can't even tell you.

one day jo3 and K showed up at my place and jo3 said "let's go buy some guitars". we went to the music store, and i bought the guitar i'd always wanted (american standard fender stratocaster, tobacco sunburst) and a re-issue fender tube amp. close to two grand that i didn't really have to spend.

we just went in and said "we'll take these axes".

i'm digressing. the point is that we had really great times together. for a long time my friendship with jo3 was very closely tied to my friendship with K. we were the three musketeers, except that one of us was going home to an empty bed every night. the other two, well...

there were some times. were there some times. the Semisonic concert. thanksgiving up at Rainbow Ridge. seeing Morphine at the LoDo music fest. and night after night of strong drinks and music.

some times we'd just sit around for hours and play song after song on the stereo. not even really talking, just listening to music.

of course, not all was wine and roses. jo3 and K had some friction. i'm really not prepared to go into it, because again, i was not objective. i really had a hard time.

let's face it. i was in love with my best friend's girlfriend, and when things started to go sour between them, i was in a bad spot. it was all self-imposed. let's not make any bones about it. i was doing my usual stupid carrying a torch for the woman who's out of reach thing. you know, savoring that pain, thriving off my self-imposed misery.

i'm good at that. i should be, i've had years of practice.

anyway, eventually jo3 and K weren't "hanging out" anymore. i think it was pretty hard on K.

i tried to be there for her. i even had the whole time line figured out about how long she would need to recover from what had been one horrendous year. then i could swoop in and sweep her off her feet.

didn't happen that way. like i said, jo3 and K and i were all very close for a long time. i guess i reminded her too much of jo3, and she didn't want to deal with that. she didn't want reminders.

so i had been sending her emails, and trying to keep up our friendship when i got an email back. it went:

"thanks for the email. i am sorry that we were unable to chat last night. this is very difficult...i need to distance myself for a while. please do not ask me to explain. forgive me. K"

(i was able to put my hands on that email in about ten seconds. of course, i could probably have recreated 75% of it from memory. this is two and a half years ago. i'm sick, i tell you. sick)

i didn't react to this very well at all.

i immediately assumed that she never wanted anything to do with me again, that i had done something atrocious to piss her off. i got that email while at work, and i went into the bathroom and cried.

i'm kinda hung up on this girl. phew.

i didn't talk to K for about six months. in that time, she and jo3 got more comfortable with eachother and became good friends. they still talk a fair amount.

finally, i got up the courage to call up K and ask her out for drinks. just as friends. i did this several times. just as friends. i composed immense and eloquent speeches to tell her how i felt about her, to make her understand what she meant to me, to make her melt.

never said a damned word.

part of me thinks that she had to know. somewhere, somehow, even if only in her subconscious, she had to know. i am slowly coming to terms with the fact that i am an open book to anyone who knows me. anyone who knows me at all can read the emotions i feel as they cross my face. i'm an open book.

maybe she didn't want to know, didn't want to deal with it.

whatever.

anyway, after a bit, she returned calls less quickly and less often. she couldn't make it out as much. life got in the way. our friendship, perhaps not all that strong without the inclusion of jo3 in the mix, kind of fizzled out.

i recall very clearly at some point saying to CH (who hosted the christmas party where i met K) "i have no use for people who have no use for me."

by the by, CH at one point said he thought K and i would make a great couple. jo3 has said it. M, who has never even met K, said it. that's actually what brought all this crap to the surface again. why is it everyone thinks we'd be a great couple except K?

i guess the end result is that more than a year ago, i pretty much lost touch with K. didn't call, didn't email. of course i never heard from here. occasionally saw her at group gatherings, but never really had a chance to talk.

and that's where things stood until a couple of weeks ago.

and really, that's where i should have left them. (if you want the rest of the story as it's occurred in the last couple of weeks, go digging. i'm too lazy to link it all.)

i have absolutely no idea what to say now. i honestly thought that writing this would make me sad, might even make me cry. it didn't. i just feel drained. empty. tired.

i really can't even muster the energy to care right now. i want pretty badly to be with someone. to make this loneliness stop. to, as boogie says, to. lean. in.

i can't.

i can't even begin to care. i used to know that there was someone out there for me. i don't know it anymore. i hope it. sometimes i beg it. i don't know it. i know that i'm tired. tired of kicking myself around. tired of stringing myself up on the rack. tired of putting myself through these emotional olympics and when i finally, after years of torch-carrying and untold nights of laying awake dreaming, and untold hours pining and pissing and moaning, when i finally decide to by-god *do something*, i get shot down before i can even take the step.

like those planes at pearl harbor, bombed on the runway. shot down before i even get in the air.

i know that i don't. have any use. for people. who have no use for me.

and i know that i'm tired.

hope this novella-length pile of dreck wasn't too painful for you, gentle reader.

thanks for reading.

good night.