"nothing ever stops all these thoughts
and the pain attached to them
sometimes I wonder why this is happening
it's like nothing I can do
will distract me when"
[Linkin Park, "Figure"]

I wonder if anyone ever looks up the song lyrics to really understand.
The new CD is fabulous, though I think my listening to it has put me back a step emotionally. I thought I was past the angry part, but when I once again stuck my stick inside the cage to give a rattle today, I once again found myself hurt.

I think sometimes I must be an emotional masochist; I'd rather feel pain than feel nothing. And I'm sure I'm just having another "God Part II" moment, and that I put much too much weight on her opinions because I've idolized her and the relationship far too much. But then, nothing she could say or do right now would change the way I feel. It's not so much about the real her as it is the more generic and ethereal her in my mind. She is, in some sense, every failed relationship. Thank you, Nick Hornby.

And yes, I think too much, I'm well aware. Fuck off.

But while I know that I should leave her behind me entirely, in order to heal and move on - I mean, what kind of friendship will we ever be able to have, really? - knowing what I should do, and actually doing it are two entirely different things. And I'd like to think that there are nobler reasons why I've chosen to remain friends at the expense of prolonging my suffering as well, though again I may just be romanticizing, or rationalizing. How can one ever tell?

The only thing I can say with certainty is that, much like turning over the keys to my old apartment today, I need to put my past behind me, accept that this belongs to a chapter of my life that is over and move forward into the next, wherever The Fates plan to take me. And whether I give in to my urge to stand on a chair, raise my fists in the air, and scream "You just don't fucking get it, do you? Keep looking, honey, because you're riding the donkey you're looking for. Or rather, you were." or choose instead to lie quietly staring at the ceiling and daydreaming of past girlfriends coming back hat-in-hand to tell me how wrong they'd been to let me go because they know now they'll never find someone who treats them better, either way I need to do far less of it, and far more looking for that Special Someone^TM.
Or, as an alternative, Someone Willing^TM.
Plus all this pollutes my poetry a bit. I wrote 2/5th of a poem the other night, and now finished it while inspired in an entirely different mood. Doesn't that "pollute" it? It was inspired by two somewhat different moods.

I don't know where my old resume is, and I haven't moved the printer and looked for the drivers yet. But I do have a blank envelope on my desk, the address to WANL in a text file, and a cheque in my wallet.

Time to eat an elephant, one bite at a time. Mail cheque. Post entry and poem. Maybe finish short story.