Steve's Edit Suite, Memar, Highlands North

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Service: N/A
Food: N/A
Ambience: *
Babe Count: N/A

I'm cooped up in Steve's suite, viewing chemistry lessons that will educate Ethiopia's children. Actually, the stuff is so complicated and hard to view that I'm willing to make a prediction... I'll bet that after a year or so of watching these programs -- and it's not just chemistry... it's grades nine to twelve of chemistry, physics, maths, English, biology and civics -- I predict that the school suicide rate will go up dramatically. They're gunna be saying to themselves and their friends, "I'm so so so stupid! I can't understand any of this stuff! It would be better to die!!!"

But maybe it's my mood. I'm waiting for Jacqui's promised email, the one with my good points. Therapy was tough tough tough this morning. Oh man. And Zahava is pregnant. So therapy is going to come to an end in about two or three months.

Jacqui sends me an sms at around 7pm.

I download my mail onto the palmtop. There's an email with an attached document. I read the email feverishly. And it's addressed to "The Red King of the Flower Valley". That's Jacqui's pet name for me. 'Flower valley' is a direct translation of my surname. 'Roy' is French and Gaelic for 'king' and 'red'.

In the covering letter, the email, she thanks me for our ten months together. And she's very generous about that. And she asks me not to contact her again. And she says sorry for changing her mind about resuming couples therapy, and that we won't be doing it.

The attachment itself is beautiful. And luckily I've got my spare jersey with me in the edit suite, cos I bunch it into a ball and wail freely into it. And I don't give a damn if anybody hears me anyway. Fuck them. I'm a man in the throes of deep grief.

And you know what? I'm NOT going to honour Jacqui's request. This whole thing has been entirely on her terms. She's the one who has called all the shots, defined all the parameters. Well, fuck her. I'm also part of this. And her request for me not to contact her is utterly ludicrous. She said some RADICAL shit in Tuesday's email, and she's got some stuff to answer to. She's not getting off that easily.

I don't know if she's reading this or not. In the attachment, she ends off saying that I can write whatever I like about our relationship and breakup, and that she won't be following this site anymore. But I'm curious about something... she's still signed up to receive the email update telling her when content on the site has changed. So who's she fooling? Does she mean to say she's going to receive the update but not look at the site? Why does she want to receive ANYTHING at all from me?

I wonder if she's sent me this confusing stuff as a way of repelling me? Maybe she figures that the best way for me to get over her is to be damn harsh? I dunno. That doesn't feel right. She came across to me in our relationship as a seriously caring and compassionate woman. Why she would write stuff like she did on Tuesday is beyond me. Specially seeing as tonight's email is so love-filled.

So I send her an sms. It says that I reserve the right to make up my own mind as to whether or not I'll contact her. I know that I'm in serious reaction here, and that I'm not about to leap into any decision, especially not one that simply buys into her one-sidedness.

Right now, I've got to stop crying, and start focussing on managing Ethiopia's school suicide rate.