Thinking back to last night, the conversations had and the sobbing done, it strikes me that Coppell may not have known what he was doing, or at least might not have anticipated the result of what he told me. It’s like he had an idea in his head as to what he needed to do, but hadn’t thought through the details, the ramifications.

It was a strange unfolding. The way he approached things was very confusing, and even now I am at a loss. He invited me over to his to hang out and things seemed to be going just peachy as we talked about the usual mix of random rubbish that we entertain ourselves with. I was completely blind-sided when he told me that he thought that it had come to the point in our relationship where he wanted to open it up, and not in a polyamourous way, more so that he could make new friends, because he really needed to do so.

I became deeply, deeply upset after he told me his decision. As our conversation progressed, he became more and more upset as I think he realised the consequences of what he’d decided.

He kept saying he needed to see other people in order to make new friends. I was totally confused, because I thought that having friends outside of a relationship is normal and important, and that being in a relationship should not mean that outside interests go out the window.

He told me that he was terribly anxious at the thought of not having me around, and he really wanted to continue to see me. I told him that there was no way this was practical, because I didn’t want to be “just” friends with him, and that to continue to see him would be prolonging the agony for me.

He said that we didn’t have to make any decisions now, and should wait a few days, but I couldn’t see what there was to decide. I said that even if we didn’t see each other for a while, ultimately what was the point, because in six months he was going to be gone.

He told me how hard he was finding it starting anew in a workplace where there weren’t obvious people who could become friends; he said he felt terribly alone, especially as Meathead wasn’t there. He apologised that I was with him when he was “chubby”, and said he was sorry but he just wasn’t “available”. He said that he felt like things were finally stable in his life, like he had come up for air after a long period of difficulty.

How feeling good about life should preclude a relationship I cannot understand.

It is clear that at the moment he seems to equate being in a relationship with isolation (as i’ve written about before), and so, because he doesn’t want to feel isolated, decided to end things. He feels isolated because he’s moved to a different country and a different workplace, not because of any relationship we were in.

Rather than take the support I was offering and build friendships outside of the relationship, he seemed to feel like any support I could have offered was somehow cutting him off. I think he might be afraid that any relationship with me would turn into the claustrophobic ones of the past. I’m not the past. I thought I was the future.

We held each other for a long time and cried and cried and cried. It was awful.

I feel like total shit today, and I am thankful that I have a few more days of the Easter holiday to hide from humanity. I have honestly never cried so much in my life; the decade of pain with Monster and MW#1 and the tears I shed because of them are nothing on the last twelve hours of a formerly six month relationship.

I cried for hours last night. I got into bed with a hot water bottle because the warmth brings me comfort and hugged Patrick tightly; I would think about Coppell and get upset, eventually dropping off from exhaustion, before waking up, remembering what had happened and then crying all over again. I probably got two hours sleep and I feel a complete mess.

I thought I might be feeling a little less all-over-the-place when I got up, but within five minutes I was reaching for the toilet roll to mop up my sobs. If science and engineering can put a man on the moon, why can’t they invent an analgesic for broken hearts?

For him to just be gone from my life, here-one-day gone-the-next, is something I can’t wrap my head around at the moment.

I’d arranged to introduce Coppell to most of my friends next weekend and so I had to email everyone and tell them what had happened, so that they didn’t book hotel rooms for an event I did not think I could attend. Everyone emailed back such kind and understanding replies, which made me cry more :)

M had something very perceptive to say. I’d written that I was devastated by what had happened, and that this was kind of stupid due to the amount of time me and Coppell had spent together. She replied that she thinks

“99% of the grief is sadness and frustration about the loss of the future that might have been.”

Nailed it.

I was excited about a future with Coppell. I was happy enough on my own before he came along, however I wasn’t excited about the future. Not at all. I had accepted that in all probability I would not meet anyone to share my life with, and I was more-or-less okay with that. Resigned to my fate would be a better description. I had work and not much else in my life, and lived somewhere shit, so I did feel pretty down at times. I never felt that I had much to look forwards to.

Looking back at what i’d written just before Coppell came onto the scene is so sad to read today.

“A new development: a wistfulness more frequently encountered than it has been in many a month. I notice its presence when i’m tired or at the end of a stressful day at work, and of course, on a Sunday evening. A small yet noticeable feeling of aloneness that gnaws at the edges of my day. I find myself missing physical contact too, the tactile side of things, not necessarily sex.”

With Coppell gone I feel like so much potential has been lost. The potential I felt in the first three days translated into potential for years ahead. I could see it- he would achieve great things and bring a lot of good to people, and I wanted to help, be a part of his plans.

There was so much to look forwards to, and I honestly thought our relationship was going to be many years long, not months. I was so excited at the possibility of building a life together, exploring the world and its wonderful and terrible things together.

What is so upsetting to me is that I thought that in Coppell i’d found someone I could love with all my heart. Of course, I want to be loved, but to be able to love someone else without having to hold back, self-censor, to be able to love deeply; this is what I long for more than anything else.

Fuck the word like. I didn’t like him, I loved him. I loved him exactly how he was. In his very human imperfection, he was perfect in my eyes. And gone from my life forever.

The events of last night have left me with many questions, but I don’t know whether the answers that Coppell could give would help ease the pain at all. I just can’t seem to stop crying… maybe i’ll get dehydrated eventually and things will dry up.

:(

I’m all about the words, right? I’ve written before about how I somehow manage to churn out a novel a year through my ramblings here? Well, words cannot express just how sad I feel right now.

I met up with Coppell this evening, and after i’d enjoyed rambling about teaching and the merits of Han and Indy, he told me that he’d recently come to the realisation that he wasn’t ready for a relationship.

We both cried for over an hour.

The last six months have been indescribably wonderful; for the first time in my life I felt happy with someone without having to add qualifying statements, excuse their behaviour or have to repress my feelings. I was proud to be seen with such a smart, attractive man and so very dearly wanted him to be in my life long term. I thought that at last something good was happening in my life, like a ray of sunshine and hope had broken through…

We’ve spent most of our time separately, but his loss is going to leave an enormous hole. I’m never going to see Meathead ever again either, the dog I fell in love with.

There were times I thought I loved her owner too.

I am *devastated*

From one of my all time faves. This scene seems rather appropriate at the moment.

Lunch with Leia Ewok Village was postponed, so the big event of the Easter weekend was the return of Coppell, who was in town for more than one day. Woo.

It was a bit of a strange experience seeing him again. I’ve done my usual holiday thing of messing up my body clock courtesy of too many late nights and too much internet, so I was already tired when we met up. I’ve also been feeling a bit wobbly at times over the last few days due to hormonal shenanigans (AKA my body trying to get its act together) and the lack of interaction with fellow humans on a daily basis has left me a bit tongue-tied.

To begin with it was weird- it was like two friends meeting, with neither of us showing very many signs of affection; I felt a distance between us and I kept myself emotionally in check. We went out for some legendary pie and as the meal progressed things warmed up between us; I felt more comfortable and we got on like the accommodation being oxidised that is the norm.

It’s still very odd to know that Coppell is ten minutes round the corner and not across an ocean. Whereas before I knew when I would or would not see him thanks to the distance involved, now there’s uncertainty despite us actually living in the same square mile. Now I have to do that whole trying to be nonchalant thing, when I spend quite a lot of time wanting to interact with him in intellectual and physical ways.

When I visited him in Pittsburgh, both of us were off work and so spent a week or more in each other’s company, and in the short time we hotel hopped in October, we spent as much time together as we could manage. Now I have to adapt to a more relaxed pace, which is going to take some getting used to.

I feel a vulnerability with regards him that I didn’t feel when we were living on different continents. I know that all of these issues will iron themselves out given time; I expect once i’m back at the whiteboard-face things will improve.

I know What Boys Like
The Waitresses
1980

Urg. An interrupted night under the duvet topped off with waking super early and being unable to fall back asleep. One of those nights where it took hours to stop thinking about things (the same shit, over and over), and when I did drop off I woke feeling exhausted. I had a bit of a downer of a day yesterday, and I often find waking early is the result; nothing is necessarily wrong, but things don’t feel entirely right either.

Figured i’d get up, get some cereal and a cup of tea and hope that this triggered off the post-food warm and fuzzies so I can crawl back into bed and get some actually relaxing sleep.

Aqua regia is a highly corrosive mixture of acids that is used to clean things that need to be really clean, for etching and to produce an electrolyte used to refine gold. This story from its Wikipedia entry is suuuuper cool:

“When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of German physicists Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925) in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935.

De Hevesy placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals.

After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The gold was returned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation. They re-cast the medals and again presented them to Laue and Franck.”

Moon by Donald Short
Cyanotype
2009



How goes my first week of freedom AKA slobbing out in my room? Well, thanks very much.

Aside from the fact that my fingers get so cold whilst typing that they become stiff, I’m really enjoying spending time creating the website for the artwork I am supposedly going to do.

I’ve changed my mind and started again about three times upon getting ideas from current sites, but through a process of trial and error I feel like I’m making progress.

Just the work to actually put on there. Hmmm…

I’m using Blueprint to set my pages out and I am enjoying it; there’s not a whole lot to learn and it’s proving very useful with regards helping everything look consistent. It also makes knocking up something relatively quick.

More importantly i’m staying away from using tables with my CSS, which is how i’ve done things in the past; it’s been a slow and at times frustrating process but I feel like I have a better grasp now than I did previously. Plus, Blueprint means I don’t have to worry about floats or positioning. Hurrah.

So yeah, i’m kinda cheating, but whatever :)

Other than coding, trying to keep warm and drinking multiple cups of tea, i’ve done not very much. It’s been nice to spend time on something I enjoy, where I don’t have to compromise the time spent on it, i.e. have to do an actual job. Goddamned having to work for a living.

The weekend brings lunch with Leia Ewok Village – which I am excited about as it seems to have been aaaages since we last saw each other – and the return of Coppell, which I am also excited about but for different reasons :)

Simian Mobile Disco
Cruel Intentions
(Heartbreak’s Slow Action Remix)
from Temporary Pleasure (2009)

I am greatly appreciating Beth Ditto on this one… which is saying something as i’ve never thought much of her before.

A great headphone listen and perfect for dancing around in your underwear :)

From Laura of Miami’s Vamos a La Playa 106 (go listen!)

Drinking on a non-school night with Flambé… whodathunkit. Strange compulsion to eat toast but will try to resist… for as long as possible… or at least five minutes :) To bed all warm and fuzzy, where I take enjoyment in feeling out the contours of my body. I am textural :)

Paul Thek

I think I will print this out LARGE and stick it up on the whiteboard in my classroom.

A piano mash up that includes Come As You Are blended with Tainted Love?

EPIC.

What’s That You’re Doing?
Paul McCartney
from Tug Of War
(1982)