i wasted saturday. i started messing things up with my partner (yes, again) then went to the bank with my mom. after i came back from the bank, i continued where i left off and screwed up royally, for silly reasons of course. instead of doing what we were supposed to do together with a friend (go to a wedding, my favorite thing in the world), she stormed off and i stayed home, goofing off on the internet as usual. just when i was about to look up the price of available apartments to see if i could move out immediately, she and the friend came home for a little bit. they ended up staying for a whole movie--hanging around when i don't want people around is the sure way to piss me off. so naturally i screwed things up a little more and they left without me. i couldn't believe that she could just leave like that now and not try to repair things or give me a good shake. i'm in such shock at it that i have to see with my own eyes that she has left. i walk to the balcony to see if i can see her car driving in the distance though i haven't heard it leave. to my shock the first thing i see is our friend standing out there--they haven't left yet. they call out to me but i just go back inside. i think i was too far for them to see how messed up my face is from crying.

i really didn't know how to handle what was going on and what to do with myself for the rest of the day. absolute zero idea. when that happens to me, i sleep. so i slept. i try to fast forward life and just avoid the icky bits. i woke up 4 hours later or so. by then i thought things would have moved forward in a direction that i could deal with. but they had not. i couldn't go back to sleep. so i stayed up and only grew more paranoid with each waking moment. it's now so late that if she were coming home she would be home by now from a fucking wedding reception. i thought for sure that this was the final nail in the coffin so i sent some text messages that maybe i shouldn't have. hey, i always have to have the last word. then i tried to sleep again. but i couldn't. so i started writing with pen on paper--tough to do when your fingers are so used to keyboards instead of writing instruments. at first it was to no one and then it was about her and then it was directly to her. then i tried to sleep again and couldn't. i started thinking about LA freeways and how i could possibly drive a loop, switching freeways but never exiting, and return home in about 1 hour. or i could always just like naked in the tub and start cutting myself so that i'm taking a bath in my own blood. how fitting an end it would be considering we first got together after i was really depressed and wrestling with suicide, doing a bit of cutting. just then however she came home. so i pretended to be asleep and i'm a bad actress. i think she's reading the note. i'm not sure exactly how things went but the yelling and crying started up again so i got up and left. just did what i thought about for the first time, which is to just get up and leave. i've thought about such things since i was a kid. but this time it was a loop i thought of, not going off with nowhere in mind to never return. so i suppose it was finally a safe enough idea that i attempted it.

i took the 605 to the 91 and thought i could catch the 57 or the 55 and meet up with the 405 and drive it on back to the 605. only, i came across the 5 and decided to take that because the 5 also meets up with the 405. hell, where do you think the 405 spun off of? so i take the 5 and it's late enough that i'm able to enjoy driving and i pass disneyland and irvine and all that making good time. but i'm not in it to make good time. i'm doing this to kill time because i want to sleep but i'm not sleepy and because i'd rather not kill time with arguments. i also just had to get out of the room for my own sake. it's the only place where i've seriously tried to kill myself and those thoughts were coming back so i had to ward them off somehow.

i'm driving and before you know it, i've gone too far. there was no 405 north junction. the more i think about it, why should there be? it's raining a little bit and it's dark. i reach for my maps and attempt to make out the freeways of southern california at night by the light of the passing cars and my cell phone and in the rain going over 65mph. not the brightest thing in the world to do but it's what i did. i see that i should take the 133 s to catch the 405 n. didn't i already pass that though? where am i? i didn't want to exit. that breaks my loop. but i have no choice. if i don't exit, i'm going to end up in san diego. i've already passed san juan capistrano and now i'm in fucking dana point. i think i'm actually getting sleepy. i have to turn back. so i exit at some lonely exit and drive slowly back to the north onramp as i try to read the map. i'm beyond the region of my map. i'm back on the freeway and i keep seeing exits but nothing that was on the map and definitely no 133. finally, i see the last exit on my map and eventually 133. damn, i really passed that shit. the sign says to take 133 to get to 405 n but surprisingly it's the other way around. i'm on the 405 and back in irvine. i'm on the 605. i've listened to enough tunes and sang (the wrong lyrics) along that i'm in much better spirits now.

i'm back home and park in the garage. i go upstairs and lay down my shit and climb into bed. to my horror though she is dressed and a bag is packed. yes, it must be true, it's over. she's on the phone and i don't know who with and i'll just pretend not to care and crawl under the covers. she hands me a note and demands that i read it then and there. she was worried to death over my disappearance and so distraught that she called her sister to pick her up so that they could go looking for me. (i made sure i didn't take a cell phone with me on my drive.) shortly after i left she heard the sound of a passing ambulance. it wasn't until she got on the phone that she read my text messages. she's even further upset at what i've been writing because i've ended it (via text message!) and that's not where she was coming from. kids, see how miscommunication fucks things up? don't try this at home. in mere seconds the past is erased and the healing has begun. we go to sleep and wake up anew.

you know what today is? errands day. let's get the shit done that needs to get done and do stuff we've said we've wanted to do but not have. let's have these things in mind and do them in whatever order. let's just drive around and do things. so we do. i got a coupon in the mail for one of those quick oil change places. i've never been to one. it's like paying someone to wash your car. but this place includes a car wash--i'm sold! as the car is being worked on, we have lunch. peruvian food. it's a nice afternoon. don't have to change the oil or wash the car. just pay someone to do it. what a concept! after lunch we pick up my car from the oil change and drive the car next door for the free car wash. it's a basic wash but i'm not out in the sun breaking a sweat so i'm happy.

we then drive by street to my old neighborhood. it was the last of my happy days. after we moved from there, within 1 month my dad was dead and life changed. i haven't been there since high school and i am surprised at how close it is. though that time in high school was really not quality time spent, it was just to drop someone off. i haven't really been in the neighborhood since my visit in 1989. this place is only about 7 miles away. or less. what they say about how most people live within a 10 mile radius of where they are born (or where they grow up?) seems to be ringing true and it scares me.

i can't even remember my teachers' names

just say no

the neighborhood isn't as ghetto as i remember it being when i last saw it but signs of the times are there. the streets however are much smaller than i remember. we drive across to my first elementary school. it's fenced in everywhere and has the no drugs/guns/tobacco signs. i try to imagine them checking for weapons on 5 year olds. this is where i got lice in kindergarten. this is where i was separated from my best friend in 1st grade when they split up the class in two. this is where i started show and tell one day by accidentally carrying a doll of spike (snoopy's brother who lived in needles) all the way to school. this is where the kindergarten teacher yelled at me for my pathetic attempt at creating an american flag for arts and crafts and i was the only kid in the class who had to do it twice. this is where during recess i ate some berries from a bush in the playground and the other kids said it was poisonous and after school i ran home to tell my mommy that i ate poison and she gave me an antidote. this place is the foundation to my life. and this is where my life changed.

we then drove back to the shopping complex where we were earlier and watched "king kong". i knew it was long but its length wasn't what i had issue with. (though i knew we were in trouble when a couple hours into the film they still hadn't returned to new york.) i also don't like the 2 main actors but they were tolerable in this film. what i had issue with was a few of the camera choices. unnecessary to keep tilting the angles while there is a trailing effect to create a spooky vibe. that sort of shit is for music videos. there were also too many shots on the actors that were held for too long. the let's get everyone's reaction and keep looking at the ring in frodo's hands bit worked for "lord of the rings", but i'm afraid it doesn't in "king kong". if you took away some of that excessive stuff, maybe it would've cut down the film a bit to keep it from getting too long and losing a lot of the audience.