Friday, Feb. 08, 2002 / 1:22 p.m.

~Cosmic Joke? Or Coincidental Programming?~

I think I figured it out. It's Listerine's medicine. Her sore muscles medicine. Yes, the smell makes me swoon with nausea, but what can I do? She was in a car accident a few days ago and she is apparently in much pain, her neck all crooked to one side. As soon as she gets off the phone I'm going to ask if I can smell her jar of liniment, or ointment�dammit, that's not it. I don't know what it is, but this is the second day, I'd guess, of this odor wafting at me, making me want to wretch. Oh, but only in waves, or, as they say, it "comes in spurts", which always makes me giggle.

So, last night I was thinking about the French ex-lover, and what it was like when we first met, our first "date", how we rented "Man Bites Dog", but could barely watch it. We sat with it all cued up in my VCR, moved to my apartment because the VCR at his house was mysteriously missing, and it later turned out that it didn't belong to him anyway, that it belonged to a roommate who had moved out, and he, naturally, had taken it with him. But there we sat, on my sofa, me with the remote control in my hand, and I kept pausing it, it would un-pause, I'd re-pause, and I'd ask, "Are we ever going to watch this thing?!", and "Do we even want to watch this thing?!", because we couldn't stop talking. We suddenly "connected", as they say, as they said a lot last night during Part One of the "Temptation Island 2" season finale.

There I was remembering the good parts, the beginning, the initial excitement, the portion that occurred before the middle and the horrible and confusing end, thinking about how I wrote almost an entire book about it, about us, during that time. I would get stoned, wasted, and write on my little word processor I bought from my friend B. I lived in my Midtown apartment with the high ceilings and the hardwood floors then - I'd sit at the old gate leg table, the ceiling fan whirring above my head, the traffic outside the porch, beyond the French doors. I would write and write and write some more, and sometimes I'd let the French ex-lover read it, sometimes I'd mail letters to him, or drop them at his house, or hand them to him. I was insanely in love, I was consumed by love, I was overwhelmed by my own feelings, and I overwhelmed him. It was sheer torment.

Last night, late, as I lay in bed ready to drift off to sleep, TV on as usual, I looked at the movies listing to see what was on, to see what might be good to fall asleep to, and there, on IFC, the Independent Film Channel, was "Man Bites Dog".

I tried to find some immediate meaning in the coincidence, but I couldn't figure what that might be. Was it a sign? Does he ever think about me? Do my ex-lovers think of me, dream of me, ever? I'd never know.

I did run into him, not long ago, maybe a year ago, and it was fairly horrible, I wrote about it somewhere, probably the web site where I used to publish my writing� He walked in to a restaurant, actually outside, on the terrace where I was sharing a meal with friends, and I was so glad I was with friends, and he walked towards me and past, and the moment was a small eternity, the expressions in his eyes were numerous in their range, I could see all of it, surprise, acceptance, remembrance, fondness, bitterness, anger, hatred, bewilderment, all of it right there in those blue liquid pools. (that sounds hokey, I know, but if you saw his eyes you'd understand) It was bizarre, really, him walking behind his wife, yeah, they'd been married shortly after we split. He'd immediately hooked up with this other person, and I assumed she'd been there somewhere, between us, all along. There they were, going out to eat at the same Mediterranean cafe I love so much, and I'd given a little wave with my hand on the table, a little raising of the fingers on one hand, just as he passed, and my friend Mark, across from me, in front of what had just occurred, it all behind him, but visible in my eyes, knew something had happened.

He knew me so well, he saw it, and though I briefly explained to the table, I was furiously busy trying to gauge my reaction. What did I feel? What had he felt? Was that it? The last time? The only time? As long as we live in the same metropolitan area it may happen again� A friend of Mark's sat to my side, a woman, a lesbian to whom I was very attracted, but I knew she wouldn't go for me, said, "I saw that, the way he looked at you, were you lovers?".

One time, I jokingly told the French ex-lover I'd compile all my writing from that time, while we were still "together", and publish it as a book, call it Anatomy of a Relationship, and for a moment he'd thought I was serious. He seemed frightened. Sometimes I take it out, all those journals, and all those pieces of paper I printed from the word processor, the letters still in envelopes, the ones I never delivered, and read it, and it's too intense for even me. But it was my outlet, I had to write it, it was all too much for me to comprehend outside of the written word.

What are the chances of me sitting on the sofa thinking of him, of us, of how we began, of that first night after we met, that horrible movie, and it being on TV last night? Why do things like that happen? Is it some sort of cosmic joke? Or merely coincidental programming?

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