Epilogue

The check was in the mail.

On my trip to the mailbox, I found it empty and my heart sank a little. I was so counting on that check to arrive today. So I went back into the house and busied myself with a whole lotta nothin' and tried to put it out of my mind. Yes, I need the money, and rent's due in a few days, but I'm no more cash poor this month than I have been the last several. I'll survive. It's not like I'm starving.

But I was hungry. So I stepped out to head to bank to withdraw some more money from the ATM, all the while wondering which bill I would pay late so I could afford a cheeseburger. On a whim, I decided to go by the mailbox one more time. It was empty before. Maybe I just checked the box too early and the mail hadn't arrived yet. After all, how many days are there when I don't receive at least one bill or piece of junk mail?

And there it was. Envelope with a familiar zipcode. I rushed back into the house to open it. And sure enough, the check was there. And not for the discounted price I thought I might be getting for the ring, but the full asking price (minus the store's 10 percent commission).

So I am in the mood to celebrate. After a trip to two banks -- the first one was out of deposit envelopes -- and a stop at a burger joint, I headed out to begin my celebration at the most obvious place I could think of: Borders bookstore.

Last night I finished reading a Stephen King book that I bought a couple of months ago when heading out on a business trip. It was book six of his Dark Tower saga. I remember vividly reading the first three books of the series. But I don't know if I read the fourth or fifth installments or not. I'd have to check my bookshelf. But reading the sixth one reinvigorated my interest in the characters, and the quest, we all embarked on so long ago. As I finished the 6th book, it was apparent that the next installment would be the last, and perhaps Kings' last work altogether. Heck, if King can even consider giving up his writing muse (he writes in "Song of Susannah: The Dark Tower VI" that he might retire at the end of The Dark Tower series) then I can certainly give up a simple blog.

Anyway, after a little research I found out the the seventh and final installment is already out and soon to be out in paperback, so I headed to Borders to see if I could find it. I did, eventually, after traipsing all over the store. My mission when I walked in was to find one specific book. I walked out with four. I think I just reminded myself why I don't go into bookstores very often. It's like crack cocaine or something.

So, soon I will crack open a new book and start a new chapter. But this my friends, as advertised, is the end of this chapter and this tale. I have to tell you I have greatly missed coming here already. And I feel the pull to post quite strongly, or at the very least to write -- something -- but it's finally shape has not yet come to me. And it just doesn't feel like this would be the right place to launch that new story. This was a place of healing for me, and I am eternally grateful for having found this place and the caretakers and visitors who came by to aid in my healing. But a sick person doesn't stay in the hospital after they are well just because that's where they got better. Well, I can't stay here either.

When I bought that ring it was the symbol of love and a promise of forever. Then that love was betrayed and the ring was returned to me. At that point all I had was the raw emotion of pain and the symbol for a love that I was then still feeling at its height. The pain eventually faded. As did the feelings of love. But for a long time the ring remained, it's empty center a bitter reminder of something lost or missing. Well, the one that ring once wound around is no longer something missing in my life. A part of my past and part of what has made me who I am to be sure, but no longer a source of longing. I feel whole and happy and reinvigorated. I am living life and ready for the opportunity to love again. And I may have already found that too.

So good riddance to the ring and a sad but fond farewell to by friends at the Fishwrap. May you all find the love and adventures you seek. I'm off to celebrate. Perhaps with a nice premium tequila and a fine cigar. Or maybe a nice red wine and curling up with a new book. Or maybe just a nice walk on a cool summer night. Maybe I should check my Powerball numbers too.

You never know, today could end up being the best day of my life so far!

The world is full of prospects and possibilities. I'm off to explore some of them.

Technorati tags: Blogging
Retired blogs
Powerball lottery
Stephen King
Books

That's a wrap

Updated July 22, 2006 1:48 a.m. New information is at the bottom of this post.

If all goes well, I may finally be getting rid of a 14-karat gold and diamond albatross that's been hanging around my neck for more than two years.

I found out last week that someone has made an offer on the ring I have been trying to sell on consignment. The ring is a ring that I bought as an engagement ring in December 2003. The ring was given back to me two years ago this month. It took quite a while to decide what to do with it. I didn't admit it to myself at the time, but I'm pretty sure I held onto it for as long as I did in some sort of false hope that the woman I had given it to would want it back. Want me back. I finally decided to sell it when I knew with all my being that I didn't want her back. That, and I needed cash. I was broke.

Well, I still haven't got any cash out of the deal, and the offer on the ring, which isn't officially finalized yet, is less than I was asking and far, far less than I paid for the ring initially. And I'm still broke and really want to be done with the whole affair and put it all behind me -- lock, stock and facet.

When I found out about the offer, I knew I would make a blog post about it, about the closing of that chapter of my life. But I quickly came to learn something else. I got this overwhelmingly strong feeling that it would be my last blog post here.

Back when Digital Fishwrap was launched in December 2004, I wrote in the first post that "I can't say there will be a theme to this blog, or even a cohesive thread running through it. ...
I merely seek a little better understanding of life and a better way to live it."

But there has been a theme running through this blog and that is of a man who lost love and is trying to learn how to live again. The better understanding I sought was how to move on.

I mentioned the former fiancee and the ring in the first post too, detailing how I had the theme music for "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," as my ringtone for her on my cell phone. I wrote, "Perhaps that's a story for another post: How the symbol of our relationship went from a diamond ring to 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.' " Well, the ringtone is still in the phone, but her number is long gone and mine has changed.

Sure, there have been posts on here about a lot of other topics. Early on that was probably as much to convince myself that I was moving on as anything else. Later, I actually found other things I was compelled to write about. My daughter and the relationship I have, or am working to try to have, with her has probably been a pretty visible subplot.

Somewhere along the line I found a voice -- tone deaf and off pitch as it may may be -- and I had fun with the site. It got me writing again at a time when I wasn't writing much. Now, I'm writing more outside this space and the writing here has grown infrequent, tired and forced.

The time has come to turn my attention to new things, to different things. Perhaps I may resurface in the blogosphere again, with a new site and a new theme. But not this one.

I hate goodbyes, as perhaps the whole "theme" of this site has illustrated in documenting a two-year journey to say goodbye to a life I no longer have and a person I no longer am. So I really hate to say goodbye to the loyal dozen or so folks who have regularly checked in on this site, from locations near and far, including some old, dear friends and some new ones made through reading each other's blog posts.

I did consider coming out of the blogging closet as it were, revealing the man behind the G-man, and maybe taking this blog in a new direction. But that just didn't feel right. If I've learned nothing else in the last couple of years, with the end of the most emotionally serious relationship and a change in jobs and a major relocation, I have learned that sometimes we have to say goodbye to something before we can move on to the next thing.

I also thought about deleting this blog site completely. Just disappearing and being all mysterious. But I think I'll leave it up, at least for a while. There are some posts here I actually was quite proud of, typos and all, even though I never did compile a "favorite posts" list like I considered at one time. Maybe I'll back up a few of them onto a disk somewhere to read what a miserable schmuck I was back when.

But mostly I need to leave it up so all the people searching for "heart-shaped nipples," "nocturnal nose bleeds," "Barry Manilow," "Apollonia's tits," and "naked pool boys" can stumble on the site and wonder what the fuck this wacky site is all about.

I hope along the way something you've read here made you smile or laugh, even if you were laughing at me.

Thanks for the comments, for sharing part of my journey and for being part of my therapy. I am appreciative and grateful.

Well, except for you people who only came for the heart-shaped nipples.

Perverts! (E-mail me. We'll talk.)

Update: It has been well over a month since I wrote this post, and guess what? I still haven't got the money from the fucking ring. I swear that fucking thing will never go away.

I have been trying for weeks to get in touch with the people at the jewelry story that is supposed to be selling the ring. I called one day a few weeks ago on a Friday afternoon and the woman I've been dealing with in this saga wasn't there. Apparently the store was closing, or already closed. Obviously the reason the place hasn't been able to sell that damn ring is they are never open! Maybe the store is a hobby or something, because they seem to have limited hours and limited days of the week when anyone is even there. Obviously, I didn't notice that when I was living in that town, because I was working a swingshift, so I could pop in there at midday and transact my business before heading to work. Of course anyone who actually has anything approaching a normal job is not a customer there.

Anyway, The woman I talked to suggested I call back the following Monday. The problem is, I work during the week, during those few limited hours the store is open (life from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. or something). And I would always forget to call over lunch. I would remember that I had not called when I got home from work each day and was walking to my mailbox and realized there was no check in there.

Finally, one day this week, I remembered to call during the middle of the day, and got the woman I've been dealing with. But apparently the woman who writes the checks has been out on some sort of family emergency. She was supposed to be back by end of this week or next. So the jewelry shop lady tells me that the check should go out next week and she will call me when it does.

So, we'll see if she calls and if the check actually comes. If she had not told me the check was coming, I was determined to have them just ship the ring to me so I could sell it myself, or toss it in the Willamette River, or something. Maybe I could take it to bars, toss it up on the bar and tell any woman who asked about it a sob story to see if they would take pity on the "broken" man with an expensive ring, and no finger to put it on.

Frankly I'd rather have the cash. Besides, there's another woman in my life who already knows the real sob story, and it's looking like maybe, just maybe, if I haven't so offended God that he pushes me further, she may be moving quite a bit closer to my current home. And maybe we might actually get to spend some time together. I don't want to jinx it. But I'm optimistic. And I don't think she would care for a slightly used piece of jewelry, no matter how well things go between us and how understanding she may be.

So my attempt to wrap up the Fishwrap, not to mention the whole failed engagement saga, in a nice little bow didn't quite work out the way I had planned. But then again, life rarely works out the way we think it will, does it? And that's part of what makes it exciting and interesting. The end of every chapter, every story every blog post isn't really an end. It's just the beginning of something else, the epilogue. The story beyond and behind the story.

Sometimes when we read someone else's story, we are left to wonder what happened after the final chapter. And we are left to write our own epilogue to the story penned by someone else. So, if you bother to write an epilogue to this saga, do me a favor. Make it a happy ending.

Technorati tags: Blogging
Technorati tags: Retired blogs

Am I who I think I am?

So, I log on to make a post today and now I have to use word verification on my own blog posts. Not the comments, but to make a post to my own blog.

The little message that comes with this verification thingy tells me that my blog has characteristics of a spam blog.

Can someone tell me what about this blog, seems like a spam blog? I don't think I've ever submitted posts about erectile disfunction or ways to make your penis larger, which seems to be characteristics of ever other e-mail floating through cyberspace.

I don't think I'm happy about that. No, I know I'm not happy about this.

Technorati tags: Blogging