Killing Puppies

Going through a break up, the mind becomes simultaneously capable of the most logical and the most irrational thoughts. "I'd better get rid of that piece of driftwood she kept from our trip to San Diego. We're never going to make a mobile out of it now." Which makes sense, the mobile was her idea, and, really, what am I going to do with a giant hunk of sun-bleached wood, only it's the middle of the night, I'm in bed, the drift wood is in my car, not really bothering anyone, so its disposal, though perfectly within the realm of logic, is hardly a priori.

Except for once, during a breakup which effected me with a profundity even I have a difficult time explaining its impact, I've never worried that I was going to die alone, that my tears sprung from a bottomless well of despair, that I would never laugh again, smile at a stranger, catch someone's eye and, eventually, fall in love. It's the little things that get me. Like that driftwood. Man, that would have been a cool project: collecting shells and rocks on the beach--she loves the beach!--amassing trinkets and treasures until we are old and grey, adding them to our never-ending expansion of a mobile, all anchored to that one very special piece of wood she found on our trip to San Diego.

I have to see my ex when I go back to visit New York because she has my coat, which made sense in a world where my first stop from the airport after Papaya Dog would be her bed, which happens to be adjacent to her closet and my coat. It is significantly less convenient in a world where that closet is a half an hour train ride from my old apartment in Brooklyn where I will be crashing on my old couch while my roommates are on tour.

"Well, I better make plans to get that coat. It was such a find at that flea market," I think. "Silly to waste a great coat like that. And Los Angeles is so sunny, it seems practically criminal to go out and get a whole new coat." So I ask my ex if she'd like to grab coffee,and could she please bring the coat with her. I should just swing by when she is at work, grab the coat and leave her spare keys (whose real estate I've already assessed on my key chain and decided they need to go, immediately, post haste! I'd mail them now, but what about the coat) but if I go to her apartment, I'll have to see the dog. which may be too much for me to bear. I loved that dog. I'm not sure I'd make it through saying good-bye.

I can let go of the thought of our marriage, but am deeply saddened to think that we'll never have the wedding we planned, with aerialists, and my dear friend Bonnie serenading us for our first married people dance--seating scary uncle dick next to evil mother-in-law Nancy. Those tiny lost fractions of moments are what upset me.

At least every hour, I think about calling her and casually asking that she please not use the pillow that I made for her, as it was made with love, and, given the circumstances, is no longer appropriate.

I have a theory about all of this. I call it "killing puppies." The basic premise is this: if we see a movie where a puppy is killed, brutally or otherwise, we cry. It's horrible. Yet, we sit through movies like "Saving Private Ryan" or "Natural Born Killers," and we're ok. We're not happy about it. Maybe we're upset or intellectually provoked, but we're not sad like when the puppy died. My theory is that we can't process multiple human deaths at once--it's just too much, so it washes over us a bit more generally, whereas the puppy is just big enough of a tragedy that it gets through the little door in our hearts and makes us cry.

The same theory predicts that when I go through a break up with someone with whom I had thought I would spend the rest of my life, the things that upsets me most are driftwood, keys and a pillow. The thought that the relationship as a whole is over is too big a concept to permeate whatever gizmo it is inside of me that makes me sad. It's why, the last time heartbreak struck, I lost weight from crying so hard over the scent of her hair.

"So we beat on," I tell myself, "boats against the current, we are borne back into the past." Maybe I'll never make that mobile or marry a woman who makes killer turkey tacos, but I have to believe that somewhere, an even greater adventure lies ahead: one where the puppy lives, and all the people do, too.

Ah-ooo!

It Can't Rain All the Time

This old universe of ours certainly has a peculiar little cadence, doesn't it. And try as we might to make sense of it and predict some of its twists and turns, in the end, we are all pretty helpless.

My on-again-off-again was happily on. Despite 3,000 miles between us, we had regular plans to see each other and were generally happy and in love, my room covered in post-its she left with sweet nothings of encouragement ("you're pretty talented and you're going to make it," a playful take on what I had requested, which was "you're pretty, talented and you're going to make it," may we never underestimate the importance of punctuation.) She, adorned with a bracelet that bearing the engravement "future wife." Sure, highs and lows abound, but as far as either of us were concerned, this was a relationship of matrimonial caliber. We met family, friends, and referred to each other with the rather uncreative moniker "wife."

On Saturday I was feeling particularly lovesick, still adjusting to a new life in Los Angeles, missing my friends and, on that day in particular, my wife.

iPhone, please play back the transcript:

"Miss you too babe. No sad, life is great," she said. "See you in 10 days."

"19 days," I corrected.

Followed by "Oops. Right. Damn."

And then a series of four un-recriprocated texts sent by me over the course of the next 36 hours ranging from exciting news about a show I've been working on, to an advisory that my feelings were being seriously affected by this radio silence.

Nothing.

Then an apology, she'd been partying all weekend and was, thus, unable to text me. Then a brief phone call, where she whispered she was unable to speak, as she had friends over.

Then emails sent from each of us simultaneously (within a minute) explaining all the reasons we should just be friends.

So, to recap, "I love you, I miss you," 36 hours of silence, and a break up.

Certainly not the series of events I had hoped for. What followed was a teary phone call to my mother who immediately agreed that no one should be mean to me like that, that she was not the woman for me, that mama loves me always, always, and to never be afraid of crying.

Then a commercial audition for Dish TV, where I was chipper and professional--I told you, the universe is a bitch.

A walk to the liquor store for a mediocre bottle of wine, which I am drinking with ice in it, because I am a lady.

A couple of short, confusing, emails, a friend sending me a link to an apartment in his building that would be perfect for my girlfriend and I because he knows we've been looking for a two bedroom and how much she loves Santa Monica, a perfunctory look at match.com, just in case, and a cold CocaCola, which always somehow seems to cure what ails me.

My manager called me when I found out to make sure I was ok, if I needed popcorn and a movie, but I have a show tonight, and if there is one lesson with which the universe and I are in perfect accord, it is that the show must go on.

On Saturday, I missed my girlfriend terribly. On Sunday, my girlfriend was terrible, and today, the sky is a perfect pathetic fallacy of the tears falling down my face. I will never pretend that I understand the way the world works. I continue to wonder at what point my ex decided it was over, and at what point I, too, resigned that it was. Certainly, there must have been a place before those 36 hours of silence where one of us knew we were approaching a point of no return--that a refusal to send a "busy, love! Talk tomorrow!" was becoming a matter of la grande vie and le petit mort.

And now here I am, wine in hand, Pandora carefully curated to walk me through this crisis. It may be rainy and sad today, but let it not go unnoticed that I live in a world where nine days out of ten there is sun: metaphorically, that world is a lot of meditation, journaling and positive thinking. Literally, it is Los Angeles.

My roommate offered an unsolicited and entirely unhelpful opinion, and surely there will be more of those to come, but that's life. Timing is everything.