Villan it is
Me: Goddammit. The RTX 3090 needs three pcie power connectors and you only have two.
Him: Goddammit.
My buddy Panda just left. Was trying to upgrade his computer but no luck. Still, we did manage to sit down and have some rum together.
Him: You’ve accomplished a lotta stuff with your life.
Me: (taking a sip) What have I accomplished besides being a high-functioning alcoholic?
Him: (shrugging) Well, you’re high-functioning at least.
Spoke to someone I dated after everything went down with Alison and my dad. I literally had to dig up my old phone – and old phone number – to figure out how to get in touch with her. My brain’s like swiss cheese lately.
That’s an interesting story that I’m still trying to sort out. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.
Me: FWIW, I think I loved you. Everything was just…crazy then.
Her: (laughs) You think?! You did. You still do.
Me: Sure. And I think you still love me. But in the end, it doesn’t make a difference does it?
Her: No, it doesn’t. (shaking head) I’ve never met anyone so out of touch with what they’re thinking and feeling.
Me: It was too much. It’s still too much to take. In the end, we were both right: We’re incompatible.
On that note, I thought of my ex before Alison recently.
This woman named Alana Davis sang a cover of Ani DiFranco 32 Flavors that I prefer to Ani’s verison. Alison always thought that was blashphomy.
In any case, both versions start off with a line that goes, “Squint your eyes and look closer; I’m not between you and your ambition.”
When my ex and I broke up, she essentially said I was holding her back: From making new friends, from getting promoted at work, from blogging, from public speaking, from everything.
In law, there’s a latin phrase, sine qua non, which translates to “but for…”
eg: She would be happy and successful – but for Logan holding her back.
I thought of that phrase and the Ani song as she was telling me how awful I was.
Don’t think I was angry so much as I was sad that she blamed me for so much. I like to think that she was just lashing out because everything was such a mess.
Have zero idea what’s going on with her now but I always wondered if her life became everything she dreamed it would be if only I wasn’t in it.
Sine qua non Logan…
Honestly, as I write this, I hope she was right. That it was me, all along, keeping her from being the best version of her self.
I wrote once that I was always secretly on her side and I still am.
In fact, I’m secretly on the side of a lotta people who probably don’t know that I am. Because, for some moments in time, they meant the world to me.
In the end, that’s fine.
Everyone needs a good enemy and if that’s my role in someone’s life, so be it – sometimes, we don’t get to choose if we’re the hero or the villian, life chooses for us.
Villan it is…
In other news, I finished making the duck confit for the kid recently.
Him: I don’t want to try it.
Me: Try it, you might like it.
Him: (reluctantly) Oh, it’s good!
Me: See?!
Him: I’m just going to eat the (plain) rice, OK? Yummy. This rice is so good.
Me: (sighing)
Location: stepping out of the car on W 76th and Amsterdam
Mood: villanous
Music: God help you if you are a phoenix and you dare to rise (Spotify)
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