Yup. Still an asshole.

1. All of the time you thought I was sad, I was trying to remember your name.

"I would have married you," he said, and in reply I told him the truth, or my version of it. "I wouldn't have married you," I said, and I meant in, because when I looked at him I found nothing pleasing about his countenance. When I held his hands in mine I felt no vestigial remnants of sparks that once flew. And so it is with all who've come before or since, a trickle of faces with nothing good to remember them by.



2. I am a weekday on weekends; I hate my best friends.

I spent Saturday at home, neither brooding nor talking, simply sipping my glass of wine and watching some very low-definition hockey on the television. The emails I've yet to return are stacking up in my inbox, pixel upon pixel to the sky; my voicemail is full. There was plenty of time to be sure to be a good friend but instead I chose the quiet of my own company. John Donne was a putz.



3. But I learned fast how to keep my head up 'cause I know I got this side of me that wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just fly the whole mess into the sea.

He forgave me once and somehow next day I ended up back in Pocket Park, sipping a granita, Pete's long arm around my shoulder. When things go well I run, and in running I destroy, knocking over bookshelves and smashing vases and tearing down curtains on my way out the door. Neither lover nor fighter I'm marathon runner, and you'd be far better off getting the hell out of the way.



4. You come to me with excuses ducked out in a row; you wear me out.

She'd call and call and spend hour after hour doing nothing but complaining, whining and crying and woe-is-me-ing, that after a while I stopped answering the call. She gets that from her mother I think, my mother, and thank the sweet baby Jesus that is one gene I did not inherit. And so it goes with everyone, friend and foe alike, that the second you say "Why me?" I answer "Because you are you."



5. I can tie my tie all by myself.

Don't help me with that. No, seriously, I can do it myself.