tabula rasa

Looking back through my (admittedly slender) archives, I find I'm pleased about something.

I haven't actively curated the contents of this blog. Since February, I've written what's been on my mind. The stories are from last decade, last month, and last night; they're here because they don't tug at my mental corners quite as much once I've written them down. But when I review all of my entries -- both the published ones, and the dozens of drafts -- I notice a glaring and gratifying hole.

He's not here.

I'm cautious about how I explain this. I don't want to afford him too much weight -- and any weight seems like too much. But (don't all good stories start this way?) there was this one guy. A real piece of work. Of course, before I figured that out, I fell madly in love with him; became blind to all his flaws; and dated him for the better part of three years with what became self-flagellating vim. The final detonation involved STDs, the Craigslist casual encounters section, and a girlfriend in another state he'd somehow neglected to mention.

Morgan later described it as a "we-burned-this-shit-to-the-ground breakup." Accurate, but requires a stage note: I was using napalm.

So you can see how, if I'd started this blog a few years ago, it pretty much would have been a monograph on this cretin. You all would be as tired of listening to me as my friends were back then. But here we are in 2011, and my archives tell me he's been mentioned only once, in passing. He was just background in a story about someone else.

I expect I will write about him at some point. That's okay. I did a lot of dating and drinking with him, and those tales are part of how I got here.

But meanwhile, my own journal betrays the fact that he's vanished from my mental radar more completely than I once could have imagined. And that, ladies and gentlemen, seems like something worth celebrating.