the fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid

Like two ships in the night,

We're colliding and sinking,

Into the black sea of our love.

We navigated past the point of logical thinking,

Lost sight of the stars up above.

I've listened to this song roughly 20 times today, including singing along to it blaring while I was full-on crying, driving down the highway.

Now my heart is a mess.

Murder scene in my chest,

Not a clue how you got through the door.

But I'm glad that you came,

No regret and no shame,

As I'm lying here dead on the floor.

I took a blind leap of faith,

That's now crashing and burning,

With my heart fast asleep in your bed.

I got on the ground safe

But with my insides turning,

And a picture of you in my head.

Yes, I'm depressed.

As I wandered away deep in shock and dismay,

In a daze, just repeating your name.

Well the fact of the matter is both our hearts

Shatter way too goddamn easily

And I'm sick as hell. This is not the right venue for getting into most of it - some things really are too private even for this blog - but the last few months have been really, really shitty. And the last three weeks (a headache that lasts 18 days?!) have been terrible. And the last four days have been unimaginable.

When you asked me if I'd stay forever,

Guess you meant just for the week.

We felt so good together,

It was way too good to be.

When I left you there early that morning,

My darling,

I told you that I'd miss you so.

I got on that plane with my heart soaring,

But now it's falling like snow.

    It's possible to love someone so much that you can't be with them. I never believed that was true, but now I know. The right thing to do is to stay away. So I'm staying away, and he's staying away, and it feels like the worst thing imaginable.

And like two ships in the night.

We're colliding and sinking,

Into the black sea of our love.

We navigated past the point of logical thinking,

Lost sight of the stars up above.

    I've run out of The Simpsons on DVD. Twelve seasons, start to finish, turned out to be enough for the time being. Next up: the Canadian SWAT team show, Flashpoint. Quirky, intense, very Canadian (earnest, philosophical, ethical), and imbued with a terrific soundtrack, it's a hidden gem.

Now my heart is a mess.

Murder scene in my chest,

Not a clue how you got through the door.

But I'm glad that you came,

No regret and no shame,

As I'm lying here dead on the floor.

    Rather than reading on my Kindle lately, I've been rereading old favorites from my fiction shelves. I seem to need to do that now and then, to reset my preferences or remind myself why I actually collect books anymore (besides being a dinosaur). At the moment I'm working v-e-r-y slowly through a dense Norwegian literary novel, Silence in October by Jens Christian Grøndahl (65 pages into 296 after about 10 days), interspersed by various other books - the current one is The Man Who Wrote the Book by Erik Tarloff.

When you asked me if I'd stay forever,

Guess you meant just for the week.

We felt so good together,

It was way too good to be.

When I left you there early that morning,

My darling,

I told you that I'd miss you so,

I got on that plane with my heart soaring,

But now it's falling like snow.

Now it's falling like snow.

Now it's falling like snow.

    The last thing that I want to do is take a shower and go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a dreadful, horrid day. How do I know? And why is my attitude so bad? Headache, sore stomach, huge important meeting, two new medications, hours to make up at work, and an enormous pile of work to do while I'm there. Maybe I'll just stay home.

And now it's falling like snow.

[the title quotation is by J.D. Salinger]