A month ago I asked Amy if, when rescheduling our couples therapy appointment, she would “tell her” (Lesley, the therapist). Amy responded that she would tell Lesley that we were “broken up” and I responded that a better way to say it would be that I am “moving out”, and went on to justify this as a more accurate assessment of the situation; that “moving out” is literally what is happening, thus avoiding the dramatized “break up”; lives crumbling and tears flowing. I don’t think I could go through with moving out if I were to think in terms of finite separation, or terms that never made sense to me. I think it’s more complicated than that. And when complexity arises, I figure the best way to accurately represent a the situation is to explain only what one can see; to let the actions speak for themselves.

Two summers ago in New York, I went to Burning Deck’s 30 Year Anniversary reading. There I ran into Michael Gizzi, who I knew from graduate school, and he introduced me to an older poet whose name I don’t recall (sorry). I was telling this poet about my plan to move to California, to be with my long term love. Later in the conversation he asked when I found time to write, and I responded that I had so much free time living alone and working (painting) on my own schedule, writing came out of a kind of boredom. He pointed out that living with a woman would seriously hinder this kind of boredom. I laughed, unable to foresee the problem.

I remember my radio show in college, where at 1:45 AM Thom and I would stage the “1:45 Talkabout”, where instead of playing music we would talk to each other, take calls, play sound effects or what-ev; fill up the fifteen minutes until 2. Once, talking about a local scandal that neither of us knew anything about (the resignation of the student body president), a call came in telling us to quit talking about things we didn’t know about. The caller was angry and well spoken. We laughed and then changed the topic.