excuse me while i break my own heart (updated: 9/15/14)

My Thesis, Postscript

My main purpose is twofold:

To demonstrate how I was unjustly trespassed by a New Seasons Market Store Manager and subsequently victimized by the Upper Management while attempting to seek resolution with them. During the course of this procedure (which was verbally provided to me by the corporation’s representative, to whom I first inquired), I found myself placed in the harrowing position of enduring further humiliation: I believe that their suppression tactics were deliberately employed to traumatize me;  I know that I was intentionally, falsely arrested. This business which markets and promotes itself to the public as being genuinely progressive and “the friendliest store in town”, purposely lied to police.  

An equally important purpose for this presentation is to defend myself against, and prove myself innocent of:  the slanderous, disparaging untruths and false accusations targeting me during New Seasons Market’s failed public relations attempt to blame the victim; portraying me in an intentionally scathing, negative light – on the global internet – as if to suggest that, were their statements actually true;  the conclusion should be that I am deserving of the punishing acts and consequently unworthy of justice. This public relations statement had been openly published in July 2011; authored by the same “Customer Advocate” who disingenuously represented herself as being my actual advocate when we first spoke on the phone, and again when I met with her at the Corporation’s Headquarters (a meeting she arranged for me).

I further assert that – even if their character assassination of me were not a deliberate fabrication – nobody deserves to be treated as grievously as I have been by New Seasons Market. It is significant that they were dishonest, and therefore, I am certainly not deserving of such severe treatment; I maintain that New Seasons Market’s bullying, intimidation tactics and harmful actions – aimed at anyone – is telling evidence of their corruption.

* * *

…I did not draw up a blueprint of how to best defend myself in a way that might hopefully assure me of immunity from all future embarrassment. If anybody has any sage advice for how I might better go about doing this, please send me an e-mail, no matter how far down the road it gets to be…

I never considered not defending myself – no other option seems acceptable to me – but, I did not immediately rush to tell the whole truth while carelessly tossing others and their presumed desire for privacy aside. 

Although the best course of action for me instinctively involved telling the truth at all times – I did sincerely try my best to leave other involved persons out of the story as much as I could without not telling the truth at all times. My aim was not to make anyone else suffer along with me – even if they were among the primary instigators of this snafu. So as not to be remiss – I admittedly felt no sympathy for New Seasons Market as a corporate entity, and I clearly stated that, more than once, but I did not feel vengeance toward their employees or other customers. For the longest time, I limited any exception, to the two main perpetrators who began this whole ordeal with their dishonest acts.

Having said that: I harbored strong, personal, romantic feelings for one of these individuals and the other one I wanted to give a good kick… But, to tell the truth about either of them involved telling the truth about both of them, and it quickly became successively more complicated.

My overall objective had been that, ideally, once I told the whole truth – that all of my detractors, even the management at New Seasons Market, would clearly see how/why all these misunderstandings arose in the first place: How one employee’s lie – which had led to another lie (this lie was then repeated to others; spreading about as it grew) –  had brought all these different people to be misled, to jump to false conclusions, and consequently, to make mistakes in their judgment, causing them to behave badly...

I had taken this approach from the beginning – when I first open-published to the internet, the official ruling by New Seasons Market (as stated to me in an e-mail they issued a few days following our face-to-face conference) and from then on – earnestly trying to uphold this ethic – as I replied to the combative and/or taunting comments in reply to my post, and/or other comments which I’d posted in response to someone else’s comment... My efforts produced disastrous results.

Some of these antagonists may have been legitimately random people who found the discussion interesting enough to participate, with or without good intentions; but it seemed to me that these comments were deliberate attempts to get me to back down, rest my case, and bail out… While others seemed intent to personally hurt me with their remarks.

This was both before and after New Seasons Market erred in posting a hurtful comment which, while meant to smear me, reflected more negatively on their public image than my personal character, in my opinion. I believe that it was a bad move for them to have made, and it came with consequences. But I did not retaliate by squelching my own ethics, nor did I regard the other persons most closely involved as being collateral damage. Instead, I pleaded once again for these individuals to take their share of responsibility in the greater misunderstanding and particularly, own up to the full-blown lies which they had constructed in an effort to make their invented story stick together. I pleaded to no avail.

In conclusion:

This is my truthful account – at my own personal website; no outsider comments permitted – of how this whole mess got started. This is my side of the story. I decided to start at the very beginning – not with the purpose of boring anyone to death – for the purpose of attempting to eliminate any ambiguity.

It should be noted, however, that while the need for more revisions will become more and more apparent, should you continue to read further: At this time, I am done.

I have long ago moved on: Today, upon revisiting a rule-book for writers; I thought of this basically, free-writing work of mine, how three years later it remains here in cyberspace, still not meeting all the set standards… I had a nice laugh. Then, quite spontaneously, I declared that I might at least finally state my thesis: this is that effort undertaken and hopefully achieved. Thank you dearest reader…

P.S. New Seasons Market totally sucks!

--Kristin Angelique, 14 September 2014

(Posted today, 15 September 2014)

*this is the story of kim and tim* (part one)

there are multiple segments for part two:

*this is the story of kim and tim* (part one and part two of) part two: i am the platypus in a walled city
first published october 13 and expanded on november 9, 2011

(part three of) part two
new seasons market is not friendly; new seasons market totally sucks
published on november 29, 2011



*this is the story of kim and tim* part three: god may forgive you; but i won't (new seasons market totally sucks continued)
published on january 23, 2012

[There are additional associated writing projects elsewhere on this site, if you really have any further interest!]


* * *

"i am about to have a nervous breakdown, my head really hurts,

if i don't find a way out of here, i'm going to go berzerk!

i'm crazy and i'm hurt..."  --black flag

hi. my name is kimberly kristin angelique.

i am experiencing an editing nightmare at the moment

(o: i wrote this ~ 46 page narrative - which is almost twice as many pages at this blog - wow.

i was pretty far into my story, when i realized i still hadn't demonstrated
my main purpose for writing this story :o)

[...though most of the people i imagined for my audience would have some prior knowledge, it later occurred to me
that anybody could happen upon this blog - and it would not make any sense to them at all...]

[as of  2012: ~1000 page visits to this story - (o: do people read to the end? :o)]

also, the chronology is almost as bad as that in johnny rotten's autobiography:

no irish, no blacks, no dogs

as an anarchist - i would like to just shout: anarchy!

...as a writer - i guess i'm going to do this - for now at least...

i will copy this one particular segment - which first appeared a long way down

(esp. since it was meant to be a summarized preview!)

and paste it right here at the top (following this message)...

when i eventually finish proofreading all these pages and making any other revisions,

then i may attempt to chronologize this story for an improved reading experience.

if/when i have completed that reconstruction, i will update my status

at the very top of this page, to reflect those changes.

...ok, here is a partial summary of why i am pouring out all these pieces of my breaking heart...

please note that i think the story itself

is much more enjoyable than my purpose for writing it (o:

yay for that!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


for whatever reasons
my friend, tim - did not tell his girlfriend the truth about our friendship.
whether he encouraged her, or merely allowed for her to think,
that his friendship with me was entirely one-sided on my side
or whatever their story is - this is not the case - that is untrue.

for whatever reasons - tim's girlfriend
decided to take whatever issues they were having about me
to tim's workplace. first she vented at me
while i was seated in the dining room, minding my own business
...accusing me of not getting it - that tim didn't like me...
then she screamed at tim
then she told his manager that i was stalking her boyfriend...

whatever tim had or hadn't, told his girlfriend before
it became clear on this particular evening - that he didn't want to tell her the truth now.
because this was happening where he worked
tim possibly didn't feel that he should tell his work the truth, either.

...i suspect that tim's decision was connected to a fear
that he might somehow lose his job over his dishonesty
(this will all be explained better by the time i finish this narrative)…

because of the difficult predicament which tim’s girlfriend put him in
when she staged this scene
perhaps tim thought that there were only two choices for him to make...
...tell the truth...
and risk damaging his relationship with his girlfriend and/or losing his job
...or perpetuate his deception...
even if that meant throwing me - and his friendship with me - under the bus.

i can understand why tim made that second choice at that time
under those circumstances; i can even forgive him.

what i have not been able to forget or forgive - is how his workplace
new seasons market - could handle it so badly
and continue to uphold their terrible decision-making and wrongdoings
taking their unethical behavior to all new lows...

...i waited more than a month for tim
during which time i was simultaneously anguishing from a broken heart
to say what needed to be said to his employers, to fix the unjust reaction on their end...

it was very distressing to me - but i honestly had decided to let it go - for tim's sake
when a chance-encounter on public transportation - with tim’s girlfriend
irreversibly changed my mind. even then though, i waited two weeks
following that altercation, to try and cool off.

after much deliberation - i calmly proceeded to try and handle the matter
properly and discreetly - with a "customer advocate" for new seasons market
mary alison leatart, whom i met with, at their "store support" offices...
(semantics only! this was a pr handler at their corporate headquarters)
and one of her bosses - claudia knotek.

during that meeting - i bared my heart and told these two women everything
or as much as i could during those two hours
about the history between tim and myself
and the misunderstandings which had taken place
the night that tim's girlfriend had a public outburst and caused the scene
which unfortunately led to my being targeted by the store manager
who then delivered his message to me
that i was being formally trespassed by the store.

that store manager's name is - miguel rosas-baker
and he informed me of his shitty decision
by coming outside of the store - to where i was waiting for my bus to arrive.
this guy is a real jerk!

at the end of my meeting at the store support office - both claudia and mary alison
appeared to be apologetic and sympathetic - to my “genuinely painful experience”
and i was assured that they would see what could be done
"in order to restore me to being a loyal and respected customer.”

...but that never happened. for reasons which i couldn't understand
at all, at the time, the situation was only made worse for me!

now that i know about all the false accusations made about me
by tim's girlfriend, following that incident inside the store, during which
she had verbally harassed me, and threatened me with physical assault
all of which has unexplainably been blamed on me
and sadly, remains undisputed by tim
i can sort of see why they might not be as sympathetic towards me now...

...but even if these vicious lies had been true (but they are lies and are not true!)
it still would not begin to justify this overly harsh treatment
and these extreme measures
which new seasons market has arbitrarily taken against me.

i believe that this would be true for any business.
but this particular business, has been turning profits from a cloaked reputation,
which has been founded on their being: "the friendliest store in town."
some of these profits have been out of my very own pocket
over a period of more than seven years.

...this is how my initial grievance against new seasons market first began...
i now know all kinds of bad stuff about new seasons! part two (etc) will cover as much of that as possible...

even from an objective view point - my determination is that this situation was handled
unethically and unprofessionally. from my actual and personal point of view
as the innocent person completely screwed over by the whole lot of them
i know that they have handled this situation very grievously!

if i could afford a lawyer; i would take them to court and i believe i would win.

meanwhile, i have chosen to stand up to new seasons market, all by myself:

FOR TRESPASSING MY RIGHTS!

i will always be somebody, who stands up for their rights, and for what they believe in.
this is what i am doing - even now as i write out this story.

I WILL NEVER BACK DOWN FROM TELLING THE TRUTH

THEREFORE - UP YOURS - NEW SEASONS!
if you don't like me now new seasons, just you wait until part two (etc)...
then you'll hopefully really be sorry for being such assholes. you guys suck so freaking much!


p.s. i still love tim.
i tried my very best to handle all of this just between the two of us.
tim doesn't seem to trust his girlfriend or new seasons enough to
even meet me half way. tim seems to have forgotten me telling him
that even though i often find myself being taken advantage of and victimized
i never cooperate with my victimization. i always fight back.

sometimes - maybe the best kind of love in a difficult situation like this - is tough love.
this is what i need to do. i need to do this. it needs to be done.
i love you!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As a story writer – early on – I imagined that someday, I would be writing about my friendship with Tim.

I think it's a story, that is probably still unfolding – but maybe the rest will become the sequel. Whatever I thought then, whatever I imagined the ending might be – I never imagined the sort of twists that were yet to come. I could write at least a novella now – and I am definitely at least adding the saga of “Kim and Tim" to my ideas list of plays to write. Especially since it’s a single setting and has so much dialogue; akin to the film My Dinner with Andre.

Meanwhile, it's become a virtual necessity for me – to at least outline this story right now (in film this might be called a story treatment) – because it's spiraled out of my control on the Internet. This much – is partly, if not mostly, my own fault – since I was the first one to say anything about it on the Internet.

However, there being a story, to have ever mentioned on the Internet in the first place – is something which I am not to blame for – neither is Tim, in my opinion.

This blame belongs to New Seasons Market – and it is because of them, that I took to the Internet in the first place. As for the stupid people behaving like fucking jerks – on the Internet – this is absolutely not my fault either...

The way I write – is a way which is all my own. Just like when I sing songs (even when I'm recording them) – I start out really quiet, before I find my voice and rise to the occasion. When I write – I kind of have to find my own way to the story.

OK – well here goes...

* circa December 2009 to May 2011 *

...This is my story. This is my love song...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


excuse me while i break my own heart

*this is the story of kim and tim*

“Shower the people you love with love Show them the way that you feel

Things are gonna be much better if you only will…” —James Taylor

ACT ONE

...I had already known Tim several weeks, maybe a couple of months, before he told me that he had a girlfriend...

I could probably say more about that, than this. But, the two most important things that come to my mind, at this moment, are: that this is the sort of distinction which makes very little difference to me (I will try to explain this observation, before I finish this part of the story) – and for those whom this sort of detail would make a significant distinction, I would want you to know – that by the time Tim mentioned this to me (not off-handedly) – it was too late to make any real difference – even if I wasn't someone like me – because I was already smitten with Tim by then; he already was in my heart.

Then again, because I hadn't been looking for – or even hopeful for – a romantic relationship with anyone – and had actually sworn off physical relationships – in a weird way (which perhaps few people, if anyone at all, will understand) – Tim telling me, at that time – that he had a girlfriend – I was actually, slightly, relieved.

Not because I was in any way uncomfortable with the developing feelings I was having for Tim – but because I was totally freaked out – by the possibilities of how they might play out – knowing for sometime, that I am romantically doomed – and always fearing the worst – when it comes to having sex...

...I could be free – to have these feelings for Tim – without worrying about what disaster they might lead to. Feelings couldn't cause any harm – it's the actions that they sometimes catalyze, that fucks everything up...

I won't deny that there were pangs in my heart – when Tim made this announcement – because a part of me had been imagining "What if" by then – and "What if" this time it would be different.

Excepting that those imaginations were always interrupted by reality checks, sooner or later. I'm also a singer/songwriter – and my personal anthem – "Self-portrait of a Fuck-up" – even has the refrain:

“Why should this time, be any different, than the last time?"

[i totally censored this part right here: during the ~year-later reconstruction; because: "oh no i've said too much"...]

For these reasons – and many other good reasons – the idea of a physical relationship with anybody, seemed unlikely to me. Therefore, learning that Tim considered himself not free to partake in extra-curricular activities as innocent as skateboarding, with me... was a kind of otherwise, welcoming relief – in the sense that it probably meant that I was back off the hook – from reconsidering my long-standing personal vow of abstinence – in the event that we were to ever become more than friends…

Although I would find myself re-evaluating my proclamations – from time to time – on account of my increasing fondness for Tim – I never did make up my mind about it – and as it would turn out, I never needed to.

I am a self-professed loner – something which I truly cherish being – at least most of the time.

I sometimes feel lonely; I sometimes imagine not being such a loner – but for the greatest part of the matter – being a loner is purely by choice, and it suits me very well.

It took me 8 years to make my feature film. While this was partly because of poverty, partly because of being the single parent of two children, and partly because of finishing up college and/or working various jobs – mostly, it was because I was making a cinematic masterpiece – and this is something, which could not be rushed.

Maybe I would have succeeded at making the same film – or at least a film at all – had I also been involved romantically with anyone during those 8 years – but I strongly doubt it.

As a result of this thinking – any other reasons I have, for not becoming romantically involved with anyone, are an almost moot point – because I am convinced that to do so, would cause my art to suffer. I guess this is how I came to learn that my art is much more important to me – than any romantic leanings, which I might ever have.

Presently I am writing a book. I am on my 6th earnest year of this project – and though I have written over a thousand pages for my first draft – there is still no finish line in sight. Completion of this project is very important to me. Therefore, the idea of dividing myself – between intense focus on my writing project – and nurturing a romantic relationship (even maintaining friendships challenges me) – not only overwhelms me, it also scares me, and worries me, and so on...

It's really been a conscious decision to avoid such conflict, by fending off any iffy social invitations from the opposite sex – but this has always been very easy to do – it’s not a challenge at all.

Because – although I sometimes meet (seemingly) super nice guys – and receive social invitations of this type constantly* – there really hasn't been, anybody at all, to make me think twice, about my decision to go it alone.

I always tell any prospective suitors (wow, I really just wrote that) – just so there's no misunderstanding on their part – that "There's absolutely no hope – whatsoever – for you and I ever being anything more than – acquaintances or friends!"

(o: I always try to be nice about it :o)

[* I can't even ride a bus without some guy asking for my phone number. I don't have one, but they still ask for it, because they don't know that yet.]

ALL OF THIS – is something, which I desperately tried to explain to Tim – whenever he would voice any worries, that I was setting myself up, to be heartbroken over whatever realization, he didn’t think I had come to yet – that we could only be friends – and that this wouldn’t change. I still don’t know if Tim has ever come to believe me, nor if he ever will. The outlying facts don’t seem to suggest that he was ever convinced.

I don’t know if this is because of Tim’s EGO – or because it is just somehow inconceivable – that any girl could feel this way about romantic involvement. This might be presumptuous of me – to think this in that particular light – but LOTS OF GUYS feel the same way that I do. So this is what makes me wonder, if it is some sort of a double-standard, which is clouding Tim’s judgment.

To show you, just how light-hearted I feel – about my uniquely special circumstances – whenever I find myself having these "self-explanatory" conversations – I am often reminded of the hilarious scene in the film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, where Pee-wee explains to Dottie:

“I’m a loner and a rebel.”

Me too! Me too!

“There’s a lotta things about me you don’t know anything about... Things you wouldn’t understand. Things you couldn’t understand. Things you shouldn’t understand.”

(o: That film is genius :o)

I am always telling people – I tell everyone almost anything – my life is an open book:

"I haven't had sex in ‘x’ years."

Even back when it was only 2 years – the response to me telling people this – was practically always the same:

“Wow, I thought I had it bad!" – or – "Wow, you must be so horny!”

Whether or not, I have ever convinced anyone – my reaction to either of these responses – is also, practically always, the same: "It's a personal choice I've made – it's actually very easy for me!"

[Sometimes I bring up, the other fact of the matter – which is that between the time I was 16 and 18 (when I was pretty messed up, but also insanely boy-crazy) – I had enough sexual partners, to make up for, never having any more for the rest of my life. In fact, I took my first vow of abstinence, just before my 18^th birthday.

I soon broke that vow, on a first date (if you can even call it a date) – and that’s when I got pregnant – life is funny that way. I love being a mom; I’m just pointing out, the irony, of the situation…

Anyhow – that aside is more of an anecdote – than a primary reason.]

Furthermore, it depends on my mood I guess, and who I am imagining in my mental picture – but from an OCD point-of-view – sex – when you really think about it – in a detailed way – the sharing of bodily fluids etc – is totally disgusting (in my opinion).

To finish up this TMI line of thought – the only thing to really change in these verbal exchanges about my non-sex life was that – each year the “x” number of years without sex – increased by one year. It is always easy for me to remember how long it has been since the very last time I had sex – because it happened in January 2000 (o: the end of an era :o)

If it's not clear why I am telling you so much about my sexual history – let me be more clear. Because possibly, Tim didn't believe me himself, when I said that I was satisfied – with us just being friends – and/or he doubted, that his girlfriend would believe it. I didn’t yet know that she wouldn’t even be cool with that. Why, Tim’s girlfriend, maybe couldn't handle us having even – a platonic friendship – is a mystery to me.

I don't know; I still don't get it.

Nor do I comprehend why, so many boyfriends/girlfriends, are emotionally unable to handle – or even permit – anyone else, but their selves – having special feelings – for their significant other.

How can liking or loving someone – ever be a negative thing?

I can see no other reason, than for it being about – insecurity, jealousy, possessiveness, and control-freakishness (etc) – anathema to any healthy and positive relationship.

Why any sane, self-respecting individual would consent to such a suffocating prison – as I imagine these relationships to be – is way beyond my level of comprehension.

(i didn't write that line; the big boys did. it's from their awesome song: sound on sound;  from their album:

lullabies help the brain grow. it's an agnostic sort of love song. my most favorite ever.)

...Tim and I are, obviously, not exactly alike. There are some things which we see a little differently – and some things which we see incredibly a lot differently – and unlike our age difference – some of those things actually do matter to me, on some levels. For instance, Tim is not a Vegetarian or a Vegan – most people I know aren't – most people suck for this reason. Peace begins with our ethical treatment of animals. Peace must include everyone and everything...

Setting our differences aside – as much as I can ever do that, with anyone – out of every person I have personally ever met – ever come to really know – ever been good friends with – I believe I share more in common with Tim, than all of my closest friends (past and present), combined. It would actually take a combination of these people with whom I share things in common – to approach the level of synchronicity which I have felt with Tim.


Little by little, step by step, Tim became for me – a very best friend. I never asked for more or expected more – than whatever friendship Tim could offer me – especially given our various circumstances.

My love for Tim grows every day – as if it is being, spiritually, guided – which maybe can't really be explained, by words alone...

After more than a year of sharing a friendship with Tim – I came to believe in, to have faith in, to trust in – this love – with all my heart and soul.

This love, which I feel for Tim, is something beautiful and special – it doesn't need to be more to keep from feeling like less. It doesn't need to be equally matched – or even reciprocated – it just is what it is...

I didn't need to ask Tim, for more than he could give me, because I didn't need for more, from him.

I cherish my friendship with Tim – as unconventional or nontraditional as it might appear to be – might actually be – it's more than anything I have ever had or felt before.

What Tim and I share – is precious – and maybe, I thought – being just "friends" – was giving us an immunity – which might not be afforded to those, who tangle things up with sexual involvement...

I've always been more of an intellectual – and sexual activity with another person – as great as it might can be – is not something I have ever really yearned for. (Especially not since the day, that I learned of the myriad of risks, correlated with sex.)

What I'd really been yearning for, when I met Tim – was someone to stimulate me intellectually.

Someone with whom to cooperatively – "fuck our brains out" – metaphorically speaking...
[But also, I'm serious!]

(o: At this time – Tim has done this better than anyone else ever has :o)

In this – like-minded way – Tim is my soul-mate.

Given that we had this rapport going, for as long as we have – Tim basically has filled up all of my reserves...

"I'm good to go."

Naturally, I will miss Tim very much. Even if things hadn't been left in such a mess – I would have missed him just the same as I do now; even with this mess that we find ourselves in now – I will still miss Tim just as much...

I knew for some time, that Tim was going to move away, by the end of this summer. I never worried that, I couldn’t handle this – emotionally or otherwise. I have been hoping so much, that we will always continue to be friends...

Tim once told me, that he had faith in our friendship, too...

Maybe it's the influence of – Jonathan Livingston Seagull – working on my psyche...

“If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we’ve destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don’t you think that we might see each other once or twice?”

I’m just not the emotionally dependent type – at least I’m not any more. When I was – an actual teenager – in retrospect, I could have taken things a lot less hard than I did. But, I think I have learned from most of those innocent mistakes, thankfully.

...Because thinking that – your happiness is dependent on what somebody else does or how they feel about you – is not a very optimistic way to live your life (not in my opinion)...

I’m not suggesting that I don't get emotionally attached to people – or that there is anything wrong with forming emotional attachments. I obviously feel an enormous emotional attachment to Tim...

The best word for me, to descibe this attachment, which I feel to Tim is: "Love"

Attachment and dependency are not the very same thing – at least there is a difference in these concepts for me.

Even when I sing along to love songs – I almost always interrupt the flow – upon acknowledgement of some particularly self-sacrificing lyric – to tell the singer:

(o: “That seems a little extreme” or “Wow, it must suck to be you.”  :o)

Beyond the most basic needs – I am pretty sure that there is nothing, which I can’t live without.

There are all kinds of things, which I greatly appreciate and would miss very much – were they to be removed from my life. But, I won’t give up on living, because of the removal of any of these things – including companions.

[I’m not talking about somebody you love dying – that’s a very different kind of loss – and almost always involves a great tragedy.]

I’m not saying, that I am immune to, anguish and suffering. Tim, has caused me, both... Nor am I saying, that nothing or no one, can bum me out.


People can let me down – they can easily get me down – maybe even bring me down... But they won't ever keep me down. None of this, "I can’t live without you" or "You've ruined my life, forever" hang-up shit for me. Fuck that.


I’m as fine as I expected I would be, with Tim moving to Canada or Boston or wherever he decided to go (to attend Grad School; jumpstart his career or whatever he ends up doing) a few weeks ago (he moved away from Portland - for now at least -  the last week of July 2011). It’s the emotional injuries that I sustained because of Tim, before he left – which are so fucking misery-inducing... But this doesn’t mean that I am going to stop being happy, or counting all my other blessings.

I rock in this way.

I also want to point out something which is super important to me to point out: Tim's happiness means so much to me! It might not seem true if you see me writing this story from the wrong perspective. While I think that Tim's happiness is dependent on his not living any lies; that's not the point of what I want to say now... I want to say how excited I am for Tim that he has this opportunity to fulfill this dream. I hope Tim loves Canada or Boston... or wherever his journey takes him... Tim told me which schools and what program he was trying for (yay for Tim getting his wish!) I think his dreams sound fantastic - especially wanting to be a writer - and I truly hope that all of Tim's nicest dreams come true. Tim should know this because I told him many times, even recently I did. I will say it again: I wish Tim so much goodness and happiness! Tim is super special and I think he has a lot of gifts to give the world. I wish Tim the very best.

* * *

Tim is incredibly good-looking. I definitely feel a physical attraction to him – and though it's important to keep in mind – how generally unimportant, sexual attractions are, to me – I suppose I feel this way about Tim, too. Yet, I avoided ever thinking about Tim that way – as much as I could.

Tim and I had been friends for almost a year, when I finally confided to him:

“You are the sexiest boy I have ever known.”

Tim’s response to that was:

“Wow.”

It takes a lot of guts, to be so open – just because I’ve perfected the art – this should not be over-looked. I can be very brave!

Of course – sometimes – i just blurt things out.

Much stronger than my physical and sexual attraction, is my spiritual attraction to Tim. We were just so simpatico in so many ways. This is the greatest reason why I felt a connection to Tim – because he has such a beautiful soul. That is why I have felt so destined in this way, to be Tim's friend.

If I haven’t already mentioned this – let me say it now: Tim was always extremely nice to me; he showed me genuine compassion, and sensitive understanding...

Once upon a time, that was a sincerely true statement – it’s not untrue now – but in hindsight, I’d guess I’d have to say “almost always.”

Considering – all these things...

Isn't it natural that I'd develop emotional feelings for Tim?

* * *

“I’ve been thinking a lot about sex, lately..........and it’s all your fault.”

I actually said this to Tim once. I didn’t mean to say the second half of that sentence – out loud – it was an accident.

Somewhat awkwardly, Tim replied: “Really?”
(To the first half of what I said – as I was mumbling – the rest of it.)
I was never sure if Tim heard that last part, or not…

I am being totally honest when I say that I could feel this way – do feel this way – and it doesn't mean that I was out to "steal" Tim away from his girlfriend (or to have a “sexual affair” with him). Even if I had been contemplative of such things (I wasn't) – that sort of a description is for other people's way of thinking – people who think very differently about things than I do – to accuse me of trying to do that, is to project that way of thinking on to me. I can't stop people from doing that sort of thing – but it is an inaccurate conclusion to make about me.

I don't think of people as property; people don't belong to anybody but themselves.

I certainly couldn't make Tim, do anything that he didn't want to do. We had a mutual understanding (so that there would be no misunderstanding) – which is that, Tim couldn't offer me more than friendship – and I wasn't asking Tim for more than he could offer... And I'd never be a part of anyone being "cheated" on - because it's just not nice.

...My feelings for Tim don't come with any agenda – they exist freely and positively – I have always been completely honest with Tim about my feelings for him...

Gathering everything that I've written so far, about myself – and about my perspectives towards sex, friendship, etc – hopefully it is evident – why I could love Tim and feel so close to him, without the "physical expression" of these feelings.

I'm not writing with any assumption, that I can make anybody understand anything. Rather, I am presenting my side of the story as probably only I can explain it.

I’m not compelled to hide from the truth.

I’d rather be poorly judged for being honest, than misjudged because of any dishonesty.

I WOULD RATHER BE EMBARRASSED BY THE TRUTH; THAN HUMILIATED BY A LIE!
...I wrote that ...

Why am I telling this story in the first place? Why am I posting it on the Internet?

It's quite a long story (o:

One important reason is: Because I want to hopefully finally get all of this (explaining myself) over with – for many reasons – including feeling able to return to focusing much better than I have been able to – on my “official” writing projects. I feel that I need better closure, and I am hoping that getting ALL OF THIS out in the open, will help me do that. (Full closure will likely require Tim’s participation; but he’s still hiding from the truth…)

Furthermore, a lot of people keep asking me what happened – and it's not a simple explanation and no matter how hard I try to present it as such – even people who supposedly know me, seem to make false assumptions or have certain responses, which I find very very very frustrating. This may or may not help with that – but at least I will have tried my best...

For instance, whether it's telling me what a bad person Tim sounds like (not getting that I see his true colors shining through; knowing him in a way that perhaps they don’t – especially if they never even met him at all) – and/or – because of how they are partially judging Tim – they maybe don’t understand why it is that I care so much about him still... Apparently, because I do in fact still care so much about Tim – this leads to some people thinking that this is somehow suggestive of my having low self-esteem, and/or low self-worth.

[ (o: No way, is that true – I fucking ROCK! In my personal opinion – I am the very coolest person, that I know (o:]

Or – they think that: I must be very lonely, and needing more and better friends.

I can agree with some if not all of that last assumption – but it certainly isn’t my reason – for feeling the way that I do, about Tim – and it has zero relevance to my outrage towards New Seasons Market...

Equally important to my wanting the people, who care about me, to better understand what I have been through – and am still going through – as well as those people, who maybe want to understand why I believe that New Seasons Market trespassing me, should have never happened in the first place – is that:

I am SO SICK of telling this story!

I obviously want people to try and understand where I am coming from and why I feel the way that I do – but it's all gotten so out of hand – and so I really just want to be able to say:

“Well, here’s the link – I published the story of my personal tragedy, on the Internet – it’s a public page…”


...Yet the main reason, that I feel compelled to try and explain my experience, and these special circumstances surrounding it – is actually a reason, which really really really sucks! It's such a strong reason – that it has me feeling like – this is my one best choice...

My purpose for doing this – is that hopefully it will help to redirect any and all past speculations,* as well as forthcoming inquiries: TO THE TRUTH OF THE WHOLE SITUATION.

[* especially by certain individuals, who have projected their own issues, and other shit, on to this rather huge personal mess – which has become, regretfully, public...]

As for my contributions to this predicament – making my situation publicly available, in the first place – I had felt that it was necessary for me to do so – for the purpose of standing up to the corporate bullies, at New Seasons Market, who have been fucking me over since May 19, 2011...

(I don’t want to digress about that right now, when I haven’t finished this other thought, but I will return to it!)

...from which, there now seems, to be no turning back on.

I could choose to just walk away from this situation – but not without sacrificing my code of honor, which I have been trying so hard to defend, since the very beginning of this confounding situation...

Furthermore, I had significantly, neglectfully – and regrettably, forgotten – what a bunch of fucking crazy jerks – troll the internet, in general. I am fully aware of this oversight, now!

I also did not foresee the desperate and despicable lengths – that Tim's insanely jealous girlfriend would go to – in order to propagate her own negative agenda – such as, deliberately seeking to stir all of this controversy up in a public forum. Among many other unethical behaviors on her end...

Therefore – I now find myself – in this untenable position.

Tim's girlfriend has made her own obvious mistakes in underestimating me – and falsely presuming from the very beginning – that I would not stick up for myself at all – nor take these particular measures, which I have – in this defense of myself. I doubt, that she has any conceptualization – of dignity, honorability, or integrity. If anything, which I have done, or am doing now, or might do next – if any of these things – suck for her; yay! This is "extra frosting on the cake" for me – (payback is a bitch, and so is Jennifer Natoli...) – but I know that my intentions are honorable and justified. My only true motive, is to tell everyone the truth!

I am writing this story in an effort to defend my honor – to set the record straight – as best as I can – from my side of this shared experience.

I promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth – to the absolute best of my knowledge.

Telling the truth as I see it, requires me to tell things – both as I saw them before I knew what I know now – and to be thorough – also with the hindsight that I now have. I also promise to account for that of which I am aware I am to be fairly blamed for... (Very little is coming to my mind, right now – yet I am willing to consider that I do shoulder some of the blame for certain things*...) I intend to continue being totally honest about everything, just as I have been thus far.

[*For instance – if my “flirting” with Tim (which wasn't really flirting; it was just me being me; I try to be nice to everybody and I'm super friendly when I like someone a lot; and with Tim, my fondness for him just kept shining through) – and then continuing to befriend him – even after it was established that he had a girlfriend – is something for which I should be blamed, in some way, for having done – then I will plead guilty to this, right now. But – as I have already, been trying to explain – it’s not quite that simple ... I truly believed Tim and I had a special and unique friendship.]

Because I have been falsely and unfairly blamed for so many things, which are not at all my fault – it feels incredibly important to me – to tell my side of the story and to explain my innocence – pertaining to these untruths. Therefore, I will try my hardest to demonstrate my innocence to the best of my abilities, insofar as this can be done...

...I feel that in order for me to do this – to tell my story, with this purpose in mind – that I have to be myself, and write my story the way that I would write any story. Therefore, it's going to be practically a full story – if not an actual full story – rather than merely a summary of facts and/or refutations of inaccuracies...

Knowing this – and knowing my writing style: before I might seemingly take forever to get to the point of my initial grievance against New Seasons Market – because mostly this is a narrative of the “back story” – which involves the first 15 months of the last 18 months of my life: here is a summarized preview* of the ending of the story which i am about to further narrate. (Well, this is actually, just "part one", of at least, a two-part story...) If you want to hear the truth about this back story – then you'll need to read through all of the rest of what I write, following this summary, to have a fuller picture.


[* Well, I excerpted the segment which once appeared here and put it at the beginning of this story – so you can either read that again – or just ignore this weird transition... Peace!]

[Part two (etc) will deal more specifically with the incident that took place at the Seven Corners store, on May 19, 2011 – and all of the many other ways since then, which New Seasons Market and their representatives have been totally fucking me over... It's partly written now – I was waiting until I have finished with all of it, to post any of it. It is probably, mostly because it's all so sickening to me, that I'm procrastinating... I have been working on other projects as well, which is a good thing – yet another reason why I haven't finished part two yet. Even so, someday, I do want to get all of this documented and over with... although I doubt that anyone but me, cares! - I'm going to eventually deal with it...]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[Editor’s Note, 6 PM – 9/21/11: I apologize for any structural weaknesses – perhaps I will better organize these paragraphs when I finish proofreading – which is still in progress (o: – furthermore: FUCK CAPITALIZATION! (Except where word document overrides me AS I REVISE – and I fail to notice it – there will no longer be any attempt to fix this – therefore this will cause an inconsistency in the text – but this is the main reason that this is taking me so long to make corrections!!! I am totally over caring about this now. I traditionally never capitalize – it’s an anarchy thing – but I was going to fix that for this revision so it would look more professional for readers who are used to this sort of wasted effort – now I just want to hurry up and get this over with – so I am not going to do that any more – I’m leaving the rest as it is – and I’m not going to worry about reformatting the hyphenation either, peace!]


this is the rest of - part one of - my continuing story... yeah, this is sort of a second beginning here: anarchy!

...not so long ago - i actually said a lot of this next song's message to tim - ending with this exact phrase:

"i honestly love you"...

i honestly only thought of this eponymous song - after i said what i had - later that day. i laughed at myself for being so cheesy (o: cheesy in a cute way :o) ...well, maybe i was actually channeling this song.

i just heard this song yesterday (sunday, september 18, 2011) during a radio replay of an old "american top forty" radio program - originally broadcast on september 21, 1974. i was just a kid then, but i totally remember this song! ...which is why i later thought of it, following what i had said to tim last may... it started playing (it was no. 4 in the countdown at that time, still working its way up to its eventual prestigious no. 1) and i was - like whoa - déjà vu!

[coincidentally? this is actually not the first song nor time, involving olivia newton-john, which parallels my unfolding story with tim. whether this holds any special meaning or not i can't yet say for certain - but it's something i certainly keep noticing!]

absolutely, i was being even way more profound than i had realized at the time that i was pouring my heart out to tim, in this regard:

. . . w o w . . .

I Honestly Love You

~ Olivia Newton-John * Peter Allen, Jeff Barry ~

Maybe I hang around here
A little more than I should
We both know I got somewhere else to go
But I've got something to tell you
That I never thought I would
But I believe you really ought to know
I love you, I honestly love you

You don't have to answer
I see it in your eyes
Maybe it was better left unsaid
This is pure and simple
And you must realize
That it's coming from my heart and not my head
I love you, I honestly love you

I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable
I'm not trying to make you anything at all
But this feeling doesn't come along every day
And you shouldn't blow the chance
When you've got the chance to say
I love you, I honestly love you

If we both were born
In another place and time
This moment might be ending in a kiss
But there you are with yours
And here I am with mine
So I guess we'll just be leaving it at this
I love you, I honestly love you

...when i first met tim - (circa winter 2009/2010) - i had just escaped from one miserable living arrangement, and had just entered into another... i was already weighing the pros and cons of - continuing to endure another bad situation - versus choosing homelessness - when i entered, this next miserable living arrangement...

i had a part-time job, i was even receiving some unemployment compensation, to supplement my wages (as a result of losing my full-time job about 9 months earlier) - but my part-time job, rarely provided me with more than 8 hours of employment per week. my unemployment subsidy was at the lowest rate. my total income, was simply not enough, to cover rent for any housing of my very own - or even a roommate situation, for that matter.

for one thing - i have a lot of special stuff - enough to fill a small house. though i have purged nearly all of my easily replaced, possessions - what remains of my belongings, is all of extra-sentimental value and/or artistic necessity (to me it is). while i am perfectly willing to store these items - i am not yet willing to part with them.

therefore, to rent even a studio apartment - or to share housing - comes along with it - the added expense of storage rent. of course, this is all a rather moot point, however - given that i can't afford any kind of housing at this time, in the first place - but it always adds a significant burden to my challenge of securing affordable housing.

the relevance of that information - is that it was a determining factor, in my decision to ever move into the -- domestic service - in exchange for - shared housing -- situation, which i was embarking on in the first place...

a situation that i entered into, with my otherwise estranged, mother (who, in addition to having many problems of her own - also has a history of being especially verbally abusive to me and basically treating me like shit most of the time - thereby causing me to feel suicidal, etc) upon the stipulation that i would in turn, provide full-time elderly care for my extremely unfortunate grandmother - who has progressively worsening, alzheimer's - a disease, which renders her almost completely helpless - helpless to care for herself, helpless to even go to the bathroom by herself - as well as other incapacities from which she suffers...

in plain english: i was knowingly getting myself into a fucked-up situation - which was doomed to fail from the very beginning - and most likely to cause me far greater misery and stress...

i seem to have a pattern of doing things like this... i am fully aware of this observation.

[there were even more - set backs and pit falls - than this! you'll just have to trust me, as i'm digressing enough as it is...]

given these depressing circumstances - it is no wonder - that i would want to escape from my home-life - as much as possible, and as often as possible...

...to begin with: to even attempt to place myself in such a dismal situation as this was certain to be - i first secured, a little office, for myself. the rent for this space, was just under $200 a month - much more affordable than actual housing (which i could not afford at all) - but also, so tiny - that i still had to rent storage for the vast majority of my belongings. yet, i desperately needed this office, so that 24/7 - i had somewhere to which i could flee - when driven away out of danger and/or despair.

ideally - where i could hopefully depart to for much more positive reasons - like peace and quiet - for writing my book, working on my art and music projects, etc. - for hanging out and just chilling, like my own little clubhouse.

the office that i secured - the one which most met my needs during the week that i had to hurry and find a place (it had to be done right away, lest i become entrapped without a safety net) - fell about half-way between my mother's house in southeast portland, and where i worked in oregon city. there was a bus which went right by there, which originates out of downtown portland... all of this, seemed extra-serendipitous at the time - and furthermore, it was the best place which i was able to lease, at that time. however, i soon made the unfortunate discovery - that by not selecting a place within pedestrian-friendly distance - i had failed to foresee, the hardship - of affording bus fare to get there (especially when i came to lose my part-time job as well, but that didn't happen right away).

as a result of this gross oversight of transportation issues - my office/sanctuary - was more like a hypothetical oasis - that i knew was there when i absolutely needed it - but one which i couldn't actually afford to travel to, otherwise. it gave me incredible peace of mind knowing that it was there for me - whenever i could manage to get there - and there is no overstating that! i might not have found the will to live without having this certain knowledge - but in the end - i remained more or less, unhappily entrapped - in a house that was never really my home...

...which is one of the most important reasons why - i would go on many long walks (especially at night, my only real free time) - even when it rained - whenever i could get away.

“getting away from it all,” was also one of the several reasons that i would try to eat elsewhere, as much as i could. particularly convenient because of its close proximity to where i was living with my mother - among other excellent reasons, but mostly its nearness - i began frequenting a neighborhood store - new seasons market - nearly every day. this frequency began on a regular basis, in december 2009, and increased over time. by spring 2010, i was going there the most that i had been so far.

it was sometime approaching early spring 2010 - that i think i first - "really noticed" - tim.

i'm not sure if i simply hadn't noticed tim before this, or if he hadn't been previously working in the part of the store where i spent the most time. i often ordered food from the deli, made myself salads at the salad bar, or purchased coffee drinks and desserts from the coffee bar and pastry case (etc). all of these stations were grouped together - and tim rotated his schedule around these stations. also possible is that before we met, tim had just been working different hours from when i usually visited the store - which was in the late afternoon and evenings... i don't really know, i never thought to ask him i guess.

all i know for sure, is that i had been shopping at new seasons market - regularly for a few months (though i had shopped there fairly regularly for 7 years previously) - before i met tim.

i presume that once i met tim - he made a very good first impression - but to be honest - i think it was after a few times that he'd helped me, before i truly took any special notice of him. i was so much in my own world at almost all times - and going through a sort of personal hell at the time - that i just didn't take much notice of other people in general - and i was very withdrawn - at that time in particular...

...there was another guy who worked there then - during the evening when i usually went there - i won't say his name, but i noticed early on that he was exceptionally good-looking - yet i didn't really have any real interest in him. this other guy was very cool and super nice though and we would talk a little about music. this might not sound the way i am meaning it to, the way i intend - i choose to mention this other guy for two reasons - to be honest at pointing out that i guess sometimes i took special notice of people - and to hopefully demonstrate that it takes a lot more than my taking special notice of somebody to truly capture my attention and to hold it in a significant way - because i am emphatically stating - that i DID NOT "over-step any boundaries" as tim's "customer"!

...as far as my becoming friends with tim: being tim's customer is how we came to meet - and shopping where he worked is how i came to see and talk to him so often - but our friendship existed separately from that convenient arrangement - at least it did once we started exchanging e-mails, and trading music, and sharing our life's experiences, and other intimate thoughts - and that happened pretty quickly after we met.

anyhow - at some point - one day - i truly took notice of tim. i must have noticed to some extent that he was very attractive - but my interest in tim went way beyond this attraction which i felt for him. something just clicked for me - when i spoke to tim - and when tim spoke to me. the first time i looked up from my shoe-gazing at him, to make eye contact - it felt pretty momentous to me. yet even in that unforgotten moment - i was so distracted, so pre-occupied with my own living-hell and increasing depression - that it never occurred to me to take any action because “i felt a spark”. nonetheless, there was this one day, when i first felt a spark and made a mental note of it.

so that you don't get the wrong idea - i will tell you that even in my great depression - i took showers, washed my clothes etc - but i was way too depressed and miserable to really care what i looked like to anyone else.

there's nothing wrong with that per se - but it does contrast with my former “rock star" image that i'd had going for me at one time - something which used to so significantly define me - that my looks were what people usually most noticed about me - second only to my unusually child-like voice. without my glamorous appearance - observations that i was an artist, filmmaker, musician, etc - often came as a surprise to people. even when i looked ultra-glam - my "baby" voice - always seemed to throw people from guessing that i might be super creative or super smart - which is one of the many ways in which i'm used to being almost always misjudged...

...when tim first got a look at me - who knows what he thought - i was in utter despair…

[as a suicide survivor: i try not to let myself think suicidal thoughts any more... but i was really, really, really sad - for so many reasons, all my own - yet greatest of all the reasons i was so disconsolate - was because of somebody else's recent suicide attempt - someone very close to my heart...]

... it was an effort for me just to get out of bed, let alone to go out in public. i just didn't care what i looked like - so when i took notice of that first spark with tim - it occurred to me that i was a real mess, must look like a real mess - inside and out. so i doubt that - if - tim felt any spark at all - when he first met me - that it could have been based much on my appearance.*

as early as, say march 2010 - i felt like i had caught tim’s attention - and given the general disarray of my appearance - i think i gave him a little extra credit for liking me - (without seeing me the way i look when i actually try to look my best) - based on my personality alone.

having said that - for my part: i felt this sudden, yet latent, panic - that i had failed to exhibit any signs of being interesting at all.

if i had said anything at all up to that point - in conversation with tim (as his customer) - it was boring shit...

for instance - my most recent escape remedy from the monotony of caring for my grandmother - had been playing “farmville.” i had been encouraged to play this computer game - by various people i knew - who had implored me to be their “farmville neighbor”. i didn't even know what any of that meant - but - i basically created my facebook account as a reaction to those pleas. i was told that i didn't have to actually play it myself - just make a farm and accept their neighbor request.

well - then the unexpected happened (i felt really tricked by these people who had downplayed my participation!) - as a matter-of-fact, not only did i become almost instantly addicted to farmville - i LOVED my farm as though it were truly real. it was beyond a virtual experience for me - though i get that "virtual" suggests - "like real" - i'm saying that it sort of was real to me. i would wake up in panics, that i'd accidentally let my garden die, or my dog starve - etc. but even worse than my addiction to farmville - was the giant black hole, which i got sucked into, just from joining facebook in the first place...

[* though sometimes i have these weird experiences where the most disheveled i look - the more guys seem to hit on me - whether it's because i have that "don't give a fuck" enigma thing going on - or because they think surely i could score with a loser like that - i'm never quite sure. seriously - i'm not making this up. whether i look really pretty - or like i was dragged in by a giant cat - i constantly get hit on. (don’t get me wrong - i like it that people like me!) sometimes - i feel like i must ooze charm - other times i think that people maybe just feel sorry for me - whatever it is - there must be something.

(o: many people compliment me on my “angelic” voice - and it's pretty constant - my voice that is :o)

i'm not attempting to brag - not about my persona at least - i'm just stating the fact that i get hit on like hella much.]

it's no psychological novelty or great wonder - that when somebody fails to give you the attention you have become accustomed to - that you might find yourself trying to get that person’s attention. maybe there was sometimes, a little of that between tim and i. i would even go so far as to say that i think tim played that hand deliberately with me sometimes. like you see a lot in junior high school settings... lots of people play those games, acting unimpressed to make you seek to impress them.

i don't think i have ever consciously played those games. i am either just authentically disinterested - or if i am interested:

if i like someone a lot - i tell them: “i like you a lot!”

this is probably best exemplified by the very first time tim and i introduced ourselves; i must have had some kind of intuition about things to come, because connecting his first name, to my first name (kristin is actually my middle name) – i gushed:

“we'd be kim and tim!”

(o: tim often commented on my honesty about such things :o)

eventually, tim dropped such pretenses - telling me on many occasions - that he liked me - for this reason or that reason - that he thought i was cool etc…

i want to make that very clear - because if tim hadn't ever done that - hadn’t told me he liked me or that he admired certain qualities in me - then i really would be deluded to think that tim liked me back - tim said that he did - so i believed he did.

returning now to this former passage...

though i created and administrated web sites of my own - much of those experiences were solo efforts - and as a loner - i could get lost in cyberspace for hours creating, designing, and maintaining those projects - so i was already vulnerable.

but facebook was like nothing i had experienced before - way more obsessive than i had ever found myspace to be and even myspace was pretty much a solo effort for me. at facebook: between farmville - and reuniting with long lost friends (school mates from junior high, my friends that i was missing dearly in nyc, etc) - all this music sharing - a virtual smorgasbord of other interesting things - and the constancy of the output there - it just somehow sucked me up. being otherwise alone in the world at that time - for the most part - and GREATLY NEEDING a diversion from my fucked-up home life (and other recent tragedies which i still hadn't fully recuperated from) - facebook seemed to fill a need in me that i hadn't even realized i had.

which might sound like a good thing - except for me - it was one more thing coming between me and my writing projects. i want to stop this line of thought here (before i digress any further than i already have) and tell you why i have mentioned it at all: the first reason i have for mentioning this (the second reason i will get to later) - is that when i first started talking to tim - this is what my life consisted of at the time.

i'd become such a vegetable that i'd forgotten my music fanzine, the punk rock music that i make, the film that i made, the films i hope to make - even the book i was in my 5th year of writing at that time - basically anything about me which makes me unique.

when tim and i first spoke - i spoke about my farm @ farmville (o: LOL :o)

(o: i've saved this special valentines area of my farm just like this - only it's even more so :o)

this didn't even "hit me" right away. then one day - when it did hit me - how much i liked tim - then it also hit me (o!m!g!) - tim probably thinks i'm terribly average and (gasp!) "normal" - but nothing could be more untrue! and that is something i would never want anyone to think about me! i’m not normal! fuck that! (o:

my panic over that, led me to tell tim - as soon as it was possible to - all at once - in practically the same breath - that i had probably "misrepresented" myself - as someone seemingly with no life beyond caring for my grandmother - and therefore nothing of very much interest to say - and i hadn't meant to do that...

so, then i went on to tell tim all kinds of things about myself, of especial interest to tim were my creative projects.

my music fanzine: autumn shade fanzine

my "experimental garage punk" music: squirrels! squirrels! squirrels!

my filmmaking projects: star light, star bright . . .

and my current project - which is my book: child of the moon... (o: someday there will be a link to my epic novel :o)

[i think that if i had seemed at all generic before - i probably didn't seem that way any more.

tim told me, quite soon after we'd started conversing on a regular basis:

"you've had a very interesting life."

but tim had not yet heard hardly anything - about my life (when he first said that) - in comparison to say - a year later. so he couldn't have really known then - what an incredible understatement - that actually was.]

tim seemed authentically enthusiastic when i told him about these many things that exist in the world - because of me making them. i was also enthusiastic - when tim told me - that he too - wanted to be a writer and would like to write a book - yay!

...the next time i saw tim (or soon after this), he told me that he had visited my various websites and was amazed at how much there was to peruse - he asked me with a sense of excitement - did i actually know the moldy peaches? this was a really big deal for me. out of every single band that i have interviewed, and/or photographed, and/or written about (while i have met almost all of them and know some of them) - i am actually really friends with the moldy peaches.

it was exciting for me to meet somebody who knew who this band was, liked them a lot, and showed an interest in learning more about them. the moldy peaches are freaking awesome.

i was also very flattered, that tim had taken the time, to visit my websites - it meant a lot to me.

in fact, tim’s interest in my creative output - revitalized my own interest in my creative projects. in this, and many other ways, over the year to come - tim instigated me coming back out of my shell - and i had been buried pretty deep in there...

so that's a long introduction - i know - but this is what first really led to me and tim being friends :

a shared love for writing, excellent books, cool music - and the moldy peaches.

[by the way - tim came to take his girlfriend to a kimya dawson concert all because i had given him the heads up about it. i did that right after the first time that he ever acted like an asshole (towards me) and even knowing he placed the blame for that on something that had happened between him and his girlfriend - in which i was the supposed catalyst. so i would like to provide this example as early proof of my being such a good sport about things. you’re welcome...]

...as winter turned to spring - i was almost finished with reading emma goldman's two-volume autobiography, living my life, and i had volume two in my hand one day - when tim noticed it - and that's when we discovered that we shared an especial interest in anarchist philosophy – yay! yay!

my office - before i'd done much unpacking - and emma goldman, living my life, volume one - etc...

around this same time - the weather began to improve just a little (only a little) and i started taking my skateboard with me when i left the house on these nicer days - and one day tim looked at me and my skateboard which i was holding (as i waited in line near where he was working) - and said this to me:

“you know i skateboard, too?”

well, no, i did not know that - but in that moment which tim said that - everything totally clicked for me.

yay! yay! yay!

[kristin! - open your eyes...kristin! this guy is like a boy version of you

kristin! - don't ignore that there is this amazing person right in front of you.]

"there is something here that i find hard to ignore. there is something here that i've never seen before."

i didn't speak those feelings aloud yet - i just said what came most naturally to me - i said:

“COOL! i need more friends (and i could have stopped there and it would have been accurate still - but i continued that sentence by saying) - who skateboard.”

“we should skate together some time.”

tim didn't say yes and he didn't say no - he said something like, "that would be cool. yeah, maybe..."

i heard the “maybe” part as the loudest part - i guessed then that tim had some reason - that we probably couldn’t - or wouldn’t - and maybe probably meant no. he didn't say any more to that at that time...

so returning to skateboarding:

soon after i learned that tim and i had yet another loved and shared interest - i asked him:

"what kind of skateboard do you have?"

i thought tim must have misunderstood my question - thinking that i was asking him again about us skating together sometime (my voice is also very, very, very soft - quite QUIET - and at times, i also mumble.) because, tim replied to my question sort of mysteriously: "yeah i want to talk to you about that, but hold on a minute..."

(huh? yeah. ok. ... ? ...)

...so i waited until tim wrapped up whatever he was doing then at work - and then tim told me - softly, hesitantly, kindly, nervously: “the reason that i can't go skateboarding with you - - - - - is because i have a girlfriend - - - - - and i don't want to cast doubt on the relationship.”

have you seen the television episode of the simpsons - where bart is with this girl whom he has a crush on - and she starts telling him about the boy whom she has a crush on - and being a cartoon - it animates this girl ripping bart’s heart out?

well - this was one of those tragic cartoon moments for me. at least that was the first reaction i felt. not because i was jealous of tim having a girlfriend - but because the same thing obviously could not be said about her feeling the same way about his having a friend who is a girl (based on what he just said in the context in which he said it) and still be true.

catching and holding my breath - dog paddling so i didn't drown - i tried to jump right into the depths of my brain - seeking to converse with it rationally.* i shouldn't have been surprised that this moment was occurring - why in the world would someone so awesome not have a girlfriend - although he sure waited long enough to make any mention of this personal information - and after all, i am really awesome, and i didn't have a boyfriend!

which begged this question: kristin - if you don't want a boyfriend - and have sworn off sex - what are you expecting to happen with this guy? is it just skateboarding you are hoping for? this is how my mind was working in that moment, all at great speed...

[* though i hadn't ever given it any thought before - i guess because i usually never care about such things - being purposely single, you know? i forgot about those kinds of details and how they can affect things!]

this was a conundrum of a question - even if i was the one asking myself this - because i hadn't thought that far ahead yet.

the simple answer was that yes - i really was just talking about skateboarding when i suggested we skate together. having a skate buddy would make my heart super happy.

[yet why did tim’s reason for saying that couldn't happen - make me feel like bart simpson - getting his heart ripped out? this was food for thought, to be continued on my own - later…]

...well, i said a few things to tim, after he had finished telling me this about himself. the first was a sort of automated response to the way he explained why we couldn't go skateboarding. because if he had been any other guy - that response would have still sucked!

why oh why, is it - that people in relationships shut out the rest of the world from their lives in the ways that they do? why do guys in relationships have to give up ever being friends again with single girls, and girls in relationships are expected to give up being friends with single boys? i'm sure it's similar for many gay couples - but with the same sex rather than the opposite sex. good grief - if somebody is openly bisexual - but in a monogamous relationship - do they get to have no single friends at all?

i honestly do not get why other humans react this way - how they can put up with such a "contractual" understanding in their relationships .

“ok, starting from now on - you can’t relate with anyone else! a deal is a deal!”

to me, this sort of restriction on each other, is like a death sentence. it's no wonder that nearly every "committed" relationship falls apart in the end: it's freaking insane to begin with - and unrealistic to end with - in my opinion.

...therefore, i responded to what tim had just told me, by first honestly stating the obvious: "your girlfriend could go with us." tim shrugged that off immediately. then - in case he didn't grasp the obvious (obvious to me) that it really shouldn't make a difference in us being able to be friends or do things as friends - i told tim that “i have lots of friends who have girlfriends; some of them even have wives...”

this is true! yet it's also true that their girlfriends and wives resent this very much - and usually the friendship becomes more theoretical - than actively existing - which sucks! excepting tim (and even with tim, it's not that straight-forward because of who i am and what i think i don't want) - i really do just want to be friends with those guys! tim is a fluke - if i had not met him and if he weren't who he is - if i hadn't felt such a strong connection to him - then i'd have had none of this confusion. keeping in mind, that this is going way back to the beginning of our friendship - i was being honest when i presented that option to tim...

...yet i suspected that the startling effect of tim telling me all this - showed somewhere on my face and/or in my eyes - (silly me) rather than have tim think that i'm bluffing when i tell him that we should still be able to skateboard together - like friends often do - i decide to back up that statement by truthfully adding that: “however - it's still good that you are telling me about your having a girlfriend! because i think about you all the time and i think it's good that i know this before my feelings grow any stronger...”

[while thinking to myself, “stronger than they already have! shit - now it's too late - i already love you - i am just realizing this right now - but fuck it - i think i love you!”]

to which tim seemed to silently reply - by giving me an especially sympathetic look and nod of his head.

then (after a long pause for both of us) tim looked at me in true amazement - as i continued to spill my guts out - telling him:

“it probably doesn't really matter; because i am romantically doomed. it’s so bad that I can’t even trust my own judgment.”

[i'm not sure what tim thought about me saying that - it could be taken in several ways and still possibly be at least partly true - but what i actually meant by that remark - is that i can't trust my own judgment when it comes to choosing the right people to give my heart to! i seem to make terrible mistakes when it comes to who i fall in love with - which brings me full circle as to why i feel that i am romantically doomed. i am not being overly-dramatic - if you can’t help who you fall in love with - if it just happens all by itself - then how do you resolve this dilemma?

...please do tell me if you know the answer to this…

and keep in mind that:

i’d rather be in love with someone i can’t be with, than be with someone i don’t love.

i hope i never become one of those people who settle for anything less - than finding somebody they totally love - and being with anyone who isn’t totally deserving of this love.]

in saying what i did to tim – in that unguarded moment - i guess i was making a regrettably self-prophetical statement. if ever there was one - it was that one!

...and that might have been the end of this story - in a story that isn't this one - but this story doesn't end here...

as much as i hoped that - tim telling me about us not being able to go skateboarding together (as much as that sucked) - didn't necessarily imply that we couldn't be friends at all - i feared that this was the writing on the wall. i didn't want to read that message, but it was nagging at me all the same...

...so, imagine my tremendous surprise, when just a few days later - tim informed me that if i wanted to e-mail him - we could continue our conversations in this way.

wow! we can write each other? that would be so awesome!

well, the context in which tim told me that was because - i told him that in order to keep our conversations brief* - i would leave a lot of thoughts unfinished! i would leave the store, wishing i'd remembered to say this or that, and always thinking of things to add to whatever we'd been discussing with each other. i just figured that there was no way around that - under the circumstances. (o: it really blew my mind when tim suggested we could correspond by e-mail; now i could tell him anything whenever. :o)


[that was the context - but the POINT of tim's suggestion - that we write each other: it was clear - (o: and also there was magic in the air :o) - the point was: we wouldn't have to wait until we "next see each other" again to tell the other something; and that's how it was too... our conversations got deeper in our e-mails - and those deeper conversations led to our conversations also being deeper when tim and i saw each other/talked together, too... this then occurred many days a week for a whole year...]

it didn't "blow my mind" because i didn’t think this would ever happen - but, because i didn't get why skateboarding was being ruled out - yet writing each other and sharing our thoughts about life would be ok. i found this curious (and i was possibly being gullible; at first) but still, of course - i rejoiced at this suggestion - yay!

i love skateboarding - and having someone to skate with would be very cool - but i have lots of fun skating by myself, too - it doesn't require anybody else's participation.

i also love to exercise my brain - maybe even more than skating (though it can not be overstated how much i love my skateboards) - and as good as i am at doing this by myself (thinking about stuff and blowing my own mind :o) - and love love love reading books - and i've many ways of entertaining my brain - having someone as interesting and smart as tim to converse with (especially because i really really really liked him) - that would be an amazing gift - probably even better than skating together.

an e-mail correspondence would offer tim and i, much more conversational privacy than we'd obviously ever have at his workplace. we could talk about anything and everything without time constraints. there'd be no interruptions - and we wouldn't have to worry about other people judging us or misjudging us - or their feeling inconvenienced or resentful about tim having conversations with me while he worked.

additionally, and significantly, tim’s offer suggested to me - that he must really like me too. (because who would offer to begin an e-mail correspondence with somebody that they didn't like or want to have discussions with? well, i sure wouldn't.) i tried not to read too much into it - i honestly did - but it had to mean tim liked me at least enough to want to keep our conversations going - and my heart felt especially happy on that momentous day.

[* (this follow-up is from a way's back) i want to go on record (for the umpteenth time in general, but for the first time in this story right here) as ME being the one who was the very first person at new seasons - to have ever expressed concern - about how our lengthy (and growing lengthier) conversations might reflect upon tim with regards to his co-workers and bosses etc... me! and tim always told me not to worry...]

oh yeah - before i forget!

to finally follow up on "the second thing" that was relevant about my spring fling with facebook and farmville - tim helped me forget all about those time-sucking cyber monsters... :o) if and when i used the internet any more - it was mostly just to write to tim. because i’d found a great friend in tim - and because i saw him so much - i didn’t need the diversion of farmville (which i needed to stay clear of because it was too addicting) - i still worked on my writing project of course and other creative things like that - but socially speaking - the fun part of most of my days - was visiting with tim. recently, i've been getting sucked back in at facebook - not because i don’t have tim to talk to any more - but rather for practical reasons - like promoting the upcoming screening of my film (next week!) and ironically:

administrating my boycott new seasons page (LOL :o)

i hadn’t realized the full potential of facebook before.
now i can check in with friends and rage against the machine, at the same time!

[i still haven't risked visiting my farm - i think about it! - hopefully it’s still there in case i ever need it...]

tim's invitation to exchange e-mails took place in about mid-may 2010 - he wrote down his e-mail address for me - and i wrote to him right away...

...but, just prior to that - as i was going through all these boxes of my cds at my office, i came across chuck, by sum 41.

this is a fucking great album - and i wondered if tim had heard it and/or if like a lot of people he didn't know that sum 41 (who were best known for being goofy and silly) - had produced such a profound musical effort - as i think this album is. i have hundreds of cds - and i had already shared some music with tim by then (oh yeah - prior to our e-mail correspondence we had begun sharing a mutual literary and musical appreciation both) - but something in that moment made me decide to take this particular sum 41 cd home with me - and play it, and reminisce about this venue - art land (in brooklyn, new york) - where the week or so before i moved away from nyc back to portland (in october 2004) - i had bravely performed almost every single song from this album, a cappella - for an audience of about 12 people (o:

i was listening to this cd in the car (my mother's car) on the way home - and when it got to the song, "pieces" (aka "better off on my own") - i felt this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy taking place - yet simultaneously - it was a feeling of déjà vu...

...i felt sad for this. sometimes - i'm sort of sick of feeling - "better off on my own." (o: though it beats feeling worse off i suppose :o) sometimes - once in a great while - i wish that i were more of a joiner, more of a comrade, more of a member of society, so to speak - it's a rare and fleeting feeling i get - it goes away as soon i remember, how much society sucks - but sometimes i feel this way. maybe this forlornness was because i was feeling nostalgic for those salad days at art land - when i had so many friends at that time, and did feel like i belonged to something special...

[so, please excuse me while i deliberately digress for a moment...]

...talk about totally clicking! when i moved to nyc: wow. it was like - say my life was a giant jigsaw puzzle, and different parts of it were carefully assembled - but a piece that joins all these sections together was missing.

well, when i moved to nyc and began settling in - it was like finding this missing puzzle piece.

of course, i was expecting that living in nyc would be totally awesome - yet i suppose i was also imagining i'd be just another lost face in the crowd (even more lost than usual and in an even bigger crowd) - really and truly, all on my own - as i didn't really know anyone there.

...instead, the most astounding things took place. living in nyc - was even more phenomenal, than i had dreamed it would be - but what came as such a surprise is that - i very quickly made more friends that summer - than i ever had before in all of my life - and that is saying a lot!

on my very first day in new york, i met a super cool boy - he was a skater like me, and so we also became skate buddies (o: however, he was just about to turn 16, when we first met - we were definitely never more than friends - i promise - but i had so much fun tripping around the city with him and his other friends.

within a week i made several more friends, and within two weeks i made even more friends than i had the week before, and so on... these friends included adam green (the moldy peaches) - we'd met a few months before i moved there - but then we became even better friends. i am also one of his biggest fans.

by the end of my first four weeks in new york - i had made friends with all of the moldy peaches (jack lived on the west coast at that time - but he was in nyc that july) - most especially, toby (one of the coolest people in the whole wide world) - who drew the most stellar cover ever for my fanzine. i also interviewed (separately) both adam and brent for publication in my fanzine. yay! i then became an ambassador of sorts - for one of brent’s many other bands - wooden ghost.

i highly recommend wooden ghost - to anyone who loves excellent music - that totally rocks!

i also met - many other wonderful artists and musicians - during my time in new york. so many! so freaking many!!

everywhere i looked - there were cool places to go - but these were my two favoritest hangouts: the sidewalk cafe (in the east village) and art land (in williamsburgh, brooklyn).

i started out in new york - on a 3 month pet-sitting gig - taking care of a really cool dog, "pumpkin" - while staying in this beautiful condominium, with a skyline view, next to the hudson river - in riverdale - which is in the bronx... but by the end of that summer - i had secured a really great job - at this super cool toy store - on the upper westside - on amsterdam avenue, just a block away from broadway - in manhattan.

then i moved into an apartment with two women (they were aspiring ballerinas - cool!) - both of them were vegetarians - just like me. this was also in the bronx but in a different area than where i had been pet-sitting. kruger street @ pelham parkway - right by there (white plains?)... our apartment was just about a block from the rainbow diner - open 24/7 - and across from there was a dunkin donuts...

...mostly i loved my walks along the parkway...

i was also lucky enough to round up a bunch of extra pet-sitting jobs - some of these were recurring - such as a regular dog-walking gig (and sometimes, extended care) for this sweet maltese - her parent was a doctor, who worked long hours and was gone a lot - she had this awesome apartment - on the upper east side, right near a park at the east river. there was a diabetic cat which i visited regularly - and - omg! this other couple with a cat - they lived in the coolest loft, right by the brooklyn bridge - that was amazing.

furthermore, nyc was a skateboarder’s paradise - i skated everywhere - it was so much fun. as for my fanzine - i kept getting one lucky break after another.

i was totally in my element. it was a truly fantastic experience.

i was thriving like i had never thrived before - artistically to be sure - i'd been hoping for that. yet to thrive there socially - that completely blew my mind.

when i came back to portland - due to a family emergency - i was expecting my return to only be temporary - so it wasn’t really so hard to leave new york behind - i'd be coming right back and it was an opportunity to bring more of my belongings with me to new york.

however, it didn’t quite work out that way. i did go back to visit - and this was a super fun trip, too - but my plans for living there long-term - have been postponed - perhaps indefinitely...

my situation in portland, changed rather drastically - and as a result of these changes - it became important to me to remain in portland - at least for a while. how this began - was a really positive reason - but unfortunately, a bunch of other - not so good stuff happened along the way - as well as some really fucking bad stuff. to my dismay - the next thing i knew - i was kind of back to being in a bad place in my life - and unintentionally got stuck in a seemingly endless rut...

...my starlight became somewhat diminished; i sort of lost my special glow...new york was like a wonderful dream that i'd been forced awake from.

...but then i met tim...

all of a sudden - just like that - the sky had filled with sparkling stars again - no longer obscured by all those clouds of yesterday...

it really did feel this poetic to me - my new friendship with tim - i'm not just taking artistic liberties - i honestly felt brand new.

so maybe this is why - i was so conflicted - listening to that cd for the first time since i’d left nyc - and that song especially, at that time: "gee i always loved this song - i still love this song - why do i feel like crying?"

i have a long history of fondness for many sad songs - i totally do - but this was different. i couldn't explain it - but the feeling was one of which, i was profoundly aware - i think it might be akin to a state of mind known as "suadade"...

...according to astrologist rob brezsny (referencing author, a.f.g. bell) - suadade is defined as:

"a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness, but an indolent dreaming wistfulness."

also perhaps - because at that very same time - my fondness for tim was growing ever larger - as was the enjoyment i experienced whenever i was around him - i maybe wondered if this feeling of being – “better off on my own” - was how i really felt after all.

had i been wrong all along or was i maybe changing into someone else? was this cycle making way for a new one? was i maybe just in a weird mood?

...i contemplated those questions…

pieces, is such a good song (i think so) - and whether or not it was addressing my very present - or even my future - it succinctly described my experiences of the past two decades. excepting that year in new york - how i felt during most of that time up until this moment - this very moment – since meeting tim.

if a change was coming - it hadn't completely happened yet - i was just pondering it is all...

...regardless of what time would tell me - how this story in the making of my friendship with tim would play out - i wasn't trying to self-prophesize - or relentlessly pursue any doomed sense of foreboding - rather this song was about who i had been - and maybe who i still was...

in the very first - or one of the very first - of the e-mails which i sent to tim - i bravely shared these song lyrics with him. (soon after that, i loaned tim, the actual cd...)

whether or not tim and i are at the end of our story - as it now appears we are (but looks can be deceiving; and i haven’t yet lost all hope) - or somewhere in the middle - or in a prequel to a sequel, etc - it does seem sort of extra-profound to me now - that at the beginning of our friendship - when i could already see that i was falling in love with tim - and we were reaching out to each other as friends - that i should share with him - such an avowal of my loneness.

it is quite curious to me - even knowing all along that i am romantically doomed - it's still kind of a trip - that i began this optimistic outreaching - with such a resignation of resounding pessimism.

...if i can't figure me out - i don't know why i would think that anyone else could…

...i can draw from this example - to try to show (anyone who cares) some of what i am about, the sort of perspective i have - how even in the midst of undying love - i should self-proclaim that i am - better off on my own...

...it's sad but probably true...

Here are the Sum 41 lyrics, which I shared with Tim:

Pieces

I tried to be perfect
But nothing was worth it
I don’t believe it makes me real
I thought it’d be easy
But no one believes me
I meant all the things I said

If you believe it’s in my soul
I’d say all the words that I know
Just to see if it would show
That I’m trying to let you know
That I’m better off on my own

This place is so empty
My thoughts are so tempting
I don’t know how it got so bad
Sometimes it’s so crazy
That nothing can save me
But it’s the only thing that I have

If you believe it’s in my soul
I’d say all the words that I know
Just to see if it would show
That I’m trying to let you know
That I’m better off on my own

On my own

I tried to be perfect
It just wasn’t worth it
Nothing could ever be so wrong
It’s hard to believe me
It never gets easy
I guess I knew that all along

If you believe it’s in my soul
I’d say all the words that I know
Just to see if it would show
That I’m trying to let you know
That I’m better off on my own

* * *



i wrote tim several e-mails kind of all at once.

i guess it depends on how you look at things, as to whether these would be construed as a bunch of e-mails - or one super-long - segmented-into-several-parts - e-mail. all i really know, is that this is just how i write. this story for instance, has already been drafted and sent in separate parts (i'm composing it in e-mails to myself before i post it as a blog or anywhere else.)

if you think - this - write it - send it; then think - that - write that - send that - etc - is this considered sending a bunch of e-mails? or is this a stream of thoughts - sent one or two at a time?

as a reader, i prefer segments - which is why as a writer, as a general rule - i tend to have paragraph breaks in my content more than an average person might. i think it makes it easier for the reader - right away it appears less intimidating to see several short paragraphs than a few really long ones (in my opinion). as a writer, i feel that the reader is more likely to start reading - and keep reading - if the paragraphs are kept shorter...

[e.b. white + william strunk, speak to this in elements of style, and i was happy to discover that they seem to agree with me on this point.]

furthermore, if you find yourself getting interrupted, worry about losing your work - etc (though it's always a good idea to save your work as often as you can remind yourself to!) - as you write - parting up your thoughts in this way can be another safety net too.

for instance, if you have a heart-attack during your correspondence - well at least the recipient gets the first parts.

i didn’t know, which would be more intimidating to tim - which would more likely freak him out - a few very extensive e-mails or a superfluous amount of shorter ones. (sometimes tim got some of each from me.)

so, i decided to ask tim - how many and how often is too much?

tim warmed my heart, when he said:

“whenever you want”

(o: however - i doubt that at that time, either of us could have foreseen, that i'd go as crazy as i did with thinking of things to tell him - for a spell :o)

…tim really must not have been too freaked out in the beginning of our correspondence - as to my surprise - he replied to each and every e-mail that i had sent - all in one night...

i remember that night vividly.

i had been babysitting and the kids were asleep. i was writing in my journal; i was writing for the very first time about tim. i had mixed feelings about doing that. i was worried that i would jinx everything by documenting it. also, that i’d possibly come to feel ashamed, or at least ridiculous, if this whole thing fell apart, before it even got started.

at that time, tim and i had only just met about 2.5 months ago, he had just given me his e-mail address, and i'd just written to him. he hadn't replied yet - but it had only been a few days - and i maybe hadn't seen him for a couple of days. however, by this particular day - i had just seen tim and i told him i'd written him - and he told me that he hadn't checked his e-mail recently, but that he would soon, now that he knew i had written.

tim worked full-time, had a girlfriend, etc. - so i expected it might take him at least a few more days to write me back - plus he was a boy - given my correspondence experience - with girls vs. boys - i felt that i should add a few extra days grace period for tim to write me back (o:

in any case - i thought: who am i kidding (writing so soon in my journal about tim)? my diary is a sacred place for me - were my feelings for tim really this special - if so, was this a classic case of "fools rush in?”

perhaps i felt foolish - but the truth was - that yes - my feelings for tim really were this special. after all - this was my diary - if i felt compelled to write about tim so soon - i needn't censor myself. i started writing all about tim - everything i remembered since when we'd first started really talking with each other - and the next thing i knew - the sun had set.

i hadn't stopped to turn on a light; i'd been writing in near darkness - for a few hours. i didn't put down my pen, until i couldn't see to write at all, then i turned on a light, and i went right back to writing…

i finished babysitting at about 1am or so - when i got home - i was exhausted and so i almost went right to sleep - but something made me think to check my e-mail first, even though i didn't expect there to be any reply from tim this soon.

yet - there they were - about 10+ e-mails all in a row, all from tim.

tim had responded to every one of the e-mails which i had sent him that week!

it didn't take rocket science to realize that - while i was pouring my supposedly foolish heart out to my diary about the awesome new boy i had only just become friends with, for all those hours - that on the other side of town (from where i was babysitting) - tim had been writing me these e-mails .

that seemed pretty special to me - and it still does - a whole 16 months later...

at that time - in that moment : i was so amazed and so astonished - i was practically stupefied - i was totally validated.

maybe i wasn't being foolish, to open up my heart so soon - maybe this wasn't just my imagination, running away with me.

i felt as if i was witnessing a wonderful dream come true - a dream i didn't even know i had been hoping for - it was a marvelous feeling of destiny.

if the stars hadn't yet begun lining up - like i believed they had been - they surely were now.

between that star-lined night in may - and early july (2010) - tim and i wrote each other a bunch of e-mails. we exchanged music. we recommended books to each other. we shared poems. we engaged in many special conversations.

sometimes, followed by often times, i went to new seasons market, mostly to see tim. and then occasionally - i went there mostly only because of tim (i'd still buy something of course). as the weather had improved - and it actually felt like summer - some days i would come in twice or more in one day - usually before i went to work, and then again on my way back. i worked shorter shifts, but similar hours as tim did, at his job..

...i was so drawn to tim - “like a magnet to steel” - that i soon went to visit him almost every one of the 5 days each week that he worked.

though i am not denying that - and i never have - i should like to point out that i also often went there on tim’s days off! like i said before - my home life sucked. also my budget stretched furthest - if i purchased my food one day at a time - and for various other reasons - i happened to go to this store almost every day - that summer, fall and winter of 2010/2011 especially...

...yes, tim is the greatest of all the reasons i went to new seasons as often as i did during most weeks - but i didn't only go there because of tim every time that i went there. i shopped there regularly, even before tim and i had met!

new seasons got a lot of money from me - you’d think they would want to thank me for shopping at their store as much as i did.

it seems ridiculous for me to have to state this at all - but having been accused - more than once - by tim’s girlfriend especially - as this being indicative of my being some kind of a stalker - i should like to make this point as clear as i possibly can. sometimes i even shopped at their other locations!

good grief…

furthermore - most significant is this fact: tim made me feel very welcome to be doing this!

i'd also like to put this on record: i had asked tim if he minded me coming in to say hi to him - etc - so often, so much - and he very clearly stated to me that he didn't mind it at all.

in fact, tim voluntarily told me - that he liked chatting with me. he repeated this statement on more than one occasion. whenever i worried - that i was taking up too much of tim’s time - or distracting him from his work - tim made a point of telling me - that i didn't need to stop doing anything - or to ever leave him alone.

tim would actually tell me things like, "please stay!" tim informed me that - as long as he kept busy with his side work - and didn't have another customer to help (or if he did he'd just need to excuse himself for that transaction) - that we could keep on talking - it was perfectly fine for us to be carrying on a conversation as long as it didn’t interfere with his work. we only had conversations during those times that he was doing these kinds of tasks - and when there weren’t very many customers.

i became quite an expert - at gauging the situation in this way.

i am telling the absolute truth about this. i am omitting nothing. i adored tim - i wanted tim to like me - i didn't want to annoy tim - or pester him - or to be a nuisance to him, in any way! therefore, i was constantly conferring with tim - as to whether i was in his way - or bothering him on any level. i always felt that both his performance at work - and his comfort level - took precedence over any desires i might have to be near him or to keep talking to him.

the only times this line got blurred, was following this one time when his girlfriend made a point of bringing our friendship to his management’s attention.

(i am certain of her instigation. in the beginning i had very good evidential reasons for believing this - including witnessing her doing this - but since my initial suspicions i came to have her personal confession!)

following that incident (on or about 2/20/11) is when tim told me that we needed to make a unified effort to make things "appear" a certain way - because now he was being purposely and closely scrutinized by his management...

at which point tim and i coordinated our plan, and adapted all of our interactions henceforth, accordingly...

as someone who tries to be up-front - and out-in-the-open about things - this proved somewhat difficult for me - yet i handled this as best as i could - by consulting with tim even more than i had before (which had been a lot).

(o: wow. i drew these in the present-tense - 2013 - but they also make past-tense-sense :o)

all of this will very likely be something which i better cover in “part two” when i write a part two. it’s been covered plenty, elsewhere - it’s this back story that has remained largely untold - but here is a summary (or an attempted summary :o) of the events taking place at the time that this incident covers - circa late february to late may 2011 and then continuing on a whole new level through basically - this september!

…i had no idea - when tim and i began playing that stupid game of "appearances" (for the sake of what tim had led me to believe at the time) - what his authentic objectives were. what tim wasn't confiding to me (yet) was that - following his girlfriend’s putting the spotlight on our interactions - he himself had purposely misled his work into thinking that he was just being friendly - like his job description required him to be - to a customer - "who maybe couldn't see that we 'weren't really friends.'”

thus, while tim apparently didn’t want to actually give up his friendship with me - or hurt me by doing that - tim chose not to tell me that we couldn’t or shouldn’t be friends any more - yay - but tim also apparently didn’t want anyone else thinking that we were indeed, still friends - especially not his girlfriend.

…like they say, even the best laid plans sometimes fail…

"...YOU CAN PLAN A PRETTY PICNIC; BUT YOU CAN'T PREDICT THE WEATHER..."

and so on, etc...

this disaster plan was complicated all the more - more than it already was - which was a lot - because tim didn’t stop there with his deception.

i sometimes seriously consider the possibility - and i sometimes merely joke about it - that i might have asperger's syndrome. i never had told tim that i have actually been professionally diagnosed with this condition - but rather that i had self-diagnosed it - in psychological hindsight - with especial reference to my childhood.

though i also clearly stated even in that regard - that it was very difficult - if not impossible - to separate nature from nurture in my case. i freely admit (and not for the first time) - that i use this possible condition to help explain why i am so incredibly chatty - and at times, verbose, it's a real problem! - and i have an extremely hard time braking once i begin talking... i even encouraged tim - that if he ever did get harassed for our lengthy conversations - he could tell his work that this was a large part of the problem - and that he could blame me for the extended length of our conversations...

unfortunately, tim chose to blame practically everything in this situation - which he didn’t know how to deal with - on this physiological condition which i may not even actually have - including my belief that he and i were friends!

)o:

there is much that i can say about this (besides realizing what a dirty rat tim is being for telling people that*) - but the first and most important thing - that comes to my mind is this: it shouldn't even matter in the first place!

it shouldn’t matter - in any way whatsoever - if i do or do not have this condition. as a matter-of-fact - in my opinion - if it is true - (which i have no way of ascertaining as an adult) - it would only make tim, his girlfriend, his co-workers and employers - each and every one of them - BIGGER JERKS - for using this against me and for fucking me over! there might even be laws against it…

[*no offense to rats, they are actually, usually, really awesome.]

because of tim apparently blaming - my "misunderstanding our sharing a friendship" - on the claim that i have asperger's syndrome - neither his girlfriend, nor his employers - seem to be able to get past it - nor grasp the fact - that this is a bullshit conclusion to make.

not only is everyone blowing everything way out of proportion in this way - they seem to think that asperger’s syndrome - equals mental illness and/or mental disability - and this is not the case.

asperger’s is most often exemplified by high intelligence and nonconformity; it's good stuff!

new seasons management are all acting like a bunch of fucking idiots and total jerks for the ways they have sought to use this against me.

especially - when what’s also significantly true - is that most of the mistakes - and all of the relevant blame - is on their own end and not mine.

new seasons is using this as a diversion tactic in my opinion - as it is not a plausible factor.

this is one of many important reasons why i am so outraged by these assholes - in my opinion - they are assholes - and there is nothing anybody can do or say to stop me from feeling this way.

even if i do have asperger's (which, nobody but myself, has ever suggested i do!) - it would be totally irrelevant.

what tim is implying - it's not even true! it's an obvious cover-up - a blatant lie - that tim is perpetuating - because i am not "misunderstanding" anything.

even if i greatly stretch my imagination now - to consider that maybe i was imagining a friendship with tim - it always comes back to this: if there was even a shred of truth to that explanation - my reasons for fooling myself would be due to the fact that tim himself actually told me that we were friends!

[i even have it in writing; tim told me about "once (we became) friends" - and - tim also once told me nothing would stop him from being my friend... and i believed him.] 

tim didn’t just lead me to believe this by way of his actions and behaviors - tim also made various statements in reference to our friendship on multiple occasions. i can even provide an explicit statement about this in an e-mail which tim wrote to me - following when these issues first arose.

furthermore - when i spoke about our friendship - which was all the time - tim never once sought to correct me for thinking of us in this way...

so if this is all my imagination - it’s still not my fault - because it could only be so because of tim deliberately misleading me - so this would still be his fault - all his fault. but i don’t think that he was misleading me - i honestly believe tim cared about me as a friend… because otherwise - the simplest way to resolve his obviously stressful situation - would have been to end that pretense - and tell me that we weren’t friends - or that we couldn’t be friends any more - he could have given me any reason for doing this - but he never did this. tim never once told me he didn’t want to be friends - nor that because of this or that - it would be best if we weren’t any more.

[for tim to do this now - after these things leading to me being victimized and traumatized (as well as the ensuing chaos) - have already taken place - maybe makes tim a super big jerk - but it doesn’t rewrite history. it doesn’t change anything about the way things were before - and the way things were before - was super special for me - so everyone can fuck off - even tim. i’m never going to believe your bullshit - and you can’t take what was once so special and what will always be special to me - away from me now - because i won’t let you - so give it up...]

tim and i were writing each other, we were giving each other cds, etc - for more than a year - how am i misunderstanding that we were friends? i have never claimed that tim's feelings for me were in the same measure as mine were for him - tim knew - because of all the times i honestly told him

("i honestly love you") - that i felt love for him.

tim maybe never told me that he loved me (he also never told me that he didn’t). if tim did in fact have stronger feelings for me than he admitted to - (which i felt the most coming from him when he was "breaking things off with me" after may 2011! talk about mixed messages...) - he was careful not to share them with me in words, or in writing. tim did say that his feelings for me were not quite as strong as mine - but that’s a pretty confusing way to deny having any feelings for me at all - so i naturally took it to mean that he must have felt something for me.

even so - i didn’t make tim feel obligated for my thinking this - but for him to misrepresent the truth in all the ways that he has since may 19 - is not cool - it is not ok with me - and i am not going to just go along with it.

[if tim hadn’t let it become a legal issue - then none of this would be happening now. tim can lie to his girlfriend - i really don’t care about that! tim can even lie to his co-workers - i do care a little about that - but it’s not really such a big deal to me - if they choose not to believe me, when i am telling the truth - then why would i continue to care, what they think - so what if it sucks - but i wouldn’t bother to take any action on account of that either. however - for tim to tell all these lies to his management - this would really not matter to me at all - if the lies were only about himself - but they were about me as well - and as a result of these false accusations - not only have i been publicly humiliated - by being legally trespassed - this also led to new seasons market entrapping me and that led to my being falsely arrested - and that fucking sucked so much and now i am really pissed. all of this crap has caused me substantial mental anguish, a great variety of grief - none of these things are going to fly...

furthermore, it consequently led to this one particularly stupid police officer - somehow thinking i possibly invited the physical assault inflicted upon me by tim’s girlfriend (on july 26, 2011) - therefore failing to arrest her - wtf?!]

…i am digressing again…

sometimes i believed - because of a gut-feeling i had - or the way tim would sometimes look at me (and especially because of what happened between us on february 3, 2011*) - that his feelings for me actually were stronger than he was letting on - but i never held tim accountable for anything i suspected - and i never felt that he had misled me into thinking that we were more than just friends. i understood that my romantic feelings for him were probably one-sided - and without tim telling me otherwise - i never took my suspicions for granted.

* this story is coming up, hold this thought: it's one of my most special memories of all time.

i will carry the memory of this february evening ("the first thursday of february") with me for always.

...i believe that our friendship was out in the great wide open - at least as far as his co-workers were concerned - even without me knowing, that tim had invented some story to explain things differently to them - they'd have to be complete idiots to believe his story! regardless of whether or not i might be mistaken - about thinking that our friendship was out in the open - i know for certain that i am not mistaken about tim telling me and reassuring me - that we were friends.

again - to be clear - my friendship with tim wasn't traditional or "physically" taking place beyond my seeing him at work and our corresponding by e-mail - but it was well-understood. tim and i had very defining, guidelining - conversations - about our friendship, so many different times - for the very purpose of making certain that we were on the same page. so for tim to suggest otherwise - can only be explained as - tim telling lies about this.

it really sucks - it makes me very sad - but it's not like i can't understand why tim would do this - i can understand it. i totally get his motivation for doing this; it’s still not ok...

as the person being ridiculed and humiliated and unfairly punished - i feel i need to tell the truth about this. that's just how i feel, and i can't seem to let it go - so here i am trying my best to explain everything...

having explained why, i believe tim and i were actually friends... telling the truth about how tim did make up these lies and perpetuate these untruths - probably makes him seem like a pretty shitty friend (tell me about it) - but even so - in my opinion - shitty friend or not - for the most part, tim is still nonetheless my friend. you forgive your friends - right - isn't this a premise of friendship? for a very long time - tim was a really wonderful friend to me - and this is the tim i care about the most... this is why i've made so much effort to get through to him, why i was willing to wait as long as i did before i took any action on behalf of this fucked-up mess - attempting to let tim be the one to fix things - for his own sake - as well as mine. the same goes for my willingness, to forgive tim when he wouldn't, when he didn't, while he still hasn’t - stepped up to the plate... i genuinely care about tim.

i have failed to get through to tim; he is resolute in sticking to his fabricated story. like i have said - i can get why tim is doing that - i just am not willing to be complicit to it.

having just written about all that i just did: chronologically speaking - these particular events were almost a year away - from where i once was in telling this story (i'm sorry for my being so confusing; it's a confusing sequence of events!) - and i wouldn't know the truth about any of these deceptions - or the rest of what i just finished writing about - until it was too late for me to resolve it in any way, which i might have beforehand (had tim been honest with me about the mess he'd made) - nor to fix it up when too much damage had already been done.

though it wasn't due to any lack of effort on my part, "and that's for damn sure"...

(o: this is me quoting "beatle bob" - who appears on stage in this old whiskeytown (live performance) video which i just watched on you tube - for the kick ass song: "excuse me while i break my own heart" :o)

so going back to the chronology of things...

...in early july (2010) - i was pet-sitting a little further south and a tiny bit further east - in southeast portland - and i maybe didn't see tim every day during that time. also somewhere around that time he went out of town to the oregon country fair (which was soon followed by a trip to las vegas for a cirque du soleil performance)...

it was around this time, that i was inspired to put my feelings for tim into a song. it is the first and only real love song i have ever written…

time will tell, but it might also be the last and only love song i ever write (the only “happy” one at least).

because we were "just friends" - i tried to focus on presenting my feelings of love for tim from that angle. i didn't censor myself though - and while i only say "i really really really like you..." and i liken tim to an "imaginary boyfriend" - it is obviously a love song.

[there's a story there; i told it to tim...]

i started by e-mailing my song for tim to him - this includes each revision (lol - this is what i do :o) - but once it was completed (i have only changed the last line since then - just a little - singing it brought the change - it's a better fit) - i wrote it out by hand, and i gave it to tim.

tim hadn't told me yet - how he felt about the song (he sort of never has officially done that) - but before this song was even written - i had written tim a poem - one which i never did share with him (in its entirety) and i guess perhaps i never will. in hindsight, this was probably best - i can't even read that one without blushing - but i did allude to it. i had thought of several potential titles.

tim’s reaction to those titles, still amuses me: "these are all too long to be titles!" it was so cute the way tim said that :o) even though, i was too shy (yes, really) - to show tim the whole poem - i wanted him to be the one to choose the title. so i’d presented a few single best lines from the poem…

tim chose the line in which i said something about:

...a warm, glistening, golden ray on a cold, grey, cloudy day...

after tim selected the line - which he thought worked best (for a title) - i suddenly let nearly all of my defenses down (without showing him that complete first poem however) - and i confided to tim - that on the bus ride there (on my way home from work that night) - i had thought of a singular title - completely separate from the poem itself - which i might actually go with instead - or maybe it would become a new poem.

i admitted i was hesitant, possibly even afraid, to show him what i'd just written - tim sort of looked disappointed when i told him that. i offered that i would show tim what i’d written - but he had to promise he'd still be my friend - no matter what his reaction might be.

perhaps that was an unreasonable request for me to make in the first place - but this was how tim responded to it.

tim told me that:

“there is probably nothing you could say or do that will stop me from being your friend.”

i have never forgotten that moment either.

wow. that’s an awesome thing to say. i guess this is how i still am feeling about tim now - maybe tim has changed his position - but i hope that somewhere deep in his heart - tim still thinks of me as his friend.

i remained too shy to break out the whole poem - but i bravely showed tim the line which i had just wrote. after tim read those words, he asked me: is that supposed to be (about) me? i think i blushed, "yes" (duh!) then tim blushed - really blushed - his face actually turned pink! then tim smiled and was sort of speechless.

[there’s so much more to every story i tell within this story. i remember many more details - and almost everything tim and i ever said, or wrote, to each other. as crazy-long as this narrative is - it really is more of an outline, than say chapters in a book - a longer story, or chapters in a book, is a real possibility someday... (o:]

this is what i had written:

"today i met my imaginary boyfriend, and his name is, you."

in the days which transpired between that evening and early july - i wrote that line as a whole new song. the song which i now just call, my imaginary boyfriend.

[that previous title, the line i first shared with tim - became the final lyric for a while - sometimes i still sing both that former title/last line - and the new last line of my song - as two last lines :o) but presently, i write it with just the new last line. it's ok if you have no idea, what i am talking about. i'm trying to be thorough, but that's not really important information...]

(o: this is my song for tim :o)

* my imaginary boyfriend *

* it's like i have always known you

* like i was just waiting to meet you

* like we once started talking

* somewhere in a dream

* i open my eyes and you are really here

* my eyes are open but you don't disappear

* i'd think you're an illusion playing out in my mind

* because my mind plays trickxs on me sometimes

* i open my eyes and you are still here

* my eyes are open and you don't disappear

* i hope you are not an illusion

* i'm seeing everything in so many new ways

* so many new yays

* as i maze my way through my own confusion

* i emerge amazed by colors lights suffusion

* i like the way i see some things better than i did before

* ever since i have made your acquaintance

* (i have always wanted to say this)

* ever since you opened up the door

* it's all been so copacetic

* it's all been so much more

* i'm so glad it's in this life that i'm getting to meet you

* you are the most possible sweet you

* i think you are so awesome and i think you are so nice

* just look * at all these sparkling stars * lining up * lining up for us *

* this magnetic coalescence * this momentousness

* i think you are super special and i want to thank you so much

* i really really really like you like you like you
* i really need to tell you this

* i want to tell you now
* right now while it's all so real
* this powerful overwhelmingness * of everything that i feel

* sparkling like the starry sky * in all my dreams of you *

* and when i close my eyes * and i dream of you *

* it's just like my dream came true *

* today i met my imaginary boyfriend
* today i met you *

          lyrics for a song for tim by

*-–kimberly kristin angelique, july 2010—*

well, whatever tim thinks about this song - he didn't throw it in the garbage or destroy it. i feel happy to know this - but how i came to learn that tim kept the song i wrote out for him/took it home - is a sad story for me to tell...

that late spring/early summer of 2010 - i had been looking forward to doing something special for myself - something somewhat ridiculous - somewhat awesome (both at the same time). i was going to buy myself a ticket - for the best seat i could get - to the upcoming justin bieber concert. i had never before attended a huge pop show - or any ultra-super-star performance. that kind of mainstream music - just isn’t my usual “cup of tea” - but somehow, justin bieber was making an exception to my general rule.

i still don't have any of justin bieber’s albums, i only know most of the words to his smash hit: “baby” - and I do not know any of the words to any of his other songs (at this time) - but i really like this “baby” song. i like justin bieber! i have been quite intrigued by his compelling life-story - and he is quite charming. also - justin bieber was (at that moment in time especially) - an "international super star” - the biggest super star in the super star world.

because justin bieber has millions of fans - most of them young girls - i imagined his concert would be super high energy and super fun.

i'm also a music writer (i hate to think of myself as a music critic - those guys suck) and i publish a music fanzine - it was kind of like i should go to this - and be able to say “i saw him when.”

yet, i am not embarrassed - i really wanted to go! my birthday is in june - this was going to be my birthday present to myself - the concert was set for july 14 (2010).

as that date drew near - so did my anticipation for the event - so imagine, if you will, my extra-intense devastation - when on the afternoon of july 14 - i go to check my e-mail - and i have an e-mail from tim (in reply to the song lyrics i had sent him in a former e-mail) and open his e-mail only to discover a "dear john" (or dear jane, whatever) letter...

...though to call it that is almost an understatement...

as far as i knew before that letter - tim and i were totally fine, in fact, the best we'd ever been so far (as friends). so it didn't make any sense to me. it had been more than a week since i'd shared this song with him - there had been no indication that my writing him that song had unsettled him - or caused him any discomfort...

...i also hadn't even seen tim for a few days - because he had been out of town for a few days - he'd been camping...

on this particular day of the justin bieber concert - i was very excited about it - even though, there was other shit going down, in my personal life (which had nothing to do with tim - just other family drama stuff) and on top of all this - we had 4 houseguests...

as much as i could be "on top of the world" under these less than ideal circumstances - i was genuinely excited about going to the concert. i was going to get all dressed-up. i knew what i was going to wear. my mom was letting me drive and i had parking access just a couple of blocks from the arena - which was a big deal - otherwise the bus would have been better. i was determined to have an awesome day.

unfortunately, unknowingly, i checked my e-mail and i saw that i had that e-mail from tim. it didn't have its own subject heading - it simply read: “re: my imaginary boyfriend” (i think that's all it said - i deleted it a long time ago - i never wanted to read that e-mail again...) because i deleted it over a year ago - never printed it out - i can't directly quote it - but i’ll never forget how it broke my heart.

i don't think i immediately suspected - that it was obviously written as some sort of evidence for tim's girlfriend - in a first attempt to convince her that our friendship was all in my head. i possibly had realized it then - i honestly don't remember - but i don't think so...

...i know i figured it out for sure - once tim wrote me back to apologize for being so harsh and hurtful, and confided to me that his girlfriend had found the song i’d written for him - and that he'd had a hard time explaining it - etc. all of that helped me feel much better. i realized at that point, that tim had written that earlier e-mail for the most part to appease his girlfriend (and i am sure that he felt the need to offer me a reality check - though i didn't need one) - so i was able to get over most of what he'd written in that first fucked-up e-mail .

[also (in the follow-up e-mail) tim said that he wasn't even sure he meant half of what he'd said. that was certainly a relief. he also told me that we could keep writing to each other - so - i took that to heart - and i concluded that tim did still want to be my friend.]

i forgave tim for most of what he had put me through that week.

…but i'm skipping ahead, so let me back up…

on the afternoon of july 14 - just a few hours before my concert - all i had was that first e-mail: and it was scathing in parts - and crushing in general - tim telling me that (from his point-of-view) "we had never had any extraordinary conversations" and that "he didn't want to even be my imaginary boyfriend..."

so my heart felt like it had exploded into a million pieces - even though i honestly didn't believe him - and the whole thing seemed really off - like it was written to somebody else. it was still very hurtful. again i didn't yet know about his girlfriend's involvement in his writing that e-mail - and i was months and months away from knowing how crazy jealous she gets...

“i had nothing to offer anyone but my own confusion” –jack kerouac

...sure, tim might want to set me straight - that i shouldn't be hoping for more than a friendship or something - but he wrote to me like i was a stranger. he made no mention - of much that would have been relevant - nor any implication as to why i might feel the way that i did. how i could have come to write that song - or how i might could think that tim had feelings for me too.

for tim to dismiss our conversations like he did - seemed truly preposterous - in so many ways! furthermore, in his e-mails - tim had told me that he liked the things i wrote - that even though some of my e-mails were long that they were also good. one in particular, tim had referred to as: "a beautiful story." in another tim told me that (what i had written) had him "thinking about all sorts of things."

tim had written extraordinary things to me - sometimes at length - all sorts of intelligent observations all his own - tim shared all sorts of things with me about himself - he once had shared with me - a special song which he had just written that day - relating it to something i had just written to him...

tim and i connected on many levels intellectually - how could he, why would he - try to deny that? for whatever reasons tim had - which were beyond my comprehension at that time - he basically ripped the premise of my song to shreds.

once tim explained things to me the very next day, in a second e-mail - that his girlfriend had found our song - and that this had not been a good thing - what he had wrote the day before made perfect sense - in view of the light that he had written that e-mail for giving her some kind of peace of mind rather than to intentionally hurt me.

[in other words, i’ve sort of been through some of what is happening now with tim, before.]

i was still very hurt however that tim would do this - but i was especially hurt - before he had offered me any explanation....

the justin bieber concert - as great as justin was - as incredibly lucky as i was to get his official set list after the show - as exciting as it was to be surrounded by thousands of exuberant, screaming fans - it was a very dismal experience compared to what it might have been.

now - every time i think of justin bieber (and his face is plastered everywhere! my daughter gave me a justin bieber calendar for christmas! ) - i think of the first time tim broke my heart...

it just sucked; it still sucks.

justin bieber is cool, it's not his fault.

i didn't feel that i could let tim know yet - that i had read his e-mail - that time i saw him a few hours before the concert started - when i rushed to see him in a panic over what i had just read. i wasn't really able to let myself believe it had really happened. i wanted to pretend it was just a bad dream - to believe it was real, felt impossible - to do so would be to possibly break into a million pieces...

i didn’t want to miss the concert that i'd been so excited about, all because of tim’s e-mail. i could at least go ahead and attend the concert and "try to have a good time". i even tried to spin it that way - that if this e-mail had to come sometime - how lucky was i that it was happening on a day as special as this - instead of sitting around crying all by myself...

justin bieber would rock my world - he’d make me forget all about tim. surely i could put tim out of my mind better if i just focused on the concert…

it was all mind games.

sometimes things are so messed up - that all i can think to do - is to pretend that they aren't.

[something i’ve been doing hella lately…]

even so - i also felt that i had to see tim. maybe i could somehow rewrite this history by explaining the song or about my writing the song in the first place - maybe i could make things better somehow - maybe after the concert there'd be a better e-mail.

[well, i was at least half-right - the other half came from tim - when he explained why he wrote what he had written - and how he had come to write that in the first place --- isn’t it wonderful --- when everything works out after all. if only this could happen for us again. it’s what I am hoping for with all my heart.]

when i saw tim, face to face - there was no sign of despising me whatsoever - he even maybe looked a little remorseful.

i first said something, like: "i hope you aren't freaked out about my song" - and i explained (unnecessarily and stupidly i guess) - “i'm a writer, you know, and i wanted to capture the moment.” that's true. “also - i am a songwriter - and though you and i are just friends (and i also feel love for you) - i have always wanted to write a love song - and this seemed like the best time ever to try...to do it now, while i feel this way - if i waited, something bad might happen - and then to capture these feelings, would be after the fall - rather than at the height of it all.” that's all true too - every word of it.

* yay - that i did write that song then - yay yay yay *

as a writer, the advice i give myself - the best advice i can share with anyone else about writing - is this: the past will always be there - the moment is only now.

if you don't write about a moment - right in the moment (or as soon as you possibly can - which is why you should always carry something to write with, and to write on - and a really good reason to keep a journal, too) - you pass up the only opportunity you will ever have to truly - capture "now".

it's good advice - you should take it.

i'm maybe not full of good advice - but i have this much down (o:

tim then confided to me: "i wrote you an e-mail..."

...and this is me being regretfully (to this day) dishonest. i asked tim, "oh - well - is it a happy e-mail or a sad e-mail?" or something like that. which wasn't weird in itself - given his demeanor when he was giving me this heads up - but which was dishonest of me - since i already knew that it was tragically sad - since i'd just read it about an hour earlier.

...i forget exactly what i said - and exactly what tim said - in that moment. but i remember that whatever either of us said then - the next thing i said - continued my deceitfulness.

[i didn't feel good about deceiving tim - but tim had just written me this fucked-up letter and all i could think is what a jerk he was to have done that - so in that sense, i couldn't feel too guilty… as i just said - my truest reason for holding back, from tim - that i knew all about his e-mail - was because i couldn't handle addressing it directly yet. i'd never make it to the concert - if i didn't hold my feelings in, until after it was over - if i could do that at all.]

...i was simply going to try to keep it all in; it was a psychological antidote at best...

then i announced to tim: "well, maybe i will wait - until after the justin bieber concert then - it's tonight"...

[maybe subconsciously, i made that statement to add to whatever guilt which i felt tim should rightfully be feeling - all i know for sure is that i sought to remind him of his terrible timing - had he forgotten what day it was - rather than possibly having forsaken it. surely tim had not chosen to deliberately hurt me on this day of all days - please say it isn't so...]

tim did look extra remorseful then - so maybe he hadn't taken it into consideration yet - and he replied to me:

“oh...yeah, you should probably wait.”

to which i think i gave tim a sort of “knowing” look - so maybe he guessed that - i had read the e-mail - that i was holding it in - and maybe he understood why, then. i wasn’t faking it in order to cover with him - i was faking it for my own sake - as a survival mechanism. since i was leaving then - maybe i broke down a little - anyhow - i remember us sharing a look.

there is more that i could say about that day - about the concert - about even seeing tim once more that night on my way to the concert and then again after the concert...

...though that was super brief - it was right at closing time - tim and one of his co-workers were locking up the beer case…all i think i said to tim then, was: “yay that i got justin bieber’s set list!”

i gave another friend (who worked there) a piece of confetti from the concert's finale...

as overshadowed as that concert was by my own heartache: i am really grateful that i made myself attend that concert...

i don’t know how much you know about these things - but getting justin bieber’s official set list - was no small feat - it was actually a pretty amazing triumph to have - on an otherwise terrible day. so, yay for that...

* * *  * * *  * * *

...following that next day (after tim wrote me and apologized for being so harsh and tried to explain why he had written what he did, because of his girlfriend finding the song) - our friendship felt quite tentative for a while - our conversations felt somewhat awkward - our mutual understanding about everything - uncertain at times...

it still seems like a miracle in retrospect - but tim and i weathered that uneven time period - and by october 2010 - it appeared that we had survived those unsteady two and a half months, following that seemingly endless emotional rollercoaster ride we’d been on in july...

most helpful for me - on my end - is that i was presented with the fortunate opportunity to pet-sit for an entire month - in a very cool apartment in downtown portland.

i healed myself in many ways during that month. i regained some things which i had seemingly lost, in the previous two sorrowful years.

for the first time, in a very long time - i was thriving again. i relished the exhilarating feeling of having all this privacy at long last. i refocused myself on my love for my favorite things... i was writing more prolifically than ever. i ventured around downtown on my skateboard, i went on a lot of walks... i bought old-school punk records reissued on cd - at second avenue records - where i hadn't been in what felt like forever... all sorts of fun stuff - all for myself.

yet, i also did what i most wanted to do - i bravely approached tim - and i honestly admitted to him that i truly missed how we used to be, when we talked so freely - and how all this artifice (of playing my feelings down, etc) - made me feel like when "tigger lost his bounce"...

tim smiled at that - and i think that might be the moment that tim and i finally got back on track from our former derailment. tim and i reconnected in the weeks to come…we began exchanging music again, we talked like we had before - the way we used to do - except it seemed like it was even better than before.

tim actually stated - out loud:

“i don’t care what anyone thinks.”

that’s around the same time that tim sometimes spent portions of his break time with me. tim and i actually hugged each other! like a dozen times. sometimes these hugs were in the food aisles, where we had a little privacy - and other times - they were right in front of the people he worked with. i wrote about every single time this ever happened in my diary. i can even tell you what i was wearing - whenever tim and i hugged - these clothes felt extra-special to me then - because they’d had physical contact with tim. to be romantically doomed, you first have to be romantic...

i told tim that i wanted to make an extra-special present for him - out of gratitude for our extra-special friendship. i needed to know that this would be ok in advance; so i didn't set myself up for being rejected after i'd already made it. ideally - i would have preferred to surprise him - but i was trying to be extra careful to avoid us having any misunderstandings!

i made every effort to be straight-up with tim - to ensure that we were both on the same page - to avoid future hassles like the ones which had almost destroyed our friendship in the past.

tim both appeared and sounded - receptive - to my making him something especially for him. tim actually seemed enthusiastic - he said he was excited.

i chose a completely random holiday - hanukkah - which fell much earlier in december (december 2!) that year, than i had realized it did...

...i hurried to finish making my present for tim in time. i spent a fair amount of time just in planning it out - and it took me a couple of weeks to put it together - but most of the work was completed in the days right before december 2. i was up all night, for almost 4 days, trying to complete it on time - just because it felt important to me to have it ready on the first day of hanukkah (though neither of us is even jewish)..

when i showed up at tim's work - not long before closing time (on the first night of hanukkah) - i was a somewhat disheveled mess - but i made it there in time - and this was most important to me.

i presented my extra-special gift to tim.

...it was especially fortuitous that the store was "dead" and not one customer approached his station during this entire visit...

tim took the time to look at - and to acknowledge - every page of my present.

tim sincerely told me:

“i LOVE it. thank you, kristin.”

i really loved the present that i made tim, too. so i believed that he genuinely felt appreciation for my labor of love. the way tim specially emphasized - how much he loved my present - made my heart feel super happy.

i had made tim something which nobody else could have made - something so especially personalized to him and from me. it began as an idea and evolved into being what i might best describe - as a “giant-sized - highly customized - multi-media fanzine” - and it was implemented and designed as "a gift which would keep on giving"...

…more things could easily be added to it and/or they could supplement it. for instance, these old school punk rock cassettes (that i had copied for tim - stuff you can't get, or which is hard to get, on cd - from the tapes i had made from vinyl records - back in the day) - which i gave to tim a few days later. also, i loaned tim my sony "walkman" - so that he had a way to play those cassettes (though he sucked at hurrying up to do that!)*

[* tim explained that it was taking him so long to listen to those tapes, because he had been especially busy - yet he also informed me that he had in fact been making use of the tape player itself - listening to french language cassettes...]

as tim was undertaking the learning of a foreign language, and had chosen french, i felt good about being of some help with that. furthermore, i too had studied french - in both junior high and high school - and again for two years in college. additionally, i am a connoisseur of french cinema, amongst other things french - so this was one more thing we shared in common (o:

...tim was applying to various grad schools - and he was hoping most for acceptance to one (or more) in canada... he was accepted to boston; so boston was also a consideration...

additionally, tim and his girlfriend, had upcoming plans to attend an international peace conference (how ironic this soon became to me, no words can do justice to) taking place in senegal (in africa) - which was to take place in february 2011 - the main language there was french, tim told me.

i didn't learn all of that in one conversation - but rather between december and late january - and then tim told me all about the vacation in senegal - after he returned - in late february (which is when i learned about the french-connection to his african vacation).

before his trip - tim and i tried our best to converse in french. i wrote parts of my e-mails to tim in french, etc. i put together a list for tim of my favorite french films...

the first time i told tim - right out loud, right to him - "i love you" - i spoke it in french. it was possibly easier for me that way, but mostly - it felt extra special - in my favorite language...

all of these moments were super special to me. i was anxious for tim to listen to the fantastic music on the tapes i'd made for him - but i was greatly pleased - that i was contributing to his learning to speak french.

at some point - during that winter of 2010/2011 - tim drew me a very cute monkey (o: tim had promised to do this a while back. so, when tim made good on his promise to me - it meant a lot to me.

...tim especially warmed my heart - when he spontaneously and very cutely - named my new, old wooden pull-toy: a "musical duck" - which i had just found at one of my favorite old toy shops in oregon city (for my extra-special toy collection)…

(o: tim named my duck: "quackers and cheese"  :o)

our friendship seemed to truly be thriving... tim and i were definitely friends - special friends. i will never doubt this.

tim was scheduled to leave for africa (via nyc) very early in the morning on february 4 - he was scheduled to work 9 days in a row - right up until just a few hours before his departure. knowing that he would be gone for two weeks - and that i would miss him - i (bravely) asked tim if it would be cool with him if i intentionally came to see him - every day - before his trip.

i didn't think that tim might actually say no; i just wanted to make sure that it wouldn't be awkward for him. i say that i "bravely" asked this - because anytime i wear my heart on my sleeve - let alone serve it on a platter - it's scary! and this sort of felt like i was doing that...

tim being so friendly and so agreeable - with me planning this - made my heart super happy. so i did that - i came to see tim, every single one of those 9 days, leading up to his vacation.

on february 3 (day 9) - i guess that was the night i maybe “looked my very prettiest ever” - for tim.

sorry if i sound conceited when i say that - but it's true - and it wasn’t an accident. i wanted to make myself appear as memorable as i possibly could (in a good way). i had been dressing up for tim - for weeks at this time - whether he noticed this or not - i can't say for certain - but i am pretty sure that he did. tim seemed to look at me extra special on these occasions...

...i'd finally gotten most of my wardrobe - which had been packed away - out of storage. while it was exciting to be reunited with clothes i hadn't worn in a long time - it was also fun to dress up and try to look pretty. i guess i wasn't so depressed anymore. this started in october (2010) and i'd been (mostly) super happy for 3 entire months - which was a big deal for me - it didn’t last beyond that - but i had 3 whole months!

...so maybe, my looking especially pretty on that night, played at least a small part in what took place between tim and i. maybe it had nothing to do with that. either way - i'm glad i looked pretty; for my favoritest memory of tim...

since i knew i wouldn't get to see tim on valentine's day - i had brought my valentine for him, on this particular day. tim spent most of his short (10 or 15 minutes) break with me - that's when i gave him the valentine. that's when tim announced to me:

"i guess it's my turn to give you a hug"*

the way tim said this - the way tim looked at me when he said that - the way both of those ways made me feel - the actual hug itself - tender and prolonged - tim's arms truly around me and holding me close - that was like a dream come true for me.

[* we'd hugged a dozen or so times before this night, but i'd always been the one to initiate them. i sometimes did that by saying to tim - "hug me" - and then he’d give me a hug - but i was ultimately responsible for those times. therefore, this occasion felt exceptional and incredibly special. whether i am wrong to draw this conclusion or not - in that moment - and ever since that moment - and even with the hindsight i have now - i still feel like that was the single most validating moment in our friendship. a time when i believed with all my heart and soul - that even if tim and i were just friends, and this is the most we would ever be - that tim truly had special feelings for me.]

*******************************************************************

i had never expected such a moment to take place - i maybe dreamed about such moments - but i never expected one to actually take place - and i definitely didn't expect anything beyond that - i honestly held that precious moment so dear to my heart as probably the height of it all - i doubted it would ever get any better than that and i was super happy for that moment all in itself - i vowed to never forget it and to never take it for granted...

i even seriously considered - never returning to see tim - after that night! just so we could "end on such a high note." but then this other voice in me - told me that i was being ridiculous to even consider that - because why would i walk away as soon as tim reached out to me like that? hadn’t i been dreaming of such a moment? plus, what would tim think - what if that would make him sad? well - i still think that would have been a ridiculous decision to make. yet in hindsight - the thought itself seems rather appropriate.

perhaps that first voice was more prophetic than the second voice was. probably that first instinct came from the conditioned feeling that i am in fact romantically doomed - and to stick around - was just to watch it all explode apart - what goes up must come down...

...even though things have turned out to happen as they have - i don't regret hanging in there to see if there might have been a happier outcome. it was worth the risk. i'd take that risk again. i don't care if anyone else thinks i'm crazy for feeling this way. i love tim.

because of that moment - more than any other - i believe that - in some way that is all his own way - tim loves me too. you don't have to "be in a relationship" to feel love for someone. i could wax philosophical, about love, for many more pages - but i think i'll just say this - i don't care if it is cliché - i really believe this:

“it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”

as much as i believe this - i do not feel like i have actually lost at all. i gained so much! i feel as if i have been truly blessed - for always, forever - because of this love - because of knowing tim.

nothing that anyone says or does - can ever take this blessing away from me..

this love and its blessing are eternal...

that moment when tim held me in his arms, and so close to his heart, when i whispered my almost speechless words to him - this is how i want to remember the end of the story - an ending that is really a beginning - this is how i want to always remember us:

 “goodbye tim. i hope you have a wonderful time on your journey . . . je t'aime.”

To continue to parts two (x2) and part three...the links appear near the top of this page.