HOW I WAS HOSPITALIZED:

I never told you how I was hospitalized. My ex was an E.S.F.P, I am certain. Her demeanour* was endearing to everyone she met; I don’t know if a single person suspected her Good Nature, even those girls which she berated and would call sluts, out of jealousy alone. (And hardly – if I must be defensive in writing this, for fear of accusations of hypocrisy – out of any sort of deliberate malevolence or betrayal the likes of which could lead to a tragic Death.) This was the girl that Kresten, an E.N.F.P, had a longstanding crush on, though he hid the fact deliberately out of cowardice rather than decency. Ally had had a few bad boyfriends. In addition, her father, a vulgar man who is probably a Republican, and who is definitely an Engineer, cheated on Ally’s beloved Mother. The father was probably an I.N.T.J. It is hard to ascertain.

*To this day, I write in British English customarily by force of the habit she instilled in me early on.

Ally broke up with me on a whim. She grew tired of my melancholy broodings. They were brought on by several factors. Despite seeing her frequently in Public, long before I confessed to my parents, three months into the relationship, that I was dating her, I seldom if EVER got a moment ALONE with her, and even then I felt like I was out in PUBLIC when I looked into her eyes. It was unnerving, as you can imagine. And that is not cowardice, but decency, speaking of course.

There were other personal shortcomings she had, of course. An E.N.T.P. I knew, whom I have mentioned to you on Rosh Hashanah, (the day you nearly died of glasserations) once said that she was the “wrong kind of Zen”,
and, next to “crazy bitch”, I regard this as not only HIS best description for her, but THE best. Kresten of course suspected Andrew’s motives for saying this, knowing how much the Nicholson Sisters DEPLORED Andrew for draining their energy. PERSONALLY: they had it coming. If you (the General You, in this case referring to her) are going to BROADCAST YOURSELF as some sort of healer or mental health guru, you better prepare for actually DOING THOSE THINGS. But it was All a Show to the E.S.F.P. As was our revered relationship.

She got the ending that she wanted. The creepy intellectual loner was out of her life for only Four Months before he came back to their Family Home, demanding an explanation. She certainly had no reserve of malice and conviction in saying “I BROKE UP with you.” But it was news to the loner. When she and I last saw one another, I was convinced that we were still On a Break. Somehow, the adolescent girl EXPECTED me to GET that It Was Over, and that She Was Happy. It would have been sweet, considering we spoke to one an other again upon the same High School bench where I first sat down to talk to her, “intimidating[ly]”. But I was not buying the cyclical narrative. So I promised to become a Better Person, intent upon Returning Someday.

When I did return, I held in my hands a box of poems I had written to her on coloured index cards. The box was an empty Sudoku box, if I am not mistaken. Her family was terrified. It was late night; I was on their porch, a porch that I’d come to call Home, for she and I had agreed that it would be my salvation from my backwards, cynical Parents. This was the House where six nights a week the Nicholson Sisters would spend away from the apartment of their “Awful” Father, a man I tended to take kindly to in spite of all the nonsense on both sides. This was their Mother’s Home, a luxurious two-story suburban house, the second story of which, I must specify with dramatic irony I learned in Literature Class and Life, I only saw once. (I think.)

The Mother was an E.S.F.J. I do not doubt it. She talked my ears off. She talked everybody’s ears off. What she SAID was what Shakespeare would call a “tale told by a fool”, because it was more or less a string of seemingly unrelated Events. So much for Zen! But perhaps that’s what Alexandra THOUGHT Zen was. Once I tried to engage Claudia Nicholson in some sort of actually MEANINGFUL discussion. She must have been rambling on for an hour or so. We were at Rubio’s. I had before me a black bean burrito, mostly untouched. I got about three sentences in when she just did that thing that E.S.F.J’s do after I have opened my mouth: she sort of nodded with passive aggression, that I could not tell if she was trying to HIDE her bewilderment and lack of interest, or if she was trying DELIBERATELY to convey to me that she did not care and that it was my fault that she did not. A fault, I might add, that she would Pardon Graciously, of course.

Where decisions were concerned, there was no question of Emotion ruling over Intellect. (I hope by now that I’ve established that Claudia was not an “intellectual” even in PRETENSE, and Alexandra only so.) Her decision-making was erratic and spontaneous. Once we visited a Shopping Mall and walked into one of those really teenage clothing stores; perhaps it was Urban Outfitters? She saw a shirt that seemed like Alexandra would wear it; it was a mess of hearts the likes of which you would see at Hot Topic in aesthetic: cartoony, girly and tomboyish all at once, and far from capable of being described in post-adolescent terms. The shirt read “Love”, or may be it read “Screw Love”. If the former was the case, Claudia delighted in berating it, using the opportunity to self-identify with the berating. If the latter was the case, she simply self-identified with the Shirt.

When I showed up at their home, a box of love notes in my hands, Claudia was convinced I had a gun. The following day, I think, which would most probably have been a Thursday, I got a call whilst at the home of a certain Austin Williams. Austin, who might forgive me for using his name, for he goes by an Alias now, is your prime example of I.N.T.J. He used to come up to me and Alexandra at Graziano’s Pizzeria and ask us if we wanted to hear his stories. I was a Literature Major, of course, so I humoured the hell out of him. Any humour Alexandra felt towards him [w]as surely at his own expense. And I don’t doubt he knew it.

The phone call was from my Mother, who was too embarrassed to admit who or what it was that came to visit, but I had to come home quickly. I rushed like a madman home, God only knows how many blocks, fearful that Claudia had called the Police. At the time, “restraining order” was the most nerve-racking thing I could fathom.

It was just Claudia and Neal Nicholson, together in a room again at last, intent on talking to me about the well-being of their daughter. He had to level with me and to tell me that Alexandra thought I was a Great Guy but that she did not want a Relationship. I contested. He then went on to tell me that “relationship” is a ubiquitous term. Even he and *I* have a relationship, apparently! But of course I wondered this much: if RELATIONSHIP is so ubiquitous, and I did not doubt that Alexandra still believed in the Over Soul, as I did, then how could she OPT OUT OF IT? And why was I no longer welcome in Their Home? I did not think she would give me false hope of escape. The term “self-entitlement” was not in my vocabulary. This much was all ways clear to me: any one who lets you into his or her world OWES you the Security. Any one whom YOU let in to YOURS, you owe it to that person as well. Why was I so melancholy, as of November, when a week apart and an essay by Sartre sent me back into my Depressive Ways? It was a sense of IMPOTENCE: that I could not PROVIDE FOR my Beloved. And the graver this sense grew, the more she came to agree with it. At LAST, however, I had found SALVATION! The works of Osho, the notorious E.N.F.P. guru who (though I’d not known it at the time) ordered the poisoning of people with Salmonella, (How is this guy NOT listed in black on that Personality Website??) had become MY guru, via the miracle of the Internet. As I [s]at around ratting with Ally’s folks, I all so had my index cards. I had to show them the contents of the box, apparently. And I had to demonstrate my use of CHI in balancing them. I was sure that these practitioners of Eastern Wisdom and Holistic Medicine would understand. Neil was a reader of Eckhart Tolle, and Claudia listened to Deepak Chopra!!

Of course: she all so worked at Aurora Behavioural Health. Shortly thereafter she arranged a Panera date with my Mother. Mother returned, HOURS later, ecstatic. NEVER BEFORE had she been in the presence of so WARM and ENTERTAINING of a Woman! Of course, it’s not like Mother got out much. My Mom, the Aries, is all so a highly closeted I.S.F.P. For her, E.S.F.J. is what E.N.F.J. is to ME. We become that under stress. And there was a LOT of stress going around at the time, surrounding me, as you might imagine.

Why did I do it?

Put simply: it made sense. THESE are my Six Words to Sum Up Life: It made sense at the time. And that will ALL ways be my Refuge and my Solace. I cannot be BLAMED for how OTHERS REACT. I have only my Conscience, my Actions, and those Few People who would Listen.

Alexandra and her parade of lovers entered into my Life – MY INNER SANCTUM – and CHANGED things. They stormed my conscience and turned everything upside-down. They made a fucking mess. And then, having left the stove on, and the cookies still in the oven, which was still only pre-HEATING, and should not have even HAD cookies IN it yet, they left my Conscience to Burn to the Ground, a nihilistic mess that I had warned them about with every last smoke-filled breath. So who showed up at WHOSE home, then? Who was the TRUE danger?

You don’t come into my Life and then just LEAVE, Nicole. And if that seems FRIGHTENING to you, it’s time to grow up. You AFFECT people. And people don’t owe you the COURTESY of COMPANY. YOU owe THEM the courtesy of MAKING that Company Pleasant and RELIABLE. In the words of Meth Head Number X from Breaking Bad: You don’t put thoughts in my head. If you just up and LEAVE, you have wasted my time. And I can’t have that: wasted time. You owe me for it. And if Society disagrees, then guess what? Fuck society. My rebellion is not adolescent. It is SOCIETY that is adolescent; there only ever IS the ILLUSION of a Social Order when one is BEING an adolescent. ADULTS don’t send friends and parents to tell LOVERS AND FRIENDS to leave them Alone. ADULTS TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.

So you’re a Child now. So be it. It’s a good coping mechanism. Take as much time as you need. But don’t think I am going to let you dictate how I ought or ought not to feel. I remain a Free Agent, and these feelings, if I am bound to them and them alone, are as much your children as they are mine. I will NOT be forced into denying this.

I tried for a LONG time to find that Zen Ideal that Alexandra preached so hypocritically. But just as I reached Total Detachment, I took a walk down the street I’ve lived on for this many years. There was a woman, in her forties or so, standing upon her driveway, outside of an Open Garage. She was crying, looking down at the bottom of the road, where the Big Trees are. You should remember. And I say “should” imperatively, not only in hope. I asked her, airily, what was wrong. She told me, choking up and fighting to WITHHOLD an out-burst, that it was hard to let her kids go. It must have been that time of the year.

That only happened to me once. I do believe that it was GOD that wanted me to see and to hear and to WITNESS that.

Huxley was wrong. God wants us to be ATTACHED to Life.

There is an Aries named Slavoj Zizek. I typed him long ago as an I.N.T.J. That makes two; Maynard James Keenan is the only other Arian Mastermind I can think of.

Slavoj said that English and French are the only two languages in the World that have the expression “to fall in Love”: “tomber l’amour”. He distinguished Christianity as a Religion of the FALL from Buddhism, a religion of Ascent.

I choose the Fall, Fitz.

I fell in love with you.

And in love I shall remain.

If you wish, you can sweep me up.

Dm.A.A.

Post-scriptum: Claudita, the youngest daughter, just graduated High School this year. Anthony (E.N.F.P.) and I saw the sisters enter Denny’s just as he an[d] I were ratting about My First Play and His Film Scripts. Alexandra is an Aspiring Screenwriter. At least: the Internet attests to this dream, conceived of during our “Relationship”, remaining alive.

The Weird Sisters sat down pretty much two tables behind us. Ally did this thing she does; she began to orate loudly. I did my best to talk over her; they sat BEHIND me, and I’d seen them enter FIRST, so it was none too hard.

But then Anthony did the thing HE does. He could not keep his EYES off of Ally, and he was grinning with authentic malice. I kept telling him to stop doing that. Finally I had to explain to him, with TRANSPARENCY, the importance of remaining Uninvolved from them. I guess that Detachment pays off, though it is only a Means and not an End (as Aldous Huxley should have pointed OUT in a book that he himself entitled “ENDS AND MEANS”).

I was not TOO mean. But they left. You know what I mean. That was the end of that. The sisters legit LEFT the Restaurant!!

Anthony witnessed it like some sort of movie. This is yet an other one of numerous reasons that I do not hang out with [h]im any more. I become creepy by osmosis.

It’s true that Alexandra ALL ways found Anthony “intimidating”, even in High School. But then: she found ME to be that way, too. So she was nuts. Any way: Anthony’s generally unsettling demeanour and terrible dinner habits notwithstanding, we agreed that she was not over me yet. Our server, a young man who was clean-cut, married, but ostensibly “red-pilled” and Shamanistic, shared a laugh with us about it.

So much for Letting Things Go.

Maybe YOU will feel that same way someday.

But I do not mean to sound vain.

I warn you because I care. And because some days I DO give myself enough credit.

I dated one of the Hottest Girls at School.

And she still likes me, even after SHE broke up with ME. Had *I* broken up with HER, she might have internalized the bond submissively. But SHE broke up with ME. And she STILL comes in trying to IMPRESS me, LEAVING with her wing-girls when she FAILS.

I am a Catch.

Dm.A.A.