When I first started writing my book shortly after we separated, there was a part of me that hoped months from finishing it, we would everything out. I would be able to write a killer ending to the book and atone at the same time. Life would go on with us together having learned from our monumental mistakes.

But halfway through it, I realized that wasn’t going to happen, nor did I want it to. I needed a blank slate. I couldn’t be with her, because every time I would look at her, all I would see was failure. All I would see were all the missteps I took, and I would be forever trying to find redemption in my words and in my acts. I would be forever living in the past.

I would be 78, reflecting upon my fuck up at 28.

When ending a book, it’s tempting to make some grandiose statement like “I found myself.” But this was never about finding myself. It was about finding other people. And to be honest, to find myself would mean I was once lost. (more…)

1 time the old man next door walked outside to take out the trash wearing jeans, no shirt and suspenders
4 times I thought “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to dress like that and have it be acceptable”)
1 dinner with the Horse Whisperer and her parents at Pizza Picasso in Scottsdale
1 tab her father refused to allow me to pick up
1 guinea pig the Horse Whisperer bought
2 times one of her parents’ three dogs pawed me in the balls
1 movie watched at her parents house – “The Nightmare Before Christmas (I think I need to watch it again to give a well-informed comment; fans of the movie should know it is playing in theaters in 3D)
2 cherry vodka cranberry juices
14 games of “Swords and Sandals”
4 hours of painting
2 trips to Home Depot
0 trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond
1 nice little Saturday (more…)

When J would come to me, pleading for my heart, I fought her off, not because I wanted to cheat her, not because that’s what I wanted, but simply because that’s all I knew. My pastor talks about on what level we love ourselves on a scale of 1-10 and following this, other people. For example, if you love yourself at a four, you can only offer people the same amount of love. You can’t love yourself at a one and love your wife at an eight.

I loved myself at a two or three, meaning I loved J at a two or a three. I didn’t have the faith to go further than that. This inability to experience greater love made me feel defeated. I felt defeated for failing her, even though she was there encouraging me along the way. I felt defeated for letting down the very woman I pledged to marry.

But there’s insight here, and that insight is that I couldn’t have grown frustrated like I did unless deep down inside, I did want to love her like (more…)

Two nights ago, Clementine hurt her paw, so before I ran to the store to get saline spray, I wrapped it up in one of my socks in case it continued bleeding. She was pissed.

J wasn’t buying my cop-out. She wanted me to explore who I was and dig well beneath the surface to find the pain. What’s frightening about depressing is that staying in it is what’s comfortable. Getting out of it is what’s uncomfortable. I wanted to chalk up my depression to being this ”tragic figure” I imagined, because when I said it like that, it almost seemed noble. I felt like a character in one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but with less hosiery. I wanted to leave it at that. She wouldn’t let me. 

“Why are you unhappy?” she would ask me.

“I don’t know. I have you, a huge house, a good job and great friends. I have a great life. I just don’t know, and that’s what makes it worse.”

Many sufferers of depression also have obsessive compulsive disorder. I don’t, but I am drawn toward neatness and rationale. I like things (more…)

Those readers that have been with me from the start of Mr. Pinkerton know about my failed engagement. I’ve written about it many times and made several references to it along the way.

Even those of you who just started reading in the last few months have picked up on events here and there. 

But regardless of when you entered the conversation, you don’t know the whole story. I’ve refrained from telling it in detail.

Until now.

When my father came out to visit Christmastime in 2004, I had been dating J two months. At the time, I couldn’t have known that we would love (more…)

I’ll never understand those ads that use a celebrity to pitch a product, or worse, just the person’s voice. Now, there are exceptions. Using Michael Jordan to pitch Nike makes sense. He’s an athlete. They sell athletic merchandise. I get it. There’s a tie-in.

But a few nights ago, I heard an ad for, well, I don’t fucking remember. Why don’t I remember? Because the ad used Kiefer Sutherland as its voiceover, and instead of focusing on the product, which again, escapes me, my mind cycled through all these thought processes attributed to his voice.

Something like this:

Is that Keifer Sutherland’s voice? (more…)

You wanted a picture of the Horse Whisperer. Well, you got it. Well, sort of.

What? Come on. You had to have known this was coming.

When we broke up for the last time, I admitted to German Girl that I had depression. I knew I suffered from it. I didn’t need to take any MSN.com tests to realize this. It was obvious. I was lethargic, indifferent and unmotivated. I craved solitude more and more. And I started listening to The Cure and painted my fingernails black. Kidding. I painted my toenails black, not my fingernails.  

Telling German Girl about my depression was a big step, like going to your first AA meeting. I knew that I had suffered from this disorder, but deep down inside, I also knew that I would never really truly seek out help unless someone else knew. Keeping it a secret would just be giving it to the isolation that this disease left me craving.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “You’re about as happy as you make up your mind to be.” Some days I want to believe him. Other day I wish he were alive so I could take a poop in his top hat. (more…)