A Year In Pictures Following The Break-Up

Young's 31st birthday.

Meador bought Young a Buttery Nipple shot. Nick made everyone tell him it was called a Roasted Scrotum.

Young: What's this called again?
Nick: A Roasted Scrotum.
Young: Tastes buttery.

# posted by Arnie : 11:54 PM  0 comments

Between my Playstation 2 and Young's X-Box and Gamecube, this is a three game system apartment. As you can see, this leaves very little time for dusting.

# posted by Arnie : 10:20 PM  1 comments

Got a long-overdue haircut today.

Yolanda: Would you like me to trim your eyebrows?
Me: Yeah. They need it. I'm getting crazy Christopher Lee eyebrows.
Yolanda: It just means you're alive.

When said with an accent this actually sounds vaguely meaningful.

# posted by Arnie : 4:18 PM  1 comments

An abandoned, fenced-off building near the edge of Lincoln Square, a neighborhood N and I lived in(seperately) for a while.

"You are beaut!ful"

# posted by Arnie : 2:40 PM  0 comments

I don't use Friendster that much, but I finally got around to updating my profile from "In A Relationship" to "Single".

So, now friends of friends of acquaintances will know what's what.

# posted by Arnie : 12:27 PM  0 comments

The new apartment has great street parking. Often I can park my Camry right across the way from my bedroom window.

This morning, though, I looked out and saw a blue Taurus where I often park, and for a groggy moment I thought it was my old car and that I hadn't sold it for scrap before leaving Arizona.

# posted by Arnie : 2:40 PM  0 comments

Went out for drinks after an improv show.

Alex had an awkward confrontation with the bartendar, who walked out to the back patio and accused him of not paying for his tater tots.

Alex: Do you really think I'd try to rip off a basket of tater tots?
Bartendar: We have cameras in here.
Alex: Great. Can we look at the tape? Because I paid.

Eventually Alex backed down and paid again. We all chipped in to defer the extra tots cost. But the whole incident put him in a bit of a funk and made him not want to eat.

Later, coming back from getting a drink, Alex yelled, "I won!" and started throwing one dollar bills around the table. "The other bartendar realized she'd taken the money."

He triumphantly popped a tater tot into his mouth.

Our only regret was that we didn't get to see the tape.

# posted by Arnie : 11:37 PM  0 comments

This is embarrassing.

During my job search, I came across an ad to work from home stuffing envelopes for $2 an envelope. "Do 300 envelopes a week, make $600. Do 500 envelopes, make $1000."

Sounds tedious, and more importantly, it's almost certainly a scam... but I sent an e-mail. The response I got was this long, almost stream-of-conscious scrawl of "workfromhomemakemoneyit'seasy" directing me to a mish mash of a website with more of the same. Plus, to get started, they wanted me to send in a $35 "refundable application fee."

Warning bells is an understatement. I was 99% certain it was a scam. But, like playing the lottery, you know you're throwing your money away, but it's such a small amount, so you crumple it up and throw.

I'm doing fine money-wise, but I have yet to get my "free" supplies in the mail.

Also, it's been over a week since I e-mailed her, and I have yet to hear back from N.

# posted by Arnie : 3:20 PM  2 comments

My anxiety dreams have been getting more mundane. For instance, I had a dream that I kept dropping my Netflix DVDs into water. As I pulled them out they'd sag and rip as if made of paper.

Is this progress?

# posted by Arnie : 10:54 PM  0 comments

This creepy picture sits on our mantle. When Young turned 30 last year, I flew back for his party and gave him the picture (and frame) as a gag gift.

It was taken and photoshopped by my friend Jason in Arizona. I think this is what it would look like if I somehow got married to myself... in AMERICA!

I'm going to turn 30 in a few months.

# posted by Arnie : 11:32 AM  5 comments

Other websearches that have brought people here:

* "clever pictures" (thank you)
* the full web address typed in as a search keyword, which is odd
* my full name, somehow, which will almost certainly lead to trouble
* "pictures of frightened people"
* "teenage break ups" (mine is the tenth page listed, the first is 'bigtitsroundasses')
* my favorite (pictured), "picture of a person who have a break up" which will be a frontrunner if I ever decide to change the name of this site.

# posted by Arnie : 12:16 PM  2 comments

As N and I drifted toward the end of our relationship, we still always enjoyed watching "our shows" together. I'm sure it's not an uncommon situation. In some ways it seems to be what television is meant to do.

One of the last times I saw N she said that she probably wouldn't watch any of our shows anymore. It would be too hard knowing we were watching the same thing. I thought this was ridiculous (I even tried lying and telling her that I was going to stop watching certain shows I knew she liked best, so she could keep them).

Last night, though, watching bits and pieces of the Emmys, and knowing with certainty that every time an actor thanked their husband or wife, N was watching and tearing up, I started to understand where she was coming from.

[When I say "tearing up" I mean it as in "to fill with tears", although, I suppose "to seperate forcefully; wrench" works as well]

# posted by Arnie : 6:29 PM  0 comments

The same day that I e-mailed N, I got a letter from her in the mail. Really not a letter, but a check and a brief note on a blue index card. For some reason we used to always leave each other notes on colored index cards and I still have a number of them, like flash cards for a relationship final.

P.S. I checked the numbers and I am not a megamillionaire. Thanks for playing.

# posted by Arnie : 4:27 PM  0 comments

Before I left Chicago to move back to Arizona, I was lucky enough to help start a current events themed improv show called Whirled News Tonight.

Today, I'm back in the cast and we celebrated WNT's second anniversary with a special show (taped for DVD) and the taking of new publicity photos.

Here, we mill about, getting into place for the ubiquitous 'standing on stairs' shot.

# posted by Arnie : 11:18 PM  0 comments

Had an interview/audition downtown today. Afterward, I met Hansen for lunch and he "talked me into" getting a lottery ticket. We ate pizza and discussed how we'd spend our 250 million.

It's ridiculous, I know, but I've decided to win it.

# posted by Arnie : 2:36 PM  0 comments

Last night I hung out with Tom (my best friend growing up) and his wife, Steph.

In this picture, due to a weird accidental light effect, it sort of looks like Tom's mind is escaping.

Tom: We have this iTunes network at work, which is great. There's this huge library of everybody's music to listen to. But then you're going through someone's music list going, "yep, yep, good" and you come across something terrible like [terrible song, the name of which I've forgotten].
Steph: That's understandable, though. If someone started digging through all your CDs I'm sure eventually they'd find...
Tom: Your CDs.
Steph. Oh. Ouch.
Tom: Well, the Boomerang soundtrack isn't mine.
Steph: Hey, there's that one really good slow song on there.

# posted by Arnie : 5:22 PM  0 comments

When I first met Natasha (now Brett's wife), back in July, we had this conversation.

Natasha: So, are you and N still in contact?
Me: A little bit. Mostly no. It makes it harder to get over it if we talk all the time. We can e-mail each other, just not that often.
Natasha: How do you decide that?
Me: We self-police.
Natasha: Self-police?
Me: After I moved we e-mailed back and forth a bit, but then N decided it was too hard so she said I shouldn't e-mail her again until after I move to Chicago.
Natasha: So, she's policing it.
Me: Uh... yeah.

I'm in Chicago now.

Time to write the e-mail.

# posted by Arnie : 4:08 PM  0 comments

Went out for drinks with some relocated Arizona friends, including Ted (close) and Josh (far).

Josh (who moved my giant bed from Arizona to Chicago) said, "Before I met Andrea, I dated a girl for six years, too, and I thought we were going to get married. I even helped build her a house."

"You built a house?"

"It was a small house."

# posted by Arnie : 11:33 PM  5 comments

I rarely remember my dreams, if I have them at all. A couple nights ago, though, I had two vivid anxiety dreams.

One was about N. I hadn't dreamed about her since the break-up. We were meeting in the foodcourt of a mall. N was holding a piece of paper on which she'd drawn and colored in a number of cartoon animal couples. A boy cat and a girl cat. A boy hippo and a girl hippo. Things were pleasant at first, but then she started to get upset.

"Did you really love me," she said, using a pen to X-out the boy half of each cartoon couple. "Did you ever really love me?"

The other dream was about my nephew, Ty. No one was watching him and he stepped into a swimming pool, sinking immediately to the bottom. I was the only one there and I had to save him. But first I had to take off my shoes. Had to. And for some reason I could only take them off in slow motion. So I slowly slowly painfully slowly worked each shoe off my feet, all the while seeing Ty looking up at me from the bottom of the pool and all the while wondering what kind of a maniac I was for worrying about my shoes at a time like this.

# posted by Arnie : 8:48 PM  1 comments

Went to the beach yesterday with some friends. I'm not much of a beach person, and I'd prefer to hide away these surgery scars, but it was great, and put me in a good mood the rest of the night.

It's good to do things.

Chicago has more to offer than the three bars I go to.

# posted by Arnie : 9:28 PM  0 comments

2:18 AM.

Coming home late, I couldn't get the front door to unlock. I must have kept locking and unlocking different bolts.

Eventually I gave up and called Young who was inside, asleep. He got up and let me in.

"Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Now we're even."

# posted by Arnie : 2:18 AM  2 comments

The Story Of My Giant Bed (Abridged)

After living together for a year in Chicago, N and I decided it would be best if we went back to having seperate apartments. I found an ad in the Chicago Reader for a "practically new king size bed" for $50. It was being sold by a couple who had to leave the country fast.

So, for the next couple of years I lugged this king size bed in and out of a couple third floor apartments. Then the bed and I reluctantly moved back to Arizona because it was something N needed to do.

When N and I broke up and I decided to move back to Chicago, I thought about getting rid of the bed. Luckily, some friends (Josh and Andrea) were also moving to Chicago at the time, so they threw it in the U-Haul with their other stuff.

The new apartment is great, but the bedrooms are small. So, my room is almost all bed, giving it a kind of padded-cell feel.

# posted by Arnie : 1:16 PM  1 comments

I'm not particularly web-savy, but I do have a site meter that allows me to see how people stumble across this site.

I especially like websearches. For instance, some poor soul turned to MSN Search with "how to break up." And there, on page three, nestled between "Agents Break Up Organized Theft Ring" and "Probing the Apple-IBM break-up" was my little photoblog.

I wonder if I was any help? I doubt it.

In case you come back, How To Break Up, here's one way (good or bad):

There will be many times when you think, "I can save this." And you can. And you do.

Now, eventually, decide not to save it. Don't say the thing that will save it. Don't do the thing that will save it. And you'll find it will all slip away naturally, like falling out of a plane.

As for the next bit, I'm still figuring that out.

# posted by Arnie : 11:40 AM  5 comments

Young is getting rid of some old stuff, including a homemade Robin costume and a homemade Speed Racer costume.

# posted by Arnie : 11:04 AM  0 comments

I've started receiving text messages from Mom. I think she figured out how to do it as another way to keep in touch with Allie, who hasn't been calling home as often as she'd promised.

Today Mom texted that someone had hit her car in the church parking lot.

Immediately after reading that I was walking down to the laundry room and found this small picture of Jesus on the back steps. (I can't escape these things) He's waving his hand over a cup, as if he's about to do a magic trick.

A half hour later, looking out the front windows of the apartment, I witness a minivan rear-end a sports car.

# posted by Arnie : 2:33 PM  0 comments

There's a lot of improv in Chicago. Maybe almost too much.

# posted by Arnie : 11:03 AM  1 comments

There's a big hole in the sidewalk in front of our apartment that seems to be slowly filling up with random things. Yesterday there was just a Coke can. Now there's a handful of Q-Tips as well.

# posted by Arnie : 11:22 AM  0 comments

Evanston. Hansen's barbeque.

Hansen shows off his wedding ring and his special bottle opening ring.

Like Brett's friend Zach, N and I had talked about having someone close to us get an on-line ministership and officiate over our wedding. That person was probably going to be Hansen.

Hansen is a Universal Life Minister now. "I haven't married anyone," he says, "but I have used it twice to get parking downtown when the lots are full. They let ministers park anywhere."

# posted by Arnie : 6:18 PM  0 comments

The contents of my suitcase are very grey. Am I this drab?

Dad, at least, had a big tub of peanuts. Instead, I have N's ring, tucked into the sock pocket.

Why do I keep storing it among socks?

# posted by Arnie : 10:20 AM  1 comments

After about 15 hours of moving, I fell into a deep sleep.

My phone woke me up at 3 in the morning. It was Young, calling from the other side of the apartment. His newly painted bedroom door was stuck shut, trapping him in his room.

"I've been trying to open it for 15 minutes. Could you come over here and help. I have to use the bathroom."

Roommates.

# posted by Arnie : 3:27 AM  2 comments