“I Choo-Choo-Choose You, Happy Valentines”; — Photo by Me, Dec. 14, 2007

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“It Takes Two”; Rob Base and DJ Easy Rock
It takes two to make a thing go right, It takes two to make it outta sight
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.

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It’s amazing how hard it is to concentrate on writing when someone is playing Manhunt 2 directly behind me and still taking the time to describe what’s going on.

I have a house guest for the next few days… maybe ten. A good friend of mine just got kicked out of the house he shared for a year with his girlfriend and her two kids. This is the second time he has used my now crowded apartment as a refuge. The last time was a couple of years ago when he moved in for six weeks to kick a crack habit and get over another girlfriend.

Unfortunately this time he’s here during the first Valentine’s Day in a long time I actually have someone to spend it with… kind of. On the actual Day itself she’ll be busy doing things like looking for work and “having a life” and “looking after her kids”. I’ll probably, mostly, be sleeping having been up all night working on this as I can’t write while gang bangers and white supremacists are being gutted with crowbars and circular saws.

My friend has always dealt with his own relationships the same way he plays Manhunt… screw looking in the corners for stuff which might protect you, just run around the room in circles as fast as possible until everyone’s splattered against the walls and deal with what’s left later. Or, with his girlfriends and general life away from a PS2, commit early and fall hard and face the unpleasant realities of how she’ll deal with his Whirlwind sometime down the road.

Sometimes people need to be told someone loves them. Sometimes those people realize a few months later it was all they needed from the relationship.

Sometimes people need to convince someone they’re loved. Sometimes, to do it properly, those people convince themselves what they’re saying is true.

Melanie and I have been dating since November… we dated in high school as well, for about eight months. For most of it I was in love with her. We met just before I was diagnosed and broke up just as I was going into the hospital for Observation — I broke up with her, I had no idea what was going to happen with what I thought would be my Recovery and wanted to spare us both.

She found me eighteen-years later by Google-ing during the week I put my real name into my blog… and here we are holding hands again, three years after I started my recovery.

She’s an “almost single” mom of two young girls and in her own recovery mode now so our idea is to move slowly, being careful to check the corners and to make sure we’re saying the right things for the right reasons and not splatter each other against the wall.

As sane as I may have become, I’m still trying to figure out… not “who I am” in any deep philosophical sense, more in a “how will I react in any given situation”. But also, for some things, in the clichéd philosophical sense.

Except for maybe a couple of exceptions in high school I’ve never dated a woman while I was rational and unlikely to disappear for a week or two… until now.

Since I started my Recovery I’ve only been in a long term relationship with one other woman, and that was at the very beginning of my recovery, during the first year of starting medications and treatment. Basically I started dating her during the recovery phase I was trying to spare Melanie from eighteen years ago.

Anyway… my first Sane Valentine’s Day with Someone I care about will be postponed until Friday when Melanie and I will have a nice dinner Somewhere. And no video games.

This could… should have been a lot more romantic, but there’s a snoring half-naked 260lb dude sleeping on the floor behind me. And he keeps twitching like he’s playing Manhunt in his dreams…

Happy Valentine’s Day Melanie… thanks for Google-ing me.

And a Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone else… and dudes, from my experience gas station flowers are better than no flowers.

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