mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Long-ass entry: The complete Mandy story It's Friday. My last entry for the week. My last entry for my short spring break. It was a nice little spring break. Didn't do much. And what I did, I did it by myself. A bit depressing, yeah. But what can ya do? Well... today was pretty social, I suppose. A friend from my big group of friends (about 30-35 of us) who has been living in Orlando for the past year or so came into Columbia for the day to see some of us. We met at the great pizza parlor called Shakespeare's Pizza. On a side note... I was taking a Shakespeare class earlier in my college career, and one of our projects was to make a movie adaptation of one of Shakespeare's plays. We picked "Taming of the Shrew," and made a mofia flick about it. This was even before The Sopranos, so we were a bit... no, WAY ahead of our time. Anyway, one of our scenes set myself and this other guy in a pizza parlor talking about how we need to make a hit on some schmuck. We thought it was funny to set it in Shakespeare's pizza. Boring story. I know. But every time I go to Shakespeare's, I think of the movie we made where I played a priest in once scene and a hit man in the other. Good times. Good times. After Shakespeare's, we went to the mall where I almost buy a cook book by Alton Brown and a pair of shoes. It's amazing how, when you pick up something fully intent on buying and change your mind at the last minute, you feel the same guilt about having no money and being a complete nebish as if you bought it all. It's my own way to curb overspending. After the mall, we went to the Big Tree. Yes, I live in Missouri and consider Friday afternoon trips to a large tree as entertainment. Literally... It's just a big ol' tree. Nothing really special other than it's big. And my friend Kelly swears you can see it from the air. He also swears he saw a UFO. Consider your sources. After the Big Tree fiasco, we went bowling. And then to Now I am here. It is 1:00am, and I should be in bed. But I thought I would write my final entry before I break for the weekend. Bored yet? As in the case of Diary Survivor, I didn't get voted off. But I *did* vote for the person who did get voted off. I say that because the person who writes for that diary seemed a little pissed at getting the axe. Wanna know why I voted for him/her? I think it's a him, but I dunno for sure. I voted because s/he didn't updated the diary for a long-ass time. Shun me for my decision to vote that way, but this is a game of how well you write. And if you don't write anything, I think you should be booted. Therefore, I voted the way I did. And the judges wanted to know why some of us voted the way we did. There ya go. Well, I'm tired of putting it off. I think it about time I finish the story of... (Note: In the last installment, we saw how Mandy the Ex and JP went from meeting at Denny's to living together at JP's crappy -- yet close to campus -- apartment. Mandy was freshly broken up with some weird Navy dork who threatened to drink antifreeze and put drano in my gas tank. We re-visit the story as Mandy the Ex and JP are living happily at University Place mere months after meeting.) So, there we were: two cute-as-a-button people who looked eerily similar to one another. Know how a couple can sometimes begin to look like one another? That happened really damn quick with us. So, here I was in Missouri. I moved here in July of '98 with not a trace of a job, social life, etc. By January, I had a dream job (working in television), a dream girl (Quoting from On Golden Pond: "She made my heart go pidder-pat."), and my own apartment. Most everything was perfect. There was something missing from the equation, though. And that was a dog. I did some looking in the classifieds and found a for-sale ad for shih-tzus. Mandy the Ex and I went out to look at the dogs with no intention to buy. Because my shithole of an apartment would allow shit to shoot out of the sink (no lie! I'll tell that story later), but they wouldn't allow a cute doggy or else eviction would ensue. Well, I bought the dog anyway. I fell in love at first sight. I was going to name it Superdog. But Mandy the Ex nor my mother would allow such nonsense. Hence the name Daisy. Daisy the Dog. Sure enough, I got booted from the crappy-ass apartments, but to no chagrin. I was glad to get that lease voided. This was around May of 1999, just in time for all of the college students to leave town and the subleases to open. I found a much better apartment at a much lower rent that allowed cute dogs like Daisy. This is when I moved in with those two sorority chicks I wrote about in this entry. It's all coming together now, eh? Coincidentally, this summer had me experiencing all kinds of depression symptoms. It was a great summer, weather-wise. But I had problems leaving my darkened room. It is easy to write of regret of things I did or didn't do that summer. But Mandy loved me. She stuck by me even though it would have been much easier to leave my depressed ass. The summer ended with the sorority chicks and Mandy and me going our many separate ways. Mandy and I moved into the house where I still live today. It is a great apartment except when you can hear the mafia guy next door (again, I'll talk about him later). I was still going through the depression when we moved here. It was a rough time for me emotionally. Let's just say I was doing anything and everything I could to spark some kind of emotion OTHER than depression. If I was a girl -- and I am talking about statistics here -- I probably would have resorted to cutting or something. But, again, Mandy showed she loved me and stuck by me. She was a great gal, that Mandy the Ex. Know how there are some moments that are so perfect that they just stick in your mind? It was a time for me when I realized that I had completely accomplished every dream and goal I had set out to achieve when I moved here. I was cooking dinner for the two of us. We were having grilled steaks, and I was, as usual, put on the grilling duty. I set up my chair outside, grabbed a beer, and took Daisy out to enjoy the late spring evening air. My feet were propped up. The sun was setting, causing the sky to be a bright, streaky orange mixed with purples and reds. Daisy was sleeping under my feet, and I looked in to see Mandy napping on the couch with the TV going. I remember noticing the sounds from the cars stopping temporarily, and I thought that Norman Rockwell would have been jealous to have missed the moment. This was how Mandy the Ex and I lived for two years. We had our problems, like any relationship has. We had petty arguments here and there. We had my depression symptoms to deal with. The woman had a temper you don't want to ever dabble with. Especially if you don't wipe off the counters, because chairs will go flying across the apartment! But I loved her. Like I didn't think possible. She stuck with me through some pretty shitty times, and I had nothing but respect. It KILLED me to hear her cry because of my actions. And her laughter was as awe-inspiring as a starry, starry night. March 23, 2000: We got into a bit of an argument about a bucket of sand that Daisy knocked over. Mandy brought it from Panama City where we spent the previous Thanksgiving. She left the bucket of sand on the table where Daisy got into it and spread it all around the living room. She wanted me to clean it because "it was my dog," I wanted her to help -- or at least take some of the responsibility -- because it was her bucket of sand that she never put away. This escalated to a full-blown argument which ended when she threw Daisy in her car and drove off, saying that Daisy would soon be at the Humane Society. I left the house to cool off. I wrote in my journal, did a bit of homework, went to eat at a Chinese restaurant, and went to work at 9pm. I was working the overnight shift at the time at the ABC-affiliate station where I worked, and Mandy worked the morning newscast. Oh... I forgot to mention that Mandy drove a pretty phat motorbike at the time. Jealous? Me? Hell yeah. Plus, I thought it was pretty kewl to be dating a biker chick. I left as early as I could that morning as to not have to pass Mandy when she was coming into work. I went straight home and crashed. This was March 24, at around 5:45am. I was awoken at around 7:45 by a phone call. I didn't get to the phone in time, but I heard the answering machine go. It was my boss at work who was obviously very upset saying that Mandy had gotten into an accident. She was alive and all, but she was being rushed to the hospital and to get there as soon as I could. I threw on some clothes and a hat and booked it to the hospital where I met up with my boss. She told me what happened: Mandy was heading home on her motorbike (going the long way to put off having to deal with me, I guessed) when a schoolbus pulled out in font of her. She skidded, laying her bike down under the schoolbus. The bus rolled on top of her while she was banging on the bottom of it. Then the bus hit reverse and did it all again. This shattered Mandy's right leg and did a job on her left. She was awake and fine when the doctors finally let me in to see her in the ER. I had never felt so bad in my life: seeing the love of my life on that gourney, shaking, naked but covered, and in such great pain that I felt I caused. She had to go to surgery that morning to put in rods to stabalize her leg until the swelling went down so they could do the "real" surgery. They had her on a morphine pump so she could control her own pain. Except the nurses overdid the pump. I was sitting by her side that night as she dozed off. She started sounding funny in her breathing, but I thought she was just snoring. Until she stopped breathing altogether. Which scared the everliving shit out of me. And her mom, too, who was also sitting there. Mandy "coded," causing every doctor in Columbia to rush into her room. Turns out she OD'd on morphine, which seized her breathing. They got her going again, thank goodness. Looking back, though, that was the day that changed Mandy. She left the hospital 10 days later. She went home with her family, leaving me at home by myself for about 1.5 months. That completely blew chunks, lemme tell ya. But every time I would go to her home for a visit, I would notice little changes in her. I didn't really notice them at the time, but looking back, they were there. When she finally came back home, she was extremely moody. She would get pissed at the smallest things. It seemed like nothing I did was good enough. I couldn't lay my head on her like I used to. I couldn't take her out enough. I couldn't help her enough. When she got to a point to where she could finally walk, she started going out a lot. When I say "going out," I mean she started going to bars and clubs a lot -- something she never really did before. She would come home at all hours, drunk and sick. She would come in at 4-5am without ever calling to say where she was. Strange guys were dropping her off. And then she would be pissed that I was upset. This went on for months. Finally, around October, she left me to go to Texas to see a concert. This was quite a milestone because she left the weekend of my birthday. And if you know anything about me, you know I am such a baby about my birthday. It's *MY* day, dammit. Now celebrate! But it was now her opinion that I was stupid for thinking that. So, my birthday didn't matter, therefore she would leave me alone. This went on pretty solid until about December when she contacted me at work that she would be having a guy over when I got home (this was when I had already made the change to KOMU and was working until about 1am). Not just a visitor, but someone else she had met. And if I didn't like it I should get a hotel. Fuck that, I told her. He should best be gone by the time I got home. I had had enough. I got home and the little bastard was still there. So, I lost my temper. I didn't hit anybody or anything. But I put my hands behind my back to cause as much air to come through my lungs in the form of the best screaming I could muster. "Why are you doing this to me?" "Can't you see you are hurting me?" "Where is the Mandy that used to love me?" "Have you lost your FUCKING MIND?" Her boyfriend must have thought I was a lunatic because he called 911 on me! From my own house! I know! I couldn't believe his nerve either. But you can't arrest a guy who just screams. And I was one screaming asshole that night. When a guy has enough, a guy has enough. And I had had WAY more than I could handle. A few nights later, Mandy came with another guy friend to start packing some of her shit to leave. Not knowing any more who this particular Bizzaro Mandy was, I watched to make sure she didn't steal any of my stuff. This made her mad. Or something made her mad. I can't remember. So, she took a brand new 27 lb. bag of dog food I had just bought for Daisy and dumped the entire thing on my bed. It sucked at the time, but it sure made for some good writing material down the road. What did I do when she dumped this all over my bed? I sat and stared at the TV like she wasn't even there. No emotion. No reaction. Natta. This really pissed her off! I have a talent to turn EVERYTHING off within me. And this was the night I did it. It probably helped me through that night. I think it was the very next day that I went to work with her being very mean and rude. I came home, and the house was completely empty. Not of people, but of EVERYTHING. Everything I had thought was our stuff -- some things I still think I paid half for -- was gone. She took everything. Well, Daisy was there. That was it. I guess I forgot to mention that her threat to take Daisy to the Humane society was a false one. My bad. My landlord came over a day or two later in order to ask me a question. He was shocked as shit to see the house so empty. God bless 'em, he jumped into action and found me a couch for cheap and an entertainment center for free. He got me back up and running quickly. He's one hell of a landlord, that Bob. So, it has almost been a year and a half since the last time I saw Mandy the Ex. I've done a lot of growing in a year. Looking back, I see how I would have done a lot of things differently. I see how I should have communicated better. I blocked her out a lot. Like that Rascal Flats song goes, "I've loved like I should / But lived like I shouldn't..." But you don't get to go back and have a do-over. All you can do is forgive yourself -- at least try -- and hope that the person you love will forgive you, too. The reason I said Mandy was dead? For all of last year -- and even now -- I find it easier to pretend in my mind that she was killed in her accident than to believe everything I heard her say afterwards. I will forever love the girl. She was the closest I have ever come to ask to marry. And whatever choices and lifestyle changes she has chosen to make since we have broken up -- if you read this diary at all, you know what I am talking about -- I hope she knows that I love her as much as I did that day I was grilling and watched her sleep in the living room. That kind of love never fades. So there ya go. Now you know the whole story of Mandy the Ex. Any questions? 12:37 a.m. - Sat., Mar. 30, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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