The return of the K

I'm not really sure what happened.

It was a bad, very bad K weekend. The details aren't important. Just know that it was more of the same: disappointment, dashed hopes, poor communication. I complained to A that it was a Sisyphean breakup, but we agreed in the end it was more Promethean, except with the heart rather than the liver eternally regrowing and getting redevoured by carrion. (And yeah, I have considered making a pass at A based solely on his ability to contribute to conversations in this manner, but, trust me: bad idea.)

In response, I finally did what the ancient Greeks surely would have done, and posted my profile at match.com. The particular guy whose intense, intelligent eyes and crackling prose inspired me to actually buy a membership vanished, his profile apparently expired, the second my card was processed (talk about tragedy!), but my foray still received a gratifying amount of attention. Mostly from semi-illiterates heavily into Nascar and looking for "a sweet Girl who just like Fun," but, still, attention's attention, yes?

I began to realize the problem once I'd whittled them down to four reasonable choices (let's just call them the manic neuroscientist, the cute editor, the strutting foreign policy louche, and the smoldering astrophysicist). All verrrrrry eligible suitors! And in this corner, we have K, unemployed for five years, who forgets birthdays, smokes, and claims to "have issues" with romance.

There really ought to be no problem. And yet, I realized as I scrutinized suitor emails and read between lines and found myself making excuses to postpone having coffee, that it was only in part because I need a little more time to solve the weird beige hair problem. I was, at some level, ruling each one out because he wasn't K. My brain has utterly reconciled itself to the need to move on. My heart, vulture-torn though it is, stubbornly continues to accept him as a fact.

"Ah," you say with relief. "So the title of this post is just metaphorical, then?"

Um. Yeah. About that.

See, I went into work this morning, even though I really shouldn't have, and in my pain- and painkiller-addled state was somewhat even more sensitive than usual to the hideous social and intellectual environment that is my present employment, and I ended up leaving by noon and coming home very upset. K's always good to work-vent to, because he knows the entire catechism, chapter and verse, so that's what I did. And we somehow got into talking about the relationship, and into a huge argument, and teetered on the edge of further (?) breaking up ("times infinity!"), and then the next thing I knew, we were agreeing that he'd come back Thursday -- yes, this Thursday -- for about ten days, and we'd just see how it goes.

As I said, it all happened sort of fast.