i am sharing my chair with david. how do you write honestly when the person you might want to write about is reading over your shoulder? literally. but i suppose if honesty is what i give to the people i care about, it doesn't make that much of a difference at all. he's leaving tomorrow morning for a two week class for his job. his pittsburgh job. and then he's heading out on this wild biking trip, pedaling alone from vancouver to mexico, leaving his mark on the pacific rim of the country. i know i've mentioned this before, without emotion, and i'll do it again. it's one of those things that must be done, that i agree with and support and love and hate. most healthy things are like that. like exercise. and vegetables. being that we're not going to see each other for a while, we've spent the last few days playing vicious games of rack-o (which i always win) and laying on my couch talking and "watching movies". friday night we watched unfaithful, that richard gere movie that didn't really make anybody laugh or cry, critically, at least. i loved it. and something has been making me want to watch it again lately. i think it has to do with sweeny, something about the ideas i have about what has to happen to a friendship when someone gets married. my mom doesn't have any male "friends". she has colleagues. she has associates. her friends have husbands that she'll talk to for a few minutes on the phone, but no more than that. in my parents relationship, there are no friendships that span gender, really. my mom's always told me that's because things can happen so fast. you can have the best intentions...it doesn't always make a difference. and that's what happens in the movie, that's why i like it so much. it's a terrible story, but it reminds me that the big things rarely blindside you from out of nowhere. they start small, as things that don't seem to matter. and then suddenly it's just...disaster. you look back and wonder how... how you could be so stupid, how you could be so careless...and the thing is, you aren't careless with the big things. but the small stuff kills you in the end. and what kills me sometimes late at night is that i'll never get to say some of the things i wanted to say to him. i feel like i was robbed out of that engagement time where i could take some steps back, and instead the door slammed in my face and i have to turn around and walk away, because i won't be the woman in their relationship that starts the small things that kill you in the end.