August 22, 2018:

Reliability matters.

If the plan is canceled, the empty space reverberates. Its quiet becomes oppressively loud.

I tried to fill the date. I asked a friend whose company I always enjoy to dinner. Very interested in her, in her life, her friends. I'd like to meet them all, spend time with them together.

But she's more unreliable than anyone. She cancels saying I'm going to spend the day to rest up let's get together tomorrow. What that means is: she's sick or exhausted from drinking heavily or drugging heavily. Because she never has been what she's promised to be.

So that the sad silence is then doubled. Two plans, two voices, two beautiful smiles, two beautiful laughs, empty, gone. Where life becomes a crypt of hopes.

I'll go for a run. I'll double my time at the gym. I'll get sun on my skin. I'll get around people and write in cafés, eavesdropping. It helps, but it doesn't fill the space. The space was about love. It was about contact, companionship, and sharing, and filling these moments of our lives with partnership. I'll do what I can to substitute for now. Still, substitutes are feeble.