[This was written after Heather and I had broken up, and after she and Justin had gotten engaged shortly thereafter. Sanity decided to go on vacation for a few days, leaving me to contemplate the future, 'Desperado', and 'Def Jam Vendetta'-styled vengeance.]

Current Mood: Ladies and gentlemen, Heather is now engaged.

WHAT?! : Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too. Now, before you all grab your pitchforks and whatnot (you in the back... put that torch down...), know this- she and I have spoken about this, and it's all good. Dare I say it, I'm almost cool with this. That isn't to say that my initial reaction wasn't a bit on the wild side, but I've since calmed down to the point where I can actually make fun of my own thought process during all of this. In fact, let's do that right now...

Though I'll warn you now, what may be funny to me may not exactly be your cup of tea. And if I offend anybody, well, you shouldn't be so sensitive about such things. I'm taking a light-hearted look at some pretty f*cked-up circumstances, so bear with me.

Club Ninja Presents: 
The Insanity of Mani
(A Comedy)

This all went down Tuesday night, when I was spending the evening putting the finishing touches on a research paper due in class Wednesday afternoon. Now, I didn't wait until the last minute for all of this, but there was a good portion of it that still needed to be taken care of. I get my caffeine set up, I put on some drum and bass, and I go to work. After a few hours I decide to take a break, which meant me jumping online for a bit and checking my mail.

While sorting through my mail (delete, delete, reply to Dena about this weekend, delete, delete), Galen pops online for a bit. We converse, and during this time I do something rather stupid. Justin has a diary set up online, and ever since Heather broke it off with me, I found myself checking it rather religiously. Sad, but true, I guess I was just looking into any sort of insight as to what was going on in Heather's life from time to time. We don't talk as much as we used to, and I just found myself being curious. This was a bad idea simply because I had gotten a bombshell the last time I was there, that being that he and Heather had begun dating again. After that, I made it a point to try and avoid the page, if nothing else to try and convince myself that I wasn't obsessing over this whole thing. It had been a while since I'd been there, and I had a free moment... why not take a peek?

Big mistake.

He talked about the weekend that they had spent together, and how wonderful it had been. That was to be expected, because Heather told me about that one. And yes, that was what inspired that Ego rant from the last update. Anywho, I keep reading and come across the news that he had made good on an earlier promise to her, and had proposed. And, as I'm sure you've figured out, she said yes.

I really don't know how to accurately describe the sound that came from my mouth at that point, but I believe "dying camel" would probably be the closest. I let out the gasp to end all gasps, which was immediately followed by a hideous string of obscenities directed at no one in particular in a language that sounded remotely like English. Or Syrian Aramaic. I can't really be certain, as most of it sounded like growls and guttural grunts, as I had grabbed a nearby shirt and sank my teeth into it, firing off enough obscenities to make Quentin Tarentino blush. I still can't recall everything I said, but I'm sure that there's an Orc somewhere in the world crying about what I called his mother.

I whip out the cel phone and give Neil a quick call, and ask if he's got a minute. He does, and I give him the news.

Neil: *sounds of clicking as he's typing the web address* Let's see... *reading* Uh huh... uh huh... uh HUH...

 He's a tad bit busy at the time, but we talk for a good bit about things. He puts me on speaker phone at one point so he can get some more stuff taken care of, and I think my ranting and raving might have scared Laura in the next room. If nothing else, though, Neil says that I would probably have a successful career as an auctioneer, as I was going rapid-fire at that point. I jump back over to the computer, and a realization dawns on me. I had to say something to Heather right now, or I was going to lose what remained of my sanity. This wasn't about my Ego, and it sure as hell wasn't about jealousy or any of that good stuff at this point. I was just shocked about how quickly things had taken place, and to be quite honest, I wanted to know exactly what the hell had happened. We've only been broken up for just over a month now, so as I'm sure you could imagine, my thought process wasn't at its most logical. I fire off a quick message to Galen, and the conversation goes something like this...

I shoot him over the link, and before he can respond, I've set up my away message (Msg: MUST... RANT... NOW...), and I'm hammering out an email to Heather. In retrospect I probably should have waited until I was calm (ok, calmer), but I probably wouldn't have said everything that I wanted to say. That being the case, though, I'm sure that I said some things that I shouldn't have too. At that point, though, I really didn't give much of a crap. I was raw and emotional, and I had to get something out there, consequences be damned.

A few minutes later, I take off the away message. And let me tell you, if I had been given a psych exam at that point, I'd have been sharing a cell with someone at Arkham Asylum. I was not well. I glanced over at my buddy list, and happen to see Justin's name on it. An evil gleam lights up in my eye, and I have to fight every freaking urge in my body to send him some horrible, smart-assed, sarcasm-filled tirade of utter disdain. I swear to goodness, it was like I had about eighteen different voices in my head egging me on. I saw the faces of several of my friends, and I swear that they were all dressed like Vikings and screaming "DO IT, YA PANSY!" Needless to say, I was not well. You'll have to keep in mind that I had pretty much vilified Justin by this point as some evil mastermind behind my own misery, which in retrospect, was not very cool of me. Nonetheless, at that particular moment, he was the equivalent of Count Magnus Lee in my eyes.

[And if you caught that reference, bravo. If not, ask an old-school anime fan.]

I'm broken from my thoughts of malice by a message from Galen.

In retrospect, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. But of course at that moment, I really couldn't be bothered with such mundane concepts like sanity and logic. Thinking about it a day later, though, I wondered what exactly the hell that would have accomplished. What was I going to do, walk into Justin's Starbucks like freaking El Mariachi, and tear the place up? First off, I don't own a guitar case, and even between all of my friends, there was no way I was getting that kind of firepower. Unfortunately real life isn't like wrestling either, so it's not like this could have been settled with a nice, civil, steel cage match. Besides, I know that Justin's got hernia surgery coming up, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that's nothing nice to deal with. No one needs the pressure of dealing with a steel cage match AND having a scalpel near their wang.

Also, I'm thankful that we don't live in feudal Japan. There either would have been a sword battle by now, or I'd have probably gutted myself Hiri-kiri style for my perceived disgrace. Lucky for me, we live in simpler times.

And one more sidenote... I was just on a break from working on this paper. I still had a conclusion to write.

I glance over at the buddy list again. He's still there, probably happy and smiling, but probably beginning to detect a strong sense of malice coming from the East coast. My eyes widen again, but miraculously, I fight off the urge to send him a message. Let me talk to Heather first, and I'll let that determine if I'll send them a foaming yak as a wedding gift.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night. About two-and-a-half hours worth, actually. Though surprisingly enough, I'm not very tired when I do get up. Never assume that the insane ever need to sleep. I do make a concentrated effort to try and calm down, though. I had apparently been listening to my angry mix CD on my last trip to campus, not for any particular reason other than just being in the mood for it. Today, however, I determined that this was not the time to be listening to this CD. Really in truly, was I in the mindset to be listening to anything that looked like this? Definitely not.

[And for the record, this mix has been in my collection for about six months now, and was not the result of any of the recent events. As I've reasoned, everyone can benefit from having an Angry CD]

My sanity actually didn't begin coming back until I got a response from my earlier email to Heather. She was surprisingly calm and compassionate about everything (if not a little miffed at some of my accusations), and pretty much laid out everything to me. She explained how it had happened, her own thought process about everything, and in the process made me understand that this wasn't some elaborate plot. As she put it, "Justin's not dancing around with a pointy stick saying 'I got Damani's woman!'" She really helped settle my mind about things, as I had begun to doubt the meaning behind the last three-plus years of our lives. This was the first time that I had really gotten her perspective on recent events, and the fact that both of them hated that I'd pretty much been walloped with The Staff of Infinite Screwing by this whole ordeal.

If nothing else, it also made me realize that I had been wrong about Justin too. I kinda felt like a dick for wanting to unleash Def Jam Vendetta-styled brutality against him, even if just verbally.

[Though my guilt didn't stop me from doing this first. I'm sorry, but that visual just cracked me up.]

Heather and I have made it a point to actually sit back and talk about this, and Justin's even made himself available if I have any questions for him. And while that gesture is appreciated, I'm going to hold off on that for now. Let me work out any sort of issues with Heather first, then we'll see.

So that was my descent and return from madness this past week. We'll keep you posted on any other lapses in sanity that I may experience in the near future.

Oh, and for those of you that are curious, October 2006 is the target date.

[And for the curious, yes indeed, they were wed in October of 2006. They are currently working with the Peace Corps, somewhere in Romania. Those two really were meant for each other.]