A monthly column by  Rob Froese

I cannot count the number of times that I have been moved to tears by Sigur Rós over the past month and a half. Tonight the direct cause of the watershed from my eyes was the video for the song "Vidar Vel Til Loftarasa" off of their LP "Agćtis Byrjun". I bought the CD version of the new single for track one off of the "( )" LP tonight at a local record store. The CD single comes in a digipack that also includes a DVD that has three videos. I put the DVD in at my friend (and co-worker, more significantly the latter as you will see later) Dan's house tonight. I was very excited about getting to see it and made him stay and watch with me because of my excitement. For those of you not familiar with the video it is basically the story of a young boy and his stuggle between his "manly" father (who is highly homophobic) and his homosexuality. It is quite the interesting and moving video. I really felt for the boy by the time is was over, and I turned to Dan and expressed this fact. His response totally blew me away. 

Basically he told me that he completely agreed with the father's use of violent aggression to stop his son from pursuing any sort of homosexual relationship. He justified it by citing the passage in the Bible where Jesus used force to get the moneychanger's and thieves out of the temple. This saddened me greatly as I realized how the story was totally lost on him due to his fear of children being homosexual. I'm not upset with Dan by any measure, but his actions tonight really saddened me.

I've been sad a lot lately though, and that is why I think I've been crying so much. The past month and a half has been a highly tumultuous time in my life, and the past week has brought everything to a near bursting point. I have been so excited about writing this column for such a long time that I know that I am going to be nowhere near happy with the finished result, but it will still be helpful to get whatever I get out, out. So I sit here at my computer, in my temporary apartment/respite from my home and write this mostly for me, but maybe for you a little too. 

This apartment is not mine. I have a nice three-story condominium that I share with two other guys. They are both gone now though. George is off on summer vacation with his family in Iowa. He has gone to Cornerstone Festival and bought me some new goodies, and I can't wait for him to get back so I can get my stuff (maybe I miss having him around some too). Justin is gone permanently though. He is still paying bills as long as our lease lasts, but he has moved home to California again. He lost his job here and had one there, so it was a wise career move on his part. So back to the apartment that is not mine... 

It belongs to a girl named Kate and her two roommates, Charity and Jonea. Note that Kate is the one that gets to be the superior of the three in my writing. There is a reason for that. She is my special someone right now, the one that makes my heart jump up and down and do a little jig of sorts. And I am here because she is away on vacation. She is currently in Pennsylvania visiting family and one of the reasons I am pounding away at this column as quickly as I can is that I want it to be done so that I can read it to her when I call her at 8:30. She was a physical part of practically every day of my life for around 4 months until a week ago. Then she went home. She is coming back, but it is weird having someone that you are used to always being around not around. 

We have had a very strange relationship, and even though I have permission to refer to her as my "girlfriend" I am going to explain what she is to me in detail, because it helps explain her and her place in my life quite well. We started dating around 4 months ago. I tried to make our relationship as "normal" as could be. I called her "Hon" and doted on her as much as possible. Yes I got very possessive and controlling, but that was because she started to pull back. Basically the balance was broken, and the more she pulled away the more I pulled in. So we were destined to self-destruct from the beginning. We didn't understand each other at all. We broke up almost 3 months to the day after we started dating.

Kate waited a while to break up with me. The reasons that she did were numerous, but some of the main ones were: my possessiveness, the fact that she still wanted me to be her best friend and that she didn't really have anyone else in this town to spend time with (we live in a college town and all of her other friends, literally ALL of them had gone home for the summer). So we did break up. It was a weird breakup and she basically left it for me to do. I "stabbed myself in the heart" for her sake though, and ended up turning to her for comfort. We cried in each other's arms that afternoon and then later that night I shaved her head (something I had not wanted her to do while we were dating, because I knew my mom would hate it). We struck out a friendship that would grow much deeper than our dating relationship ever would. 

A week ago circumstances and the depth of our friendship led me to bring up that fact that I still wanted her back. She admitted to me that she kind of wanted me back too, but didn't want a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. So I laid out the main points of what I wanted from her, and she agreed to them. Logically we then proceeded to draw up a contract and go from there. So Kate is not really my girlfriend per say, she is just the girl I am under contract too (which my orthodox Jew friend D'vid pointed out, is the first step towards a Jewish wedding).

So I am here at Kate's without her. Typing on my computer at her desk about how many times Sigur Rós has made me cry. Most of the times it was because of how things were going with her, but today it wasn't. Today it was because I was at my friend/co-worker/future roommate Dan's place and we watched one of their videos. The reason I was at Dan's place is another reason for the confusion in my life.

I work at a pizza place. I am a shift-leader/manager/whatever-you-wanna-call-me-today. I work hard at my job and do the best work I can. Unfortunately my area supervisor does not like me. I have reason to believe that fact has something to do with the fact that the way I act doesn't always fit the stereotype of how people of my sexual orientation should act, but that's another story that I don't really want to touch. She has recently announced to my direct boss that if I made one more mistake I would be fired. Tonight, I had a complaint called in on our complaint hotline against me. So I am pretty much convinced that if I don't quite my job first thing in the morning, I will be fired by the end of the night. I have no desire to be fired EVER. So I called Dan (who is also a manager at the store and a little higher on the totem pole that me) and informed him that I am planning on quitting at our manager's meeting at 9am this morning.

Dan then asked me to come over to his place so we could talk about it. I did go over there and we talked for quite a while. He told me that quitting instantly like this was not the way to go and that getting fired would actually look better than quitting abruptly. I told him that I didn't care. I have a job back home lined up for the next few weekends when I am going home. I have a second job here that I can probably work more hours at. My life is at a point right now, where this job doesn't really matter all that much. I'm not quite sure what to do though. I care about my co-workers and I know that quitting like this does leave them in a quite a lurch. So I am sitting here at my computer wondering what the heck I will do about all of this. I can't wait until the morning comes so I can call Kate and get her input on all of this. She is the rational and analytical one of the two of us. I am the irrational emotional one.

Last night we decided that I am slightly manic-depressive. This is actually a huge relief to me. I now know what is up with me and I even though I will never take any medication for it; I can at least explain it to myself. This realization makes me feel like a million bucks.

Now a week later, deadlines loom massively over my head. This was due a week ago. The page goes up tomorrow, and I have no A-drive on my computer. So I am going to have Kate's dad (I am at her house visiting) work up some ingenious plan to get my work for this month to my editor (yay! for great parents). 

Questions, etc.: rob@1340mag.com (Don't be afraid to write, I'd like to know that you took the time to read this.) 

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May '03

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