Caught a Lite Sneeze

Awhile back, I read Franz Wisner's book Honeymoon With My Brother. Wisner wrote the book after his fiancee dumped him days before the wedding and he chose to make the best of a bad situation by taking his brother with him on the honeymoon to Costa Rica instead of letting the money spent on the trip go to waste. Wisner and his brother reconnected on the trip and decided to spend a couple of years faffing around the globe while getting paid for it. Needless to say, Wisner is a personal hero of mine (as are all people who manage to get someone else to bankroll their travel addictions).

Recently, it came to my attention that Wisner wrote a second book called How the World Makes Love, which is about Wisner's search for love and the best patterns and practices for it throughout the world. Since love competes with travel in my pantheon of addictions for the title of "most toxic yet compelling," I feel as if he wrote this book especially for me. Thanks, Franz. I owe you one, dude.

I'm only about a third of the way into Wisner's latest book, but I've already learned about an important concept: the Brazilian notion of saudade. Wisner translates saudade as missing someone so much you ache all over. Hearing this reminded me of reading something Tori Amos (bard of my high school years) said about her song Caught a Lite Sneeze. If I remember correctly, she said the song was about a love interest that was easy to get over and that all men think they're the flu.

Goose, for me, is the flu. I miss him so much that I ache all over. Last night, before I started Wisner's new book, I was reading Russell Brand's autobiography, My Booky Wook. Brand (who I love and find hilarious, in case he should ever read this while Googling himself) mentioned a woman named Amanda with whom he fell in love, and he described the feeling as wanting her with him always from the moment they met. When I read that, I burst into tears. I don't know what effect Brand hoped his book would have on readers, but given that he's a comedian, I doubt he wanted to make people cry. It was just that in that sentence describing his feelings about Amanda, I recognized my own feelings about Goose. I want him with me always. I want to be with him always. I want the two of us to cross the literal and metaphorical gulf between us and step forward into the future holding hands. What I want is not getting a lot of consideration in this situation, if Goose's radio silence is anything to go by.

Meanwhile, because we live in a twisted and incomprehensible universe, I got a friend request from The New Guy. I know, right? I haven't spoken to this ass clown in months. I have no desire to speak to him now. I can't imagine what would possess him to attempt to reconnect other than his own bloated ego (that disguises the black hole of his need for approval and constant personal validation). I can't imagine what sort of joke the universe is playing at my expense. A few months ago, I wanted to hear from The New Guy, and he was nowhere to be found. (Well, he was somewhere to be found. He was off fucking some chick he met at his gym. I just didn't know to look for him there.) Now, when I want to hear from Goose and to pretend that The New Guy never existed, I hear from The New Guy. It's events like this that lead otherwise rational, normal people to stick their heads in the oven and pray for the sweet relief of a gaseous death.