Excuse The Distance / Settling the Score

I've had 36+ hours of work packed into the last three days and I'm pooped. Tomorrow's the Big Day, and I know I should be doing something but I'm so drained, just looking at the 10 e-mail messages that arrived today makes my brain groan. I was listening to Death Cab just now. I don't remember how I got onto that track, but
...OK, I think I remember.

I was reading the Vertigo Encyclopedia, a DK book featuring the work of the publisher of Y: The Last Man. Vertigo, as I'm quickly realizing, is my favorite comic publisher. Every graphic novel that I've casually passed in the last two years that has gripped my attention has had Vertigo stamped on it. The entry on Y made me particularly sad: it was a limited run series, sixty issues, that I followed to like issue... 48. Well, that's a guess. I read the graphic novels, the collected form of the comic, with my Ex. It was our series, our in-joke, the thing that we got that no one else we knew got. So I--we--read it, and near the end of the series, the time between the graphics stretched. It stretched, but not far enough: The relationship ended before I finished the series. It's hard not to get too hung up on my short attention span or my tendency to not finish things in regard to this story, but the ending is the same: no comic, no relationship, no happy ending.

Having read the entry today was sort of an ending. It wasn't happy, but at least now I know. I know what Yorick saw in his vision, I know what happens in issue 60(-ish). I know what I miss.

Vertigo published four issues of American Splendor, the Harvey Pekar, gonzo comic. His intensely unnecessary dissection of his observations and reflections. (Like this blog is to me.) I watched the movie American Splendor around the time I read Y, and I listened to Death Cab around that time, so... there. I'm amazed at how packaged my memories are, how my eyes, ears, and tastes can be segregated by years. My life is lived in era's--large bites, that's for sure, but bites I can remember.

The Anniversary is tomorrow and I am going into it as a virgin. In every era of my life I've walked the line between disinterest and escapist. I'm usually the escapist--but definitely, I cannot be disinterested tomorrow. It's not going to be casual because the the thing we're celebrating is one of the few things that continues to bring me joy.

So there. Tomorrow's gonna be a party, and hopefully one of the relationships in my life that can count as long term.
Here's to the long-run.