"Where I End and You Begin"

I can watch but not take part
where I end and where you start
where you, you left me alone
you left me alone.

For sentimental reasons, this post is written more through the identity of Casey rather than the Toastie you all know and love. We thank Radiohead for creating the solemn mood. To be honest, I'm not doing so well and its for reasons that all of my friends may not truly understand, just because they know what she did to me. The girl that changed my life upon meeting her four years ago is moving, and I am still in love with her. Jess has accepted a job with the Portland Opera. That's Portland, Oregon. She leaves tommorrow morning to drive across the country and out of my life for good. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the first uberdang-it of my young life.

Our story isn't really a long one, but its not one that is enjoyable for me to tell. Jess and I dated for two and a half years, roughly. Living together for close to a year. Everything was great. How could it not be with a girl who loved bacon, Star Wars, cartoons, hot dogs, baseball, video games, and most importantly, me. Its not just that she liked goofy stuff that nerds like me enjoy, this was the first relationship that I knew the very instant of meeting the girl that I was in love. I never could stop thinking about Jess, even to this very day. She shared her family, life, heart, all that mushy stuff, and did so with enthusiasm and joy that I had never experienced before. This was it. I had found a beautiful, extremely smart, funny, honest girl that truly was in love with me, and I knew it.

We met the fall after I graduated from LeMoyne, September 2001, and as I previously mentioned I was all up ons from the beginning. At the time, Jess was a Junior at Syracuse University and she had just begun working at the friendly local Zany Brainy where your's truly had been working all throughout college, selling toys to the youngsters. Oh god, I was so shy, but "not really" around her. We hung out for a few months before I even made my "move". She had to kiss me. I was too busy trying to show her that I could jump through the driver side window of the Wabbit. I meant, that we would talk for hours and hours on end but I was often too nervous to plant one on her. You should have seen me when I asked her out for the first time. If Loretta Buck ever comes across this website, or even Jess, they may remember. But the point I was originally going to get to before all of this heartfelt rambling was that with her being a two years younger than me, I wanted to wait till she was fully done with school before I was going to ask her to marry me. We had talked a lot about what we were going to do over the future, but I never told her that I had planned on proposing after she finished grad school, just this past spring. She had joked about it over one Christmas together that her friends thought that I was going to ask her but didn't. It wasn't my plan though. I had begun putting money aside for it when we split up abruptly in March of '04. Hell, even her stepfather Steve joked about the fact that Jess and I were going to be the next in their family to get married at his brother's Al's wedding in late October of '03, just a few mere months before she broke me, by telling me that she had in fact cheated on me, a suspiscion of mine that she had repeatedly denied over the last month or two that we were living together. You have no idea how it felt to return to our apartment that you offered to leave so she can pack and move out for the first time. To have to move the couch that we had in our computer room so you had a place to sleep because there was no bed. I don't really like talking about this. After all of this time it still hasn't gotten easier.

I have known about this move for a little while now, well, I found out about ten days ago. It has been over this time that I have reflected on my life with Jess and am beginning to see that maybe this is a good thing. Going through boxes of stuff that I can't get rid of, all memoirs of our relationship. Goofy notes, cards and letters, some that I can't even finish reading bear to look at. Billy Ball and I discussed this on Friday night and until right now, he stood as one of the few that knew what I was going through. He mentioned this very fact. You can finally move on. Perhaps he's right. I broke up with Margaret, a fantastic girl whom I dated following Jess for a number of months, just because there was a period of time last summer where we almost got back together. Ever since then I have stayed in regular contact with her and the one thing that remained was the hope that someday we would once again see each other the way we once did. Every other girl that I met would instantly not get the nod because I had this insane dream that we'd fall back in love and everything would be ok. Why did I feel this way. Last August, Jess told me that she had made a mistake and still loved me. That's why I state that we almost got back together. But, as before when we initially broke up, I got dang-ited. Just as it seemed that everything was going to work out, it just stopped. With no explanation. Now, this marks the second time a relationship of ours has ended with no reason. First one, the person who I loved would never had cheated on me. I loved her too much. But it happened nonetheless. No explanantion. Now, for the simple fact that she is moving across the %$&#*@! country, I should be able to finally move on. I really have no other choice.

It has been a year and almost seven months since we broke up despite all that we have been through, I still love her. We went to breakfast yesterday and had what seemed to be just a regular outing. A few times I almost tried to mention how I feel, but what is that going to do now. Perhaps its better this way. I don't feel it, but if I keep saying that to myself, maybe it'll help. Chuck and my BFF Mary have been trying to help me with this and no matter how much I want it to work, things aren't too fun right now. But my friends do care about me and want to see me through this. For that I say thank you.

I have invited the help of music to aid me through these horrid times by turning into a emotion filled mixmaster and creating the "Portland, Huh" box series featuring songs that have some meaning throughout the many different eras of our relationship. From the nights were we spent all night talking in my car when I was too nervous to kiss her and listened to "True Love Waits" by Radiohead to how I could yell the "You fuc%'in disappoint me" line from A Perfect Cicle's tune "Passive" that proved to be some drunken yelling music (Click on link and give a listen). PJ Harvey, Ben Folds, Tool, every band and song has some meaning. All culminating in the final track, "The New Style" by the Beasties. That to show a new era of Casey. I'm losing someone I will always love with all of my heart. Someone who I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with, and who I thought was ready to do the same. Jess, I really don't know what to say. I love you and I do wish you the best of luck. Wish things were much different between us and I'm sorry to see you go. I never felt as happy as I did when I was with you and its something that I will always remember. I'm done typing for now. Too difficult and I feel so helpless. But, its not about me. Enjoy life out west. No matter what you have done to me in the past I still remember how I loved you. I hope you continue to remember the time we spent together and if it meant just a fraction of what it meant to me, I'll be more than happy. Now, for what appears to be for the last time: I love you Jess. I love you so very much.

Sunday's can always be counted on for providing a few o' my favorites: watching some football, a beer or two, and fried stuff with cheese!

Ahh..the NFL, she's a back. Toast is a huge enthusiast of surrendering his entire Sunday to the likes of some healthy beer swilling men and the dank dark hole that we always return to come mid-September. Javen..Bill...you would have been awfully disappointed with the performance of Pat's Pub yesterday. Here's just a short list of dang its:

- only one sheet pizza was provided
- even scarier dudes than normal and the previous scary dudes got even worse
- a forty year old non-hot bartender
- no random really hammered townie!

What's the deal??

With the aid of a certain "Willie Moe" Emerson and Marcus C. Chumps, I was able to forge ahead with my opening day and make it to the coveted Giants v. Card's matchup. The decision to go to the C.O.P. at half put a little more hop in my step. Good evening all around, we get a Billy Ball run-in, Shockey gets a touchdown while the Giants win, and not to forget some top notch eating. A little word to the wise, too many garlic wings will not improve your standard "I drank a few beers while watching football and I may have made a big mistake" status.


Ooooooh...Stuff's gonna get Shockeyed!!

In other opening day news, my rugby team beat Buffalo pretty good on Saturday. I even scored my first try of the season. Not half bad Toast. Not bad at all. The Toast was forced to wear a knee brace as my right knee is still a bit filled with fluid since injuring it a few weeks ago in a rugby tournament in Saratoga and it feels like it needs a bit of support. I got the knee looked at this past Friday and the Doctor refered me to see another. Thinks it might be the MCL. I really am not having any stability issues with it or "real" pain. I practiced on Thursday, played two games on Saturday, ran, got hit, and gave hits and no problems were had. We'll see where it goes from here.

At the drink-up after the game, I ran into a guy I knew from my college days, John McGowan. He played rugby at LeMoyne and lived near me back in the Lancaster Ave. days. McGowan was the scrumhalf playing for Buffalo and I didn't really notice it was him until about the halfway point of the second half for I was at my normal wing position. The run-in we had at the chili on our post game spread would confirm the McGowan sighting. By the way, the chili ended up being pretty tasty.

All righty folks, I gotta get runnin' here. We's got some mo' football to watch! I just hope Madden refers to some Shockey.

SHOCK-EEE!!!