if you're reading this, then you have no doubt come home from a long hard monday's work to find this note left for you on top of the cookie tin. you went for a cookie snack and instead found this note. i'm writing this note to you because we can no longer be together.

not right now, anyway, not for the foreseeable future, it's just not possible anymore. i just can't do it. (and in case you're of a mind to toss this note aside and get at the cookies in the cookie tin, i should tell you that there are no cookies in the cookie tin. i ate all the cookies in the cookie tin. sorry. but they were lemon cookies and you know how i am about lemon cookies with my tea.)

you see, a relationship just isn't in the cards for us right now. it's not FEASIBLE. sorry. it's just the way things gotta be. but look at it this way. aren't i doing you a favor? cutting you loose? granting you early parole? you're free! you're single! you're fettered not by the ballast that can occasionally be me! enjoy! live your life!

are you still reading or have you started calling men.

in case you ARE still reading, let me tell you why we can no longer be we. you see, i find i am 'married to my work.' yeah, sure, it's a cliche and a cop-out but since when was i ever above either of those? 'married to my work' is why i'm stuck living in my basement office more or less day and night round the clock while glen/erin and jimmy/nicole gallivant all round the caribbean on some big ass cruise ship. they have that, so i'm stuck with this, so you're dumped for the next however long it is, i think til next wednesday i think. which really means friday, cause you know jimmy's gonna hafta sleep it off for a day or two. he never just jumps right back into the swing of things, now does he. no, he EASES himself back in. slowly. at his own pace. when he's good and goddamn ready.

sayonara til he comes back. if you're still single then, and ... you know ... are of a mind to see if we can salvage any kinda relationship, i'll give you a call. maybe we could go out sometime. see if we can rekindle whatever kept us together for however many years we were together. i think nine. maybe ten. i dunno, but it was a long time, wasn't it. sure felt it, anyway.

oh, i can see you now. i know you so well, so inside and out, that i just KNOW what you're doing right now. right now, you're asking yourself "why's he shouldering the load all by his lonesome. why can't he delegate." you should know the answer to this, i've told you this a million times. it's cause we hired nothing but morons.

can you imagine if i let any of them take over, even if only for a few hours while i came home and sat on the couch with you for a while? dear god, holy crap, great googly moogly. jason would take the drawer to the strip club on lawrence, we'd lose thirty-five grand by the time i got back. steve would eat whatever wasn't nailed down, and sell off furnishings, appliances, ware, all of it. laura would grope an unsuspecting customer so we'd have a lawsuit on our hands lickety-split. not by the gropee, mind you, but by the gropee's wife. sarah means well, but you know how sleepy she gets after nine thirty, she'd never make it all the way til midnight, no chance. regina's taking classes so she's useless. julie's blond so forget that. nando's not so good with the english and in america, you kinda need to know english to operate a successful enterprise. the thought of confrontation makes cheryl wet her pants, and you know how confrontational i gotta get on a daily basis.

and alan? alan? ALAN? i get light-headed and nosebleed-y just thinking of alan calling any kind of shots. my equilibrium shifts over a half inch. dizzy like when i had that q-tip tip stuck in my ear only i didn't know it, that cotton tufty tip. member when i was always dizzy and i couldn't walk right and then i ran up that flight of stairs and keeled over? member? and we couldn't figure out why til you saw a little thing of q-tip cotton poking outta my ear drum? well i feel like that when i think of alan in any kind of position of managerial what have you.

no. it's gotta be me at the restaurant all the time. our relationship must be 'damaged collaterally.' at least for the time being. however many years it wound up being, right down the drain.

(are you still reading or are you calling another man already. is it that guy i saw you with that one time that you're calling? when i saw you up on clark and you looked a little surprised to see me? is that who you're calling? if so, remember how those kindsa guys can be. they're only after one thing.)

so once the reality of your plight, your lot in life, sets in, you will spend the next few days assigning blame. you will lash out, finger pointing and accusatory. it's natural. hell, completely understandable you would wanna scapegoat someone. place the burden of blame on someone ELSE'S shoulders. well, sure, okay, if it makes you feel better, but ... in a way, really, the one you should be blaming is ... yourself. you may not see this now, but in the fullness of time, you will see you caused this. caused it when you told me to follow my dreams.

or have you forgotten bout the time when you told me to follow my dreams. yeah, i was working at the bank, pulling down a nice chunk of change every month, but was beside myself with deliberating over whether to join jimmy in his quixotic folly of opening a restaurant for which the world was in no way clamoring. you asked if it was my dream. and i said not really but it'd be better than working for some stupid bank. you said i should follow my dream then. i even had real bad second thoughts. i called the bank to see if they'd filled my position (they hadn't, and in fact, never did. apparently, they realized three could do the job of four, long as the fourth was me). you told me not to give up. hang in there, you said. which i did, but only cause you told me.

yeah, sure, this is following dreams alright. this is what hanging in there got me. nine in the morning til midnight every single damn day, and you know what's the worst thing? jimmy's gonna call for updates. some island paradise, with drinks and swimming and fresh seafood and lovely tanned bodies but he'll be calling to piss me off by making sure i haven't loused things up. it'll be just like he's in pentwater, just like he's in michigan, only the connection'll be much worse. much more static-y, and in the background i will hear drunken tropical revelry.

so ... you know ... like i said. you could say it's all your fault. BUT, if you're hell bent on blaming external forces, blame jimmy. blame glen. you always resented them anyway. you blame jimmy for me working myself stupid with so little to show for it when all is said and done. you know how incredibly filthy stinking not-rich i am, whereas he's so very much less not-rich than me it makes you angry. now, cause of jimmy you are alone until you find someone new or they come back from vacation and you and i can be together again.

and glen. yeah, you have your issues with glen, doncha. not only cause he's always only one jimmy phone call away from taking a cruise himself. no, there's also the way my mom likes glen better than me. like at christmas when he made such a big show of picking up the tab at dinner, and when mom protested that one time too many, he told her how much she was worth it, and she fell for it. that rankled you, didn't it. you know it did.

ALSO you don't think it's right that whenever glen and i walk into the room at the same time, fleegle goes to glen first. you think fleegle should come to me first cause i know how fleegle likes it. play heavy, give him hard skritches behind the ears and round the neck, then find some cheetos or fritos or lays to throw at him as a reward, but throw it a few feet to one side so fleegle has to leap through the air to catch it. (fleegle thinks it's a big accomplishment to snag food outta midair.) glen? he has no clue. he doesn't do anything other than say 'hi fleegle.' i can't imagine fleegle likes that better. so you think it's one of life's great imponderables why fleegle goes to him first. yeah, you don't much like glen either.

so hey. if you're gonna blame anyone for me leaving you (right now, it prolly seems like sweet, sweet freedom to you. finally out of that horrible barren siberia/gulag to which you had been banished. the only thing i will say is that initial thrill of freedom will lose its lustrous luster. i'm pretty sure it will. it's bound to), then blame either of them. cause it's their fault. (or they're to thank, if the luster remains.)

if the luster does remain, i won't hold it against you. if i call you up when i'm once again among the land of the not-married-to-their-work, and you tell me you greatly prefer life without me to life with me, i will hold no grudge. i hope you find someone who makes you happy. but ... not that guy i saw you with up on clark that one time. are you gonna call him? he ... i mean, he was at that stupid bar. guys who go to stupid bars tend to be stupid guys. i'd hate to see you with someone stupid.