NOTE: As I mentally deconstruct the demise of my marriage, I am publishing a series of short essays about things that happened, the way I felt, and so on. It's intended to illustrate my mental state at the time, and provide a kind of chronicle of my emotional state, hopefully helping me not make the same mistakes in future relationships.

5/11/03 4:45 AM: This weekend, my soon-to-be-ex-wife Yuri is driving, somewhere in (I presume) California. The strain of living in the house she worked so hard to build, the house I seemed to care so little about, is too much for her on the weekend when she has more free time (which still makes me laugh bitterly, because weekends were no easier to catch up to her than weekdays). So, for the last few weekends, she takes the gas card and starts driving, usually in the company of our mutual friend Imani. She'll be back Sunday night, she said, although sometimes that means Monday night.

Today is Mother's Day, and I haven't had a chance to talk to Yuri's mother about all of this. I left a phone message Friday, suggesting I take her for a Mother's Day dinner and all that. Even if I'm not in a relationship with Yuri, I feel the need to -- in the words of my therapist -- make the free throws.

So I tried to swing by Thursday night before I went to karaoke, but the house was empty. She musta worked late, I figured. Yesterday, after my haircut and stopping in at the newspaper, I swung by. The house is still apparently persona non cipher and I saw that the gate was locked, which meant that my mother-in-law Thelma Cameron was out of the city, spreading her special brand of terror and jokes in another part of the world.

I'd bought a Mother's Day card, and I have a key, so I went in. I left the card on Thelma's desk and noticed the dog. Mahogany is one of those wrinkly kinds of dogs, I forget the name they're called, but this dog is about seventeen thousand years old and not in the best of health. For the record, I don't like dogs. I don't even particularly like people, most days, and on certain occassions have espoused that carbon based life wasn't the best idea. In addition, I appear to be allergic to animal fur, so extended exposure to the dog will make my throat seize up and my nostrils flow with gooey mucous.

Additional fun fact -- Mahogany is, technically, owned by my brother-in-law Tzegai, who lives in Atlanta. The reason why the dog lives at his mother's house and not Tzegai's is long, uninteresting and fraught with unflattering details for many parties involved, so I'll just glaze over it. Even better, Thelma doesn't particularly like the dog that much either, spurning it with her foot on occassion. This isn't SPCA-level abuse, it's just a kind of tense relationship, like the one between the Bush administration and the truth. They never seem right together.

Anyway, I look over and see the dog's water and food bowls are empty. I remember that, at 9PM on Thursday, the house was empty, and realize the dog could have been this way for days. Normally, when the mother-in-law leaves town, Yuri picks up the ball (which is also a strain, because Yuri is more allergic to fur than I am), feeding and leaving water for the dog. However, something not relevant to this discussion has made a rift between mother and daughter, and they're not speaking all that often. So, it seems that Thelma left town without saying, and with no real inclination to check (as well as having her mind occupied by her disintegrating marriage), Yuri disappeared as well.

This left me, an avowed misanthrope, and a hungry dog, staring at one another with no idea why we'd been brought together by fate. I sighed and filled the dog's water bowl, then started cracking open cabinets to find the dog food. I literally opened twelve before I found it, then filled the bowl. Before I could walk too far away, Mahogany had inhaled three-quarters of the food. I refilled the bowl and regarded the canine.

I did a lot of stupid things in my marriage, including being hypercritical and allowing some of the madness of the outside world to poison our common space. I didn't do these things with a sense of malice, but as an accidental side effect of me not being able to deal with the crises of my life at the time. Yuri was just an unlucky recipient of packages filled with pain, not addressed to her nor intended for her. I feel absolutely horrible about this.

On a similar note, Yuri -- torn by a number of personal crises in her life which I feel no real need to disclose -- was unable to hold me close to her, was hindered from doing the things she did to get me, in order to keep me. She didn't twirl a mustache or cackle madly, considering how to destroy me. It was not a choice at all, but a reaction to outside stimuli that, unfortunately, hurt me. She feels really bad about that, I'm told.

Looking at Mahogany, I saw that the dog was being similarly victimized. Between the disconnect Yuri and Thelma are having, based on them dealing with the horrors of their own lives as best as they can, an innocent (and not terribly healthy) dog was left alone and hungry. I felt a sad kind of empathy for the dog, which was very strange for me since I don't feel much empathy or anybody. I knew what it was like to be left without things you need, things you feel you deserve, because it's not convenient for the person you rely on to play their role. A crime of omission, not commission.

So I made sure the dog had food and water, sighed, and left it to its fate. It has warmth and security otherwise. It's an everyday tragedy, the idea of one being left out in the metaphorical cold when someone they trust is overwhelmed. I just never dreamed I'd play so many roles in it, myself.