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.

8/10/03: 5:05 PM: It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you ...

I've barely updated the site since ... hell, almost since Comicon. That's an unusual thing, for these days.

To be honest, I've been busy. So busy, I haven't finished unpacking from moving at the end of June. So busy I haven't found my digital camera amongst my things. So busy I've almost managed to fill in the hole where my life used to be.

July was, without a doubt, the busiest month I've ever had. Two road trips, more meetings than I could ever consider, and a return to the romantic scene that I could only consider robust (funny side note -- on an earlier version of this website, I ran a "blog" called "love notes," where I talked about everything that happened to me, romantically, in the space of a week, complete with photos. I have a *little* more respect for people's privacy these days. Not much, but a little, so I'm keeping my cards closer to the vest, and only posting those kinds of eponymous details ... well, never you mind where). I swore that the month itself was trying to kill me. I still have a huge pile of laundry left. Blah.

A few weeks ago, I had a big reading at Borders Books in Westchester, a gleaming spire of commercial bookselling dominance (Thanks, Jan Wagner!). I put a twist on a piece I have in the new book I launched that night, called "Finality," where I sing the first verse and chorus of Saliva's "Rest in Pieces." In the old days, I'd have linked to that, but these days I trust few links outside of my own, so I'd rather quote ...

Look at me
my depth perception must be off again
'cause this hurts deeper than I thought it did
it has not healed with time
it just shot down my spine.
You look so beautiful tonight ...
Reminds me how you lay us down,
and gently smiled,
before you destroyed my life

Could you find it in your heart
to make this go away
and let me rest in pieces? (let me rest in pieces, pieces ...)

The life I lived last year is no more. That man, in many senses, ceased to exist. The doting husband, the tolerant friend, the frustrated brother ... I'm sure you can find the corpse in an alley near 52nd Street.

I'm not that guy at all. I'm the guy, cracking up laughing and singing at the top of his lungs, switching lanes as I fly northbound on La Brea. I'm the guy smiling at your girl, acknowledging the looks she's been shooting my way. I'm the one who doesn't care if you just got kicked out of your place, you sure as hell ain't coming here and crowding up a block already over jammed with cars, taking up another spot. I'm the Old Hannibal, with some new twists, who's learned some new lessons.

You can hear it in my poetry ... a piece I haven't titled starts, "All relationships are temporary/ all love is conditional." I am blessed for this moment, you reading these words, and I am not guaranteed any other. I am happy with the people I know, accepting the love I'm given, hugging the children who call me uncle.

Because sometimes, the old ways are best.

I'm busy. Really busy. I am trading emails and calls with no fewer than five publishers about at least ten fictional properties I hope to bring to market (no little piggies, alas). I'm singing karaoke sometimes four nights a week, and have a line on a band that's looking for a third vocalist, a spot I'd love since I wouldn't have to carry the show. I'm writing poetry, dreaming a better future today in every stanza.

"But Hannibal, what about your ex-wife, what about the focus of almost five years of your life?" I have written and will continue to write essays about my journey away from Yuri Hinson, but I am really surprised how effortlessly I slipped back into my old ways. My apartment is bigger than the last one I had, but it shares a lot of the same disorder and casual indifference to convention. It has maybe one area I consider fit for normal human habitation, the living room. The office is a mountain of boxed toys and comic books, a conglomeration of electrical cords and CDs that -- god willing -- I'll be able to shunt behind a huge curtain. I don't miss Yuri anymore, I don't have strong feelings for her anymore, I don't even think about her most of the time. I'm happier now without her, which I didn't expect but came true anyway.

Yes, my "life" was destroyed, but I'm building a new life, a happier and healthier life, and that's a good thing. That life needed destroying, because it was keeping me from blessings and joy, and that's a bad thing.

So I catch warm embraces in the corners of pretty girls' smiles. I bathe in the laughter of my friends, sing like there's no tomorrow, and work to build my art into a living. I am unencumbered, free to plan (apologies to Mike Carey). Again I can be grateful, because the joy I find shines from within.

"Hannibal musta gotten a bad batch of somethin' 'cause he's spoutin' all that New Age crap ... told you he'd go nuts when he moved to California!" Maybe, maybe I did. But I'm happy, just plain happy waking up and being me, and there's not a lot of people who can say that. Even with a schedule that has me out "in them streets" almost every night, and has me pounding away on the keyboard every day, I'm much better off with the feast I have now than the famine I've left, personally and professionally.

If "C" is for "Cookie," well dammit, I'd have to say that's good enough for me.