SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT! Fate wants to burst the bubbles of the even the wildest of my Internet fantasies. I have not much to say about reality, but this is the Internet, man. Safe pleasure, so to speak. Or so, I thought. What is it they say about not snooping too deeply for fear you'll bump into something you don't want to discover? Don't go into the archives if you don't want to unearth history. Well, I can't be quoting any genius because this just doesn't make sense. Forgive me, I'm in my element of frustration. Words flow, but logic doesn't. More like Dan Quayle than Albert Einstein.

I'm having an affair with this guy. It's clearly one-sided because he doesn't know me. I don't know him either. I only know him as some user name in some obscure forum. He's from the other side of the world, land of 2 of my ex-boyfriends and former (asshole) boss. He's a dream, baby, almost perfect grammar, the kind of guy I'd like to be face to face with to see if he speaks as well as he writes. I checked out his profile and there it was, the most perfect physiognomy. My dream; everyone else's dream, if they would only admit to it. So I register into this forum with a gender-neutral user name. I posted one thread, he answered it. I tried some online flirtation, he was nice enough to respond. If we were talking in person, I'd say he was humoring me. "Be gentle, be nice. She's obviously desperate" could be what was going on in his mind.

"Lover, you're my lover,
You're the John Updike of my life.
Yonder in peace, there shall never be another shadow.
This is my place, alone, together with you."

Never mind, I'm babbling. It doesn't even make sense. I found myself visiting this online obscurity whenever I could just to check if he was online and to stare at his two-syllable user name when he is, like a pariah content with just the sight of the enclave he covets. I had never sent any more message. I was living in an imaginary world of alphabets, a 4-letter nickname and whimsical intercourse. He was beside me, on top of me, around me. I smiled at him. "You're perfect, just perfect. Come to me."

Sadly, it never stayed enough. I wanted more. I searched for him; I searched for his words. Everyday, I went back, not content with alphabets. I wanted paragraphs, I wanted essays, I wanted the world.

Then one day (just a few hours ago, actually), there it was, the thread that broke my heart. I have... a wife, said to someone other than me. The clouds castles came crumbling. Fuck it, he could be Scott Peterson whiling away time on death row. He could have been an online predator who's perpetually single though divorced many time over, but no, he had to have a wife. He had to say so.

Could be fiction. Who knows what goes on in the mind of the millions of people online? This is the sad fact - we're just victims of a bigger universe. We're cosmic dusts being led astray by omnipotent puppeteers. I could be his wife, he could be my son. We could all be just orgying around, an orgasmic claim two seconds too late. We all go around in circles. I just pray I don't meet with the Michael Schiavos, the Scott Petersons of this world.

And speaking of Michael Schiavo... I had a short chat with a male online pal. Somehow, we got into the topic of Terri Schiavo's case. You already know where I side in that. He didn't think Michael Schiavo was doing anything wrong because he was merely trying to comply with Terri's wishes. I said, maybe, but he should not have gotten involved with that. He was already living with another woman. The media call the woman his "fiancé"; this means he's going to marry her. When does he get to marry the "fiancé"? When Terri's dead, of course, as it's obvious he's not going to get a divorce. My pal said I can't fault Michael for that - he has needs that have to be met. (My pal, I hope you get a picture of how thin your argument is. I wouldn't even go in the "in sickness and in health" part of the marriage vows.) I said, well, if that's the case, he should just have divorced Terri. He said, Michael can't divorce Terri because Terri needs to sign the divorce papers and she obviously can't do that. I don't know about the divorce laws in Florida (it's always been tricky thereabouts anyways, as Al Gore would definitely tell you) but I know that there can be a legal precedent. Michael Schiavo can petition the court to consider this an extraordinary divorce case. I doubt if any court would dismiss the divorce petition just because the wife can't sign. It's not a case of "won't" sign anyway; that's different. Besides, we already know he's got a brilliant lawyer (who, by the way, is losing out on the publicity part. Perhaps he didn't want this stigma on his record, belated restitution).

I suppose my pal wanted this conversation topic cut so when I said, "Michael Schiavo is a monster," he said, "No, but Scott Peterson is." And we jumped to another unfortunate male stupidity incident, one of the many.

I had to get to sleep and didn't pursue the Schiavo conversation. But I'm thinking that perhaps Terri Schiavo's estate is large enough for Michael to want to be her heir. As I've said, I don't know about the laws in Florida. In my country, he would have been disqualified because he's committing a crime against the honor of his spouse (concubinage). But perhaps, American society is more accepting of matters like this. This may not even be given due course by our local courts. Our legal system would probably be more compassionate than that.

Does the right to life include the right to die? Who exercises the right? What evidence is necessary to prove that the right to die has been exercised? Mere words? Hearsay? These and more questions plague the American legal system now. Who leaves satisfied? Only Michael Schiavo. He already has $1M from a previous malpractice claim and he will get to marry his fiancé. As for Terri and the Schindlers and the rest of us, let's hope there's a parallel world where the law really works to protect the helpless.

Ahh, I've recovered from my broken heart.

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