The fortune in the fortune cookie I didn't get after the noodles I didn't eat in between spasms of burbling conversation with some engaging Portland friends I don't yet and might never have said Don't waste energy digging your own grave when there's always somebody willing and eager to dig it for you. I wish I'd really gotten this fortune because that's pretty good advice for me these days.

My first boyfriend J is getting away from the practice of architecture and is trying to do some writing. I'm sure he's very good. He and I have been distant for a few years now, exchanging cordial email but never getting into a regular correspondence. The end of our decade-long relationship was rather abrupt and surprising and emotionally unpleasant for me, and there were more nasty surprises awaiting discovery in the smoking ruins of the aftermath, like landmines left in a war-ravaged village of smoldering huts. If you've ever experienced the end of a long relationship you are certainly familiar with these smoldering huts and these landmines. Long-suppressed grievances, secret betrayals, hidden resentments, it all comes out once it truly doesn't matter anymore. Gratuitous emotional violence, unrated by the MPAA. Anyway, he candidly informed me a while back that he won't read anything I've written. Okay, whatever. Maybe the spectacle of my dazzling talent freezes him up, or something. More likely he simply can't be bothered. I'm not sure how seriously he adheres to this policy of avoidance because he mentioned recently that he's sure I wouldn't be interested in a writing program he's planning on taking part in since I "seem to have found [my] niche in blogform." How nice. I'd like that on my tombstone: Found His Niche In Blogform. I tell myself to remember the imaginary fortune cookie.