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Catherine Gacad

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A Trail of Broken Hearts

I got an email from the artist today.  My heart fluttered as I quickly moved the email to a personal folder.  Forget about it, I tried to tell myself as I continued to work.  But I couldn’t concentrate.  I went back to my personal folder and retrieved it.  ‘Thought you might find this interesting.”  It was a link to an article on the financial crisis.  

Ummm, thanks.  I read ‘insightful’ articles all day long.  I don’t need people sending me more financial crap to read.
I started to think he might have sent it to see if I was still working.  Maybe he was wondering if I’d been laid off.  It’s rumored that one of the highest ranking managers in our financial reporting group had a nervous breakdown.  He’s on an indefinite leave of absence. “What?!  No way.  I don’t believe it.”
“Go ahead.  Send him an email.  The auto-response says something about personal leave and indefinite time frame.  Check it out.”
“I’m not going to send some random email to find out what the auto-response says!”
Maybe that’s what the artist did.  He wanted to know if something drastic had happened to me.
Every so often, when I think about him, I check to see if he’s on Match.com.  But he got off.  I wonder if he’s seeing anyone seriously. Didn’t seem to stop him from patrolling the personals even when he did have a girlfriend.
How fascinating chemistry is.  Attraction, obsession.  
How dreadful to lose your husband and find out he’d been killed by his 20-year-old girlfriend. And then to find out that it’s rumored she killed him because he was possibly seeing another younger girl?  WTF, Steve McNair.  WTF!  Didn’t you watch Fatal Attraction?  Remember Joey Buttafucco and Amy Fischer?  Hey, at least no gunshot wounds for Mrs. McNair.
I was on my way home tonight, walking up Sutter Street when I passed a man I had gone on a date with.  We’d only gone out once. Candlelight dinner, nice time.  But I was dating too many guys then.  I filtered him out quickly.  And now, ten months later I was passing him on the street. We both recognized each other, but kept walking. What was there to say?
I looked back.  I couldn’t help it.  I breathed silently into the bitter cold, “I hope you’re well, Mark.  I hope you’re happy.”

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07.08.09

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Welcome to my site, derived from an advice column I wrote while getting my MBA. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I give helpful, opinionated advice based on my own experience and from the expertise of my extensive network. For more, click here.

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