So here's a story for you. One of unrequited love, and enlightenment of a sort. Maybe it will be entertaining, too. A major turning point in my life was joining a service organization that was dedicated to maintaining a 24 hour telephone crisis intervention/suicide prevention service. To join this organization, one had to be selected as having some potiential to do the required work, and to hold up under the stress. You go to an orientation, and sit around in a small group and answer questions, interact with the other group members, and get rated by the group moderators. If you pass muster, you are invited to participate in a 70 hour long training session, spread out over two weekends, which you must successfully complete before being trusted to speak with actual human beings in crisis over the phone. It was during this training that I met one of the most facinating women that I have ever met. Lets call her Big L, since she was over six feet tall. She was giving a lecture on appropriate ways of confrontation, and for a reason I can't recall, except that it was relavent to some point being made, she wondered aloud what the polite word for 'fart' was. I was smitten. I had to wait until after training to do anything about it, since I was completely busy trying to learn a bunch of new skills, and retain a ton of facts. Also, it would have been unethical for her to start a relationship with a trainee. I completed the training successfully, and got wildly drunk at the end of training party, and tried to find out more about this woman I was interested in. One thing I found out was that she was dating a man ten years younger than herself. This did not worry me, as I figured that it would never last. And I was right. Within a month, she is dumped by this guy, and I begin my campaign. One thing I didn't count on, however, was how much she would still carry on over him. So after their break up, I persued her relentlessly. We had a great time together, but when I told her how I felt about her, she replied that she just didn't feel the same way. So I dropped the whole thing, and found someone else for a while. We had been planning this ski trip at my then roomie's family cabin in the U.P., and when Big L said she still wanted to go, I just thought to myself, 'execellent'. Of course it was to be a celebate sort of trip, and with other people besides just us. But at the last minute when a minor family emergency had my roomie and his girlfriend and father leave early, Big L and I were left completely to ourselves. Excellent. We tripped on the magic mushroom, skied, and snowshoed all over the place. It was a fairly remote cabin, and one had to put on snowshoes to use the outhouse. Romantic, no? After a while, with all the trips to the outhouse, we had packed a trail down pretty good, so you didn't need the snowshoes. But if you slipped off the trail, you'd find yourself hip deep in snow, and have to climb back up. It was on the drive back home that Big L said her feelings toward me had changed, and that she now felt as I did. I should have doubted that this was how she really felt, but I was too infatuated to think. I floated the rest of the way home. She lived in a big house whose owner rented out rooms. After a couple months of dating, I moved into an available room in her house. It was cheaper than where I had been staying, and of course, closer. Things were already falling apart. It was hard not to notice, but I did my best. Here is the first lesson I learned: "When receiving mixed messages from someone, pay the most attention to the message you don't want to hear." She went back to her old boyfriend for one last scrump, and then told me she wanted to see (read 'fuck') other people. I was devastated, my poor little heart completely shattered. I moved out, and tried to move on. Big L wanted to be 'friends,' but I couldn't even look at her the way things were. I was stuck in an awful place, and I really didn't even want to move on. I wanted to go back the way things were. Then I heard about this bit of Japanese folklore regarding the folding of an origami figure known as a peace crane. That if you fold one thousand of them, while holding your fondest desire in your heart, then you shall receive that which you desire. I though it was worth a shot, since I already knew how to fold a crane. And since I worked at a Kinko's, I had access to all the necessary supplies. I cut up some paper into 1000 5x5 inch sheets, and shrink wrapped them into 250 sheet bundles. It was a lot more paper than I thought, but I couldn't wait to get started. So I get all ready, made some tea, lit some freakin' candles, and got to folding. The first couple dozen went well. Piece of cake, I thought. The next fifty were not so bad, still going strong. At the 125 mark, things are definately slowing down. I hate cranes. At 150, I ask myself, "Why the fuck am I doing this?" And then, of course, I knew. I was still hurting, but I was now healing, too. And going back to the way things were had really lost its appeal. Thank you, cranes.