Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004 | 12:43 PM

I am very happy right now. I feel like a massive weight is off my shoulders. I had dinner with my ex last night and it was good and healing and I think it may even be possible for us to be friends. And that would make me happy because he was a huge part of my life and we had, beyond anything else, a wonderful friendship which was at some point (long before I started writing this journal and years before we officially ended our romantic relationship) lost. I hope he can be in my life in some way. Forgiving feels really really good. This is a huge thing and there�s a lot more that I need to process with it, but the hardest part is over, I think.

I think one of the reasons I�m so anti defining some of my relationships and being in a �commited romantic relationship� is I�m deeply afraid of bullshit occurring which would fundamentally fuck things up. Friendship is the groundwater of any �relationship�, and I feel like the bullshit inherent in making anything official (i.e. rules about who�s allowed to do what and the breaking of those rules) poisons that groundwater. Plus, total freedom is so important to me, and I feel like I�m more capable of real emotional and sexual intimacy when I can spread it around to a couple of different people. Anyway, this is something I have to look at more.

I just got an epic and beautiful email from Matt and here�s one little snippet of it:

I sense that we both are more interested in artistic creations buttressed by the heart not the sobbing, throbbing, not-necessarily-constructive animal gut. The heart is, as is widely acknowledged, the best accessor of reality, the most realiable source of wisdom and grace, the best ambassador of the inner rational animal.

I fucking adore him so much. Jesus Christ. And I love how slow this is going. I�m using the Buddy L. Savage model of being really good friends for a long time. If this stays at the level it�s at right now, which is basically a very intensely romantic intimate friendship that�s dancing on the edge of being something else, I can definitely be happy with that. It�s all gotta be organic. We�ll see�