Melissamatic (1/3)

For every blog, there's a name for it. And for this blog, I feel it's appropriate for me to tell the story of how the title "Chase Your Bliss" came to be. Kind of a long story, so we'll break it into three parts. Hmm, where to begin, how bout...

Feb. 07
It had to be the dead of night in Minneapolis, some 3am or even 4am-ish hour. My phone went off into the middle of the night, following the late hours, buzzing away repeating the same ringtone after ringtone. My girlfriend at the time, and I, were deep sleepers and it wasn't until the 13th or 14th ringtone that she woke up. She had gone to bed happy, but with her boyfriend's phone going off around 3am, ladies and gentlemen welcome to Monday Night Raw. If you have any intention of keeping a relationship from joining Thelma & Louise off the cliff, understand this is the type of activity that will turn a perfectly lax mood to a significant other waking like the dragon from Sword in the Stone.

Out of respect and to keep things anonymous, we'll call this ex-girlfriend... Melissa, and Melissa was pissed. I woke up to getting muffed in the side of the head by Melissa's would-be closed fist, but I guess she felt like giving a little mercy at this hour of the night. "Toussaint. Wake up. Your stupid phone keeps going off". I grab the phone like a zombie and step into the living room, completely negligent of time, space, the fact my cash & prizes might be hanging out in the open for Melissa's roommates to take a view... but we're in the dead of night. No one's awake. Personally, I'm not even awake at this moment. There's only the rattle from the heater and possibly some other electrical device in the apartment maintaining the temp in the building.

The phone reads several missed calls from an area code I don't even recognize let alone have ever seen before. Upon first view of any area code calling you that you don't recognize, it almost feels like Mars might be giving you a ring to let you know the War of the Worlds is about to go down. Unfamiliary area codes are exciting though. Shiiiiiiit, I wish Mars was calling right now to let me know it's goin' down tomorrow.

Back to the phone. I'm confused, this could be good, this could be bad- but how could it be bad, what- is someone gonna tell me I need to pay my student loans now, or else. Yeah right, it can't be a bill collector or anyone I know- hold up, what if I'm in trouble with the law? Narp, I paid all those parking tickets for the Blend Bus, even the ones on tour... I think. So... I don't know.

SIDENOTE: In case you haven't noticed by now, Toussaint is an over-analyzing, meticulous, CSI forensic detective shoulda-been. I don't like to speak in 3rd person, but I think it's appropriate to do that in a sidenote. Moving on...

I can't figure it out so I just call. A woman picks up the other end of the line... crying. This is bad. I should've guessed it, but I talked myself out of it. We become so good at talking ourselves out of, or into, things, that we become surprised with the reality that was facing us the whole time. "Hello". "Toussaint, hey, this is Angie". "Angie! It's been too long! How's L.A.?".

What Angie had to say next had nothing to do with L.A. but everything to do with an event that would stop my heart for the next few seconds, derail my sanity for the next year, and cut a permanent alteration in the fabric of my life.