This last friday my girlfriend left for collage, I've known this was coming for a couple months now but didn't really want to accept it. Her and I have been dating for around 8 months now, and well yes we've had our problems ( namely her ex-boyfriend not going away, but thats a different story,) I realized a long time ago that I feel something for this person that I haven't felt for anyone else in my entire life. I know this is going to sound like a cleche' but she's perfect. I did everything to profess my love to her, and I'm positive she knows, because she did the same for me. But now she's gone, she now resides in a place no more than an 8 hour drive from here but then again I drive a 69' volkswagon, a car that wouldn't make it halfway if I tried. I miss her, and its only been 2 days, I feel like I'm spiriling deep into a chasm from which the only escape lies 8 hours away. I've even begun to change my tendencies, I'm a night creature, I go to bed at dawn, and am awake at sundown... Its 10:50am and I just woke up... I don't understand why this happened, I just know it has to do with her being gone. I'm losing my mind after two days apart from my love... What should I do... Where should I go... please my mind is losing cohesion... HELP.

It's really hard having a relationship split like that. I know from when I was in high school, there were always a few of those relationships, and both parties seemed miserable. I remember my best friend when I was a freshman (she was a junior, I believe), was dating a guy who went to school in stanford--about five hours away from where we were. And it never really worked. The relationship had other problems, but the distance thing didn't help. But they didn't want to just let each other go, either. He visted when he could. I don't know what you should do, Hal. It's really difficult. It sounds like what you need is a big hug, which I can't exactly deliver...I'm moving to Vermont in a few days now (5), and have to leave antithesis behind...I'm not really looking forward to it. But I don't know what else to do--I feel like I need to do this, and that even though it's painful, it's good for me to get out of this town. It would be good for him, too, but I don't know if he'll move. I'm trying to convince him. Anyway. Enough about me. I'm sorry you're having a poor time of it, Hal. Really the only thing you can do is try to keep sane, write her, talk to her--and see how things work out...

8 hrs? Take the bus, man. not that farr.

whoops, mental slip there. not that FAR. if it's all that you say, you find a way to get there as much as you can. hitchhike, bus, train, whatever. This is the crucial part of your relationship. Your honey's in a brand new environemtn with all sorts of new people around, and yuo're fromthe old familiar environment. If you guys can last through the freshman year, then you probably will be OK.

Where did she go, Hal? In addition to trying to keep your relationship with her alive, you need to keep busy and learn to cope with her being gone, or you'll go crazy. What are you going to be doing? School? Work?

She went to Gonzaga University in Spokane... I thank you for the advice, but it only being now 3 days later and I'm already going nuts, a little too late. I'm working acctually, delivering for "THE SUDS HUT" its money, most of the time I spend with friends down at the 4B's on grand and 24th. I don't know the fact that she hasn't called me yet is starting to worry me some but I'm hanging in there, also trying to call back some links to old friends... ( much like yourself ) Yet having her gone is well driving me nuts, almost to the point that I think I'm seeing things now... Its asinine.

Does she have a phone? I didn't have a phone in college. I'm leaving in fourdays now, getting nervous. Anthithesis and I are being all clingy.

move to spokane. what do you have to lose? it's easy, man. sell the car, buy a one way bus ticket.

right on, except spokane sucks. It would be good to be with her, though. If you wanna sell the bug, my s/o would be all over that.

Yep, you need to make a decision now...is this the person you want to spend the next few years with? (This goes for you to Anti-Panti) If you decide she is, then you know what you have to do. Quit moaning about being separated and get your ass to wherever she is. Whatever reasons you give for holding you back are just immaterial, if she's the one you want to be with. I've moved countries to be with someone and never regretted it. If you're not moving because of a job or sumpin...then you know where your priorities lie.

actually, I have no idea why I said spokane sucks. Need to throttle back the caffeine, I think.

spokane does suck. so do long distance relationships. my advice? get a new girlfriend. one who lives closer to you. and don't bother casting pearls before swine.

gonzaga? you don't want to bother with her, man. those catholic girls start much too late.

Yes.

No. anti-panti and I like to pretend we have this one _all_ worked out. I think we do, actually. But then again we aren't quite like Hal and his girl, either. We almost ended up in an orgy last night. It was very, very wierd. Very wierd. Wierd like I'm sitting at home thinking "what the heck happened" wierd. Anyway.

You know, I was going to beg forgiveness for calling you Issy, but now you're in real trouble. Vermont is only 3000 miles away. easy hitch.

Gonzaga is a Christian school, not Catholic. Her and I have had some of the greatest sex ever. But thats all imaterial. From what I'm hearing, I like, I mean all except find a new girl. I should move, no TBone I'm not selling the VW, I acctually think it would make it if I did it right. I just have to get there and begin anew. Not something easily done when your 18, but I suppose anything is possible. I like the idea and I'm all up for it, I just have to dwell a little more and see whats up with her. Or is that a bad idea?

No, it's a good idea. It would suck to go through the hassle of mvoing just to get dumped to weeks later. If she asks for you to come, then you should go. If you ask her if you should go, and if she's hesitant, don't go, and stock up on the metallic gel pens and black notebooks for when you'll need to write angst-ridden poetry about the cruel cold world we live in.

shit. who's gonna tell this kid the truth about post-graduation highschool relationships? man, college is about sex, drugs, and mindless debauchery. it's about self-discovery, testing limits, 3-day binges, and mescaline-induced spiritual transmutation. it's about road trips, acid trips, ego trips, mind trips... and on top of all that shit she's gonna have to go to class, too. y'know what happens to highschool sweethearts? they kinda get lost in the mix. besides, if you really love her you owe her the opportunity to spread her wings and learn to fly. my advice: forget about spokane. move to the desert and start your own spiritual movement. cult leaders get all the chicks. trust me.

What do you mean "not easily done when you're 18"? That's when you're SUPPOSED to begin a new life and start anew. I moved to college and didn't know a soul there. It was awsome. 'Course half my freekin' graduating class came the next year, along with a few who graduated after me, but the point is that now is the PERFECT time. When were you planning on doing it? But make sure she's way cool with it. If she's wanting to start a new life there, you need to make sure there's room for you.

my highschool sweetheart was like one of those tires at drag races that spin off, fly into the audience and take someone's head off, i was the car, missing a wheel and a needing a lube job, but once that was taking care of...... i wanna hear about the near orgy, i've got a near orgy story to tell, one that left me banging my head into a cement wall for weeks after...

hey, man. last night i rented this tape called "HARDCORE:THE FILMS OF RICHARD KERN" and for whatever fucked-up reason, it made me think of you. ever seen any of his stuff? i'm gonna make a copy and send it to tipper gore. i'll send you one too if you want it.

yes im very familiar with his work. There are two volumes to that series, i recommend the 2nd, its are pretty damn funny....sadistic, over the top, gaudy and funny. his earlier photography is more profound,had more substance, meant more, his newer saturated color work is a little of a bore and im starting to agree with spider when she said he was over rated. In fact on a nerve.com chat, with some of the staff of nerve, who suck rkern's proverbial dick, who basically got their start featureing his work......... i relayed my opinion, they all got blindly defensive and were like "he's brilliant man he's brilliant" ....and im like you guys are chumps, monkeys, led by a banana....his work doesn't mean anything anymore, its been overrun and he has nobeody but his fans to blame for that.... his book New York girls, and some of his film stills are outta site though..... wow , if you wish to send me a personal copy i'd love it......, you know the routine

Sort of fits here....http://www.justinspace.com/obscene/oiintro.html

call me a solipsistic fuck, but's all subjective to me. i hear people start talking about the objective "meaning" of art (or lack there of) and it all turns into spurting wankers. at least to my ear. anyway, i dug the alienated juvenile "i'm-oh-so-consumed-by-my-own-emptiness" shit. that and the brutal violence done with cheap-ass DIY effects. funny as hell. i forgot what a skinny little fuck hank rollins used to be. send me your address and i'll send you a tape.

The near orgy story? There isn't a lot to tell. There were some people. They were horny. End of story, really. I fled. Antithesis...can explain for himself? He fled, I guess. Just after me. IT was just kind of surreal, not like any of us did anything. It's wierd. I tell this stuff on Sorabji, but I would never, ever tell it in real life. Funky. Anyway. Yeah. I guess Sorabji is like my great big confessional. If I was Catholic. Which I'm not. Anyway. Yeah. It was wierd.

oh. i get it. you mean that the stuff that was interesting back in the 80's is just a lame cliché now, but the old bastard won't stop cranking out the same old shit cuz his blind idiot fanbase keeps paying his rent. sounds familiar. actually, it kinda sounds like the rolling stones.

yeah, but i love the old stones....... otherwise you hit it one the head everything on the website is new stuff, which is drab...the following is some of his best work, or a small sample of it, in particular the black and whites http://www.nerve.com/Photography/Kern/OtherNewYork/ in someways he was Mapplethorp up all night on some of that good downtown crank.....2 steps beyond.... and in some pictures he could be so sweet, charming, sensitive, lovey.....and then next you get a distorted color photo of this girl with a lit candle up her ass , looking you like YOU are the freak. He documented the post punk, nowave era in NYC .........which is important, this is one of my favorites http://www.nerve.com/Photography/Kern/OtherNewYork/gallery/CeliaSippingbowl.jpg

www.gonzaga.edu -- facts and figures Located in Spokane, Washington, Gonzaga is 25 miles west of the Idaho state line and 283 miles east of Seattle. One of 28 Jesuit, Catholic universities in the United States; others include Boston College, Georgetown and Marquette. Gonzaga is pronounced gone-ZAG (as in bag)-uh. Gonzaga was founded in 1887 by Jesuit priests, after urging from Spokane's city leaders who sought a major university in their town. The university is named for Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, a 16th century Jesuit priest. In his effort to comfort the ill in Rome during the plague, he caught the scourge and died at age 23. He is named the Patron Saint of Youth.

patrick, what you wrote about your high school sweetheart made me spew coffee out my nose and all over my computer monitor. thanks for the laugh.

im happy to help my near orgy story about a year and half, we are at a john spencer show, witha girlfriend of ours whom we had toyed around with before, nothing major, just flirt, kiss, revealing polaroids etc..... we ran into two other girls we knew, they were both latino, and had those latino curves and knock out boobs going on, very sexy and very filthy mouthed. after the show we go to our place for some cocktails, it was an early ending show, next thing you know S. is taking her shirt off and looking around, being her nosey wacky self, wanting to see my internet porn.....not really having any availabd and wanting to get her the hell out of my 2nd bedroom, i offer to show hers some vintage porn i have on video, this brough the 5 of us back into the living room .... nico and J. start doing the kissy kissy thing. A. S. and I are doing the grope thing, and next thing you know the 5 of us are groping each other and shirts are flying off pants are starting to be unbuttoned...........then........... "knock knock!!!!" I forgot, the moment we got home from the show, before I realized what was about to unfold, i had called angry sam to come over......DOH!!!!!! I let him in as the girls were all putting their shirts back on, a little spooked. Angry sam was all too familiar with this type of setting , he knew immediately what had happened, the look of guilt and sorrow on his face said it all. Further more, one of the girls, J. was the ex girlfriend of Angry Sams brother so to say "well why didnt you just invite sam into the scene" it would have been weird, plus the other girls didn't really seem interested...... like i said, i proceeded to systematically bang my head into a cement wall for the next two weeks......

Yeah. Luckily, we didn't really get that far. It was kind of like "orgy!" "Oh, my, look at the time." The group sex thing doesn't interest me at all. And...what are you supposed to do with them when you're done? None of us smoked, not exactly like there could have been a smoking break and then a little amble/graceful exit outside...I don't know. I just never really was interested in sharing sex with someone. It would feel too much like voyeurism, which frankly disgusts me.

Patrick...You and Nico seem like the most sexually liberated couple I've come across. And all power to you for it. But I'm just wondering how this kinda sexual freedom works within a marriage context. Doesn't Nico get jealous when you're with another woman? Is it OK for you to bonk another woman when Nico's NOT around? What about if Nico was with another man, would that be hip with you?

And thus the de-evolution of the topic at hand begins... And so I was wrong about Gonzaga being Catholic, its still irrelivent, Marcy's hindu.

I don't care that you were wrong, hal. only that I was right.

True... And I apologuise for my making rash implications and corrections at your statement. Besides that, did you have any advice beyond the Catholic girl thing... I appreciate all advice from all that present it, I may not take it but hell it helps to know the opinions and ideas of others, hell you may offer me some idea that no one else or myself have come up with.

hal. you guys are teenagers. she is not the one true love of your life. I'm not going to go back and re-read any of this -- are you going off to college? college is where you get laid. big time. lots and lots and lots of clear-skinned, well-dressed, beautiful girls with good teeth. you want to go into this idyllic situation as unencumbered as possible. your whole life will change. you do not want your girlfriend to be at the other end of a phone line. you want her to be in your dorm room. none of this advice matters, though, because you are going to figure it out for yourself soon enough, guaranteed.

oh, you're working at suds or subs or something. you need to go to college. start working on your two-year at the local jc, ok, promise? then transfer to a big state university. collect minimal student loans. when you get done, I'll see if I can recommend you for a job. I've referred four people since I got here to seattle two months ago. but get the degree. it won't necessarily help anything, but it will never stop you from doing anything, AND it's more fun to go to college than to make sandwiches. j, you're a mom, tell this young man what to do.

I bet it's not too late to register for community college for fall quarter. the longer you put it off, the less likely you are to go. go now, while everyone else there is your age. you're asking us the wrong questions. who cares about the girl, what about you? go go go.

cat, it's like this, we don't BOINK anyone else at all. we keep intercourse for ourselves, however sometimes playful fun is ok ya dig? We are always together, never without each other, and only if we both are cool with it at that time. Its a situational thing, situational ethics i think they call it. She has considerable more freedom than I, meaning I don't find it as appealing to go feel some dude up , as much as she might dig to go cop a feel with a girlfriend in the back seat on the way home from any given bar......its rather a rarity, and for the most part we keep to ourselves, but its the mindset thats most important. When we have been with another couple, close close friends of ours in all other contexts, no, there was no jealousy. The few people we have even fooled around with have been close to us otherwise, and the threat they posed was little or nill, as they respected us too much as a couple to go and do anything stupid. does this make sense? I would never call ourselves "swingers" as we don't go on the prowl for these types of experiences, we don't go to the those silly clubs and we don't actively seek partners. They usually just happen and again, they are rare, and usually drunken........in all we honest we are the best fucks of all, so we have little motivation to source booty elsewhere but we firmly believe in a good time should the situation arise.

i never, ever, EVER want to hear you complaining about ANYTHING on these message boards. lucky bastard. excuse me while i go eat glass.

Everything Cyst said was true Hal,go to school,get that degree,there are so many doors that would be shut on you when you are looking for a job without one.And she was right about the girls too,plus it would make your parents so proud.

Patrick, that's freaking awesome. I would have too much petty jealousy to watch my beloved playing with another girl. But maybe that comes from having to share toys too often with my older sister.