I just watched Dead Like Me, which if you have been reading my blog you will know that is the show for me. I think it's part catharsis but it's also got all the elements that make film work for me, make me laugh, make me cry, make me wish I'd written it, acted in it, directed it, made that one really cool shot.

Tonight's episode - SPOILERS - involved, in part, the death of two gay men who had been lovers for 30 years. The one who died first fell and hit his head and died. The second one got a knife and he said he couldn't go on and I know just how he felt. So the ghost of his lover asked Mason to tell him to put the knife away and take the pills instead.

For a long time after Danny died I thought about pills a lot. I take blood thinners. It would be very easy to take a lot of them and just bleed to death. I bruise like mad anyway. I've been close to the bleeding to death thing often enough without trying.

Then there was the night I did try and cut my wrist. Oddly it was just the one. I was going crazy. Or I thought I was. Now I think I was just terribly, terribly sad and lonely and guilty and I didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't want to keep on putting one word in front of another, one foot in front of the other, one breath after another.

I wanted it all to stop. Just go away and leave me in peace.

I heard every platitude there is. Everything happens for a reason. God doesn't give you more than you can stand. Danny wouldn't want you to be sad. You've got to stay for your kids. You're here for a special reason and you've got to do whatever it is that you're meant to do. Your life is not your own, you can't take it.

Only one person understood me and that person is vorpal. Only vorpal knew in some way what I felt and what I meant and why I had no faith in myself and how very much I felt like I took part of the shine out of the world.

The night I tried to cut the wrist, my left, I walked around and around and around and I cried and I screamed and I hit the wall, even though I'd promised Danny I'd never hurt myself over him. But when I made that promise I'd no idea how much he would hurt me when he left. How much of me was bound up in him and how little I could do besides miss him so much I couldn't breathe, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep.

I knew he'd be angry if I did it. I tried everything I could think of as I walked and cried and walked and screamed and walked and tried to batter my way back into my old life.

I prayed but I had no faith because after all that praying in the hospital did no good. I talked to Dan but I didn't hear his answer. I tried automatic writing. I tried meditating.

I finally broke down and called a suicide hotline. The line was busy. How fucking funny is that? Everyone who could helo me was asleep or speaking to others who were as bad off as I was or they were dead.

So I sat on the bed and I took the knife I bought at Balticon, very pretty, nice etchings, and I took it out of it's sheath and I held it to my wrist, I was only going to cut the one, and I said, if you don't want me to do this now is the time to stop me.

I had a clinical frame of mind. If my PT/INR levels are where they should be I think I am supposed to bleed 17 times longer than the average joe when he gets cut. How much was I going to bleed? Was it going to make a mess? Would it spurt? I was so detached from everything I just wanted to know what would happen.

God knows I had easier ways of hurting myself. I don't just take blood thinners I take klonopin for my night terrors. I bet sixty of those would have had an interesting effect.

But I wanted to bleed. I wanted to see what would happen.

What happened was nothing. I couldn't do it. I was too much of a chicken. Or something. I pressed the knife against my flesh and I watched and nothing at all happened.

Then I talked to vorpal about it and he said some things to me that I put in Carnal Fear. They were good things. Things that made me love him even more. But just as important as what he said was what he didn't say.

Oh yes, he did say he wasn't thrilled with what I had tried to do and he asked me not to do it again. But he never said I was insane. He never said what the fuck did I think I was doing. He never said it was all God's plan and who the fuck am I to fuck up God's plan. He never said I was strong and I could keep on. Well maybe he did but he never made me feel like I had to pretend to be strong when I felt as fragile as very old lace.

I don't think he ever lost faith in me. If he did he hid it very well.

He gave me a mantra a long time ago. I've had a lot of problems over the last few years and once he said to me that when I was sad or angry or felt like crying my eyes out to do this one thing, think this one thought, and say this one thing. I've used it a lot. It helps. I'm not saying it here because, although it was posted at PGL for all to see, it's for me and I'm keeping it for myself.

I haven't had a chance to talk to him much because he's starting a new job and all. But I am here now, a million times better than I was, crying over a tv show because of him. He kept me going when that was the last thing I wanted. He says I owe him nothing. Maybe that's how he likes to think of it. But I think I owe him everything.

I know I just wrote a lot about this thing I tried to do last year and it probably sounds very fresh but it's not. It's remote. It's like it happened a million years ago to another person. I've come a long way since that night when I was so sure I wouldn't ever make it to another day.

There are so many ways I know I am getting better. I don't want to list them now but one of them is that I went to visit a friend who is very dear to me and we talked a lot about a lot of things. One of them is how fucked up I am. A., my friend, thinks I'm a little off center but I'm getting there.

We went to see Counting Crows on Tuesday and then when we came back we talked for hours. We'd already been talking for days but now I could talk to him about Danny and I could smile and I could laugh and I could tell A. all the things that I learned from Danny.

He's never going to be gone from me. I hope he'll always be a part of me. I think that someday soon I'll think of him and I'll smile, like I'm smiling now, even a half smile and I'll remember all the good things he taught me and I'll think of all I did for him and I'll think God damn right it's a beautiful day and whereever he is is also a beautiful day.

I have a feeling this will be my last post dedicated to the misery and fear and anger that I went through over Danny's death. Onward and upward, without forgetting or disrespecting him.

Many thanks to Mr. E., Adam F. Duritz and all the rest who made the music that helped keep me going.

And to stranger and Carolyn and Janet and Dennis and Andras and Paul and Donna and Missy and Carpathian and Kevin and Mac and everyone else who helped. But most of all to vorpal and pao and A. Three guys that mean a whole fuck of a lot to me and have helped me in ways that I will always cherish.

So Dan, you'll always have a place in my heart but it finally feels right to say to you that it's okay if you need to move on now. I'm going to be able to do it on my own after all because you gave me the tools to do what needs to be done. I hope you understand what I mean. You should, you always did.