Things began to break down with Michelle and I wasn’t doing very well with it. In August, we decided on a “trial separation,” but I wasn’t willing to approach this methodically, and by September, I had quit my teaching job and I ran off (somewhat irresponsibly, I realize) to stay on my uncle Arthur’s land in Alaska. I cut trees and brush with a chainsaw (in the rain), and shoveled gravel (in the rain), and wrote a novel (sitting in a white van, in the rain). In November, I gave up on Alaska and on solitude, and I went to LA to stay with my father, who had recently divorced my stepmother of 21 years, whom I sometimes idolized. This was a very bad period for me, and so, closing out the year with a bang, I attempted suicide while parked alongside the Pacific Coast Highway north of San Simeon, and I nearly succeeded. I spent time in a mental hospital (the parallels with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance are, um, disconcerting).
[This entry is part of a timeline I am making using this blog. I am writing a single entry for each year of my life, which when viewed together in order will provide a sort of timeline. This entry wasn’t written in 1998 – it was written in the future.]
