This might end up being one of those posts that I wish I had written in my notebook instead of sharing it with the world, but I'm tired of writing in my notebook after seven weeks of being unable to type. Thinking that the world gives a crap about my problems is vain, and creating a document that only I will see is masturbatory. Maybe I'm about to make a big mistake by posting this.

Fuck it. It damn sure won't be the first big mistake I've made.

The thing is, usually I am able to learn something from failure. Failure is seldom a total write-off. It's usually a wash. You fail, you learn, your cosmic balance on the deal is even. You might even net out ahead if you learn enough.

Thing is, these days I keep failing and not learning, and I'm trying to cope with the biggest failure of my life, hands down: the breakup of my marriage. Every time I scoop up some pieces and glue them together, they fall apart. Now the whole thing is being crushed into dust and blown away in the breeze, to my horror. I have twelve years heavily invested in this relationship. I love this woman. She loves me -- I know it. But I guess we can't be together for the rest of our lives as two partners in a family. This is killing me. It is quite literally driving me crazy.

No, I'm not a stalker. No, I'm not going to go hurt myself or anyone else. Let me give you an example:

The other day I was riding the 7 train. It was a gorgeous, sunny, fairly warm day. I was on my way into the city to meet people. A song comes into my head. I hear it -- every instrument, every note, every accent, every beat, some powerful voice (definitely not mine) belting out the lyrics -- in my heart, my head, my bones. This is weird. I start crying my eyes out, uncontrollably. I did manage to suppress the sobs, and I had my sunglasses on. I put my head down to hide it from the other passengers, but the lenses filled up with little pools of tears. I took them off, cleaned them, the tears streaming from my eyes directly to the floor without the lenses to catch them. I put the shades back on, sat up straight, breathed deeply. The breathing made me sob a little, and the tears would not stop rolling out from under the lenses and down my cheeks. Other passengers noticed. I felt like some kind of freak. This is not the weirdest thing you'll ever see in New York, not even close, but it's still uncomfortable for me to be "that guy."

Anyway, after it was over, it felt OK. I have felt like I was on the verge of crying all week.

Here is where it gets funny, the weld where the mask of comedy is fused to the mask of tragedy. My wife (we are still married, technically) called me not one minute after the crying episode. I sort of whispered into the phone that I had cried. She asked why. I told her in the lowest tone I could, "Just thinking about a song."

You know what she heard? She heard, "Just thinking about your thong." But I didn't find that out until many hours later. Later that afternoon, she called me repeatedly as I lay in the dentist's chair, my ringer off. I forgot about the ringer or maybe just didn't want to talk to anybody on some subconscious level. Hours later, at 8:00 or so, I look at the phone and see that I've missed about 20 calls, mostly from her. I call her back. She invites me over. I go. She says, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Crying about my thong? What the fuck?"

I broke out in maniacal laughter. She had been worried about me. I don't know where this relationship is going -- probably dead as a marriage -- but it sure has been a wild ride.

If I'm honest about it, the breakup of our marriage is all my fault. It's amazing that she put up with me for as long as she did. Can you imagine being married to a nut like me! Can you imagine a nut like me ending up with such a great woman? Of course it's over. I fucked up a good thing, as usual.

I have failed so many times, but this feels so final. When I took my vows, I took them seriously; I imagined the two of us together, old, having raised a family and shared our lives. I never saw this coming. It's not like failing at a marketing campaign where you learn from it and press on. It's not like failing to get your totally amazing screenplay produced -- or writing a crappy screenplay and knowing it. It's not like that. This is like, "You failed at the most important aspects of life: Love and family."

Heavy. Makes unemployment and deformed, chronically inflamed fingers seem like no big deal. I don't know how to deal with this at. all.

Not that anybody cares. This probably belongs in a notebook, not all over the Internet.