The Incredibly True and Heartbreaking Tale of my First Hollywood Breakup, Chapter 3

Part A: You've got mail!

In no time at all, Amaris and I become flirty pen pals of sorts. I find that I can't wait to get home from work and check my email for a charming and witty missive from her asking me random questions about myself and telling me interesting factoids about her life. Turns out she is a film editor and has worked on some pretty cool projects. I play it cool and try to keep the star-struckedness to something of a minimum.

I do my best to ask her intelligent and thought provoking questions about the film industry so that she'll find me worthy of discussing such things. I ask her what is the difference between a movie and a film. I still remember the answer: Speed is a movie and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is a film. More of an example than an explanation, but I didn't care. I was having online flirtiness and I knew for certain that it wasn't someone's grandfather with whom I was carrying on such a fun banter.

This went on for months, during which she made another visit to Portland (to make good on that raincheck for a blind date with me) and, later, I flew down to L.A. to check out her world. We had a great time together and I liked her friends and her taste in music and restaurants.

Part B: Enter the U-Haul

We learn that we have a great deal in common (movies/films! music! Volvos!) and that we both love Portland. We each rack up some more frequent flier miles over the summer and then decide to move in together into a fabulous turn-of-the century home in the artsy and cultured Irvington neighborhood of NE Portland in the fall.

Part C: In Which Life Seems Grand

Life seems grand.

Even Jackie seems happy for us - or at least happy that Amaris is living in Portland. We decorate our home, take walks in our neighborhood, and listen to NPR in the morning before I go to school.

Eventually, though, as a freelance film editor, Amaris needs to work and the liklihood of landing such a job in Portland was relatively slim. So she'd have to take off to wherever the filming/editing took her: New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Seattle, etc. She even edited a film in Portland! Sometimes she'd be gone less than a month and, other times, she'd be gone for three or four months or so. No matter, though. I was a student at the time and relished the quiet that her absences left behind. We stayed in touch via email whenever she was away, so as not to rack up costly phone bills, and we'd occasionally send one another little "care packages" to help bridge the gap of the miles between us.

I honestly thought it couldn't get any better.

Until...