There is one, I know, that’s waiting at the top of the cliff, some unknown, unfamiliar circumstance that I would somehow follow to the truth. What happens in Europe? I can’t foretell. But it’s some exotic goal, to find meaning in a strange place. If it’s not here, then where?

Coz it’s just like family. Our relationship to each other. Like we couldn’t let each other be unsafe. Because we do care about each other’s welfare. Like family. But not like lovers. Never again like lovers. I have to plead with him.

iRobot.. It’s like the future.

I believe that essentially, we are all good people. 

Thursday night, sitting in my days old mismatched pajamas and a heap of dry kindling on top of my head instead of hair, I watch “The Newsroom” on my hacked HBO Go account. OK it wasn’t really hacked, more like my ex-boyfriend gave me his Cable account user name and password before we broke up, and I decided to keep them. There’s gotta be some ethical or moral issue to that but I digress. The episode set-up is that the Atlantic Cable News Channel (fictitious name), ACN for short, had lost half of its viewers to a rival network. ACN decided not to report on the Casey Anthony story as it had been on a season-long agenda to “civilize” the people by only giving them unbiased, truthful news of national, historical, or worldwide relevancy. The head honchos come down on the crew forcing them to cover the story. 22 minutes of their 45 minute time slot becomes devoted to the public’s guilty pleasure, voyeurism on an attractive young woman who is being charged of killing and hiding the body of her own missing daughter. The time left for them to report on real, significant news, is reduced and could be researched by a small team of reporters working long hours, or the same team working less days. Mac, the News Executive Producer comments on her colleagues in the foreground, heads hunched at the blue screen on their computers while sitting at a bar. “Right now those guys are pulling a Friday night all-nighter on a three day weekend.”

This scene is where the self-realization starts. My self-actualization. Why are these fictional characters still working while on their allotted leisure hours? Why don’t they get along with their real lives? Why not watch a movie with friends, go to a restaurant, or veg out on a couch doing what I was doing (like binge-watching a tv show)? It was because their work, even if done on their off time, was what they actually wanted to be doing. Work and reality blends in, until work is not work anymore. You are just doing what you wanted to do but being able to earn a living from it. 

I dread my job. I dread going in there with a fake smile on my face as I fake happily prepare and revise the daily, superfluous paperwork that pass from and return to my fingertips. Was this what I wanted? A Job?

What do I want to do with my life? What do I want to do? What   do   I   want   to   do?

I like meeting new people, especially from places I haven’t been before. I like making friends with them, sharing stories, sharing food, laughing with them, giving them shelter, visiting with them in their home town, and having them show me what they think is important or relevant or beautiful. I like describing the people I meet. I like telling the context of my new friendships, in location, in dress, in way of speaking, demeanor, and in the different smiles that I encounter. I like endearing one stranger to another when otherwise they would not consider so.

There is, I want to call it, a disease, that most everyone suffers. It is FEAR. Fear is the instinctual friend for survival but it is also the cloak that treats strangers as enemies. What is needed is education that these words strangers and enemies are mutually exclusive. One doesn’t necessarily mean the other. The people of the world, despite our differences in culture, religion, indoctrination, are fundamentally similar creatures.We are a species that is capable of caring for each other, of empathy, and of peace. 

My “job” hit me then. What do I want to do? I want to make friends with strangers. I want to know who they are and show the world who they are as well. Profiles of “friends” all over the world who would dare welcome a “stranger” like me to their inner circle, their personal lives, or even their own homes. What little I can contribute to a far off dream, the default answer of beauty queens to the worldwide questions of what we all really want, I will do and want to do what I can, for #WorldPeace.

I’m afraid that I do like him. Something about him that remains after my superficiality, my bragging narcissism that wants the trophy boyfriend/fiancee/husband. I cannot seem to completely filter him away. He stays. And in his persistence, I noticed slowly, and developed a fondness, a trust, a comforting particular figure. Sometimes, I do see his profile and the 

Will he survive my search for happiness?

My Romantic choices are self destructive.

Sometimes your reality is marred by fear of others or distrust, or mistrust or perpetual bracing of a gasp. That we forgot there is another reality. Where everything we want is within reach, all we have to do is trust in ourselves completely once the plan is made. 

I have to be alone. 

Was the answer I was searching for. I buried it inside me because it was the unknown and I must trust in only myself completely. 

So.

Please leave me alone.

I do care for you, As a friend, as a lover, as both. And it’s very hard because I’m fond of both relationships. And it’s very hard for me to disappoint any of them. And I want to see both of them because I’ve missed them so much. 

But my friend and my lover decided it was best for them to not be in my life anymore. And I don’t know what part of me wept because I lost my relationships or because I was afraid of the unknown. Was it mostly fear?

I have to be happy. And I am not. Deep inside me I am not. I need to be the girl that doesn’t need you, but in the end, will I still want you? You’re right. I have to be alone or juggle being with someone in the process.

What is the plan?

MY STORY.

(brilliant).

I am afraid of the dark.

I can attribute my longstanding liaisons because of this part. One should just buy several night lights. 

But who in the end could really be there to withstand my grand delusions? The utmost following to either fantastic or Oedipal like ends? Or who would I follow? Is that the more important thing? That is where narcissism starts.

Continuation…

I enjoy remembering it.

I remember feeling the cracked edges on the sun-aged tablecloth. The ones I avoided while reading the tabloid magazines she had given me. She was a hunchback, short in stature,  who over the years didn’t lose her sympathetic smile. She had shuffled away from me after taking my food order. the usual, rice and chicken curry with carrots and potatoes, and fried wontons with sweet dipping sauce as an appetizer. The prices were more than reasonable here. The restaurant was small and undiscovered.

Sometimes, my hands would reach up to run through the short stubbles portruding from my head. A week ago, I had walked into a barber shop and asked the stylist to “cut it as short as possible.” He graciously accepted the responsibility as he knew some quivering self-discovery lay in the horizon. And the change happened as soon as the first foot length of hair floated down to the linoleum. Light crept in somewhere between the grooves of his hand and my changing reflection in the mirror decorated with cut-outs of Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Woods, and a woman who reminds me of Gene Tierney in “Laura.”

And it was that light again that made me look up as he walked in the door. Everytime I dare to remember, he glides in slow motion, blindingly so. I hold a gasp. The handsome man with the button up shirt, clutching a leather messenger bag was an image I remembered so clearly. Maybe the second turned into a minute. I looked down. My heart would betray me, I thought.”

How do I finish the story that turned out to be a lie? A lie your heart tells you in the hope that you’ll be happy.

But this is what happened after.

He did come in and I thought what would a man like that ever want with a girl like me? A girl with no hair, no spine, and a clear case of insecurity. I didn’t know. So I sat there, pretending to read these gossip magazines, hiding the tics of anxiety in my fingers and eyes. Don’t move too much April. Minutes heaped atop another filling the gulf between the only two people in that small, suffocating Thai restaurant. I had to end it.

Here’s where I have to reconstruct my memory.

Jen texted me about being late. So I  had to stay there and wait for either her to show up or for the food to be ready. And of course, the food was ready first. And I think I was glad. Because I sauntered to the front and I decided it was time to perform. This is when I will get the man to talk to me.

Cloaked in humility, dainty movements, and a childlike voice, I apologized to the woman just decibels enough for him to hear. She had called me up with my food ready in styrofoam to go containers, wrapped in a plastic bag, complete with utensils, a napkin, and a lone fortune cookie. I apologized that I had decided to eat there instead and I will help her put my food in plates. I didn’t look at him. I tried to grab bowls and she maneuvered around me like I knew she would. She expertly and nimbly pushed me back to my table and there, prepared my food for dining in. She smiled and left.

Did she know?

I think he knew the play was on because he took his cue.

“What’d you get?” He yelled at me from across the room.

Here’s where I’m able to look at him…. Yes, beautiful like I thought. In the corner, with a book in his hand, curly hair, and a leg folded up on the chair in front of him. Was he posing? I dared not look at him too long.

“Chicken curry and fried won tons. What’d you get?”

“Orange chicken. I’ve never had it before. Have you?”

“No I haven’t.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Do you live around here?” He continued the conversation.

“No, my friend lives in this neighborhood. I’m waiting for her.”

I forget what he says. It’s because I can’t hear him.

“I can’t hear you.”

He repeats it.

“I’m sorry I can’t hear you. You’re too far.” Obviously, an invitation.

On the next cue, his to go food is also ready. He goes up to the counter and asks for a plate. I half knew this was coming. I either planned or wished it. He walked towards my table and stood in front of me. “May I join you?” he asked.

“Of course. Would you like some won tons?” I offered.

The woman helps him set up his food and leaves with her knowing smile.

“Would you like some orange chicken?”

We sit content in our meal together. I think we asked each other what we did for a living, and where we hung out, and what each other’s names where in between mouthfuls of rice, exclamations of “this is good!”, and genuine smiles. He told me of the movies he helped produce and write and acted in. One of which was in a film festival in France or England and he looked so happy about it. His eyes had a quiet, glimmering hope and there was still wonder there that I remembered. And I, having just watched “Enter the Void” under an extraordinary influence, could not help but wave my hands empathetically while explaining to him how wonderful a movie it was. It was also imperative for me to show him the credits that are in the first thirty seconds of it. He explains he was also under an influence while watching the movie and could not remember it too much to understand my enthusiasm. But I think he was convinced it was worth a second viewing upon seeing the beginning credits from youtube on my phone. Embarrassment seized me for a moment.

And then, here’s where Jen walks in.

She looks at the boy I had texted a forewarning to her about and smiles at me. (I had also forewarned him that my friend was coming) “Hi,” a hint of puzzlement in her voice, “I’m Jen.” She reaches her hand to him and he introduces himself as well. She sits down beside me.

The dynamic changes but it is clear that we wish she hadn’t come. But we engage her small talk and give side glances to each other. Our conversation wasn’t finished. And Jen’s coming marked the beginning of the end of this little affair. Because, you see, I had a boyfriend. And romantic meet-cutes like this are not allowed to happen.

The minutes winded down, our checks arrived, and the hurried “I have to leave.. work reasons (true)…” finally came out. And from his leather messenger bag, he took out a small leather notebook. The one with the ribbon bookmark and elastic that wraps it shut. The one that I wished I had. He opened it up and readied a pen.

“April, before you leave, may I get your number?”

Oh my poor heart. I stood there with my breath in my throat for too many seconds and he was about to close his notebook. But I took the pen from him and wrote something else. “I’ll give you my e-mail. You should write to me.”

I wrote it in graffiti, the way I’ve always scribbled my name ever since elementary school. He was graceful in accepting this substitute.

I left before him but somehow we saw each other again at the door. Wee both knew that this would probably not happen again.

“It was nice to meet you.” I offered.

“It was nice to meet you too,” he stared at me. There was no judgement in his eyes.

Then, I got in my car and I watched him walk away.

Do I remember it raining that day? Or was it just a manifestation of my regret?

I forgot to tell you that his real world job was being a bar back at a place called the Hudson in West Hollywood. The Sunday of that week was when they would allow him to bartend. I guess it was sort of a big deal and he invited Jen and I to come. Free drinks, I think, was the hook. To me, his smile was the hook, line, and sinker.

When that Sunday came, on impulse I bought a dress. Would he like it? I bought it and changed into it all after work and went straight to Jen’s house to meet some visiting friends from our old college. The plan was to invite everybody to go to his bar. It was perfect, right?

But Jen didn’t want to participate in my dalliance that night. And she suggested instead to go to a bar close to her house. And I.. didn’t refuse. I knew it was wrong. The thought of it was wrong. I already had somebody. It would be a tragic mistake to ruin that trust. So I chose to forget Joey, the Hudson, and the Thai restaurant.

to be continued…

I was at the Gynecologist the other day. When I make an appointment for the OB Gyn, I always save around two to two and a half hours of my time. I know that in the first 20 mins, they will ignore me and I will waste battery time on my phone checking facebook. Then, they will give me a cup to urinate in. I once made the mistake of asking if they had water with which to help me urinate. You know, to drink. And the woman at the front squinted her eyes and made wrinkles around her mouth as she looked up at me. Judging me, I think, as she matter of factly, condescendingly said “No, we don’t.” And from then on, the assumption stayed with me that it is an aberration for doctor’s clinics to offer water, even if they request for you to pee more than once in a visit. (Not too shortly after that, I visited a doctor’s clinic which did offer water)

Anyway, after I have peed into a disgusting little cup that doesn’t have a lid and that I have to feed into a small metal door on the side of the bathroom to be flanked by other disgusting little cups of pee that I carefully try not to touch, I spend another 20 minutes checking my email, facebook, twitter instagram at the waiting room surrounded by people who would line up on the Friday after Thanksgiving outside of Wal-mart.

Then, they call me up to weigh me and take my blood pressure. Sometimes they ask what I do that makes me so skinny. I want to tell them I have good genes, don’t drink soda, or try to eat too much fast food. But there must be some secret that I have to share to make these ladies who are nice enough to not scrunch their face up at me when talking, be endeared to me. “I go hiking almost every day.” “Almost” being the key word here. It makes it seem like I go hiking all the time like five to six days in a week. This has happened on occasion when I’m unemployed. But, since I am “almost” always painfully employed, my hiking time goes down to once or twice a week if I’m lucky. I look at them with a straight face. “Where do you go hiking?” “Runyon Canyon most of the time, sometimes Griffith Park.” “Do you go by yourself?” “Yeah, usually, sometimes I bring friends but I really enjoy going by myself.” “Isn’t it dangerous? You should bring a knife with you.” OK, obviously these ladies don’t know anything about urban hiking. Most of the people I pass by on the mountain wear dayglo headbands, cut off tops, have conversations about their agents on why they did or didn’t take a project, complain about how drunk they were last night and how that much worse they are panting because they’re probably going to throw up, or the occasional couples who stare at each other’s butts while one of them is climbing in front of them.

“Noo… I don’t really need a knife. Maybe a granola bar and a water bottle but that’s it. It’s pretty safe. You should try it.” Then, I see the brief fantasy of hiking pass by their eyes and it is quickly gone. “Yeah, maybe one of these days.” The key word being “maybe.” “OK, go back to the other room and we’ll call you again.” By now, I am past hour one. My phone is halfway to dying and I am bored of everyone’s facebook statuses. I try to sleep at this time otherwise I just stare at everyone and imagine where they go to shop for spandex.

I’m called back again and this time I go into an interview room where they update my file. This is the interesting part where one of the nurses pretend like they’re the good cop in an interrogation room, ask how your day was and maybe let you indulge in some part of your life story and then quickly cut you off once their window based computer from the 90s boots up. “So you’re single?” “Yes, I’m still single.” Not obviously fake smile here. She painfully tapes her pointer fingers at the keyboard. “Are you still allergic to Amoxycillin?” “Yes.” “Why, what happens to you when you take it?” I see that this description part is not in the computer. “Umm.. I get sores all over my mouth.” So bitch don’t you fucking prescribe me any amoxycillin. “Oh OK. Under your Religion, it says CMC. Huh, what does that mean?” ” I don’t know what CMC is.” “Let’s delete that.” She slowly presses the delete button. “What is your Religion?” Hold up wait a minute. Why is my vagina doctor inquiring about my religion? Do I believe in One life or do I believe that we get reincarnated? Do I believe in a God or do I need proof? Have I had proof? Do I want to affiliate myself with church-goers, mosque-attendees, medicine-rejectors, or a cult of stress-relieving, alien worshipers? Do I want to be affiliated at all? If I choose to believe in one thing, I have to believe that there is an absolute truth. And whatever that truth is, is my perception of reality, and therefore what I believe in. But what if, I believe that there is no absolute truth, that we don’t know anything, and everything is malleable, alterable, and infinitely strewn with possibilities? Does this mean I believe in nothing or I believe in the possibility of anything.

My mouth opened as I tried to strain these thoughts into a simple, understandable string of words. “I’m undecided.” Her face moved from the screen in a shocked pause. Has anyone told her they were undecided about their religion before? “I’ll put ‘NONE.’” This was not what I said but I let it go as I filled out another questionnaire inquiring about how many sexual partners I’ve had this year. Now this was a real vagina doctor question and I had a concrete answer.

To all the people getting married, engaged, giving birth, and then gloating to me all about it, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

To all the men that pursued me, I ignored, then kept pursuing me, then I said Why Not, then they went Oh Never Mind, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

To my ex boyfriend who tells me he misses me, texts me non stop, asks me on dates, then when I finally see him for breakfast after 6 months, he tells me he’s not looking for a relationship but he really does miss me, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

To the guy that I’m dating who has a Japanese fetish, is secretly talking to a Japanese girl, and avoids the subject of exclusivity, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Really to all men here in LA, the world, in perpetuity, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

It wasn’t really supposed to be any day of consequence. What I remembered before the incident was that there was a recent change in my outlook. For years I would fantasize about what I would look like with very short hair. You know, like Halle Berry, Audrey Hepburn, Audrey Tatou, Nora Zehetner. These faces that would shine through the short hair when you would otherwise think you’re overlooked. I wanted it. The freedom it tantalized you with. A life with short hair, where people judged you and chose to be your companion, not because of the length of hair you have. Hair length for women, and to an extent maybe men, does pose different political strategies as the world seems to be easier for women with long hair. And a small part of the lust for short hair, was the temptation of the knowledge of would he still want to be with me when I cut off all my hair. He’d always threatened when I would ask to cut it. “I’d leave you,” was a particular memory I’ve forced myself to remember. So one summer day, remembering that I could, was able, had the capacity to, finally take those scissors and free my head. I told my friend about it. “I’m cutting my hair tomorrow.” “Oh really, I need to cut my hair too.” “What are you going to do with your hair.” “I’m going to cut my bangs. They’re getting so long. What do you think about me getting bangs?” “Yeah, do it!” “You think so?” She plays with the top of her hair and pretends to cut it. Then, she asks me what I’ve been waiting for her to ask. “What are you going to do with your hair?” I Pause, dramatic pause. “I’m going to cut it all of.” “What? What do you mean?” “I want to cut it all off. I hate my hair. I just want to shave it or something.” “What? No, don’t shave it. What? Is something wrong?” Maybe. “No I just want to cut it. I want to see what I look like.” This is true. “When are you going to do this?” “Tomorrow.” “Why don’t you just cut it short like halfway?” “No I want to cut it off.” “Wow.. That’s crazy. OK, you’ve got to take a picture and show it to me.” She waits for me to respond. This is the moment when I can renege on my decision. “Yeah, I’ll send it to you.” That night was my last night with my hair. I wore a fedora hat, my hair draping over one side of my shoulder, and I wore some ironic t-shirt. I took my hair out to Little Tokyo with my friend Jeremy and his acquaintances. I remember red lights, esoteric bars and an after hours house party. I was introduced to K and I thought it harmless. The slow acid trance music played and I sat in front of a bare wall, a projector playing arthouse images on the wall and me. I stared at the crowd for a while. I needed a change. It was in me.

The next day, I downloaded pictures of women looking enticing in short hair. I was getting excited. I played a Roman Holiday clip of Audrey Hepburn getting her hair cut short over and over again. I picked up the phone and made the appointment. “Two hours from now? Yes, that sounds great. I want Michael Anthony.” It was set. I strolled into the shower, my long hair grazing my back. Blowdry it. Straighten it. I had recently dyed it red. It’s faded now but the golden hues shine in the sunlight. Didn’t matter.

 

“Although Gene was white there was something of the wise and tired old Negro in him, and something very much like Elmer Hassel, the New York dope addict, in him, but a railroad Hassel, a traveling epic Hassel, crossing and recrossing the country every year, south in the winter and north in the summer, and only because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars, generally the Western stars.” — Jack Kerouac, On the Road, ch. 4

 

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was–I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that’s why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.” — Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Ch. 3

The truth is always sweeter the first time around.

So I spend the whole day at home, wrapping another commercial I’ve worked on. There was a feeling that was slowly rising from what seemed like the connection of my stomach to my hands. It was the despair I was afraid would manifest sooner or later. And it did today, like a raw, concentrated darkness; a phantasm of fears that escaped, combined in spirit, and finally possessed me.

I took it to dinner at one of my recurrent haunts; the Vietnamese noodle restaurant in the middle of Silverlake. I felt like the people who dined there, cooked there, served there, understood me so my defenses didn’t have to be so high. It was one of the few places that maybe I could find someone who I wouldn’t mind talking to. Anyway, my stupor and I, we yelled at each other in the car on the way to the restaurant. We parked on one side of the four lanes of Sunset Blvd. And we sat there for a few solid minutes in the darkness, yelling, brooding, crying, letting the numbness sink. And then we talked each other into crossing the busy street into the restaurant. And I blinked at the person at the front counter, grinning through gritted teeth, asking quickly if I could sit at the downstairs area. She didn’t see our inner struggle.

I walked down, sat at a booth and I think I stared out into myself; at the wall in front of me. A woman named Yuni came up to me with a menu. There was no use really looking at anything else. I always get the same thing.

She comes back and I order a Pho Tai. Maybe I should order some wine? No. “What tea do you like here?” I ask her. This is the first time we venture outside of the normal server and customer conversation. “Orange blossom is good.” I squint my eyes at her and she tries to think of something else.

“What’s something calming?”

“…There’s no chamomile..” She peruses longer the same choices she already knows. “Jasmine.”

I agree and order it.

“Whats your name?” I ask her.

“Yuni, what’s yours?

“I’m April.”

“Now, I know your name!”

“I always come here.”

“I know. But you just keep to yourself. You order, you eat, you keep quiet, and then you leave.”

Yes that was me. I smile.

Maybe this part of the conversation happened sooner or later but she says, “My birthday is in April.”

“Oh yeah? My birthday’s in April too. What’s your day?”

“April 29.”

“Mine’s April 27.”

Her eyes grow bigger. “We’re the same. How would you describe yourself?”

“Calm. Intellectual.” Well, I am.

“I’m calm too. Really mellow. Do you laugh a lot? Even when you’re sad?”

“Yes! I do! I laugh when I’m sad, when I’m angry, when things are going crazy.”

She laughs.

“Because it’s funny!”

We both agree.

I admit, “I was just laughing before I got here. Because I’m sad.”

“I’m sad too.  I was just crying five minutes ago. And now I’m laughing. What are you sad about?”

“I fell in love. And the man finally broke my heart. I knew he was going to do it before I got into it. I knew. And it finally happened.”
 I smile at her again. She understands.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sad?” I ask her.

“My mother’s in the hospital. She had a minor heart attack. And I find out my niece was being molested. By her babysitter’s husband.”

The world is put into perspective.

Then she smiles, tears on the tops of her eyes. She hugs me and tries to comfort me when she is the one who needs love.

My selfish mind doesn’t realize this. I eat the pho she puts in front of me, mind in a cloud of the glass of wine I had drunk prior to driving here. But my emptiness is quelled for a moment. Thanks to the woman who thought she had no other strength to give. The last of it she gave to me.

At the end, she slips me a small glass of wine. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.” She giggles a bit. I want to hold her hand and let her cry.

I drink the soup, the tea, the water, the wine. And I am full and full. I stop behind her before I leave and give her a hug. She asks, “do you feel better?”

“Yes.” I did. Even if it was a little bit. “Thank you.” So I left Yuni there and the voice calmed for a while.

But after I closed the door behind me, it came full force again. Why is loneliness such a powerful creature?

I walked to my car with the same halfway death wish. But no one ran me over. So I got in, drove off, and passed the Vista Theatre and the Los Feliz 3 Theater. Nothing appealed but “Looper.” “No you don’t wanna fucking see that again!” I yelled at my weak self. She wanted to watch “Looper” to dwell on his memory. The memory that imagined he was Bruce Willis traveling to the past, thinking of the woman who saved his life in the future. His future wife. Maybe that future wife could be me. What a strange fantasy. “Don’t fucking watch Looper,” was good advice.

Home again, the bouts of talking loudly to myself are getting worse. I lose awareness when I’m doing it now. I’m afraid this will happen in a group of people and they will all know how removed from reality I am.

And then I called Nick. I wonder if I’m using up my friendship favors with him. I’m the girl who calls him way too often from across the sea. He lives in Taiwan. I hope I’m not hurting him. Sometimes I just get so lonely, and I think I left some part of myself with him, and I need that part to interact with me.

I have this fantasy of walking from Glendale at dawn all the way to the ocean, or at least how far the sunset will take me. Friday’s a good day.

Good Night.

 

 

I’d thought I should write about all the wonderful things that happened to me before I could start writing about the present. But I’ve realized, I’ll probably never write about the wonderful previous things that happened. So I will just start writing.

Now, I’m at the Shrine Auditorium. A beautiful old thing with Moroccan like awnings, and really a curious spirit to it. Right now it is filled with workers in black, managing long rolls of cable, and waiting for the next couple of hours to pass quickly so they could clock out. No one looks up and sees the green and orange, chalk like borders on the rafters here. I am trying to see more of the beauty in things. Sometimes, it’s really difficult to force yourself into this. It’s an awareness that requires energy; enough so to transplant you to another way of thinking. I think it’s almost as much energy expended when you’ve realized you’re dreaming in the middle of a nightmare and you force yourself to wake up. Almost.

I have had a great many heartbreaks this year. I don’t like to admit it since they shame me; the admittance and the self pity. There are also a great many accomplishments I have helped actualize. But my heart, my head, gets stuck on the romantic failures, disappointments. So much so that I work harder on multiple avenues for distraction, for something to fill the big loneliness, the big hole, the void that’s left. Is that too much of an abstraction? I long for something to fill it but nothing short of profound and all-engulfing, all-encompassing, extraordinarily suffocating, would suffice.

And it isn’t death.

So only burning both ends and inside out and running through entropy can keep me occupied. I wish. Seconds are misleading though when your’e awake and aware embracing bittersweet memories around them. Words are fun to perform acrobatics with.

Do I really need to tell a story. I like the abstract. I like the unsaids. I can tell you I’m sad but not why. Why do I have to? For memory’s sake?