Like a Giraffe / Meghan Brown

Something New

“It’s amazing how often we’d take a bullet for the person holding the gun.”

And Sometimes We Just Sleep

(There are more of these here. Neon love letters in the grass. Maybe my favorite thing.)

1. The first rule is: Honey, it’s OK. It’s OK it’s OK it’s OK it’s OK. The second rule is: Shhhhh. The third rule is: Trust. Honey, it’s OK. Shhhh. Trust. It’s an endless loop. Sometimes I like to pretend it’s all for me. 

2. The last 48 hours were strange and beautiful and heart-shifting. Even the luckiest ducky gets thrown for a loop sometimes. We’ve had some special guests and some surprising revelations. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, etc etc etc.

3. I saw Follies at the Ahmanson and oh my was that show beautiful. Tug on every heartstring. A good reminder to keep carpe-ing. 

4. It’s amazing how completely relationships can shift. Lover to stranger to heart-deep friend. Soulmate to heartbreaker to cautious dinner-partner. We’re all in and out but sometimes the mess is the best part. I wouldn’t change any of you for the world. 

5. It’s Memorial Day weekend and I can my neighbors BBQ through the open window. They’re talking about owing over $100,000 in student loans. Shit’s getting real. The beers are popping and the worry is coming out. You’ll be OK, faceless strangers. Shhh. Trust.

Moments that Mean Everything

So May has been sort of ridiculous. Probably the most caution-to-the-wind perfect social storm I can imagine. 

For posterity’s sake: 

Week One

Drinks with Liz in Culver City. Lunch and study-time at Kaldi with Amanda. Lunch with Azi. Sober brunch with Nameless Joe. Wifey’s beautiful birthday party at Next Door Lounge with all of my favorite women. Cinco de Mayo madness in West Hollywood. Feeling community buzzing to my toes. The girls who knew me when. 

Week Two

Brunch at Rockwell and Mindi’s incredible thesis recital (complete with the most delicious tamales I’ve ever experienced) with beautiful Taylor. Hike and lunch with the amazing Ms. Eva. Mom and Mike visiting, two days at Disneyland. A few days in Millbrae with the new puppy. The Academy of Sciences at night with my brother (a memory I’m going to keep, that one). The Lady’s Tea at church. Mother’s day, all family snuggle and shish kabobs and cheesecake. <3

Week Three

Hookah with my favorite Cowboy. Brevity beginning again. Being pulled up on stage to judge an absolutely ridiculous all-female arm-wrestling competition (go Amanda!). Drinks after with Liz and Susan. Long chatty hangout (and scary-ladder climbing) with Aly. Big heart-to-heart with my Ms. Mercy. Killer LA date: Luna Park (ahi appetizer, scallops, nom), CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH (!!!!), and insanely delicious dessert with the boy who knows me best. 

Week Four

Visiting time with Jayne and Jim and Harrison on their way down to Anaheim. Avengers with a new friend. Making Psyche edits with Susan at Zuma Beach. More Brevity. A late night long walk with a good man. Morning bookstore date. Coffee with Amanda. Surprise fancy dinner at Canele with Taylor (split chicken/polenta, beet salad, cheesecake, and a lot of really good beer). Disneyland with Jayne, Jim, and Harrison at Disneyland. Date at Little Dom’s (softshell crab, incredible salad, cucumber cocktails). Cowboy hike. Follies with Heather et all at the Ahmanson, drinks after.

And that catches us up to today.

I’ve got to say it: I’m a lucky girl. <3

Time to buckle down. But. It was pretty awesome saying nothing but “yes” for the past 26 days. ;) 

Moments that Mean Nothing

I went grocery shopping yesterday and had to park in the Evil Trader Joe’s Parking Lot of the Damned. I got out of my car and saw one of those little chalky candy Valentine’s Day hearts on the asphalt. I stepped on it (not out of any malice, I just… uh… sometimes like to destroy things? I guess?) and it wouldn’t break. I tried again. Nothing. This was the chalky Valentine’s Day heart of steel. I flipped it over. The heart read “Love me”. 

Hmm.

*

Last night at Boardwalk11 an older couple got up and sang a Karaoke duet of Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong while holding hands and it was just beautiful. Liz and I stopped talking (which, in itself, is an indicator) and watched them in complete silence. They looked lovingly into each other’s eyes. They made goofy little hand gestures. They sweetly checked in with each other to coordinate movements. 

By the end we were both teary-eyed. That’s what I want to end up with, I told Liz. A partner. A buddy. Someone to get old and do goofball karaoke with, still with all that love on my face. Inspiring.

A few minutes later, the man from the couple approached the bar. Liz told him how much we’d enjoyed his song. 

Within fifteen seconds he was stroking my arm with one hand while the other was on Liz’s leg and had positioned his crotch so that it was resting on my knee. Have you ever had a strange older man rest his junk on your knee? Because it is not as pleasant as it sounds. And it doesn’t sound even remotely pleasant. 

Liz asked him, “Who was that lovely lady you were singing with?” 

“Oh, her?” he said. “I don’t know. I just met her ten minutes ago. Now how ‘bout I buy you girls a drink…”

Sigh. 

Don’t You Ever Show Us Your Bones

1. My hummingbird heart has stopped screaming. I say: epiphany. I say: Maybe you’re mine but we’ll have to wait and see. There’s no rush, there’s no rush, there’s no rush. This life is long even though it doesn’t feel like it, and the ending isn’t going to be happy just because I meet a nice boy. The happy ending is a life of value. And so. Let us be thankful. Let us value ourselves, let us make something of consequence. I think I was born to make true things out of pretty words. And so, again. Go to. 

2. I say: Thanks for dinner and slip inside. When the door scrapes closed I push my face against the wood. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, so I don’t. Instead I fold laundry, put my sheets on the bed. I lay down with my book in my clean house, the cat curls up against my stomach and I am quiet I am quiet. 

3. Cowboy’s moving away in September. I’d been hoping, almost, eager for the possibility that someone would let romance win. The news gets me oddly emotional, but I play it flippant and careless and cool: Gotta see about a girl? He says: Yes, miss. I tell him I’m happy for him, and I really am. It shows me something good. It shows that good people get good things when they are willing to fight for them. It shows me that people can be tied together in ways strange. I am better for having known that one. Rooms without walls and dancing on rooftops and remembering that I used to be wild inside. Every time he called me Tiger. That skipped beat, that little jump.   

4. Listen to Milo Greene. Really. My friend Andrew’s amazing band. They are about to blow up. You heard it here first.

5. Totally unrelated: but Sunday seriously has the best TV. Mad Men, The Good Wife, Girls, Veep. Mad Men in particular is just knocking it out of the park this season. 

6. Had a long talk with the wifey last night, and I needed it. I forget things sometimes. It’s good to remember. 

7. As of Saturday I will be blissfully, blissfully underemployed and I cannot wait. I’m going to take the time to write and excel domestically and exercise and just give myself some time. I need it I need it. Give it to me. 

Roche Harbor / Seattle

The first step was to get out of town. I had a few boys stuck in my head and no clean socks and was thick in the throes of everyone’s Internet-fueled existentialism and things were just not going well, OK? And so: bolt. Get the h-e-double-drumsticks out of Dodge. Look for a plane or a boat or both. And then just go. 

*

My lovely friends Deron and Azi got married this weekend in Roche Harbor, WA. It was my first vacation since Coachella last year, and it was a reminder of how good it feels to spend even a few days away. My mom and I went up on Friday and came home yesterday, spending an extra night in Seattle. It was awesome. HERE IS EVERY DETAIL ABOUT IT EVER. If you make it through the whole thing, you get an imaginary prize. 

*

Met Mama at Sea-Tac after two hours spent devouring The Family Fang. Right up my weirdo alley. I hummed all my old travelling songs. Leaving on a jet plane. La la la la la la, la la. Remembering splitting the headphones and kissing after takeoff. Can’t fight this feeling anymore. 

We rented a car, and I drove. Turns out that Washington is ridiculously beautiful. I could’ve driven forever. 

…Which I almost did. Eight miles from the Canadian border we realized we’d missed our exit, like, an hour ago. Whoops. 

*

On the ferry, two hopelessly in love hipster-kids in their twenties sit across from each other. He wears a poncho covered in what appear to be needlepoint hieroglyphics, and has the scraggliest beard I’ve ever seen. He plays a mandolin and sings in a reedy whine, his feet on his girlfriend’s lap. She takes pictures with an expensive camera, laughs gleefully as she massages his toes. My mother and I stare, transfixed. They don’t notice.

My mother says: I do not want a boyfriend who would pull his mandolin out on a ferry, and there’s something about her matter-of-fact snootiness that makes me laugh until there are tears running down my face.   

*

That night in the condo while my mom’s taking a shower I get in bed and have a glass of cheap wine and read The Family Fang and listen to music and feel the muscles in my heart unclench for what might be the first time in twelve months and three days.

*

I read the other day that the majority of time that we think we’re hungry we’re actually thirsty. We stuff ourselves trying to fill a void we can’t quite identify. 

We’re all mixed up, nowadays. We have no idea what we actually need.

*

The next morning my mom and I got up early and had Cheerios in our perfect little breakfast nook. We went on a long, wandering walk all around the island. Just exactly right. 

Later, we took the car out to an Alpaca farm and bought a bunch of finger puppets from a beautiful 6’3” blonde woman. (Sidenote: How cool are alpacas?) We bought every lavender product imaginable from the lavender farm down the road. For lunch, we had ginger red curry carrot soup at a diner in Friday Harbor and then walked around looking at the shops. 

I fell in love with an insane Wildfox hooded sweatshirt-poncho-cape that’s got a cheetah wearing sunglasses emblazoned on the front. It is nuts and noisy and not-my-usual-style but guys. The cheetah. Is wearing. Sunglasses. See Figure 1.

And even though it was silly expensive even though I’m trying to look more sophisticated-capable than fancy-weirdo even though I’m twenty-seven and need to start looking like a grown-up and blah blah blah… we bought it. Split the silly cost. Because sometimes you need to be reminded that there was once a really good day where you bought a ridiculous thing for the simple reason that you felt like you couldn’t live without it. 

*

Then: the wedding. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of weddings. Seeing two people love each other enough that they’re cool with telling everyone. Sincere vows and pretty dresses and celebration celebration. 

My mom and I had too much wine and giggled and made friends and danced. The food was great and my heart felt good. Yum.

My mother said: Marriage keeps love alive. 

Congratulations, Azi and Deron. Earned happiness. Wishing nothing but beautiful endless love and happy long unions and bliss. 

*

The next morning we get up early and go on another long walk. Afterward, we buy tea and sit on a bench overlooking the water. We talk about nothing and then all of a sudden I feel it bubbling up—all that fear lurking just under the surface—and the truth gets caught in my throat. My mother gestures to something behind me. I turn to look. The bench has a little gold plaque. Believe in your heart that something WONDERFUL is about to happen. She says: See?

I think I do. My heart unclenches again. 

* 

I slept in the car on the ferry ride, utilizing my travel superpower of being unable to stay awake on virtually all forms of transportation. 

My mom and I stop for lunch at a book-infested cafe called Adrift in Anacortes and split the Best Egg Sandwich Ever, no joke. The Best. Meghan & Jeanne’s Official Winner for Best Egg Sandwich Ever and Best Egg of Any Kind Ever. You guys. Seriously. That egg. Itwassogood.

(Also: when we were trying to decide what to split my mom was asking the server a question and said that we were looking for something small-ish “because we’re going to be eating our money today” instead of “because we’re going to be eating light today” and oh my God, I could not. Stop. Laughing. We are eating all the money today. All of our money, gone, gone, gone because we’ve chewed it up we’ve swallowed it all.)

* 

Pike Place Market was the perfect late afternoon destination. The highlight was the flowers—probably the most beautiful bouquets I’d ever seen. And only $10 for one of the big ones! I bought a bouquet even though we were only in town for a night. It was unquestionably worth it. Beauty beauty beauty. Enjoy it while you can. Too symbolic to point out the symbolism. Trying to get so much better about carpe-ing my diem. 

Oh, and also: FORTUNE-TELLING MACHINES! These are a few of my favorite things. 

Dinner that night was pizza and beer at a little place down the street. Two European guys asked us advice on American tipping customs. I downed a Stella and felt better and better. 

That night we left the curtains open to our view of the Space Needle and watched Roger and Jane take LSD on Mad Men. I finished my book and was overcome by how much I want to write something that sharp and specific. Sentences that shove you around a little bit. Fell asleep thinking: I wonder what my novel will be about. 

* 

Spent Monday morning puttering around. Another walk. Gift shops and museums and meditation circles. 

Tourist happiness explosion over lunch at the Space Needle. Have I talked about how much I love my mother? Because I love my mother so much. I am so lucky. She is the best woman I know. My mother is just incredible. 

We got cocktails and looked out over the view and threw Weight Watchers to the wind and it was amazing. A memory I’m going to keep. 

With a few hours left to kill we went on a Duck tour (dorky and goofy but fun). Spending time out on the water. Perfection. 

And then: the airport. 

My mom gave me the kind of hug that got my throat choked. Take the best care of yourself. And you know what? I think I’m finally ready to. 

Outsider/Insider by Jenny Zhang (Rookie)

There were nights when I stood there, trembling, with poems in my hand, wondering, How did I get here?

I got here because I had to get here. As soon as I stopped standing on corners, I began to find other misfits and explorers. So here I am, in it. Acknowledging it. Loving it. Wanting you to know that as much as it might look like nothing is happening right now, as much as you might think that it’s possible for a person to be this lonely forever, in fact, slowly, bit by bit, the dust that has been gathering in your corner will clear, and one day, when you are returning to your lonely place for the hundredth or thousandth time, you will be surprised to find that the dust is gone and there in your corner of the world will be people like you who have been waiting for you this whole time as much as you have been waiting for them.”

Ouch and yum and yes. Favorite. 

Almost May

1. Nochella for the first time in a good long while. Spent the weekend pining for the desert and ignoring everyone’s Facebook posts. Can you believe how much changes in a year? Because sometimes I can’t. Twelve months ago my sweetheart drove while my bare feet blocked the side mirror. My parents old van. Thirteen people and that perfect pool. Then there was the snap and crack and New York and the big split and then my new house and Davis and CRACK BOOM WHOOSH it’s almost May again. 

2. There is good news. Psyche is getting a full production up at Barnyard this summer and oh I just couldn’t be happier. 

3. Guys, I went home and it was perfect. My family, my friends. El Super Burrito and Lai Lai and Easter dinner and Pomelo with Valentina before a long walk and kitchen time pie and not-pie and thievery with Rachel long talks with Heather at a LOCATION THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED ON PAIN OF DEATH and there was a puppy and we all laughed a lot and my grandma and mama and I all got our nails done together and yes. Yes yes. It’s good to be reminded that there will always be a place where I am most myself. 

4. Then I came back and had a perfect bestie day with my Ms. Stenson and we split a bottle of champagne at brunch and got pedicures with little flowers and it’s good to reminded that there are all kinds of places where I am most myself. 

5. My heart is all tangled up and I’m tired of it. Setting boundaries and breaking them. Making all the bad decisions. Diving headfirst, always. I was wrong and I am wrong and I was right. Too much. So. Simplifying. Paring down. Deleting numbers from my phone for the second time. Needing to learn when to say no to dinner. There are always reasons to stay away. 

6. My hearts all tangled up and I’m tired of it. But there are still risks worth taking. Reaching to be my most gigantic self. I want to be the girl who leaves her ego at the door. You don’t know who someone is to you until suddenly you do. And so. We’ll see. You can never have enough friends. 

7. That said: Life is good. This weather opens my heart. All the hummingbirds at Griffith Park. I found a tree to climb that’s mine all mine. I’m percolating and bubbling and can feel my insides shifting. Summer is coming and it’s always my favorite. I like the sun even though I burn AND IF THAT ISN’T A METAPHOR, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS. 

Musings of an LA Tutor

Once, I was tutoring a girl who had a temper tantrum. It escalated until she threw a shoe at her father. She was screaming because I’d told her I couldn’t meet on Sunday nights, even though we’d agreed when I took the assignment that we’d be meeting Saturday mornings. Later her father called me, all that rage drained, his voice unrecognizable. You know how kids get,  he said. Yeah. I do. 

* 

I’ve had students who treat me like the help and students who treat me like a Great Educator beamed down from heaven to save their lives. I’ve been revered and crushed on and degraded and insulted and giggled with. I like teenagers because their hearts are so screamy. Too many thoughts too many feelings too much pressure too much fear and fear and always always too much love, so much love love love and nowhere to put it. 

* 

I had one student who felt like a little sister. 

Her parents were busy but loved her anyway but were never home but wanted to be. The best and the worst. She cried about boys after almost every session. I wanted to curl her up, pet her hair, tell her that everything would be fine. Tell her: It will always be OK. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. 

We discussed the need to practice emotional restraint. To guard your heart and your body. To be careful, always. To cultivate strong friendships. To respect yourself, to be self-reliant. To learn always, to try always. To send me an email any time. Those big brown eyes, that messy hair, those ripped up nails. I told her: Your superpower is being smart. Use it. 

She got into college but dropped out. Sometimes I wonder. 

*

The valley breeds reschedulers. They text me ten minutes before our session to tell me that they’ve got swim practice or mock trial or that they’re really sick or tired or that they just forgot. I’m usually relieved, honestly. I’m usually happy to have two extra beautiful hours to chase my own words or watch Grey’s Anatomy or get sushi at Gelson’s and read my book.

It’s the rescheduling that kills me. The when-can-you-fit-me-in. More hours stolen. More time ticking ticking away. Back in the car, back in the house, back opening that book, back and back and back and never forward. It’s not like these meetings just disappear. It’s all happening, one way or another. 

* 

One of my very favorite students was an ex-gang member who’d been shuffled off to live with his aunt deep in the San Fernando Valley. He was a horrible but passionate poet, and stayed after three or four times to read me his stuff. It’s all so sublime—words fell down my throat like strawberry wine. The end. He waited for my response. 

I said: How old are you? 

He gave me that withering look. 

A few weeks later I came to class and he had a fresh black eye from getting into a fight with a stranger at a bus stop two hours prior. How does that even happen? He told me that he’d been minding his own business, and some dude in a truck had started staring at him. Because he wouldn’t take that shit from ANYONE, much less some dude in a TRUCK, he banged on the guy’s window. You got something to say? And then, bam. Teenage fists and grown-up tempers. Big black eyes. But seriously, though, listen: That’s the least of my problems. 

He went on. Turns out his friend, newly eighteen, had stolen some old guy’s wallet, and used the debit card to buy a new shirt and gas for his mom and movie tickets for the entire cast of the school play. He’d gotten caught at a JCPenney’s trying to buy a stack of socks and undershirts. 

The old guy was pressing charges, and my kid’s friend was screwed. So he pointed his finger all around… and what better choice than my student? History of criminal activity. Seventeen, still. Not yet an adult. Someone for whom another strike against him wouldn’t be fatal. Not someone whose innocence would be easy to believe. 

My student was trying to decide to take the blame or not. His friend, he said, wouldn’t be able to handle it. He could. Juvie part whatever. Just a few more fights, which was OK: He knew how to fight. 

He asked my advice. I said: You should put something on that eye.  

After that week, he didn’t come back. 

* 

It is strange, being invited inside people’s homes. You see too many things but never enough. Just a little slice of what every day is like. What’s in the fridge. Who walks the dogs. How clean is the pool. 

It’s always surprising to meet the parents of problem kids. They’re usually really nice. They seem just as bewildered by their offspring, just as concerned and confused. Who’d have thought. 

* 

There’s always a girl who tells me I have pretty eyes. Always. She’ll usually come up to me, alone, about halfway through the course. Often times, it’s the first time I’ve heard her speak. 

*

I see so many rich kids. 

Houses that I’ll never afford. Schools my kids won’t go to. Opportunity disguised as real life. But you know what? Those kids are just as lost. 

I thought I’d have trouble with rich kids, but I rarely do. They’re trying just as hard, for the most part. They want it just as much.  

*

One of my kids was a scholarship student living in East LA. There were nine people living in her one-bedroom apartment, so when I came over the whole family moved outside and sat in folding chairs on the balcony in complete silence. Even the little kids. Her mom always offered me lunch in Spanish. 

Inside, we talked about how hard math was, how senseless, how gross. We made little songs about how much we hated fractions. We laughed and agreed we would destroy this goddamn test, we would pulverize it, we would get her a good score so she could go to UCLA and become a Dermatologist. Does that need a lot of math?  I told her I didn’t know.

One time everyone came inside while we were working and moved like ghosts, putting on dresses and taking silent pictures. The baby wore a New Year’s Eve hat; Grandma slipped into heels. After they’d left, I asked her what was going on. She grinned. My sister’s homecoming queen. She’s getting crowned right now.  

And you’re not going? 

I had tutoring. It’s OK. My dad is gonna walk back and get me later. 

I told her we could have rescheduled. It hadn’t even occurred to her. 

February February February

1. It’s Friday night and there’s nowhere I’d rather be. My little house, my little couch. Flowers everywhere and my sweet kitty and good dinner. Setting down to write for a few hours. Feeling the words in my fingers. Clean laundry in baskets. Caught up on the TV. I could honestly die. 

2. About Valentine’s Day: I wrote this and this. Sometimes I forget which things are true. 

3. Speaking of! Started the new gig. Next week it’s set to expand. Use the time to write and write and write. Let the words out. Practice the craft and go. Put in my 10,000 hours. How do you make perfect? Same way you get to Carnegie Hall. 

4. I paid $50 for this new blog layout on a whim and I hate it. I’m leaving it in case I somehow miraculously start liking it. I’m finding this unlikely. 

5. I NEED TO GET MY NAILS DONE SO BADLY. Trying to wait a few days so there’s enough of them to square off, but I might not be able to take it. My one strange girly indulgence. (I spend a lot of time looking at my hands.)

6. I’m over loving boys and into loving words. At least for the next few months. Blame it on the alcohol, but these last few dates put a spike in my stomach. It’s a cruel world and sometimes you’re the cruel one. Yes, I mean you. And me. And you. 

7. There are hurt hearts all around and I hope to offer something good. My people are the best. Reminder: remind them always. 

8. I’ve been climbing uphill lately in a completely non-symbolic fashion. Griffith Park in clear-as-glass February is maybe my favorite thing. Get the right music and BAM. Insta-happiest. 

9. Tonight, on loop: Let Me Know, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; No One’s Gonna Love You, Band of Horses (shush) (at least it’s not the Cee Lo cover); Explosive Mouth, T. Rex. 

10. I’ve definitely felt tested this week. Boys coming out of the woodwork. What kind of girl am I gonna be. It could go either way, but it really couldn’t. We are who we are. The tough shell is a tough sell. I am soft and gooey on the inside. But you’re gonna have to earn it. I am looking forward to ignoring you. 

Some things that happened in January, 2012

I had a birthday party and everyone came and it was pretty much perfect. The loves of my life all clustered around each other in my little house at my favorite bar. The warmest welcome. Heather stayed and played in the LA. The Chateau wouldn’t serve us, but we split popcorn at the Vista and I can’t think of a better start to what’s set to be my favorite year. 

I missed those small bones and shining eyes but truth be told I missed them less. Time did its wound-healing rain dance. We didn’t cry once. 

I spent a day—a full day—in bed reading. Just words words words all day long. I read like a drowning woman. Lifeboat words. Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the Kindle. The next morning I woke up with the biggest grin. 

Speaking of reading: January’s book list. A Visit From the Goon Squad and The Chronology of Water and The Art of Extreme Self-Care and Steve Jobs and Jewel of the Moon (my God that story is so good) and a bunch of my favorite Dear Sugar columns. 

I went on a hike with a friend whose sadness sometimes feels like my sadness, that’s how much I love her. She’s stronger than me—I’m a slow, whiney hiker; she prances up mountains like a little goat. Instead of being impatient she clapped and made room on the bench.

I got tired of the way my own damn tired words sounded and so I stopped writing them. We’re working on this. We’ll fix this soon. 

I kissed three different boys for three different reasons and all of those reasons felt true. 

I had fruit and tea with my beautiful, chattery, engaged childhood best friend and it was a reminder that the more things change, the more you still love the girl who knew you best. 

I had two foolishly long brunches (nine and twelve hours, respectively) with Taylor Katai, who is famous. 

I accidentally went on a date with a gay man. (We had so much fun!) 

I felt my face flush (three times!) when confronted with my own nature. I need to let that go. I’m a chatterbox with a heart of gold. HERE’S THE DEAL: I TALK A LOT AND LOUDLY. AND FROM NOW ON: UNAPOLOGETICALLY. I need to release the shame of making lots of noise. 

I went on all those dates. My God. All. Those. Dates. I did my hair and put on decent shoes and responded to messages and talked about my job and tried not to look bored or blank or tired. My dizzy head cataloged every stupid thing. I told the same funny stories and got excited about the same TV shows and covered the same stolen bases. And you know what? Despite the crippling nervousness and abject exhaustion, I had a lot of fun. 

A good friend wrote me a short letter from far far away and at the end he said: I miss you. Write and tell me stories. I think maybe that is the best end to any letter anyone’s ever written. I can’t think of two sentences I’d rather hear.  

I got a new job. Thank God. Now I am dually employed. The best part? I can now say that I officially write words for dollars. This here blog is penned by a professional. 

I was seduced by a snake charmer with smoke in his mouth. I got nervous and drank my tea with both hands. He said: C’mere, Tiger, there’s nothing to be scared of. I thought: I’m not so sure. 

I drove out by the ocean accidentally listening to the Civil Wars (Siri plays cruel tricks) and something switched over in my muddled mind and it might be silly, but things really have felt better since then. 

A boy I’m not sure if I like cancelled dinner that I’m not sure was a date and I responded like an adult human and not a cornered animal. I didn’t claw and cry like a beast. I said “No problem, call me when you free up” and it felt like maybe the most of all the progress. 

I’ve had a really, really good time with a lot of beautiful people. My little collection of loves-of-my-life. Not-pie and river walks and splitting the Greek plate and lunch specials at the Thai place and finally making it to Palermo. Cocktails and tall tales. No work, all play. January 2012. <3