Like a Giraffe

1. It’s fall it’s fall it’s fall it’s fall it’s fall and I’m so happy. Curled up in a sweatshirt on the couch. Spaghetti dinner. Mist in the morning. Bring it bring it. I’m tired of the sun and I’m ready for this season of death, ready to watch the year come to a close. Pause and begin again. Exhale, see your breath. 

2. The big news, the news that churns my heart: This is Happening Now is going to be published. It’s going to be a real book you can buy. My name on the pages. I’ve got an editor and a small advance and a contract to sign. I might not love anything as much as I love books and now I have one of my very own. 

And I’m so glad that this is the first one. Everybody’s name in the credits. Our little pink hearts in that little black box. That one moment that made me cry every night. Merce’s monologue of my favorite dream. The light on her just perfect. And it was always this moment for the three of us. My words and Merce’s voice and Karyn’s lights. I want to be a goat turning into a bird. I want to be a goat turning into a bird. I want to be different fron the way that I am. 

3. I’m taking the rest of the year off. 

Not totally, of course. I’m gonna teach a couple of classes. Keep a student or two. But for the most part: I’m done. 

I can’t give all my time to something that stifles me. I sound like an asshole, but it’s true. I’ve got to glow brighter. I can’t just keep sitting in the dark wondering why I can’t see. 

I have savings. It’s time to use them. Money in the bank from a year and a half ago… I’d like to think that I’ve been saving it for this moment. These months where I’m not overwhelmed with sadness, not overwhelmed with loss. These months where I’ve got stories ready. These months where the only thing I need is time. 

So there we go. I’m going to live cheaply. Be frugal. Teach reasonably. Eat sensibly. Exercise regularly. 

And I’m gonna write like a motherfucker. 

4. Jim Gavin’s Bermuda, featured in this month’s Zoetrope, is a stunner. The kind of LA I live in. 

Their squalor was carefree and strategic. The bong-water stains on the carpet, the mangled torchieres in the corner, the crumpled bags of Del Taco—all these elements helped them appear frail, lovable, and human, when in fact they were members of a band.

It was a happy time and I couldn’t wait for it to end. 

5. Karyn and I have still been climbing in circles at least twice a week. Up up up those dust hills. I still have to stop, but I’m getting better. I can feel it in my legs. 

1. The best way to honor who we’ve been is to become who we’re meant to be. I will keep on truckin. Thank you for the note, thank you for the reminder, thank you thank you thank you. Always.

2. Wifey and I have been hiking like little goats. Walking in circles. That big Griffith loop. It takes slightly less than two hours, and gets easier every time. I’ve come to look forward to early Tuesdays and Fridays. Put one foot in front of the other. Talk it out. 

3. Booked a house in San Diego for Taylor’s birthday weekend. Oh so excited. 

4. Downtown tourist day today. The Central Library and Angels Flight and dinner and the Edison. Excited. Maybe a birthday party later in the evening. Saturdays are my favorite. 

5. Writing at Bon Vivant, which I am obsessed with. It’s gorgeous, within walking distance of my house, there’s never anyone here, the food is fantastic, and they don’t seem to mind me camping out all day. MASSIVE, MASSIVE improvement over Kaldi (which is within walking distance of my house but is generally terrible). 

6. Hoping to get done and ready to go by 11:30 so I can hit the beach for an hour before work at 1 in Malibu. This life = not so bad. 

6. My house is a disaster, but I’ll clean it tomorrow. 

7. Been thinking a lot this week. Moreso than usual. YES, THAT IS A LOT OF THOUGHTS. Richard’s passing brought up a lot of feelings about that magic adolescent time. Where’s that girl now? Always a reminder to work harder and harder and harder. Life is good but there are boxes that got lost in the fire. 

8. Walking around my neighborhood this morning reminded me that I really love my neighborhood. 

9. Susan gave me a ton of clothes that she was getting rid of, and now I basically have a whole new wardrobe. I’d been looking for a makeover… looks like Meghan2.0 is Susan circa 2008. 

11. There’s a degree to which I feel like I’m finally back after a lengthy vacation. Things are starting to feel normal again. Bossypants. Crossing my fingers that the lost year is over. Spitting words out left and right. Nothing else to go on. Time to pretend. 

Write more no matter what. 

Make lists. 

Be grateful.  

Sing. Sing sing sing. Don’t waste love. 

Don’t waste time. 

Value yourself. 

Eat a combination of what you want and what is good for you. 

Practice moderation in moderation. 

Write more no matter what.

Write more no matter what. 

Write more no matter what. 

Try to stop comparing yourself to strangers. 

Love your happy toes. 

Massage your fearful heart. 

Quiet the noisy brain. 

Pet the cat. 

Push the keys. 

Light the match.

Start the fire. 

Selfish weekend but I roll around and revel in it. Saturday: Killer butt-burning hike with the wifey. Walking in huge uphill circles and talking talking talking always. Have I said how grateful I am that my girl is home? Making grand plans. Went home and wrote. Took the longest shower with that perfect song on repeat. Made a perfect fancy lunch. Got the car washed, got my nails done. Purple fingers and turquoise toes with hot pink flowers at the place around the corner.

Then Chinatown Summer Nights with Eva and Joe and the artist formerly known as Mikey Soda and then Elizabeth and some of her friends. We walked around and got Chinese-Mexican fusion and watched the dragon dancers and saw a magic trick where a girl’s hand got cut off. We looked in some galleries and saw some shady alleys and then we went to a crowded sweaty red-hued bar and ordered Scorpions and I tried to get everybody to dance. 

Work today, then Kay and Dave’s for a post-mortem with Elizabeth. Chicken mole quesadilla and tortilla soup and chips and salsa. Used up all my points but what. Tutoring in Malibu, driving down with the right song on the iPod and the ocean sparkling. Quickie Brevity audition. Home for a long nap and then cooking dinner in my underwear. Heading out to see some friend in some band with Karyn in an hour. 

And tomorrow lunch with Eva. Tomorrow dress rehearsal for Tuesday’s reading. Even the bad things are good. And years from now when I’ve gotten what I wanted I’m gonna look back and be glad about these selfish years. I don’t have time but I have enough time. It’s just me. Learning to settle into that. It’s just me. That’s OK. It’s not gonna last. Promise. 

It’s been awhile. My summer heart beats on. Everything is cemetery movies and sweat and that same pair of light green shorts that Susan gave me. Life is small and compact and oppressive and perfect and salt-streaked and hot. We’re waiting for the heat to break. It’s taking awhile. 

Things to not-forget: 

Wood and Vine with Karyn and Taylor. My favorites favoriting each other. Sleeping on the sofa. Locked out in the morning, banging on Tay’s door with my shoes in my hand. Making friends with the guys working on the roof next door. Lunch with Taylor and Pat. 

Mindi’s boyfriend’s birthday at the Whaler in Marina del Rey with Claudia and Taylor. Sweat and sweat and sweat. 

Meg’s movie at Grauman’s. Starring larger-than Liz, shoomed up on that big screen. 

A shockingly enjoyable date with the least likely person. Tribal tatts and soul patch. A runaway with a record and a heart of gold. Sometimes it’s nice to spend a night as a different person. Playing with my hair at the W. Considering going to an all-night dubstep club. Getting another gin and tonic. 

Favorite party at the Red Lion. My girls and girls and boys. Officially sealing my third-best-male-friendship with Nameless Joe. Acting like a college kid. Rehashy brunch and blush the next day. Bury my head in the sand. 

Lunch with Benjamin, who I miss talking trash shop with.

A beach day by myself in Malibu between students. Bought lunch and a chair and oh the sun the sun the sun the sunscreen and the ocean calms the spirit.

There’s more but I’ve already forgotten. 

*

Sunday night I went on a date with a successful TV writer. He was too old for me. I’ve dated thirty-seven-year-old men and it’s felt like nothing: this was different. This was a man who knew about wine and booked complicated vacations and invested in impeccably-maintained antique furniture. He was the kind of smart that makes everyone in the room seem smart. And kind. We talked about books and TV and our own teetering attempts at connection via free dating websites. He discussed working with Aaron Sorkin, crushing on Elizabeth Gilbert, going to school with Sarah Ruhl. I had to fight the impulse not to lie and tell him that I’d lost my early twenties to drug addiction and a bad marriage, just to prove I’d been doing something.  

I thought of what it would be like to kiss him and it felt like nothing, but in a totally different way. So I didn’t and he didn’t and there’s another evening spent with someone that I’m never going to see again. 

* 

I’m directing a reading of Pat Burns’ Madwomen and I’m really enjoying it. It’s nice to be back in the room, shaping things. I like directing better than writing but it takes things from me. It brings out the best and worse. I almost love it too much. I remember Glass Menagerie and feel my throat close up. This is a simple thing, so no pressure no crazy no turmoil no consummation. It’s just nice. Hearing pretty girls sing. 

* 

I’ve lost 13 pounds and am starting to see it in my face. I’m going to keep getting smaller until eventually I just disappear. Wait and see. 

* 

Currently waiting to interview new Brevity writer candidates. It’s hard. I am obsessed with our secret bestie triad and don’t want some young whippersnapper coming in and fucking things up. Hard to remember that change is good. 

* 

August creeps closed and still some things the same. I wonder how long it takes for things to change. Maybe years. Maybe in my next lifetime I’ll be the kind of girl who makes it work on the first try. Until then: shhhhh. 

I left school three days early and got the hell out of Dodge. Tacos with Susan and getting hooked on my book on the flight. 

The director picked me up and took me to the barn and my God. Finally. Finally finally. Finally I’m not just this terror princess schoolteacher finally I’m not just this ill-fitting skin. Finally I made something. I wrote that. They tested the projections and my mouth filled up with copper. Dust and bugs and all these people crawling in this world I made. They will blink with huge green eyes and shed their skins. 

Stayed at the theaterbarn being useless til after 3. All wrapped up in cheetah poncho. Cold means nothing. Fell into bed a happy kid. 

Next day slept in wearing my own skin. Went to lunch with Brian and exposed all the raw nerves. We are who we are. 

Went to Davis cable access and had a really good time talking about the play on In the Studio. Telling origin stories. Nom. 

Slept hard and then went back to the theater. All curled up. Final dress. Proud. Happy to be there. 

Next day: Opening. Read my book all day at the picnic tables outside the Nugget. My legs in the sun. Bought muffins for breakfast and sushi for lunch and took languid notes in my notebook and finished up Gone Girl (which is pretty much the most perfect vacation read ever).

Went home and did my hair and then all of a sudden Skippy and Rachel were pulling up perfect and we got yummy delicious dinner and I was nervous but the OK kind and then BAM opening. I hid at intermission, I listened to Milo Greene out back behind where no one could see me I said a prayer to the stars called thank you thank you thank you. 

Afterwards it was like it always is all my jangly feelings bubbling up so many people and no way to say the right things with my always tied up tongue and it was six years of work and sometimes that feels silly even when I know I should wear it like a badge of honor. 

And oh I missed my two best girls I needed the two who’d cry with me. Karyn and Merce and I clinging to each other outside of The Glass Menagerie. It’s important to have people who know how to to perfectly love you the night your play opens. 

So Rachel and Skippy dropped me off and I started to cry and call Karyn but there was no reception and then DING DONG DOORBELL Rachel and Skippy were back and this time they had booze. 

I drank whiskey straight and felt those hot coils relax inside my throat and we told stories and rehashed the same old gossip and when you came in I could breathe again. Whew. 

Next day. Hot hot heat. Walk to the Nugget. Have another muffin. Just read and read like it’s nothing, like this is what my life is like. Just resting. Waiting for the good thing. Another Gillian Flynn novel. Such sad girls. 

Then my parents and dinner again. We walked around Davis. Sweet small town. Hung out at the hotel then moved out to the barn. Really hot. Stressful. My dad can’t sit and my mom can’t hear and everybody’s sweating and five people left and it’s hard for me not to take that personally. I mean: I know. I know I know. It’s hot, but. But! I want plays so good you could be on fire and you’d stay put. I want stories that bind you with ropes. But. It’s important to accept. Calm. 

Drinks with the parents but I couldn’t hack it. Fell asleep on the sofa immediately. Out like a light. 

Taught via Skype Sunday morning. Read my book. Meeting with a girl who works at a neat publishing house. Meeting with Brian about The Future of The Play. Important stuff. Reminds me of college. In that best way. And then. 

My sweet Alex Moss. Tiki cocktails and all the catch-up and then a BBQ out by the barn. That girl loved those goats. My sweet Denver. One of the beginning ones. Means so much. Everybody. Flowers from the Barnyard people after. A few pictures snapped on-set. My heart, my heart. 

Alex drove me back to my parents house perfect. Sneaking in with flowers and new sweatshirts and a suitcase in the middle of the night. Woke up dreaming the next day. Home.

And then it was all relaxation. Working and working and taking long walks with my mama and the new puppy and sleeping enough and eating well and just shhhhhh little hummingbird heart shhhhhhh.

The full family (minus the brother) at Lai Lai. Grandma over for dinner. Harrison’s birthday party. Good good Grandma time. Jayne’s friend said my Grandma and I seemed like two teenagers and it’s true. Love the most.

On Wednesday Merce AND Andrew were on TV. Watched both shows from Rachel’s housesitting house with the tipsiest Alex. Perfect warm feelings. Love so much. All these beautiful ones.

Brunch and long walk with Valentina and yes. Always so good. My stay-the-same girl. Always easy to just pick right up.

Then time to drive me home. Mama and I went to Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach and I loved it. I. Loved. It. Make fun of me all you want. Brought me to tears. The theme was genius. Genius. Such beautiful work.

Monday was Village Bakery and a long long long walk then shopping around town then Mixto for tacos then Costco for mom-sponsored freezer-stocking. Then Brevity meeting. Tuesday was long walk then Central Library and yummy downtown lunch then Griffith Observatory then The Dark Knight Rises at the Vista. Trader Joe’s and cooking in my tiny kitchen, eating out on the patio. Mama. 

Now today I’m back just me and playing catch-up. There’s a lot of real life to remind myself of but I’m finally feeling good I’m ready to make a change. It’s a confidence game, and I’m playing. Throwing my hat in the ring. It’s go time. Vacation’s over. 

Sometimes you wake up at 4am at your parents’ house in your old bed in your old room surrounded by your old things your piles and piles of books your stacks of pictures your stuffed lions your white wicker bookcase sometimes you wake up at 4am in a perfectfamiliar old place and you know exactly what you need to do. 

Note: This is probably not very interesting to you unless you are a) me or b) uh, yeah, never mind. BUT. I’ve been thinking a lot about the play lately and felt like recording a little bit of the process (mainly so I don’t forget). WHEE. Anyway. Skip it or don’t, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you. SENTIMENTAL SHENANIGANS GO.

* 

Psyche started in 2006 on my bed at my parents’ house in Millbrae, California.

I’d gotten a $1,500 SURP grant to study abroad and write a play about it. Yum.

I’d spent the summer getting into trouble and it was time to work. That first scene between Peter and Psyche came out of nowhere. In this first version, Vera had covered up Peter’s suicide by saying that he’d died in 9-11 (…yup). Lucy, a mysterious journalist (who got axed somewhere around 2008) was the main character. I typed and typed. There was no ending and no middle just a beginning. 

* 

I started bringing the pages to Culture Shock meetings. Just me and Michael Morales and Denver talking and talking and talking. Who are these people. I love them so much already. Drama 143 or the Cyber A. 

*

One time a guy that I was dating came to visit me and looked over my shoulder while I typed up the scene I was bringing to that day’s meeting. It was the first time I was aware of my process: copy, paste, write, erase. Moving it all around until it stopped making sense until it started to again.

*

The first reading was through Culture Shock at UCI. Merce and Karyn and Taylor and Sean Spann and Benny Wills. My ex-boyfriend drove an hour and showed up without telling me. I was onstage introducing the actors and my heart went whoosh. 

That night over pizza and beer with Karyn and Merce, I got a text from an unknown number. That same ex-boyfriend. Zach. We talked all night long and were back together within the month. Five years later, he became my ex-boyfriend for the second time. But it was a very, very good five years. 

* 

Tony Kubiak was my Independent Study advisor for playwriting, so I’d meet with him every so often and we’d talk about the play. His feedback was incredible, but I usually left his office with more problems than I’d walked in with. The plot was either frustratingly abstract or just horribly boring. I made progress but not the fun kind where you write more. I made the kind of progress that involved crossing a lot of possibilities off of a lot of lists but still not finishing anything. 

I got an A. 

*

I started working on the pages again during Polaroid Stories, because Vince was putting on the tattoo reveal scene in directing lab. Someone criticized the writing and I remember flushing red hot. Outside, my evil ex-boyfriend told me something nice and I wanted to punch and kiss him simultaneously. I did neither, just rolled my eyes and hoped that I’d (for once) pulled off too-cool-to-care.

Later that week I showed some pages I’d printed out to Taylor. They were in purple ink because I was out of black. That girl, she isn’t an easy please. My stomach in knots like it is every time someone reads. Afterwards she said, Damn it, Meghan Brown. You wrote a play I actually want to be in. 

*

Karyn and Zach were Psyche and Peter for the SURP symposium. All three of us had the same horrible cold, and kept coughing and rubbing our pink eyes. Afterwards, Zach said I think I could really do well in that part. I smiled. I’d always seen him with those beautiful wings.

*

This is around the time where Lucy died. 

*

And then I graduated and the play went into hiding for three years. 

I remember showing people pieces. Andrea and Sheri when I moved in to the Dollop House. Liz and Brian Prisco and Robert at the Hayworth Writers Meeting. But that was it. I’d think about it and it would eat at me like a bug so I tried to stop thinking about it.

*

For awhile Peter had a twin brother named Eli who was a rock star. Eli had slept with Ali too. He got cut. 

*

I took the East West playwriting class in 2010 with the intent of finishing the damn thing once and for all. I loved my teacher and my weird little class family. I was living at the Blix Street apartment with Elizabeth and spent weeks holed up in my room, writing. 

The reading that ended the class was at the David Henry Hwang Theater downtown. Beforehand, my mom and Zach and I went to dinner at Pete’s and had martinis. I was sick-shaking nervous.

Zach and I sat in the back with Delia, far away from the rest of the audience. I was in turn mortified and exhilarated. I took cruel notes and drew pictures of broken hearts. Afterwards everyone was thrillingly kind and generous and my heart grew flowers despite hot coils of shame. Yum.

*

Zach and I had broken up a week prior and my car had gotten towed and I was living in a skeleton apartment with nowhere to live come the 1st and I was six hours deep into the most tempestuous tantrum in recent memory. I’d been crying all day (mostly on Dave, who had the misfortune of being with me when I discovered the hole where my Civic should have been) when I got a call from Brian Oglesby, an acquaintance from UCI who’d seen the original Psyche reading. His theater company in Davis had accepted Psyche for their August development workshop. That meant: time, a change of scenery, a distraction. I said yesyesyes.

I’m still convinced that Davis has magic healing powers. I spent the week writing non-stop. I’d start at the Delta of Venus then move to the library til it closed. I’d take breaks to read outside on the grass and eat sandwiches and listen to music and bask in the strange amazingness of having no responsibilities to anything other than the play.

To put it simply: it came at the right time. 

We’d had a small rehearsal the first day I’d been in town. I was supposed to write for the week, keeping track of any changes so the actors could prepare themselves for the staged reading. Brian kept gently asking for my list of changes; I kept evading. I showed up the day of with 45+ new pages, merciless cuts, a new character (AND SO, SARAH WAS BORN), and about a million percent more interest in my weird screaming baby of a play. There wasn’t a page left the same. And I hadn’t been happier in months. 

* 

My last night in Davis I was editing late at the library when the guy I’d been in love with on my study abroad trip (remember that?) signed online. I sent him the one-act I’d written about the two of us, all slamming doors and missed opportunity. 

We said dangerous things while I cut together Peter and Psyche scenes. Love in the time of technological over-saturation. Confession after confession after confession all slammed into a Skype chat box. Spilling secrets is easy when you can’t see anyone’s face.

The next night I was back in Millbrae, taking over my parents’ kitchen and frantically trying to meet the deadline for the Yale Drama playwriting contest. My old friend came online again. He told me that he’d made a decision: he needed to see me. One of us would fly somewhere for the other one. He wanted to see if this was a real thing. 

I was reluctant and scared and dismissive. He pressed. Later that night, he sent the kind of letter I’d always hoped someone would send. I can see the obstacles. But fuck the obstacles — I want to see you again.

This story doesn’t end well and doesn’t need to be expanded upon in a public forum. But. So many of the new sections came from those conversations. So many words got worked in. My retrospectively embarrassing excitement. How reductive love can be. How disappointing. 

* 

After that, for awhile, the play laid low.

* 

There was a sparsely-attended reading through ExAngelus Theater collective in LA in October 2011. Amanda directing. Merce Psyche-ing. There were five audience members who weren’t in some way involved with the writers group itself, and two of them left at intermission. 

I’d been dating the guy who read for Peter, and we broke up that night after the show. He’d been late and hadn’t called and I’d felt my stomach go sick with anger. We’d been cruising towards some big split and there it was. More damningly, he’d also refused to comment on the play, which fueled my anxiety and gave our conversations stupidly hostile undertones. (Lest I sound totally batshit: If you are dating me you don’t need to like everything I write, but you also need to not think I’m a talentless hack. That’s important to me.) 

We talked months later. It’s really one of the best plays I’ve ever read. I just didn’t know how to say that and have it mean something — how to say it and not have it be just one more person saying “oh my God! I love your play!”

We immediately started seeing each other again. 

…I may not be easy, but I’m certainly not difficult. 

* 

I found out that Barnyard was going to do a full production this summer when I was, of course, in Millbrae visiting my parents. I’d just gotten out of the shower. Big smile. 

*

(And just because it should be said: Brian Oglesby saved this play’s life, pretty much. I was ready to throw in the towel on this one, and am really, really glad that I didn’t. Thank you Brian.)

*

I tracked the progress minimally, and with trepidation. It seemed dangerous to get too excited. After I saw pictures of the set pop up on Facebook, I let myself start to carry it around with me. My play opens in July. 

I rarely feel like the person I’m supposed to be. The only cure is I-wrote-that feeling, which pops me into an obscene ecstasy so frantic that it’s almost embarrassing. But I-wrote-that feeling is hard to come by. When it drifts in, you catch it like a butterfly. Stay still, then pounce with your big net.

*

I went up this weekend for the final two dress rehearsals and first three performances. There was a set, guys. A real one. With levels. There was a real set with levels and a poster with my name on it and people acted like I was a real writer and I got my impossible ending, so much bigger and brighter and fancier than I ever could have hoped for. 

I can’t quite describe how rewarding it was. This play is my baby. This play is my baby and I gave it away and a whole bunch of people banded together to do beautiful things with it. I couldn’t be happier. 

Rachel and Skippy came on Friday, my parents on Saturday, Alex Moss and sweet Denver on Sunday. Steven, the director, presented me with a bouquet of flowers. I feel like I owe everyone presents. Don’t you understand how much you’ve done for me? Thank you thank you. 

I wish all of my LA family could have seen it, but it almost doesn’t matter. Because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it! My words coming out of strangers’ mouths. Real people becoming the pretend people I’ve been talking to inside my head for years. 

And now there’s going to be a minute of rest. There’s more work to do but I’m not doing it today. 

*

I thought I’d feel done but I don’t. Now there’s just more to do. Fix up the script. Submit submit submit. Keep pushing and pushing. Hustle. Get this one back on its feet. My last day in Davis, I had non-coffee with Brian. He said: Don’t think of this as your lost year. Think of this as your launch. 

I think that’s how I’m going to choose to look at things from now on. 

*

Yesterday my mom and I went to Michael’s, where they were having a 55% off sale on custom framing. I balked at the price, but threw my card down anyway. Six years of work means I’m framing the poster. She replied: It won’t be the last one. 

I hope she’s right. 

* 

This Saturday the former boyfriend who showed up at the first reading will show up at the Saturday night performance in the barn. I hope he loves it. I hope he sees himself in all those wicked words. Statues. Boys with wings. 

* 

And now, the real beginning. I’d forgot. Paris, 2006. A statue of tall girl Psyche with her tiny Eros. Butterflies all around. Some strange seed of an idea in my head. She could visit him in the attic. Just a little hint of something. The man next to spoke little English. He came up to my nose. Just like us, right? Right. Whoosh. Snap and crack. Boom. 

1. The hummingbird heart rides again. We’re all ten minutes from starving to death, running for the next sweet thing. 

2. This bad time is almost over I can feel it in my bones. We’re coming out clean. Promise promise. I’m reading tea leaves and tracing the lines on my palms. I see the Future. 

3. I am the unicorn girl and all my women are home. I was right — the new house holds her like a basket. He did the shocking thing. Those hands like magnets. Hearts are pulverized like we’re no one like we’re nothing, but we know that’s not true. These hikes this heat. There’s nothing like it, a beautiful woman who is on fire. 

4. I’m tired of pretending I’m a teacher. I’m not. It’s time to just accept it and move on. Teacher skin is a big wooly coat. Get it off get it off get it off.

5. Some guy I liked made some shitty comments and I’m done internalizing. Here’s the deal, buddy. I am not a small woman and you are not a big man. And so: this is the end, my friend. I’ve lost men like you before and I thank my stars every time. Good luck finding a sad girl for your pocket. Blue eyes on a white knight. You’ll be just fine.

6. Psyche soon and thank God. Take me away take me away goodbye Los Angeles I’ll see you again with a smile on my face. I’m excited to go be the loved girl. Friends and family. Please please. 

7. I’ve danced with that wolf before. Drop my heart. Gulp. (In that good way.) 

* Go to bed at 8pm. No exceptions. 

* Listen to audio recordings of ambient poetry on their wave machines. 

* Sleep in secret chambers that can only be accessed by candelabra and swinging bookcase.

* Drink wine around fires. 

* Listen to Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” on repeat for hours every day. 

* Have secret scandalous summer camp stories that they’re holding back out of spite. 

Things That All Teachers Do NOT Do, As Reported by Said Students

* Text each other.

* Text anyone.

* Facebook each other. 

* Facebook anyone. 

* Wear “fashions”. 

* Know who Drake is.