I miss talking to you. You’re kind of the best to talk to, you know? I’m sure you do. So, I’ll just ramble at you. How’s that?

I bet you’re happy about the chill in the air these days. Sweater weather, and girls in boots. The air is like crisp apples. You grew up here, and it’s so strange to think that you never went through the same sort of season changes that I did. I thought once about people in Alaska, how they see the rest of the world. I thought about people who have never seen the ocean, much as I hadn’t for 27 years, and how there are some people who grew up seeing the ocean, and how such very simple differences are a huge part of who we are.

In the midwest, the fall can start as early as August. The leaves change and everyone talks about how beautiful it is, and the smell of the air is darker and heavier, like dirt settling on dirt settling on dirt that never had a chance to get tilled. Everything feels like it was meant to be tended to at the thaw, but the summer came on too sudden and hot to get around to it. Giant, hand spray-painted signs advertise pumpkins, firewood, hayrides. You can buy local made apple pies at gas stations. There’s one place, an orchard I’ve long forgotten the name of, where you can buy pie that baked in a bag. The bag is made of some kind of wax paper, and baking it in the bag keeps the fruit moist; keeps the fruit’s flavor from flying out into the oven walls; keeps the crust crisp. Once, during a nervous breakdown, I’d driven to this orchard unintentionally. I’d napped in the parking lot while watching families haul pumpkins to their Subarus. When I woke up, I went into their store and bought a pie in a bag, which they then put in a brown paper bag. I couldn’t stop laughing and saying “It’s a pie in a bag in a bag.” I paid for the pie with a check that I knew would bounce. I threw the pie in a ditch on the drive home. Shortly after that I was hospitalized because I’d been found sitting in the dark, using pumpkin carving tools to dig deep into my upper thigh.

I think global warming has maybe changed things, but when I was living there, it was just a matter of a few short months before the autumn in the Midwest turned to winter. This happens in mid to late October. The sky is black by 5:30 pm, the ground is frozen, the windows get covered in plastic or your house will never stay warm. Once it got so cold that a window in our 100 year old apartment shattered. Our landlord didn’t fix the window for a week. And personally, in all that time that leads up to winter, my dread of cold hands and isolation increases to a point that I feel like I might shatter.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I think I expected autumn would never bother me again. The effect isn’t as profound. The dark isn’t as immediate. Things still grow. There is still light. And I have blankets warm enough, and people warm enough. But, it still steps on my heart a little bit. I feel like everything gets further away. I feel like I am distant, and not myself. I feel like I am not anyone at all, and sometimes I can’t get up. And I wait for Spring.

Some Buddhist at some point said that depression is dwelling on the past, anxiety is worrying about the future, and we’re supposed to be living in the present. I’m sure he was right. Buddhists aren’t usually wrong. Or maybe they are. Maybe we only hear about the right stuff they say, kind of like how we only see flattering photos of people and think they’re so photogenic. Maybe there’s a bunch of stuff these Buddhist gurus say that’s absolute horseshit. “If you take a man a bucket of water, you must leave with a bucket of fire.” “That doesn’t make any fucking sense.” “It’s a work in progress.” “No, it’s just stupid. You’re just making up things because they sound cool.”

Anyway, Ted, I miss talking to you. And I hope you’re out there loving all this cold.

At 1 a.m. you wake up, sweat that smells like cooking oil and brillo pads soaking into your sheets, a screen still looking at you, some comedian talking about what it’s like to be a dad, some comedian talking about what it used to be like to get laid. You wake up and you’re unsettled. You love sleep. Why can’t you just get  a good night of it, oh please, if you were a praying woman, you’d ask god for a night of sleep and not much else.

You go to the kitchen, fill a glass with cold water. You’re always thirsty, always sweating, always refilling the glass. You lay back down, turn off the screen, and flip over, one leg on top of the blanket. Maybe you need a different blanket. Maybe you could sleep better if your pillows were arranged around you like little kids around a parachute.

At 2:36 a buzzing begins. You wonder if you set a weird alarm on your phone again. You do that sometimes, and it’s always stuff like “Make sure you’re not out of toilet paper” and it’s always at some stupid hour. You’re way too anxious about running out of things. You’ve never run out of shampoo, and yet you can’t help worrying that you will.

But this isn’t some alarm you’ve set. This is an incoming call, and the name reads “Disappearing Act.” For over two years you’ve been waiting for this call. This was an alarm you set inside yourself, but an alarm that you could never will to go off, no matter how hard you stared at your phone. Your hand is shaking so hard that you’re afraid to slide the screen to answer your phone. You’re afraid that you’ll somehow accidentally end the call before it begins, try to call back, and he won’t answer.

But you get it right.

“Hello”

And just like you two talked earlier that day, he starts to tell you what he’s got in his 7-11 bags. The first time you met him he brought you Funyuns. You don’t even like them. You’d been making a joke. And after that night, you were together for three straight months, every second, and you made a lot of jokes, and you made a lot of love, and you made a few mistakes, and then he left.

“I like your style,” he’d said, and you hadn’t yet heard that hundreds of times. You liked his style, too, with his western shirts and his fast way of driving. You liked the way his body fit with yours, and the way he said he could taste it on your breath when you were about to start your period.

“I’ve gotten fat.” you’re telling him on the phone, in the early morning. He’s telling you how he’s lost weight. He’s drunk and he’s trying to tell you important things he’s thinking about and he’s telling you something about beer being his downfall and dealing with death, but you can’t hear him all that well. He sounds like he’s in outer space.

He was born and raised in Los Angeles, and when he met you, he loved that you weren’t very L.A., so now you’re on the phone with him and you start to wonder if your voice is giving away how very L.A. you’ve become. You try to alter it, maybe lower it in tone. But you can hear the L.A. in you, and you start to panic.

When the two of you met, you knew he’d be going away. But then he said he loved you, and he stayed, and as the months passed you felt afraid every single day that it would be the day he would go. Each evening, when it began to get dark, you’d feel better with him sitting next to you, talking long hours about things you’d both never said to anyone else.

You went camping with him. You hate camping. You dog-sat with him. You’re terrified of dogs. And he kept telling you how much he loved you and you knew how much you loved him. But, he never let you meet his family, and he always maintained that he was leaving.

By 3 a.m. nothing has been said that explains over two years of absence. Nothing has been said about how you left things. Or maybe it has. You can barely understand him. He might be explaining everything. But just then you realize that it stopped mattering. He’s mumbling something, and he’s no longer the guy you loved who left. He’s just the guy who left.

“Hey, listen, I have to go to sleep. I have to get up early in the morning. Trast has an appointment. Do you want to come and see me some time?”

He is mumbling something. You think he said to call him.

“Should I call you?”

“Yes, Nikol, call me.”

You remember how he said your name. You remember how you used to say his. And you don’t say it right now, because you don’t know if you can ever say it the same way again. You don’t want to find out.

In the morning, you try on your old too-loose jeans. They’re too tight jeans now. And you look at your face in the mirror, look around at your room, and you think about how much you’ve been hurting for years before you met him, feeling left. But you haven’t felt left for a while now, and you like it that way. You’re someone new. You’re Los Angeles, and you love that about you. You don’t know if you’ll call him back. But, you do know that if you do, you’re not afraid of what happens if he doesn’t answer for two years.

I listened to this song on repeat for months after he left.

In communist Los Angeles, girl does not go on date. Date goes on girl. (ew)

Dear Diary,

Every now and again I believe in fate, not recognizing it for what it is- fancy, dressed-up coincidence. Take the case of Alessandro, the seemingly beautiful young Italian, here from Milan to make movies. He’s a self-proclaimed genius- a thing he tells me several times a day.

Fed up with online dating, I used settings to build a contact fortress. In order to contact me on Okcupid, a man would have to have answered 500 questions and be a 95% match. I then added the line to my profile: “Not accepting new application at this time.” As if I’m a job. Come on. I’m a bit of a job, but the benefits are excellent.

And right away I got a message from this self-proclaimed boy genius. He’d just answered his 500th question, and we were a 96% match. And so we met at the Getty center with a bottle of champagne, fresh berries, a loaf of bread and some dried sausages. We sat in the garden, then wandered the museum, and from building to building I’d see higher points that I wanted to reach and I’d pull him toward those, while he snapped photos and videos of me, murmuring, ”Tale bellezza! Brillare gli occhi, la mia bella ragazza.”

We kissed overlooking the valley, an easy kiss, pressed together so as not to let the wind make tunnels of any open spaces. It was a beautiful date. At 15, 19, 26, had a psychic told me that one November not far off I’d be smooching it up with a young, hot Italian in a garden in Los Angeles, I’d have asked for my money back.

But, as things happen, dates 2,3,4, and 5 happened. And there was Alessandro telling me my friends were stupid and not going anywhere. And there I was looking critically at the way he dressed as he told me that people from Milan have the best fashion sense in the world; me wondering if wearing stiff, plain jeans belted high on the waist with a plain black sweatshirt could ever be considered fashionable to anyone other than my dad. And then we argued over intelligence, him re-stating his supergenius status, while telling me that had I never done any drugs in my life I might have “one day maybe been as smart as a man.”

I once ate at a local restaurant which I’ve read about, seen, daydreamed about a million times, but never ate at because I couldn’t afford it. A date took me there, knowing how I feel about food. And the ambience was as I expected. The other diners were wearing clothes that cost more than my rent payments. The service was perfect. The exterior of all I thought of the place was spot on. And then the food arrived and it just tasted like anything I could have made at home.

And so it was with Alessandro. The accent, the kisses, the romance of it all was surface-perfect. But, the substance was that of an over-priced low-end diner that could get away with it simply because it’s in the right location. (I’m looking at you, Brite Spot.)

I don’t want to become cynical. I am not going to allow myself to become jaded. I hope that forever and ever I can become moved and nervous by the surface of a person. But, since then, I’ve become more moved and nervous by the person I uncover as I get to know them, and that’s been a real treat. I certainly still cave to a bit of novelty from time to time, but I see it for the shiny foil that it is.

Looking like that little Jewish cartoon mouse with the hat and the ill fitting pants.

As for Alessandro, I am glad that I met him. Through our meeting, I made a few very wonderful friends- always a benefit. And, I got a few nice photos out of it.

Taken from my diary, given time between the events to keep the other people mentioned anonymous. Because I’m not a total dick.

I’m going to SF this weekend. I’m glad I don’t have any friends who call it Frisco, because that would pretty much seal the deal on me never going back there.
First time I was there, it changed my whole fucking life. I was a meek, frightened mess when the plane landed, then by the end of the week I’d called my husband and told him I was leaving him.
Last time I was there it was with you. You took me on the most romantic date I’d ever been on, and we cat-sat for your friend, and you were still calling me a sweetheart. You’d lay there and look at me and say how I was so cute. And all I could think of was how you were such a nice guy and so good to me, and we went to a really nice book store and I met your sister and her family.
Tomorrow I’m going with someone else, and I think he’s a nice guy and he tells me I’m cute, and we’ll probably go to a bookstore.
But it was after that trip that you started getting mean, eyes rat-like as you’d put your hand up and tell me to shut my mouth. It was after that trip that you’d wait until we left a party and were driving home, then start telling me I was a piece of shit and I smelled terrible and we’d have those big crazy fights.
So, I guess I’m a little bit nervous about going on this trip. For once I’d like to go up there, smoke weed with some SF hippies, and then just come home without anything at all changing. Do you hear that San Francisco? Just leave things alone this time.

Taken from my diary, and given some time so the subject of the entry remains anonymous

He said that he knew a friend, a girl, a real tough lesbian with all the tough lesbian things like a motor bike and big dogs and plenty of sleeveless tops. This girl, he said, this girl she was cool in every way a person could be, and there was only one thing she was an idiot over, and that, of course, that was love.

Sometimes I think I’m in love with you, because it’s easiest to think that way. In part I can use it as an excuse when some guy goes silly over me. I can pull the, “But I’m in love with someone else.” and they usually say that they kind of knew that all along. But, also it keeps me from needing that feeling with anyone else, because you and I know how the hell it goes with me when it comes down to getting excited about anyone else. I’ll call you up and I’ll start listing off all the great shit about some guy, and you’re cool enough to listen, and you’ll tease me a little and then in a few weeks I’m bummed because those fucktards either stopped being great, or they stopped calling. But with you, I can just keep loving you and getting drunk and eating hamburgers whenever I feel like it, and you always tell me I’m good looking. Always.

I’m a heart retard, though. I’ll get solidly into my cool again, and I don’t give a fuck or a damn or two shakes of my head, any eyes that I bat aren’t blinking in shock. I’ll be cruising through it, living wild and laughing it off. And then I’ll decide I’m hot for some guy, and I turn into a total pain in the ass, questioning how I should be wearing my hair and starving my guts of air until they call me.

I don’t know what I want to say tonight. I’ve been slowly melting into a thing that’s likely wrong, and allowing myself to start with the mushball momentum, and as I feel it start to happen, I like it and I hate it and I like it again. So, that’s why I’m laying here at 9 p.m. on clean sheets just in case he wants to come lay on them, knowing already that he’s not coming, trying to just get back to being cool, and wondering if I’m ever going to stop being a girl about this stuff.