Category: Uncategorized

A big, bad post to come soon of everything that is life_
I’ve been a little lax on true updates, this will change.

SO LAST NIGHT I’M SITTING IN MY CAR, parked in my driveway behind my apartment/garage/house thing (I’m not even sure what I’m living in). It was 12:30 a.m. and there was a party in full swing at the house next door. As I’m talking on the phone, a gaggle of freshie girls (I know they’re fresh by their attire and/or hair crimpings) storms outside for a smoke break/gossip session (“No, Austin likes you.” “And then I got this text from him that was like, like, like…”) and started getting dangerously close to my car. The best part was, they didn’t know I was sitting in the car. Also, they were apparently too drunk to notice (!)

Anyhow, the weren’t doing anything seriously wrong other than being A) Loud and 2) RIDICULOUSLY DRAMATIC! So I rolled with it. I mean, I was a Freshman ONCE and I know the debauchery that it entails. But I could sense that something not cool was going to happen, and so kept an eye on the babes and their bitch-asses.

Things were cool until one of the freshie girls, Blondie McBladder, strolled over to MY LAWN (as in, the lawn of my apartment/garage/house thing where I’m currently living and paying rent toward the upkeep of the grasses that surround said living quarters), YANKED DOWN HER SHORTS (two inches of cloth? Can you call them shorts? Judges?) SQUATTED and began to URINATE ON MY LAWN. MY lawn!

My instinct was, of course, to protect my lawn. So I stopped my phone conversation mid-sentence, threw open the car door and…

ME: (to peeing drunk girl) ARE YOU SERIOUSLY DOING THAT RIGHT NOW?!???!
DRUNK GIRL PEEING ON MY LAWN: What! I didn’t know you were in the car!
ME: SERIOUSLY??!
DGPOML: Where’m I supposed to do it?
ME: ON YOUR OWN LAWN!!!! (Points next door to party house)

(DGPOML quickly pulls up “shorts,” and before I could add, “…OR IN A TOILET!!!” she flies away with her gaggle of friends, never to return…yet.)

Three cheers for being assertive. Also, a shout out to my mother for raising me right…

I just heard three resonances from different areas of the room and they feel the same all around. It’s like wildfire; wrapping up school, growing mature. If not now, when?

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I walked past a couple passionately making out in the middle of the sidewalk, it was supremely awkward, but in reality I have no idea.

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Feeling better today, sugar?

Where did it go…

THERE WAS NO LONGER A SUSPENSION BRIDGE OF BRIGHT, RUST ORANGE, temperate highs of 65 and strolls along the cloudy or sunny Bay. No uphill both ways or days of Union to Columbus (“Christopho Columbo”) to Kearny to Market, Market to Third. The 71, 49, 6, 45, 30 — all one less passenger. No Tuk Tuk Thai dining on tom kha gai, Citrus Club noodles, North Beach pizza pies. SoMa and NoMa, MoMA and BART, and the Market on Embarcadero, Piers 1 through whatever, Fisherman’s Nightmare (or Wharf), love in Haight, pushing through Powell—gone. Gone. Gone.

I stood in line with a giant suitcase of my summer: New clothing, hand-me-downs, souvenirs, and rolled laundry still wet from the prior evening’s wash. My life was seventeen pounds overweight. I spewed the belongings over the sidewalk outside the airport in despair, as though to hold on, as though to cling to those last moments in the San Francisco air before going through security, and the insecurities of leaving.

Now this, North Dakota and Minnesota—this bittersweet hello. No question I cannot take these values from my mind of the state I was raised, though question enough if I’ll stay here too long.

It took me six days to get to California. It took me five hours to get home. Time works unfairly, I’ll maintain until I go back. The next year will hold the millstones of working toward returning to the Bay, and I’m keeping this chin up all the way.

WE’RE WAITING AT THE BUS STOP FOR THE 22 when you lean in to grab my hand. To the left, the street builds to a hill and disappears into the sky. Everyone around us is ready for something, work or life or sleep, pressing play on another city day. I sense that there is something different about my day than theirs, that I am going to continue smiling long after I step off the 22 or even the 41 at Stockton and Columbus. The bus drops you at Market. Now people swirl around and alone, I put my hands in my pockets and nervously fiddle with the transfer slip that brought me to the present moment. I smile anyway, and look forward. Washington Square is full of Chinese men and women doing their dance, dogs and owners, lovers and lovers. To everyone, something. Me? I have you. No more waiting.

Calm and loud were the sounds of the wheels on steel as they traced the hills, and I walked. I recall a day when you said you’d pick up no matter what, and I wonder: As I walk these hills, have you thought I might be thinking of you? Distant, perhaps some Sunday in the future where we lay ourselves on the spots of sunshine that speckle the living room floor and take the best, the best sleep in the world, we might regain our alliance. For with all of the up and downtown days, I keep your nature with me even in the wind, even when we’re snowed in, even when I’m gone walking hills. My thoughts exactly: Thank you, for keeping my glass full and my mind sharp, delegating me a hit of hit-or-miss, for the fields and the meals and quality kindness, the showers of reassurance, you’ll get there someday! I climbed and contemplated going home—home home—but no, I can’t abandon this sweep of certainties, of spontaneity, of sudden surges of appreciation. And then I…I call…no answer, and I’m certain you’ve already fallen asleep.

Today has been utterly wonderful—
I’m so thankful for everything and everyone I have here.

LATELY DAYS, I’ve contained the evidence that our relationship is dusty. It’s almost time to put away, to trundle beneath the same staircase by which it came. Life is climbing in a different direction.