Love Songs and Nail Salons

Today I was out and about.

I got my nails did!

It was so lovely.

I haven’t been to the nail salon since a few days prior to my surgery.

Now.

That’s been approximately 7 1/2 weeks.

A long time for this lady.

I love getting my nails done.

It has been a splurge of mine and also a bit of a living amends that I have been making for a while now.

So to go nearly two months without is saying something.

I don’t indulge in much.

No alcohol.

No sugar.

No drugs.

No flour.

I mean.

Let a girl get her nail salon on.

However.

Nail salons are also emotionally intense.

First.

One is held hostage for an hour to an hour and a half while the toes get painted and the finger nails are polished up.

And one, I mean I, I am forced to sit still and feel all the feelings that wish to flit through my mind.

And then there are the love songs.

I mean.

Is it just some romantic comedy trope, but do all nail salons have some sort of love song loop or playlist?

My salon does.

So I spend the entire time listening to love songs and trying to stay out of the dangerous neighborhood of my mind that is you.

You, my darling, you.

I seem to get more and more space from my heart ache and loss and longing for that old unrequited love siren song.

But get in me in a nail salon and I get teary.

Sigh.

I really am trying to more on, but I did seem to get walloped by it today.

Maybe it was just that I haven’t gotten my nails done for a while.

Maybe it’s that my birthday is next weekend.

49.

I am going to be 49 years old.

How the fuck did that happen?

My birthday last year was basically in lock down.

But we managed to spend most of the day together.

You cleared your calendar and I felt pretty damn special.

I won’t go into the details of the morning, although I can remember it very, very well.

We were supposed to go to a fancy French restaurant…..

Aside!

I’m going to Paris next year for my birthday and Christmas!

I figure, 50 years old is a milestone year and since I celebrated my 40th in Paris, why not my 50th?

I booked myself a pretty Air BnB in the Marais District.

My favorite neighborhood to stay in.

And it turns out to be a five minute walk to my best friends home!

I was in Paris for my 48th birthday too.

Missing you, although I was dating someone else.

A very short lived relationship.

I keep fucking hoping that one of these days I will actually be in Paris with a partner, not longing for unrequited love to come swoop me off to Cafe Charlot.

I mean.

The cheeseburgers there.

Divine.

Anyway.

We were supposed to go to a fancy French restaurant, but shelter in place happened again literally the day before my birthday.

So you scrambled and found a sushi place that was doing take out in Half Moon Bay.

We drove to Half Moon Bay and held hands and listened to our various playlists and I sat next to you, while you drove, intoxicated once again with you.

Trying.

Really trying.

To stay present and in the moment.

And I did pretty good, in hindsight, I know I was just compartmentalizing like a mad woman, but for that afternoon I managed ok.

Although, you caught me looking out at the ocean once and you knew, you always did, that I was sad.

We parked in Half Moon Bay’s cute little downtown and walked around and went to a florist shop and I got a painting that I just looked up at and a Christmas ornament–currently in a place of honor in my bedroom.

We walked past this ridiculously cute bed and breakfast and fantasized about going there next year.

“Let’s take a whole weekend next year for your birthday,” you said.

Which would be this year.

Except.

I broke up with you again.

I’ll never forget you saying, “I am so tired of breaking up with you,” the last time I saw you in person.

I’m tired of it too.

So.

I wasn’t too thrilled to be in the nail salon listening to love songs.

But.

I didn’t die.

I didn’t burst into tears.

I’ve definitely done that before.

Although.

One did slide down my face.

See.

The story goes.

I’ll be single forever and I’m getting old and you were the one and I can’t have you and I’m going to wither and die on the fucking vine.

But.

The thing is.

That is just a sad story my brain tells me.

Yes, baby, I miss you.

And baby, it’s cold outside.

And baby, I’ll always love you.

But I don’t have to be held to some cross of martyrdom and sadness alone and lost in my fantasy world of you, pining for some day, some day.

I’m allowed to be with someone.

And love will find me.

I know it will.

Even if I am haunted at the nail salon with love songs that make me think of you, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other love songs out there for me.

Someone is singing one for me right now.

Maybe I’ll hang some mistletoe in my doorway and wait for the caroler’s to come.

I’ll be waiting.

Patiently.

By my pink Christmas tree.

Yeah.

I did that too.

heh.

I figure that I couldn’t go out and get a live one this year, too soon since the surgery, too much lifting and even thinking about getting one on the roof of my car was too overwhelming.

So I ordered a fake one.

And since, I mean, it’s fake, why not just fucking embrace it and really go fake.

I got a 7’5″ pink glitter Christmas tree.

I know.

I am not fucking around.

And today I decorated it.

It is beautiful.

And though, I thought, wouldn’t it be sweet to have you over, it would always be sweet to have you over, I can’t imagine that after 11 months of not seeing each other, you want to come over and look at my Christmas tree.

Even though the two ornaments you’ve given me are hanging up.

No one knows but me anyway.

Sigh.

Merry Christmas lover.

I hope you are well.

I still think of you.

You are often every where I look.

But like I said.

One day soon.

I’ll have a love to keep me warm.

I will weather the storm.

I thought you ought to know my heart’s on fire.

Listen to this blog on Spotify.

No Bandwidth

I mean.

Ok.

Maybe a tiny bit.

There is some.

But it is small and slight and I chose to write a blog instead of using it for homework.

Don’t worry.

Shh.

Anxiety be gone.

I will work the homework is a serious manner tomorrow.

I promise.

I had one client cancellation, there will be homework done then.

And after I finish with my last client at 2p.m., aside from lunch, I have no plans except to bury myself in the work.

My fucking god.

There is a lot of work.

And I have been doing some over the week, don’t get me wrong, I have attended to it.

JESUS FUCK.

I am so grateful I just caught that, I had an assignment due.

I actually don’t know if I would have caught that if I hadn’t been writing this.

I stopped and popped into my online classroom and saw correctly that I had something due.

Good grief.

I am so glad I caught that!

I already had done the work, I just hadn’t formatted it to turn in.

Whew.

It’s turned in and now I can go back to whining about how much work this all is and when the fuck and am I going to have the time to do all the reading.

All the reading.

So much reading.

So much.

I have seven, seven, new books that have arrived in the mail this week.

I’m going to say that again.

SEVEN.

Ugh.

I keep reminding myself that I just have to do what’s in front of me today.

It really becomes impossible if I look at that stack of books, like maybe if I just sleep at my desk and never leave it and never move I might, might, get through the stack by the end of the semester.

But.

I have a life.

A big life.

A full life.

I also have a private practice I am trying to fill since, well, that’s like my income.

Not fully.

But soon.

Today, yes, today.

Today was my last Friday as a nanny.

I am still nannying, but I am reducing my hours down to three days a week as opposed to the five days a week I’ve been working for like, forever.

Thirteen years, give or take a few other odd jobs here and there, I have been nannying for thirteen years.

There is an end in sight.

And maybe that’s why I needed to write tonight.

To mark this.

It’s a big step.

Next week I work two days less a week as a nanny.

And soon, by the end of the year, by February at the latest, I am hopeful that I will be done completely as a nanny and be fully self-supporting as a therapist.

It’s a big freaking deal.

I have been working so long and so hard to get here.

I remember when I turned ten years sober how I was putting the finishing touches on my application to my Master’s in Psychology program.

That was four and a half years ago.

It’s been a long road, but I have been on it, working and working and working and the working, well, it does seem to be paying off.

I reflected this morning while I was doing my morning pages (I still do that, I may not be blogging every day like I used to, but I am still committed to that practice, I can’t not write, I would die) that I have really come far since last year.

I moved into my new place September 15th of last year, I started my first year of a PhD program, I was hired in August to work for Grateful Heart as an Associate MFT to establish my practice.

I left my other internship where I was not paid to transition to Grateful Heart in October.

I had four clients.

Now.

I have eighteen.

That’s a pretty damn big deal.

To make it through a year of a PhD program, work full time and set up a private practice therapy business.

I don’t know that I held down the fort in all areas all that well.

Oh.

And yeah.

I broke up with my soul mate, the love of my life, the one.

The fucking one.

I have been grieving that a lot lately.

It’s been a lot of sadness and tough at times and I don’t write much about it here.

Aside from the odd poetry post that I happen to throw up.

Tonight’s full harvest moon is also not helping.

It’s been excruciating when I think about the language of love that we spoke to each other through the moon.

How many text messages and phone calls looking at the moon wishing for him?

So many.

Crying for the moon in the sky, crying for him.

Crying all the time.

I still cry.

It catches me off-guard sometimes.

I think this last time it’s been different, more final, more ending.

Hopeless and heartbroken.

And still thriving.

Still alive.

My therapist reflected that to me this week after I shared some things about the current issues I have around the ending of the relationship and how I am still affected by it.

She said, “you can be heartbroken and thrive too.”

Heartbroken.

And.

Thriving.

And overwhelmed by the work, but up to it and ready for it and grateful for the lessening of nanny hours so that I can work more on my dissertation and my course work.

So that I may cultivate more clients for my therapy practice so that I may, sooner, oh please, rather than later, stop nannying altogether.

I don’t know how it will look or when it will happen, but I sense it is out there just around the corner.

Just there.

Under the shadow of the moon.

Like my love for you, my love.

Always just there.

Lit by the moon.

 

Not Sure Where to Begin

But apparently I’m ready for dating.

I wasn’t expecting that when I told my therapist last Tuesday about some recent experiences doing inventory work.

Man.

I did some self-searching, some fearless and deep, and thoughtful, insightful thinking and writing.

I saw my patterns.

Especially my patterns around dating.

My ex fell into my patterns and completely obliterated them too.

He was much more than just another guy.

He broke the pattern.

He didn’t break me.

Although he did absolutely break my heart.

I seem, however, to be healing and the writing helps.

And the longer days of sunshine help and being busy as fuck wrapping up this semester of school certainly keeps my brain occupied.

My brain would like to create some trouble.

Like, Friday night coming home after work and seeing therapy clients it starts telling me this story about this place I used to go to on Friday nights.

Our Lady of Safeway.

This church on Church Street and Market.

I spent many, many, many Friday nights in that church.

It is in fact where I met my ex.

Oh how he used to shine at me.

Still makes me quiver thinking about that.

Sometimes the thoughts slip in and I don’t try too hard to keep them at bay.

Sometimes they are just sweet and sad and nostalgic, I find myself thinking about him as I fall asleep, the first time he said he loved me, the first time he brought me flowers after he had said he loved me, his face over the bouquet of flowers, so open and vulnerable and full of love, his eyes.

Oof.

Yeah, I might be getting through all of this but I’m still not over you lover.

And that’s ok.

I have given up on trying to be over you.

And as I mentioned, apparently I might be ready to date.

It just sort of popped out in my therapy session last week, all about seeing the patterns and seeing where I need to look at myself and what I want.

I have some very specific needs and wants and really being open and honest about them to myself.

As I expressed all of it my therapist stopped me and said, “wait, are you saying you’re ready to date?!”

“Yes!” I said without a pause and holy shit, I felt it, I am ready to date.

Oh.

I suppose.

A little weirded out by it too.

I basically haven’t dated in two years and over these last two years there were more than a few moments of me thinking, this is it he’s the love of my life, my soulmate, my best friend, he’s going to be the one, I don’t have to think about dating again or finding love.

I had found it.

But.

Well.

Though the love didn’t leave me, he did.

And that was his choice and I won’t disparage him for it.

So now I have to get the fuck on with my life.

To that end.

I wrote up my sexual ideal and really dug into it, basically coming up with a three page essay on what I am looking for in a partner, mate, boyfriend.

I really want a monogamous, committed, romantic, sober, non-smoking relationship.

And yeah, three other pages of things.

I read them out loud in my parked car on the corner of Cesar Chavez and Noe Street this past Saturday night to my person after we had done the deal up in Potrero Hill.

He then suggested I go home and read it out loud in first person.

See what I had to grow towards.

And the really awesome thing, I already have the majority of qualities I’m looking for in a partner.

I’m quite happy about that.

The surprise that came up for me is that I want to cohabitate with a partner.

I haven’t lived with a boyfriend in, wait for it, twenty years.

I’m ready to live with someone again.

Yeah.

I also had hopes that the person I was going to be living with was my ex, but that was just fantasy, wasn’t it.

Everything was just fantasy, beautiful, romantic, lovely, fantasy.

Exquisite in the night, sweeping, and intoxicating, but in reality, the light of day, it fell short and left me with such a hurting heart all the time.

I want reality now.

I am ready for that.

And I’m not expecting a Knight on a white horse, I’ve never needed a man to rescue me, but I do want a partner to compliment me.

Someone to travel with!

My person really made a point of that, “I see you going to Paris and staying in that gorgeous apartment in the Marais with a boyfriend,” he told me after I had finished reading out my ideal.

Me too!

I booked it thinking about how romantic it was and yeah, I certainly have some big high hopes that I will be traveling with a partner this Christmas.

My birthday and Christmas in the City of Lights with my boyfriend.

I know it’s a little early to ask for a Christmas present, but well, when you know you know.

I can’t quite envision it, but I can feel it.

And I have done so much work.

God, I have worked through so much grief over this break up, I could use a break.

So.

Yeah.

Hey God, it’s me.

I’m ready to date again.

Really.

A Girl

And her books.

I just looked at the gigantic stack of books on my desk/kitchen table and laughed.

Hands up.

You are surrounded.

I should give up the idea of my table really being at all for dining.

Although I do eat breakfast at it every morning, it really is a repository for my books and notebooks and handbooks and readers and pens and my new white board with all its definitions that I am trying to make myself read as often as possible.

I really am in PhD land.

I mean.

You, dear, gentle reader, most likely already know that.

I went from a daily blogger to a weekly blogger, at best.

I actually am uncertain when the last time I wrote a blog was.

Maybe when I was headed out to DC for the weekend last week?

There is so much work that my schooling demands right now that I hardly have time for anything else.

Which, I guess, is good.

It’s something I get to be grateful for.

As.

Ugh.

I broke up with my boyfriend today.

It’s not the first time we have broken up, first time was last January and man, that might have been the worst pain I have felt in sobriety.

Including the time my best friend died.

It was so painful that when I wrote about it I had people reach out to me to see if I was ok.

I know that the language I was using was liken to someone dying and it certainly felt like I was dying.

It’s a kind of pain I’m not about to wish upon anyone.

We reconciled, after a few hits and misses sometime in February or March.

Then we tried it again, with variations, trying to figure out the best way forward.

We had success, we had setbacks, we tried not seeing each other, we tried just hanging out, we would spontaneously erupt into passionate embrace if we were any place semi alone.

We stopped again.

We started again.

We tried being just friends.

We cried.

A LOT.

Fuck did we both cry.

We went to New York in July and had a marvelous, terrifyingly amazing, soul rending romantic and heartbreaking time.

We decided to give it a break and let each other gently go.

I to Paris, he to his other pursuits and work and stuff and things.

He had things to work on.

I had things to do.

Through all the tumult we have loved each other.

We are the loves of each others life, soul mates, the ONE.

And.

We haven’t been able to be completely together.

For reasons I just cannot articulate right now.

I just can’t.

Maybe one day.

Just not this day.

When we left each other in New York it was amidst many a tear and then I headed off to Paris.

We “practiced” not being in contact with each other.

It was excruciating.

My best girlfriend in Paris convinced me I had to stop, I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t helping him by standing by waiting for him to do the work necessary for us to really have a go at being in a relationship to each other.

I decided in Paris that she was right and it was over.

And it was.

For a little while.

We decided again on no contact, except sending each other mail.

I have a heart-shaped box full of mail, including the Valentines Day card he gave me last week with the most adorable pair of silver unicorn earrings anyone has every seen.

I’m his special unicorn.

And you can just fuck off if you snorted through your nose at that.

We’ve always believed the other person is magic.

Our love has felt like that.

Today he told me that after being with me he finally understands all love songs.  That he has a secret decoder ring, me and our experience being together (and apart and together and apart), that all love songs make sense now.

God.

I might start crying.

I have been on and off all day.

Makes it challenging to read the stack of reading for school, but I also am proud to say I muddled through more than one might expect considering the circumstances.

I just want to put my head down, have a good cry, and write a lot of painful poetry.

But.

I soldiered on, met with ladies, did readings, did the deal, did my laundry, roasted a chicken, read for hours, wrote discussion posts for school, responded to discussion posts from school and took down all the photographs of us together that I had up in the house.

Sigh.

So.

Yeah.

We mailed each other love letters and cards and kept in contact that way, romantic, sad, sweet, painful, loving, all the things.

It certainly made shopping for stationary fun and stamps and I can’t tell you how often my heart skipped a beat when I saw mail in my mailbox.

We had agreed after I came back from Paris in July that he had things to work on and that it would be best to not connect until February.

But things happened.

Deaths.

Not really my place to talk about, but I reached out and we reconnected and well, fuck, one things leads to another doesn’t it?

Back in it again for December, my birthday, Christmas, oh the pretty, pretty gifts we gave each other and the love oh, god damn it the love.

I got more tattoos.

He got more tattoos.

We talked.

A lot.

We started texting again, making plans to see each other.

I tried to internally change my point of view of what I needed in the relationship.

We took off the holidays from discussing the relationship and where it was going or not going and just loved on each other as much as school/work/travel/business demands could be met.

We decided to go on a trip.

We went to DC last week.

It was lovely and sad and sweet and hard.

And.

We started the process again of saying goodbye.

We did.

Then we didn’t.

Then we came back.

And this Tuesday.

Insert therapy here.

Mine, my own therapy, not me being a therapist, and I shared about it all, my therapist has been in on everything since the beginning, and she said simply, “your needs are not being met.”

I broke down into tears.

It was true.

They were not.

“It’s not working,” I said and sobbed.

Though there is no lack of love.

My God.

The love.

I just cannot express how much love we have for each other.

We can’t be together right now the way things are.

So.

We made plans to see each other and cleared a lot of time and talked and cried and listened to Bach cello sonatas and held each other and made love one last time and looked into each others eyes and said goodbye.

It was the most kind, gentle, sweet, tender, sad, SAD, break up.

Full of spiritual principles and honesty.

It was excruciating.

Heartbreaking.

But.

Oh.

So.

Beautiful.

And there.

Cue the tears.

Oh my fucking God this hurts.

Not as bad as the first time.

But still.

Awful bad.

I know I am a going to be ok, but right now, I just want to curl up in bed and not do another thing.

I will grieve, I will be sad.

I will let myself have the experience of the loss and I will let go.

Gracefully and grateful.

I have never had love like this before.

All else was a facade.

I don’t know that I ever will again.

I just know I am beyond grateful for the experience, despite the pain.

The pain lets me know how meaningful it was.

REALLY.

Meaningful.

I gave him my copy of The Princess Bride as he left.

I had bought it last February on a trip we took together and over the course of a couple of months I read it to him, on that trip–his head in my lap, and then I recorded myself in the subsequent weeks reading the chapters so he could listen to it on business trips.

His favorite character was Fezzik.

No wonder he’s the love of my life.

Now.

Forgive me.

I must go and cry for a little while.

Sweet dreams my love, know that I will always love you.

Always.

Always.

Always.

Your, baby girl.

Tattoos and Tears

I just want to write you poetry tonight.

I just want to talk to crows and croon love songs to the full moon.

I keep thinking about adding to my Coup de Foudre tattoo.

Hearts and lightning bolts.

More hearts.

An explosion of hearts.

I think about you.

I cry.

Sometimes I yell at you in the car.

“Don’t give up on me, don’t stop chasing me, this is it, this is the push, don’t stop.”

I want you to come for me.

I want to be the one.

I think about not having you for years.

I still dream about being with you for all my years.

I think about my impending PhD.

I ponder the thinking and reading and writing I will have to do.

And maybe you won’t be a distraction.

And maybe you will.

And maybe you will be the carrot I use to get through the program.

He’ll come back to me when I am a doctor.

He’ll come for me.

As though you’re the reward for doing the work.

I want to grow old with you and be stupid and silly and mad.

I want to have dumb arguments with you and then have make up sex.

God.

I haven’t really thought too much about the sex.

I think I am afraid to.

I will get lost in the glory of the memories and beat my heart harder on the wall around you.

I long for you.

I dream about you.

The moon full in the sky beckons me to you.

I think about you walking outside.

I think about you sleeping.

I wish to be wrapped up in your arms.

I long to not be heartbroken.

Heart broke open.

Heart in the mouth of crow flying across the miles to you.

That’s the tattoo I keep thinking about.

A crow on my back flying with a heart in its mouth.

An anatomical heart.

With wild daisies growing out from it.

I feel hollowed out.

I miss you baby.

I miss you much.

This isn’t even a poem.

This isn’t even a blog.

This is just a list, a litany, a compilations of thoughts about you.

I can’t stop thinking about you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I can’t go on without you.

And yet I keep going on.

I have changed and I can’t tell where it is leading me.

I just fervently hope.

Pray.

Wish.

That it leads me back to you.

I just want to be your Buttercup.

I just want to be your baby.

Baby.

I just want to be yours.

Always.

Forever.

Your.

Baby Girl.

Holding Out

But not being stupid about it.

I have been looking for a ride share to Burning Man.

Everyone I know is going early, either in really early like they’re there now, or pretty much leaving prior to the start of the event since they will be helping build the city.

I love that I know so many folks who are such integral parts to the event.

I feel pretty lucky to know them.

And I am also damn lucky to be in my last year of my Masters of Counseling Psychology program, but it does throw a monkey wrench in my getting to the playa.

As it has done every year that I have been in school.

Last year I had to go up early and leave early.

But.

I got to go.

The previous year it was a similar situation, except that I was going to be coming back and rolling straight into school.

I went up with the family I was working for and came back with a playa boyfriend, the first time that every happened, who lasted all of two dates off playa, but hey, we had fun.

I remember looking at him and knowing, shit, I’m going to be “that girl he met at Burning Man.”

He’s never gone back to the event and he found a “real girlfriend” in the real world.

I don’t expect to find the love of my life out at the event, there was a time, and too fucking many of them, when I had this stupid idea that the one was out there.

The one is here.

I don’t need to go traipsing out in the desert to find the one, I am the one.

Fuck.

I remember when I realized that too, and yes, I was out in deep playa having a spiritual moment with the sky.

My favorite color.

The playa at sunset, the deepest midnight blue that fades into indigo violet and then a push of pink right at the edge of it all.

I have taken so many photographs of the playa at sunset, I can never quite do justice to the beauty of the sky with my words, but once in a while I do catch a glimmer of that bliss in the photos I have taken.

So.

Yeah.

This year my first weekend of classes is the 25th, 26th, and 27th.

The event opens at 12a.m. on the 27th.

Which means that everybody who isn’t already there, most of the people I know will already be there, will be queued up to get in as they open the gates Sunday “morning” at 12:01 a.m.

Me.

Nope.

I’ll still be in the city.

I have my last class on Sunday and it ends at noon.

I already have contemplated skipping it and maybe that happens.

But I can’t skip the whole weekend and I certainly can’t skip supervision for my internship that week either.

I can the week following and I will, by that time I will definitely be on playa.

So.

I won’t be able to leave San Francisco until 1p.m. on Sunday.

If I can get a ride.

If I can wrangle that up.

If not I’ll be leaving a little later than 1 p.m.

If I don’t find a ride, and believe you me, I am fucking trying I have been asking around since I found out I had been awarded the low-income ticket, so for months, I will be renting a car.

I have reserved a car at SFO.

I really don’t want to have to rent a car, first I’ll have to leave a gigantic deposit since I don’t have a credit card and then, well, there is the whole deal of driving it to Burning Man.

I’ll have to get it washed and very likely detailed.

I will probably lose all or most of my deposit.

Making it an $800 expenditure instead of a $384 expenditure.

That’s what I got the rental reserved for.

I have been hedging my bets that I would have to rent, and I have been putting aside little bits and pieces of money into my savings account so if I do have to rent the car I will transfer $1500 out of my savings three days before the rental happens, so basically the Thursday night before I start classes.

I have an online savings account, it takes three days to land in my regular bank account.

I will probably also have to move a bit more out than that as I won’t be getting a paycheck for my time off to go to Burning Man.

Which is fine, and that’s why I have a second savings account, also through the same online bank, which is my prudent reserve.

It’s rent and utilities and food for a month.

Eventually, one day I hope to have rent and food and utilities for at least three months, but you know, I start small and work my way there.

Ultimately I want a year’s prudent reserve.

But.

I tend not to go to that heavy into that particular savings account because all my other savings are earmarked for travel.

I would rather have travel than not have travel.

For instance I got paid today, yay, Friday!

And I put $68.24 into my savings.

$60 for travel and $8.24 for prudent reserve.

I know, its a silly system, but it’s my system and it works for me.

That being said, I can afford to eat up a lot of that travel money in savings for the event should I need to.

God.

I don’t want to.

But.

At this point I am pretty damn invested in going.

Plus.

It’s year 11.

Plus.

It’s Shadrach’s ten-year anniversary and I really need to be out there and have my own quiet time with him in the deep playa unload my heart, tell him how things have been, let him know I’ve been practicing being the ball.

It’s nice to be the ball.

And.

Well.

Fuck.

I have a ticket and I want to go.

I want to see friends I only see there, friends from Canada, London, Paris, friends from New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, friends from Toronto and Australia, shit friends from Alameda who you think I would see more often, but I end up almost only seeing out there.

So.

I am going.

And yes, I don’t want to rent the car but it’s a fall back, a net, if I have to, I will.

I haven’t paid anything for it, it’s reserved under my name, but I have the option to cancel at any time should I find a ride elsewhere.

Know anyone?

SERIOUSLY.

Let me know.

I’ll just be hanging out over here haunting the ride share board.

Ha.