March

We pause for a note on memoir. I'm not telling you the whole story. What I'm shooting for, instead, is something close to but not exactly the true story. In the retelling, certain names and details may be omitted via author's privilege. That argument, that slip-up, that boy who didn't call, they don't fit the narrative. No matter. Years from now, I'll remember the retelling with more clarity than the parts that got cut from the page. Such is the power of memoir, how we shape our memories. What we include and what we leave out.

That said, some of this narrative gets uncomfortable.

In March I discovered okcupid and all Hell broke loose. I started seeing a therapist, by which I mean that I started dating a therapist, and we had--surprise--a lot of long talks about feelings. One of those talks, according to my phone log, lasted four and a half hours. When your phone shows an outgoing call at 1:21am for 36 minutes, and you don't remember the contents of that conversation, that's a scary thing. Worse are the alcohol soaked online chats with strangers that get recorded, like it or not, for your viewing pleasure the next morning (delete, delete).

Outside of that chaos, I saw some nice films about space under a big full moon, I went to a (mostly ineffective) rally to preserve Texas education funding, some of my worlds collided at an intimate house show with Owen, and I brought home a new Empty Bowl. I don't really remember what I was doing at work but I do remember accepting a couple big checks and going to an event where I was asked to talk on camera (surprise!), so I must have been showing up and earning my salary.

I had cut things off with the therapist and closed all the open loops except one: I agreed to meet up with an attractive poetry phD candidate for coffee and a reading the night before I left for CALIFORNIA. Just this one, I thought, and everything else goes on hold while I take a break and re-evaluate. The poet did not disappoint, and later we texted throughout my whole trip. This is it, I thought. This is what this whole process has been leading up to. I was meant to be a muse! And on April Fool's Day I woke up very early and practically floated onto a plane to Los Angeles.