2003-03-10 || 10:40 p.m.

|| wish you were here. ||

there are too many little things to keep track of and write down for memory's sake, for sharing's sake, and i wish you were right here right now to sit on the foot of my bed (or rather: lying down with me legs akimbo under quilts with the door open and light on) so that i could just let the sentences fall and evaporate and be done with them.

like

last night i stayed out way too late. i met a bunch of very fashionable fun ladies in japantown (after a short stint of wandering in an old montgomery ward coat that smells faintly of car interior) for noodles and a showing for the asian film festival. we sat in jagged rows in the dark and kept peeling off layers of coats and sweaters and scarves and laughed in inappropriate places and wanted to leave at inopportune times. i haven't hung out with a gang of the exclusively lady variety in. well. i don't think i have hung out with so many girls (five) and zero boys since high school. i liked it.

then i flew across town to meet o at the hush hush, all nervy and dragging my feet because of my fear of being alone in a bar. but matilda the van was parked outside and there he was, the first fellow at the bar, our o of the perpetual v-neck and glasses and hunched shoulders. i love him. don't you miss him? remember how it was? how your rightful place is to the left and mine to the right? and then we all eat peanuts from shells and wince at bad whiskey? without you we talked about how much we love the smiths and how excited we are about our trip to portland and our mixed feelings about a certain movie director who was taking preliminary shots in the bar. the bands didn't start until 11:30. the first two were god-awful so we took ample smoke breaks and talked over voices to j and c and drew pictures and marveled at all the people who had come to the show via a time warp from 1997. our old roommate's ex-girlfriend was there. your old best friend was there. they carried incarnations in tow like impatient ghosts and when i went to the bathroom i looked in the mirror and found my incarnations fit over my face so well i could hardly see them. same hair superimposed over my hair; same coat same shoes same handbag same wallflowery airs. there are more laughlines and eyecrinkles and freckles, but my ghosts are very good at balancing one over one over me.

jason finally went on and it was a good show in that he was making jokes and doing that funny rocking he does when he gets lost in playing the guitar. o and i stood to the side and it made me sad to the point of tears when he played a song from the very first tape, the it's-too-late-to-worry-now song. i remembered how excited we were about it, singing it in the truck in santa rosa and at home and on tour when we were all in canada. afterwards outside, way past my bedtime and any hope for recovery, j and o and i stood on the sidewalk and i got my requirement of good friendly affection (oh that boy heads on my shoulder and the kissing of ears could send me the way it does. it's a florence nightingaley feeling and i think it is one of the best. looking out for my boys.) and there was a spot reserved for you and a moment of silence for one of the cutting remarks you are famous for. then i drove across the bay and home in sixteen minutes flat, singing the same smiths song over and over (dear friend, i have been listening to the smiths for six days straight now. nothing else, except for a brief sidetrip into yo la tengo (sober) and missy elliott (intoxicated) on friday night. please send help or more b-sides).

and today. kelly called to yell 'there are two tortoises fucking their brains out right now!' and proceeded to go into specifics of the mechanics of it all. i will send illustrations. i peed my pants and got yelled at by my supervisor (for the hysterics. i was running on 4 hours of sleep).

and tonight i met with my group about my novel and it is going so well and i so want you to be at the reading so that i can point to you and say 'he is all those characters. he gets it completely.' because so many times i have to stave off the comments resulting from people just not getting me. us. that there is so much importance in the brushing of fingertips and listening to records in a movie theater office after hours. that just because it's 2003 we haven't converted to cds completely or given up on french new wave (christ that sounds so snotty.).

and now i am at home and i could call i guess but you are where you are and i am where i am and a brief connection within telephone wires doesn't change geography, now does it?

i love you very much, dear dear boy.

love, jenny.

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