"Maybe I'm lonely
And that's all I'm qualified to be."

I leave him sleeping in my bed, maybe just awake enough to know that I'm going, and I come downstairs to start this. I don't know who it's to yet, I don't know when I will, but I know that I need to right it, and that, as scared as I am, I can't just sit there in bed and watch another person who is either unwilling to acknowledge the fearfulness of the next month and a half or, worse, not fearful at all as my heart breaks. It felt that way, really it did, like I couldn't stand to sit there any longer.

This isn't how I envisioned our last night together, not before a break like this. Part of me, ego I suppose, wants more to be insulted that he could fall asleep tonight, without my genuine consent- albeit, I told him to, but I also told him I wouldn't be able to sleep, that I'd be awake thinking about things. I told him how I felt Jeff was the only person acknowledging my departure the way I need somebody I to acknowledge it: like it's fucking huge, because it is. Like it matters, like it's a big, scary step. Like they're afraid to live without me, to miss me horribly, the way I'm afraid to miss all of them. Okay, it's a relatively short time. And it's possible that they're playing it down to make me feel better. But...fuck, it's just not working.

The stubs in my ears- the type of earphones I hate- are playing "I'd Do Anything For Love", which, in combination with "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" is part of a series of songs by Meatloaf that I'm rediscovering, along with that morsel of sentiment and youth that, without this music, I might have lost completely. Oh, and he's telling her now that he can do all of the things she's asking, he's pledging his love, he's assuring her that she's worth it- something I never know about myself- he's making promises, he's being sure of himself, of his love. I keep hearing little walking noises in the background, I keep hating it's Zack, up and worried about me, having sensed that maybe he should be, coming to find me, coming to rescue me from the sad fate of writing it all out. Albeit, a fate I need, a fate that's part of me in a way I can't imagine a rescue ever being. But it's not him, never is, and the part of my mind that makes up these frivolous expectations burns a little, or, my heart, it must be my heart. I'd like to think my mind is better than this.

I don't mind that I'm rambling. I think there's something to be said about a writer rambling. Shows how much emotion is going into it, how many thoughts and feelings are tumbling all over each other. Shows that the writer is human, not just a writer. The stubs are onto "Objects in the rearview..." now, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to put this on my site, rather than send it to anyone: Casey, or Jeff, or Mr. Ladd, who did not inform me he would be missing or last appointment. Chad, even, or Mitch, just somebody. Somebody I could trust this part of myself with. I'm so eager to trust myself to people. Elorza, maybe. This song is so amazing, but I'm still thinking about the other one- the way Jeff and I were singing it, screaming it even, in his car the last time he saw me, but more later, in the back office of Burger King, where it was very illegal for Zack to be with me, and the way I was mouthing all the words, or even singing them, and he didn't do or say anything, except at the end, in response to my singing the woman's line "Sooner or later you'll be screwing around.", he mouthed "I won't do that." It was perfect the way he did it just then, the way I...wanted to believe that the song, the relevance, the moment made it infallibly true. How can one person blow away all expectations you could possibly imagine of them in one moment, then sleep through them all in another?

How can he make me feel so loved and then leave me to feel so alone? This isn't his fault, this isn't his fault, this is me, why didn't I tell him I needed him to be with me that way tonight? I keep hoping the way this is going to end is him waking up to find me gone, realizing that he wants to know where I am, how I am, if I'm alright, if I'm crying- I'm so surprised I'm not yet, I was earlier, watching him sleep, stifling it, because I feel so unworthy of crying to any one person so many times in one week- and I could just cut this all off, and it could be blissfully abrupt happily-ever-after. Six weeks after, as this is the last thing you all have to go on until I make my triumphant return from California, probably.

Maybe that's why I needed to write it so badly. Maybe that's why fate let him sleep. Maybe it's all predestined, or at least it's somehow less terrible than it seems, because this is my big accomplishment. Writing is the only thing that ever lets me sleep when I feel like this, it seems. Writing and I, we're the couple, everything and everyone else is just details. That's such bullshit.

And ELORZA IS NOT WORTHLESS. There is NOTHING in this world worth what he is, and there is NOTHING in this world I wouldn't give to prove that to him. Take the words from my pen, my screen, my mind right now, but let him know that there's nothing so satisfying in the world as a smile that he gives me, and that if he's half the man to anyone else as he is to me, who only gets a fraction of him, in theory, than he can go anywhere, be anything, and have the hearts of the world breaking for him everywhere; have the hearts of the world never regret it, just as I never did. And, goddamn it, I wish I could get it proven that I love him, I wish I could write it down on a piece of paper and have it notarized and send it to him, and I wish that would make me worth all the things to him I can't be from so far away. And I wish against wish against wish against wish that he could just admit to reading this, if he does, and let me know that he did, and tell me how it made him feel- even if it was anger or disgust, just tell me. I'm scared, I'm so scared for California, but if I had just one e-mail from him in my inbox when I returned, nothing that happened there could make it not worth it.

"The mystery and the muscle of love." Jim Steinman, the guy who writes all of Meatloaf's songs, evidently, is amazing. There's hardly anything I relate to specifically in this song, but he makes me relate to all of it. Like Jack Vettriano- the book Jeff got me says that Jack Vettriano can make you feel sentimental for things you never actually experienced, and it's so true, and the present WAS perfect, a thousand times more perfect than he made it out to be in the first place, the best thing I got this year- aside from the blanket my uncle gave me. I'll be so glad to come home to that blanket.

I haven't even left, already I'm homesick. Why is the only one here to listen to this a website?

You'd better all be reading this. You'd better be feeling it and wishing you could help it, you'd better see my address now and do something about it. You'd better write and ask how I'm doing and draw little happy faces on the letter and tell me how much you love me, or just how much you really like me if you don't love me, and pretend to miss me or genuinely miss me, and make me believe it's not just because I told you to. Condescend to make me feel valued, fight your apathy and stoicism, like Casey did- because he shouldn't even have to take care of me as often as he does, where are the rest of you when he's the one putting me in his profile, telling me he'll miss me or saying the shirts or quoting my website? Where are you when I'm relying on someone I barely know and already love inalienably- god, I love everyone I love inalienably...all on different levels though.

Jeremey, Jeremey's the ultimate inalienable love in my life. But I'm starting to move on from him- it's rickety and it's hard and it's dangerous and have bruises from the places I've slipped and fell trying to make this one great big step forward, and where ARE YOU ALL to wipe the dirt off of me face? Where ARE YOU to congratulate me? And why haven't you started that letter to me yet? I'm talking to you.

I'm experimenting with different songs on this CD- be my rock and roll dreams, and come through for me when I really really need it the most. When I go upstairs to my bed, Zack will already be asleep. It's so very lonely trying to fall asleep next to someone who's already there, because you know that you're very much aware of them, but they're completely oblivious to you- that's a pretty good metaphor for most of my relationships.

WAKE UP TO ME. GET OUT THOSE DAMN ENVELOPES. I'M TELLING YOU, RIGHT NOW, I NEED YOU TO. DON'T THINK FOR A SECOND THAT THIS MIGHT NOT APPLY TO YOU. DON'T THINK THAT YOU CAN'T HELP TO SPARE ME SOME OF WHAT I'M FEELING. THAT'S A MOTHERFUCKING COP-OUT. YOU HAVE AN OPPURTUNITY, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, TO DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE ELSE. TAKE THAT OPPURTUNITY.

Am I even awake anymore? Yes. I don't even know if I'm tired. I'll leave in my stubs while trying to fall asleep. I won't have to be aware of him at all. And I'll get to wake up next to him. For the last time...bastard.

This isn't his fault, this isn't his fault, this isn't his fault- I tried to tell him what I needed, and I failed. But I'm telling you all very, very clearly right now. It won't be my fault if I don't get a reaction. I'm making this very clear.

I hate having to do it this way. I hate how often I have to do it this way. I hate how often I have something that I have to deal with at all- it's like, my whole life long, no matter what's on the table for me, I have to go and find a reason to freak out every now and again. Whatever they serve up- I can't just let it all go down like turkey bacon....Ha! If this were ever going to be a classic, it just lost it's universality in that one phrase. "Turkey Bacon."

Do me a favor and have them edit that for me. I deserve the admiration. I deserve a lot. I deserve a letter.


Linda H.
c/o Ahern's Massage Therapy School
P.O. Box 673
Mariposa, California 95338

January 4th through February 28th



"Maybe I'm crazy
But it's crazy and it's true
I know you can save me
No one else can save me now but you."
~Meatloaf, "I'd Do Anything for Love"


On with it.