Now I am 34 years old, for whatever that’s worth. Probably not much!

I am also exhausted, so for now here’s a bunch of nice stuff my friends posted yesterday. Wow! I have such nice friends. And I have blurred their names since I have yanked these things out of the ether and put them someplace else . . . and though I highly doubt anyone would care, I’m gonna go ahead and grant them relative anonymity anyway. It’s the least I can do!

LATER: Jill came over and we got HOMEROOM and made a bed on the floor of my living room and watched POINT BLANK (1967) on my stupidly huge television. We drank bad wine and felt glad. It was cold in my apartment as I had intentionally not turned on the radiators, knowing that later it would make being in bed much better. And so when the movie ended, we moved everything back to my mattress and lay there in the dark cold of my bedroom, warm together beneath the comforter, and talking and holding each other until we fell asleep. I don’t know what more anyone could ask for, when you get down to it.

THIS WEEKEND: I reckon we’re all gonna meet up in Temescal and sit beneath some heat lamps and get drunk?? I mean, what else can you really do right now? . . . everything is closed or half-closed, and it’s too cold to hang out in a fucking park, or whatever. But such is the ultimate fate of all January babies. Though you know what: no matter what we do, it will be all right, because I just like having an excuse to see everyone in any capacity. Last year I spent my birthday by myself. The year before, I was deathly ill in Berlin and I woke up to the news that my grandfather had died on the other side of the world. Which is to say: the bar for a better birthday is so low that if you went any lower, you may as well be skydiving off a snake’s dick. (What?)

THANKS FOR ALL THE NICE BIRTHDAY MESSAGES. I AM VERY LUCKY TO HAVE SUCH BEAUTIFUL FRIENDS. I LOVE YOU ALL. OKBYE~ ☆彡

laura and me

I have known Katrijn for a long time now. Many years ago she sent me a surreal email out of the blue. I did not know where she had come from or why she had chosen to write to me of all people, but it was very special thing to receive. I think it’s one of the best things anyone has ever written me. She is from Belgium, and because English is not her first language, she phrased things in a way that I would never think to phrase them. Which is to say that everything she wrote seemed effortlessly dreamy and surreal. I am sure she meant for it to sound at least a little poetic, but it was really beautifully written without feeling affected. Later she would send me handwritten letters on stationary she had got a long time ago when visiting Vienna. She has the most beautiful penmanship . . . you wouldn’t believe it! And I have kept them all in a box in my closet ever since.

All this is to say that she is an amazing person and a good friend of mine. We’ve only met once in person when she came to Oakland, but I’ll see her again in Belgium sometime soon. I said as much on the back of the Christmas card I sent to her and her family, which she tells me is prominently displaced on a shelf in her house as evidenced by the picture above. Wow!

Well: Katrijn, thank you for reaching out to me when you did. I was very lonely back then and it made me feel better to know that there was someone on the other side of the world who thinks many of the things I think and who feels many of the things I feel. I’m glad I know you. I love you forever.

Last night I went bowling with Jill and Shannon in Daly City. We drank some vodka in the parking lot and then got a few crappy beers inside and ripped through two games in an hour. I had not bowled in many years . . . but I was on a league when I was kid, on a team called The Shooting Stars (!), and so I remembered a lot of things. I’m still pretty good! But the point of course was to just be in the same orbit of these fine people I know.

I will go back to writing obnoxious trash from here on out, though I just gotta say: I have no idea how this happened to me—this knowing these two people. Jill and Shannon appeared like a meteorite, and since then I have felt only a deep and abiding love for them. There were so many ways it could have not happened, but it happened anyway. Thing is, stuff like this is way better when you can’t see it coming around the corner. I did not go looking for it. And it has blown my mind anytime I have thought about the mysterious machinery that lead us to each other. How did I manage to go and meet two of the best people I’ve ever met, and for them to now occupy this large part of my life?? I just feel so lucky is all.

I keep telling people this, so I’ll say it again here for good measure: My friends are the same thing. They have no ego, are unpretentious, and have self-generating personalities that exist outside of any external influence. Which is to say that Jill and Shannon are completely sincere and earnest people. I don’t know how you find something like that anymore. Or anyway I couldn’t tell you where to look.

Yeah~

♥️ :,)

happy birthday dude lol

the clown girl and i drove up the 1 to santa cruz on sunday . . . we had Roadside Pie and Little Coffees, and saw cows and fields and rolling green hills, and on and on, with the pacific ocean always on our right. twenty-five miles outside of town, we stopped at a vast stretch of beach she knew, and we explored the wet caves and tunnels there, and saw the crumbling concrete ruins of things which no longer serve any obvious purpose. later, on the side of a hotel which she says is haunted, i reunited with my spirit-brother james dean. it was great!

gosh!!!