I have this maroon hoodie that I got from Uniqlo when I first moved to Oakland, which means it’s about ten years old. It’s heavy duty and really comfortable. I’m always wearing that thing . . . I’ve worn it all over:

I’m wearing it right now!

And sometimes I let cool g-g-girls wear it when they Get Cold:

(Man . . . I went looking, and I think like dozens of my friends have worn this thing over the last decade. Whoa!)

It’s one of my favorite things I own. I hope it lasts forever. I mean, it’s gotta . . .

ANYWAY: I got home a while ago, and Dante wanted to go on a walk, and it’s a little cold out now that the Northern Hemisphere is done equinox’in. So I grabbed my HOODIE, and as I went to swoop it around my shoulders, I smelled something I had not smelled in a long long time, which was the scent of this girl I knew (and loved, duh) many years ago. But how can this be? It wasn’t any sort of fragrance she wore . . . it’s just what she smelled like. Like her natural smell. It was a good smell. Why, fifteen years later, does my hoodie smell like her bedroom and sheets and pillowcases and clothes? Why has my hoodie never smelled like this before? It didn’t this morning when I wore it. And I know for a fact it’s this girl’s exact smell because when I put my hoodie on an hour ago, it knocked the wind out of me, on account of my being reminded of her and missing her so much.

I have many times felt the sadness of having my denim jacket or one of my shirts or my sheets retaining someone’s smell after they’ve gone, and hoping it lasts as long as possible because I missed them. And of course it eventually fades, or you do laundry or whatever, and then it’s erased. But I have never had the experience I had tonight, which is that an ancient phantom scent that I could not possibly reproduce on my own settled on my favorite hoodie. I could have gone the rest of my life without experiencing this again. It’s real spooky. It reminds me of falling asleep holding her in her twin-sized bed pretty much every night the summer I first met her, when we’d get in at five in the morning and cover her windows before the sun came up. Man, I miss that girl.

i’m mostly posting this screenshot of [REDACTED]’s Secret Instagram for the absurdity of posting a screenshot of a screenshot of my own text message. i love it

also i’m big into morse code now, OK??

also kissing rules obviously

At McCune’s behest, I watched REDS (1981) the other night. Warren Beatty wrote, produced, directed, and starred in it. It was nominated for a whole bunch of Oscars and Beatty won best director. (Diane Keaton should have won best actress . . . though hey baby what can you do.) It is an incredible movie. It’s three hours of Warren Beatty hanging out in Greenwich Village and Soviet Russia just after the October Revolution. It’s got Uncle Jack Nicholson and Gene Jacket Hackman in it, for god’s sake. And yet it made no money and has essentially been buried. Man, what a sadness.

ANYWAY: If you get a chance . . . Check It Out. And now I conclude my endorsement of REDS by saying that annoying / kinda pretentious thing I sometimes say, which is that I cannot possibly imagine something like this being made today or ever again. Well, it’s true!

Beatty is a genius. He’s my boy. Love you forever, big dog.

Good-night~ ☆彡

I post this stuff once a year. Behold:

Anyway: I don’t have chlamydia, gonorrhea, HIV, or syphilis. (Syphilis is the RPR / rapid plasma reagin test (I had to look this up).)

For those at home keeping score, my previous tests are here and here and here (lol)~

:,)

my friends and i are in full agreement when it comes to danny elfman’s “music” lol

I went to New York City because I probably won’t be back there again for some time. I stayed with Monty and her cat Bilbo in Queens, and at night we ventured into Brooklyn to shriek like idiots and drink at dive bars and eat at overpriced restaurants. We also went to a massive cemetery there, and hid beneath tall trees when it started to rain. I got to see Molly a few times . . . and even briefly wore her and Monty’s shirts just for the hell of it. And on my last night there I saw my good friend Tracey, who was giving a talk at a bookstore in Cobble Hill, on account of her being a published novelist now! I took a picture through the window. And then afterwards we all went across the street to Clover Club to celebrate. I caught a midnight bus back down to DC an hour later. I had fun! Anyway here’s the whole thing in chronological order, more or less:

night pain

i keep having dreams about The Russian Girl From LA and it’s making me really sad! i made the mistake of rereading all our old emails last week . . . i hadn’t looked at them in a long time. i can’t believe i lost touch with this extremely interesting person who was my friend. and now i’m just dreaming about this girl, The Russian Girl From LA.

well: i started writing a thing about her. i don’t know why i never wrote it down anywhere before. i’ll post it here in a few days, because of course i will!