boy with black arm socks at Insomnia—Los Angeles
You’re not the usual guy I date, but maybe it’s practical to date men your friends find slightly repulsive.
blue polo shirt guy at Urth Caffé—West Hollywood
You were with a girl who I think was your girlfriend, but you looked unhappy. I overheard you say something about the locus (locust?) of desire. The most important moments are the most mundane ones enacted at the right places, then narrated with insolence.
caffeinated dogwalker at Coral Tree Café—Brentwood
We were there before the lunch rush. You gently tied the leash to the parking meter, gave each dog an approval pat before going in. The intimate relationship between strangers.
gray suit sans tie at Bread & Porridge—Santa Monica
You looked a little breathless, like you’d been running, standing by the eye-level shelf with its eight glasses, lined up, lip down. Above, a bronze ceiling fan spun athletically. Cheap brown leather couches crowded into a blank space punctuated by a few large, leafy floor plants. They matched each other, but nothing else. In the corner, a stand of condiments and five wooden pepper mills watched us inhale, exhale in harmony. You were the perfect complement to the setting.
boy eating herring at Warszawa—Santa Monica
You watched my surreptitious shedding of socks, laughed back when I looked up and noticed you were watching. Later, your friend came over and asked to buy me a drink. Societal norms seem an overwrought mass of laughable formalities, don’t they?
boy in oversized art books section at library—Downtown
By the time you walked in, everyone else already looked like they’d come to terms with their loneliness.
guy with green bookbag in Fairmont Hotel—Santa Monica
You were walking with someone who looked like your father, and I think you thought I was looking at him. I’d like to think of myself as the kind of girl who has affairs with older men, that I give them a fair shot to turn me on. But it’s impossible to get past the receding hairline, the slightly protruding belly, the striped golf shirt, the sunburned and overeager smile. I was in the narrow bar with my laptop open, playing business girl getting a few clicks of work done before the big industry conference tomorrow. Maybe you’re too young to join me for a drink, but I hope you’ll relish the anonymity of the city. Strangers, whether desirable or frightening, will disappear forever by the eleven a.m. checkout time.
guy with black hat at Stephen Cohen—Los Angeles
When we spoke, I had a hangover pain under my left eye. Everyone else had been to therapists with the same training as mine. When I opened my mouth, they looked at me actively and punctuated the ends of my sentences with an individualized assent that sounded unlike the usual uh-huh. Today, the physical pain isn’t as acute. The people we know are completely random. And I suppose there’s a beauty in it, but most of the time it just seems like a fucking mess.
boy reading Monkeybicycle at Dutton’s—Brentwood
I could see you were reading a poem, tracing your finger below each line to focus an attention that wanted out. I remember liking the idea of poetry, but now it’s difficult for me to figure out what, if anything, I enjoy. Meaning: everything seems enjoyable in a stuffing-envelopes sort of way. Stuffing a lot of envelopes and watching a stack grow becomes mildly satisfying. Write and black letters fill up a page, except there’s that question of substance. I suppose you could get nitpicky about stuffing envelopes too—folding letters in perfectly creased thirds, moistening the lip of the envelope without wobbles, putting the stamp on an exact eighth of an inch in from both the top and right edges. With poetry I can be attentive—pay attention to handwriting, grammar, syntax, all of that—but in the end I may as well have filled the pages with s’s. Or o’s. Or just diagonal slashes.