At first I thought I wanted to be an actress, but you have to want to talk to people face to face to do that, you have to dive right in, and I have this thing with testing the water first. You have to watch your weight. There is so much about being an actress nowadays that has nothing really at all do to with acting, and I didn't want to deal with all that other stuff, I'd rather just tell stories with words instead of my body. More control anyway. Well, one can only hope... hope this will work.

They told her it wouldn't hurt. Much. The needle was long and thin.

In the future, I will not tell others who I am and am not interested in. Whether intentional or not, the expectation of what if is too much. It becomes more a secret to share with friends than anyone concrete to hold on to in the middle of the night. I guess it depends, what you want the outcome to be. No expectations. No disappointment.

In the future. Today. Tomorrow. Expect nothing. Gain nothing. Everybody wins.

I still think of him. I am trying not too. Trying.

He was into computers. He wanted to work in computers. He was working in computers. “Am I going to be the Network Administrator for a company in a major metropolitan area that trades over twenty billion dollars annually in a town like Los Angeles?” That’s what he said to her. She knew this wasn't really a question, more like a statement. More like he was telling her how stupid she was. Shit. I don't need this. I don't need this. I don’t. And now he wasn’t talking to her, because it “hurt” too much. Why are guys such girls? Damn.

I searched for bedrooms, one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, four. I would like to live in a three bedroom. I like having that other element. It makes it easier to walk away. People don’t take offense. When I listen to certain songs, I pretend I’m flying through the city, over the palm trees and freeways and through the buildings of Hollywood, I watch the people in their cars, in the restaurants, I watch the lights and listen to their voices. They don’t see me, but I don’t mind. It’s easier to walk away when they don’t know I’m there.

I am an Aquarius with Virgo Moon and Virgo Rising, not Scorpio Rising. At least, that’s what the computers say, my aunt says differently. I don’t know which is right. I liked having the scorpion in me. Now I’m supposed to be a double virgin? Thanks, but I’ll pass. I read on, what the computer said. Shy to get to know. Then the Aquarius is underneath, between, below. Like the creamy filled center of an Easter egg. Too bad I’m allergic to chocolate. It’s all bull anyway, I know, but it would be nice to get it right. Hmmm, right?

So, two people that I cared deeply about stopped talking to me on the same day. Then, he stopped coming to work, well, he moved on. Up. He passed go, collected 200 hundred dollars, and got the hell out is what I’m saying. Went to New York actually. Funny. I was going to go back to New York. But I decided against it. The only reason I was planning on going back at all was to see my past. Keep it alive? But that’s stupid. And it would just be harder. To come back. To go to school. To move on.

Why is this so hard for me to grasp? My mom said to dangle the possibility over their heads, only then will they talk to you, but you must walk a fine rope, never dancing to far on either side. She meant well, my mom. I think she was somewhat of a heartbreaker before she met my father. She told me that sometimes it's good not to be with people you're most attracted too. Sometimes the people you must learn to love are the best kind of relationships. And the guy should always be more in love with the girl.

When I don’t like someone or they don’t like me in that way I accept that we aren’t supposed to be together, right now or ever, and I move on, I enjoy their company. It’s life, it happens, it’s everyday. But boys, for some reason they have their pride, they have their egos. They can’t just be friends. Don’t they get how attractive they would be if they could just look past their manhood and talk to us like people, not property? Fuck. Whatever. I’m turning lesbian. Only problem there is I’m not into girls. Girls are far, far worse.

You fall for these boys. Boys that attract these fake sugar girls, or perhaps this particular girl was not fake sugar, perhaps she was the real thing, sweet and kind and va va voom. It is worse for him to say he loved me just as much. I want to stand out, someway in his mind, I want to be the one that got away. At work he says there is a new girl that just got hired. She is a lovely girl. He says she is fun to talk too. But he does not really know her. Not really.

I tell myself after I see that picture, I tell myself that he’s just like my past. He stands tall now, scared to run. I ain't your mother's son! I ain't your mother's son! People are always looking for the stupid in everything. I look down, all I see is blue blue blue. Makes me think. Beautiful. Yeah. We wrapped each other in our own thoughts and I tried not to cry, but it's hard, sometimes, sometimes, you look back and all you want to do is scream, yell and shout. Wish for the best. Is that really so bad?

He asks me about couches. The chairs he's going to buy for downstairs. Leather, only the best. But it's cold to touch. Everything is black now. Everything is quiet. The air heavy with the weight of waiting. I tug his arm, let's go get some espresso. He prefers dunkin donuts. Fine. I rub my hands down my jeans. He rests his hand on my thigh. He's bought me this pair, he likes the way they hug my skin, he wants my butt to be bigger, sometimes he'll buy me ice cream, pasta. I feel like hansel, or gretel, or both.

Though he's nothing like a witch in a gingerbread house. Though the furniture he buys, five star. I have been running more, before dusk, the air is sharp in my lungs, hard. Everything is hard here. Everything is so familiar it's strange. I feel what I feel. He tells me to stop feeling so much. How can you ask the person you love to stop feeling yet still love you? If they stop feeling would they stop loving you? Why did I stay with him so long? I am convinced it was everything about how we talked to each other.

My roommate thinks I'm innocent. I don't know why it bothers me so much. Maybe it's the fact that she doesn't like to be judged, yet has no problem judging others. She has no idea what I've done or what I could do, just what I tell her. Just because you don't sleep around, doesn't mean you don't like sex, love, romance, the bam wham thank you ma'am encounter. Eh. How would she know how I act towards the guys I like, maybe it's just because I'm shy. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does.

There's this fellowship. You get to go and write in Italy for a year. They pay. For everything. Health insurance too, And meals except on the weekends. I'm thinking I am going to apply. You have to be under 25 to go. The age of 25 or under. I'm tired of America. The US of A. It's a great country and I love driving through the desert, over the mountains, rivers, across the plains, but I'm growing restless, of course, of course, it could be worse. I could still be in the Rock. I could be working at the mall.

Shhh. Don't tell anyone. But who would you tell? No one knows what the hell I'm talking about. Vince is the type of man to cheat on his wife, I know because he is sitting next to me now, his hand on my thigh, the table cloth, and now my thigh again as his wife gets him drinks. I also know because once, five years ago, he cheated on me. We were teenagers then, this is true, but time hasn't changed him, time never does. He is married now, or engaged. He is one of the taken, off limits. Fine.

His wife, an angel on earth, stands at the bar, all legs, a true blond, eyes that are kind and hopeful. I know he doesn't love her. It's all lust with Vince. I know if anything he's more in love with the looks of other men that trail his property around. The only person Vince has ever loved is himself. I knew this the day I met him, yet for some reason I kept talking to him, probably because I'm weak. Or just bored. He asks me what I am doing for breakfast tomorrow. I raise my eyebrow. Breakfast, huh?

His angel is walking towards us now. She stops, puts the drinks down on the table and fixes her top. It's a string halter, revealing every curve. She isn't wearing a bra. She's one of those women that doesn't have a chest but that men still love to gape at. It must be in the way that she carries herself. You have an angel on earth, I say. An angel that wants nothing more than to sleep with you. I am not an angel, and I am not going to heaven, and from the looks of it, neither are you.

But that's why I like you, he replies. You’re fucked.
Damaged goods.
It's not a bad thing.
You're as bad as me.
No one’s as bad as you.
He whispers quickly, guilty: She makes me feel awful. I'm gonna ruin her. Do you know what she told me the other night? She told me that if someone pointed a gun at my chest, she would jump in front and take the fall.
Jesus. I sit back.
She’s brilliant.
Have fun with that.
I know.
Then why are you marrying her?
Maybe she can save me.
You’ll only drag her down.

Mark is one of those boys that needs no introduction. He is cool and sophisticated and oh-so-cold. No more writers, no more drug addicts, no more pisces. I don't believe in astrology, but it's just a bad combination. Capricorns. I guess. Are okay. But not. No. No. No. No more. There comes a time in every young chica's life when they must move on. This is not one of those times. We walk down the street, arms linked, sometimes to our sides. In Boston I knew of a boy named Mark. He wanted to take me skating on the pond.

I was intrigued, but suspicious. He held my hand through Downtown Crossing and talked of saving the world. We were only two people. What did we know about the world, or how to save it against the six billion people just trying to get by? But maybe there were a few like us, holding hands or just walking side by side. It is what it is. No need to make this harder than what it is so just accept that the sun may be shining today and yesterday and tomorrow, well, not tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. I am paranoid. I apologize.

My cousin was a hot dog vendor in New York City. He sold dogs in front of a polished 22 story building in midtown. My aunt loved him, but told me not to eat the food at his stand. It is not so clean, you know? She grasped the fork and spoon, raising more pasta on my plate. Cheese. With tomatoes. Pepper. Oliveoil. It was the right blend. I nodded. Yes. I was always thirsty in her apartment, but the water from her faucet was always cloudy, not like the water from upstate, which was cold and crisp and clear.

They had a television, but we never watched it. The channels that did came in were purple and gray. The people slid in and out of walls. Instead I would walk with Thea to the fruit stand, the flea market held in open lots and alleyways, she would bargain with the vendors for pieces of cloth, antiques, and I would stare up at the buildings and wonder who lived on the very top floors, and did they own a garden, were there flowers always red and yellow and purple, were there vegetables, did they eat them, and were they happy?

On the news, Javier Bardem spoke of language. He said he could not relate a memory to English words, like 'I love you', but in Spanish, his memories were full with 'Te Amo', moments where he had loved and lost. His past was translated into Spanish, not English, and he found, as he spent more time in different countries and created more memories in other languages, the memories solidified the words, gave them meaning. With the experience behind them, they made sense, came alive. It was this technique, this way of living that helped his acting. It helped him understand.

I guess they were right about you. I guess I was wrong. They said you were cardboard. They said I could do better. I said you were polite, but deep down you had a personality, you were a good person. They just laughed. Are you kidding me? They said. You need a man with balls, someone who's not going to run away, someone who has enough courage to ask you out. I didn't want to believe them. I left a little part of the day for you. Just in case they were wrong. I thought I saw something in you.

It was how you carried yourself. It was an instinct, just a hunch. You kept saying you wanted to get together, catch up on life, but then you stopped talking to me. You were just being nice. All this time you just wanted to walk away. Stop thinking about him, they said. Focus on someone who deserves to be thought about. I haven't seen you since the day in the alleyway when you said good-bye. Your smell surprised me. Clean. Simple. It was good. I had no idea what to say to you. It mattered, what you thought of me.

I didn't want to say anything stupid, so I didn't say anything at all. Despite what everyone said, I thought I saw something in you, something familiar. But it was just words, just other people trying to make something from nothing. I wanted to run after you, kiss you in the elevator. But instead I answered the phone and listened to you collect your things. It was hard to look at you. I didn't know how I would ever see you again, you were leaving, you were gone. I guess they were right about you. I guess I was wrong.

There is nothing else to say, but yet I keep writing. I would like to write him a letter. I would like to ask him if he is one of those people in Los Angeles, or perhaps I should say the world, because they are everywhere, that are just very, very polite and so to keep being polite they say "yes we should hang out soon" and "sure why don't we get together"? But really it's all an act and deep down there is never any intention to be friends, they just smile to be nice to underlie their indifference.

Can I blame him? I've done it too. It must be natural reaction, to keep the 'nice' facade going. I suppose I've just noticed it more in la la land. I want to write this to him and ask him to prove me wrong, but I know that’s it’s already done. He’s already spoken by not speaking. And I’ve already accepted that. There are always boys looking looking, but the one boy I wanted to look could care less. C’est la vie. It never would have worked anyway, as a rule, I must forget people that I care about or

are interested in that do not care about or have any interest in me. It’s done then. Time destroys everything. July is over. A new chapter begins. What will happen tomorrow, it is everyone’s guess. I hope for the best but fear for the worst. Or so I like to say, though this is not completely true. I remember once walking in a town in Germany. What was it called? I was with J and he wanted me to want him so bad, I kept telling him that I did, because I didn’t want him to be mad at me,

because I was tired of having the same conversation over and over again, but the truth was, all I really wanted to do was look at the colorful candy at the stands, stare up at the lights in the buildings, and keep walking, for the love of all things holy, because my feet were cold, numb, well, just my toes, and those French fries with mayonnaise were not enough. On the train back to the castle he pretended to fight with me. By the window he shook his fists, raised his arm, a few passerbys watched us on the platform,

when he caught their eye they pretended to walk away, but he flashed them a grin. I laughed. We were the main attraction. I didn’t mind having an audience then. He had forgiven me for being me, or had accepted that I was not the girl he had imagined in his head. We would travel to Amsterdam together, with a boy who liked boys. We would talk so much and so loud on the train that other passengers would remark it was like watching a Quentin Tarantino film. Pulp Fiction. Our dialogue was sharp, witty, irreverent. We stank of America.