a box full of paper hearts.

When I look out my window from here, I see a mansion through a heavy mist of Autumn fog.

I wonder who the people are inside. What their lives are like. If they are lonely.

I wonder if they are home. If they have kids. Whether it is a husband and wife. And if they are in love with each other. Or if they are just lying to make life easier.

You say I was never in love with you, but you don't know what you mean. You fall in love too easily until it isn't love at all. You lied to make life easier. I lied to make you think it was working.

Now I know love is a feeling that isn't convenient to feel until you are old enough to be miserable.

here giddy giddy giddy.

I just remembered this commercial and how much I lurve it. Plus, the Samuel L. Jackson-like guy. Period.

KITTIES EVERYWHERE!

locked up tight.

It's hard not to wonder what would have happened if I had chosen New York over you.

Would I have saved myself the pain? Or would I wake up every morning to the dark grey sky, wondering what would have become of us?

Well I know now. And it is more painful than any unanswered question or nostalgia-ridden dream.

Now every day I wake up to headache-inducing sunlight, wondering what emotion will run through me when my eyes meet yours again. Will it be regret that I have made this decision? Will it be relief that you are still in my life? Will it be a feeling of comfortable abandon? Will I feel sick to my stomache for hurting you like I have? Or will I have to continue forcefully swallowing the three words that got me where I am, so I don't end up where I was?

Lately, it has been all of the above.

When you told me that story over breakfast, I don't know what happened between us. Something in me went blank, whether from jealousy or insecurity or frustration, I will never know. I don't know what to make of the anger I felt or how little I felt I knew you in those ten minutes.

And then when I trudged up Rieber steps after newspaper training, I almost expected you to still be sitting there alone like you were as I looked back over my shoulder this morning, still so angry you were willing to throw all those little seeds onto my favorite sweater (the one you bought me last Christmas) like a little boy angry at his big sister for tattling.

And I was just thinking, maybe in New York, this would have all disappeared. Maybe I could replace the hole you leave when you're away with expensive shoes and snow and skyscrapers.

Then, just as I think of the alternatives, the question comes back again: Do you feel better now, you heartless bitch?

and i get paid for this.

Four great news stories that happened today. Oh, how I love journalists with a strong grasp on irony:

A) Steve Wynn sells Picasso's "Le Reve" for $139 million, making it the most expensive painting in the world.
Then he elbows it and gives it a 2-inch tear. Oh, the plight of the rich.

• http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2409693,00.html

B) Scarlett Johansson has signed on to record an album called Scarlett Sings Tom Waits.
Ummmm, what?

• http://www.hecklerspray.com/scarlett-johansson-to-wrap-mighty-lungs-around-tom-waits/20065371.php

C) Mailman found dead in his apartment with thousands of letters stolen from people along his mail route.
OK, this is kind of sad, but the irony kicks my butt.

• http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/us/18mail.html?hp&ex=1161230400&en=8ae1fa1df5c6b415&ei=5094&partner=homepage

D) I'm not going to post a link to this one, but it is equally smirk-worthy. In London, they have banned junk food in elementary schools. So what's a concerned mum to do now that her kid can't chow down on Lion bars at lunchtime? Why, sell contraband hamburgers, french fries, and sandwiches, of course! Kids just aren't kids without that extra five pounds.

rant.

Here is a question I pose not only to the English department at UCLA, but to all English departments everywhere and to Norton Abrams and his Norton Anthology:

Why do we focus more time on mentally retarded men than we do talented women in our English classes? Unless you take a Women's Lit class, English teachers glaze over amazing women authors like Aphra Behn and spend four sections discussing Alexander Pope and his humpback.

And I have a female teacher. Yet she focuses on quotations from Behn that include diction like "weak" and "indebted" when talking about female writing.

Fuck that.

so there.

Today at Rendezvous, a campus restaurant, I spotted a girl with hair like mine waiting for her Mexican food at the counter. Next to her stood a boy about her height with light brown hair that covered the tops of his ears. The man behind the counter called the girl's number and the boy reached out to grab her box of food for her. She took it from him and smiled. She handed him some napkins and a fork from the baskets on her left.

I couldn't help smiling at the simple reciprocity. I couldn't help going numb from feeling so far away.

bored.

I am...
an easy laugher
jokingly racist
creative
beautiful on my good days
fashion conscious
overly critical
way too analytical
half confident and half shy
well-informed
a little ditzy
in love with San Francisco
a great friend
a bit of a gossip
afraid of sandpaper
a closet romantic (the door has been closed a long time)
a daydreamer
good in bed (although I forget this sometimes)
open to any topics
terrified of pornographic images
growing
a party girl
not able to read a watch without careful deliberation
determined
careful
calculating
always willing to smile at a clever pun
jealous of ex-girlfriends
partial to pearls
wild about Ewan McGregor
annoyed with bad grammar
in need of constant attention
powerful
shoe-crazy
adventurous
lost.

and and and.

On another note, I am going to stop censoring myself for you now.

So be prepared for it. You might not like what I have to say.

Deal with it.

lots of trash and a little treasure.

I like the idea of having a daily column. I just don't think that I have the ability to write one week after week.

It makes me sad because I am beginning to believe that I will never write anything worth reading. Editing is great. It's just very hollow. If I didn't work with the amazing people I work (play) with, I might not be so crazy about it.

Who am I kidding? I love it.

But still. The column. I would really like to be writing one this time next year. I just need practice because, as of now, my creativity has dried up.

gold keys jingling in a tattered pocket.

I was thinking yesterday about how important the past becomes as you grow older. Photo albums and picture frames and old pieces of paper and ticket stubs seem like parts of yourself. As the days drift off into nothing, I can't help but cling onto these symbols harder than before.

It's strange, however, how these things no longer make me sad or angry at how quickly the good times faded. I look at my little souvenirs and I can appreciate that I still have pieces of how things once were.

I'm not about to say that I am happier now than I ever have been, but I am happy in general right now. And just having these pieces of my old life here to remind me of what happiness even is keeps me believing that I am capable of feeling that distilled joy once again. Maybe in a different place. Maybe at a different time. Maybe with different people. But at least I am starting to see that it's possible.