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It interested her. And not in some MPDG way (Manic Pixie Dream Girl; not sure if you’ve made it to M in the Urban Dictionary). She wondered about stuff. Everything. And then came to intelligent conclusions. Excuse me for a moment while I curse aloud at my fucking stupidity for ever fucking up so badly and letting her fucking get away. Fuck.
    All that to say, it was a huge bummer to see her and some other dude try to inhale each other’s faces on the dance floor. Ever since, I can’t stop thinking about our first kiss, which was quite a bit tamer than what I saw the other night. We’d spent the day at the beach. We kept trying to get in the water, but it was freezing, so the whole time we were in there we howled like we’d just simultaneously whacked all of our fingers with a hammer. Then we’d clamber back to our towels, joking and laughing, and that moment kept coming where our laughter died down and our bare shoulders would touch and essentially every ideal first-kiss element was in place. But I couldn’t do it. We were even there at sunset! It was like a freakin’ commercial for OkCupid! But I just couldn’t make the move.
    So I’m driving her back into the city and I can’t believe what a chump I am, and I have this extended interior monologue that I won’t bore you with except for the conclusion, which was something like, “If you ever want to be happy you’re going to have to get it into your head that tomorrow is never a good time to start being the person you want to be. The time is now. And now again. And now again, until you die. At which point we both almost died because I was so lost in thought that I’d let the car drift toward oncoming traffic. I yanked the car back into our lane and immediately pulled over. “Are you all right?” she said.
    Bam. Laid a gentle but firm kiss right on her lips. I sighed and said, “Now I am.”
    And of course . . . now I’m not. But I’ve had a lot to do at work lately, which is good. I’m actually starting to enjoy it a bit. The Show That Shall Not Be Named is still too terrible to be named, but we did an outdoor scene the other day, which almost never happens, and I got to hold the boom mic because because the boom guy had an allergy attack and was sneezing too much to keep the mic steady. Holding a boom mic is no joke. I did it on a few of my classmates’ senior films, and you have to have the thing in just the right place so you’re off camera but can still pick up sound. I think they appreciated that I took it seriously. Woody Allen said that ninety percent of life is showing up. Showing up and caring bumps you up a good five percent more, I’d venture. Same goes for relationships.
    That’s why it still kills me that I managed to bumble my way into the last five percent with Corinne. And I still haven’t quite figured out why. Things were all sorts of awesome for a while. Then I felt her start to pull away. I stretched out my arms and put out my hands, but she didn’t want to take them.
    As far as whether it was worth it, it’s hard to say. The old saying is that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Like that whole “many fish in the sea” thing, it sounds wise and encouraging and all that, but it doesn’t really help much while you’re actually going through something.
    Well, c’est la vie. C’est my shitty vie.
    Peace in the Entire East,
    D-Dog

OCTOBER 2012
    From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: October 2, 2012 at 3:52 PM
Subject: RE: Netflix Recs
    Dear Darren:
    So I watched Whale Rider five times in a row marathon-style on Saturday, pausing only to nuke some ramen noodles for lunch/dinner. That’s some heavy duty binge watching (Urban Dictionary, 2012) if you ask me. But a girl who saves an entire pod of beached whales by riding the largest one back into the sea