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10:34 p.m. - 2007-06-14
11800 Kittridge Rant
Okay. There's that weird feeling again. The one I haven't had for so long. The one I thought was gone. Chased away by marriage. That feeling of exclusion. Being on hold. Waiting like a fool. Why does waiting make me a fool? Why did I go to 11800 Kittridge yesterday. Sit outside just staring. Remembering what it felt like to walk in that entry way. Go up the steps by the pool. It has bars all around it these days. It was a dangerous neighborhood even then. My mom used to call it Fort Apache. It is all the worse now. If there had been a "For Rent" sign, I would have dared to go in. To pretend I was looking for an apartment. Just to see my old place. "My Love Does It Good" was playing the day I moved in. Playing in my head, that is. What year does that make it? '72? The song had just come out and the n'ere do well "boyfriend" du jour who was helping me move thought I was humming the Star Spangled Banner. He called my place "Kittyridge", his own play on my street name. I remember the dark green sofa bed. Naugahide. Stiff and cold, scratchy seams. Like my heart feels right now, as I type. Sounds like a country song, doesn't it? His name was Al and he was Cajun and supposedly separated. He had a space between his teeth. I had one between my ears to be spending any time at all with him. But I remember the green sofa bed. It had once belonged to my parents. It weighed more than several refrigerators. I can just feel how it felt to open it up, with those heavy black accordian wrought iron things that sprang out to magically turn an uncomforable sofa into an even more uncomfortable bed. My sheets were amazing. Cartoons of Noah's Ark everywhere. Was I that out of touch with what that represented? I honestly didn't know. I just knew they were cute and incredibly colorful and crisp and when I would put my head on that animated pillow at night, all was right with the world. Ironic that I could have been such a slut there on those Biblically inspired sheets. I had no idea that Noah and his ark had been spared from the destruction of the world because of sins just like the ones that took place there on those unbelievably unique sheets. No idea. I slept like a baby no matter who had just come or gone. How was that? I would take my phone off the hook and be incognito and unavailable and mysteriously mysterious. I slept in the living room on the sofa bed, so my two year old son could have the room. It was huge. His crib, a toy box that was a frog. Light everywhere. Was the carpet green, too? How can I not know? How can I not know the number of the apartment when I came and went so often there in that happy sad year? Yesterday, happy as I now am (in spite of how I am feeling right now ... excluded, weird), I wanted to walk right in there and sit down on that green sofa. I wanted to draw strength from that crazy girl who lived her life so innocently wrong. Who drew her sketches, splashed some water color on the black lines and framed them. Just like that. Who played Alice Cooper and David Bowie on the $29 Akron record player. Who felt so free floating. Free fall. Free. What did she know that I have forgotten? What do I know that she couldn't possibly have? Who was she that I still am? Who am I that wraps around her like a costume. I am still her in so many ways. Yesterday, I ate at that Jack in the Box. The one on Kittridge and Lankershim. Some things never change. I didn't get one, but I'm sure the Jumbo Jack would taste exactly the same. The yearning inside was palpable. Like a fresh wound. How is that possible? That a leering clown and the innocuous words "Hi there, may I take your order?" could evoke such angst. A visceral longing. I want to find her. Hold her tonight. I want to learn from her. Teach her. I want to see the world through her eyes. Tell her about God. I want to befriend her. She is so lonely tonight ... and she was hardly ever lonely. I want to let her know that it all turned out so well. I want to ask her what she continues to dream. I want to reclaim her. Invite her home. Go home with her. I want her to soothe me. Remind me that it is not that serious. I want to protect her, but she will have none of it. She wants to tell me that the world is not such a scarey place. I know better, but I want so to believe her. I want to tell her ... "Guess what? I'm a therapist! I really did it!". She wants to tell me that she taught me everything I know. She invites me to come and play. I look both ways before crossing the street. How can we reconcile these differences? Her perspective draws me like a powerful magnet. I am cautious. Where does this feeling come from? Maybe she knows. This weird excluded lonely pain. Can she trace it on the palm of her hand? What sends me here? Like tonight. It is familiar and unrecognizable. It causes me to push aside the one who loves me. What would she say about that? That blissful girl on the Noah sheets. I know she knows. But her phone is off the hook for the night. She is dreaming of someday becoming me. I want to tell her it is not so bad. I want to tell her that I miss her. Desperately. Desperately. And I know her address.

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