Brad Brad (because you are a DEAR and it is a SYNONYM),

I have made it through the day, subsisting mainly on YouTube videos and German chocolate cake. Questions remain unanswered, however:

What kind of jewelry would you consider wearing? Have you ever worn jewelry in earnest?

You talk big talk about licking people, but have you ever really licked someone across the face? I feel like there's something you're not considering: Makeup. Years ago, I met my boyfriend at the train station in New York. We had been apart for a while and when I caught sight of him, I ran over and gave him a tremendous kiss--but he pulled away and said scornfully "Jeez, hello lip gloss." Ouch! What a feelings trampler. What I'm saying is, make-up is a known entity in ladies, and I don't want you licking someone and then getting annoyed that they are wearing a very thick foundation and 'tawny soliel' or 'hazel ivory' is now all over your tongue. A funnier joke would be if you dated a total ice queen (I at first wrote ice cream--also lickable!) and one day you licked her face and pretended your tongue got stuck to it, like she was a frozen pole. Then, I imagine, things would probably get heated.

What else. I found myself relating to two classics today:



Smokey Robinson is still alive! What luck! I relished the simple lyrics: "I don't like you, but I love you/seems that I'm always thinkin' of you". I think part of the fun of getting over your beloved is listening to pretty much every song ever written, since they suddenly all relate to you. "Why have I never noticed before?" I wept to myself, clicking the back arrow to the beginning and listening 8 more times. When I got bored of that, I learned it on guitar and recorded myself singing it, at a slower tempo. MINE. It was so emo.

Later on, I walked out of my house to my car in a better mood and a sexy dress, and I caught myself singing "For Once In My Life" and really meaning it. I realized I was singing like I was in love with myself. I was serenading myself. I am aware that my personality is bordering on intolerable at this point.



Stevie Wonder is still alive! More luck! What an embarrassing duet though, since @ 1.44, Stevie just basically destroys Tony Bennett (on his birthday!) and then lays down a brilliant harmonica solo that makes me really mad at Bob Dylan for being so consistently shitty at live shows.

I may have also watched a number of Beyonce videos at some point, and then tried to do the Diva dance in front of the full-length mirror. As I said: Intolerable.

MERRY SEPTEMBER 11TH!

Ariana

Dear Ariana,

When you say "gargoyles," I think of a cartoon show that was always on when I got home from school. I didn't like it or watch it. But it's taking up a lil' portion of my brain anyways, and I will probably remember it long after I have forgotten the names of my elementary school teachers.

When you say "I have to write a song for a wedding," I think of the movie Rachel Getting Married, and the part where Tunde Adebimpe sings Neil Young's "Unknown Legend." I first saw that movie at the Moreland Theater in Sellwood, and I always wondered if I loved the movie so much partially because the cute girl who gave me my ticket flirted with me. She said she liked my shirt, and I said thank you, and then she said she liked my jeans too and then I was flustered and said, "Thanks, I got them both off ebay," and she laughed and said, "Oh, I've never bought anything from there before," and I forget what I said after that, but I was in such a good mood I probably could have seen Transformers 2 and it would have been my favorite movie of the year (or maybe Transformers 2 would be so bad it made me retroactively hate the cute ticket girl). Anyways, I remember planning to ask the girl for her number if I saw her on the way out, but I didn't see her. Just the older guy who might have been her dad (I heard it was a family-owned theater). When I walked home, I remember passing a couple middle-aged ladies eating at a table outside of a café and imagining what would happen if I stopped and licked one of them across the face. I wrote a poem about it. I think her forehead tasted like an orange peel.

What other personal memory resurfaced while reading your letter? Well, I have read some Baudelaire, but only so I could reference him in a poem I wrote last year! Here's the first stanza of said poem because because because:

Dear God,

I tried reading Baudelaire

on the recumbent bike in the gym:

Something about the soft

footfalls of the night and how it

trails off to the east like a long and winding sheet—

but the girl jogging in front of me wore black spandex,

and I lost my place

listening to the repetitive motion of her feet.

I just chose Baudelaire because his name sounded very erudite and academic, but I did end up enjoying some of his poetry. It was rather hit-or-miss though, I agree.

High schoolers should watch David Lynch. Do I need to explain that statement? I don't want to.

It grows late! 2:24am. Alas, And I haven't even said anything about improv or my gargoyles or L.A. I think you will write a good song though.

My senior quote was the name of a Books song: "Enjoy your worries, you may never have them again." I still like it.

Oh I ate In N' Out tonight and I shouldn't have because I wasn't that hungry.

Approaching homeostasis! Avoiding homeostasis?

~BRAD~

Dear Brad,

I have swallowed a long black sock, and it's not even midnight yet. I tried to write you a letter, but now I am writing this one.

The most depressing book about Los Angeles is The Day of the Locust. At this point, in this fragile chick stage of your Los Angelesing, I recommend that you Avoid it. Also, don't watch any David Lynch movies.

This has been the end of my day: "What is truth? What is Beauty? Why, whenever I start to play a song on guitar, I hear a bad voice in my head?" I have to write a song for a wedding and my eyes are getting larger and larger thinking about how on earth it is going to come to me. I have to believe it will, but I also think my soul has set gargoyles all around itself that scare away creativity and light. One gargoyle looks a lot like a guy I used to date. YOU KNOW THE ONE.

When I was at my grandmother's house last weekend, I went into the attic and found a bunch of old textbooks from Bard in a trunk. One was a collection of Baudelaire. I can't wait to re-read it. He is sometimes like the bedroom of a king and sometimes like the bottom of a bad well. Have you tried him?

NOW it's midnight. I feel I must end with an axiom, or something sententious. The gravity of the day has settled into the part of myself that only functions when it's flying. How was improv? What do your gargoyles look like? (What they are are clay pigeons and where is my gun.)

sincerely,

Ariana