LOVE LETTER 2020
Sometimes I still think about you. Sometimes I imagine you looking at my Facebook profile and being a little impressed and a little jealous that you’re not the one doing that thing with me, or being in that place with me, or posing in that quirky restaurant photo with me. But sometimes I imagine you being relieved that you’re not …
HOW TO BE HAPPY: THE 80/20 PRINCIPLE
Lately I’ve been trying, with much laziness and distraction, to conquer depression—to not only conquer it, but to brutally torture and murder it with repeated and frightening strikes of joy and laughter. One exercise I gathered from reading The 80/20 Principle was to think of the things that made me happy, and to spend more time and effort on those …
THE PURPOSE OF VAIL
The scene started off like this: Vail and I were on Jude’s balcony, and the sun had been down for a while and Vail, wearing something black, was humming something I didn’t recognise. “It’s so, so easy to do what’s easy,” she said. “That’s why it’s called easy.” Vail said nothing to that. She looked out, at the traffic. I …
CHRISTIE’S LETTER
… Have you ever been completely loved before? Not the romantic kind of love, not the parental kind of love. I’m talking about the kind of love that’s complete. I know you don’t understand what I mean, and I don’t expect you to. Actually I do expect you to know what I mean, because I want you to experience it …
A LETTER TOO LATE
… I saw you there in between the music, and the people, and the nonsense. Remember what was playing? I don’t. I don’t even know whose house party it was, or what universe we were in, or what purse I had dangling pathetically from my index finger – all I could think of was this: I think about you more …
VALENTINE’S DAY LOVE
Christie told me that she fell in love with Barry Edgar about four years ago. He didn’t know that she’d fallen in love with him, and understandably so: she didn’t tell him and she didn’t change anything about the way she treated him. Barry Edgar was a waiter who once travelled to Europe. He also once travelled to India. He …
LOVE IN EVERY LINE
“He loved her,” she insisted. “No, he’s in love with her.” “No, no, no.” She still wasn’t listening to me. “This is what he said: ‘I loved her.’ It was love in the past tense.” “People don’t say things like that unless they still love them. Once you stop loving someone, you never mention them again. They’re not even a …
YOUNG AND OLD LOVE
Romance always changes. It’s different when you want the girl, and when you have the girl, and when you’ve had the girl. It’s different when you’re three months in, and when you’re a year in. It’s different when you’re twelve and when you’re eighteen and when you’re thirty. I wonder what love will be like when I’m forty. Will I …
WATCHING CAROL SPIN
This is my second last story about Carol. It starts off quite simply, and it ends quite simply. It starts at South Bank, during an evening, a Wednesday, with the both of us in a large Ferris wheel. I’d been with Carol since the night before, and during that time I’d made her breakfast and she’d helped me buy some …
FIRST DINNER WITH CAROL
And then I ruined it all by saying, “I don’t want a relationship”. You shrugged and said, “That’s exactly what the previous guy said,” and you told me about this guy you met on Tinder who was in a long distance relationship. You told me that he was a decent guy with a pretty good body and pretty big dick, …
DINNER AT CAROL’S PLACE
Carol lived with a few people, so I would always enter her place through a back door. She had one of the biggest rooms in the house, and I liked it because unlike my cramped room, she had a large bed with plenty of floor space. In the dark, from her bed, a few things would lay huddled in the …
THE TRUTH
There’s a particular spot I like to drive to near the Valley. I won’t tell you exactly where it is, but if you turn right at a certain traffic light and keep driving straight you’ll end up in a private area full of expensive apartments overlooking the river. I like it because of the view, and I like it because …
A LOVE STORY: DONALD TRUMP AND ALEJANDRO ALEJANDRO
A FANFICTION LOVE STORY ABOUT DONALD TRUMP AND ALEJANDRO ALEJANDRO I’d like to quickly interrupt my own love story with a much more important one. It’s a love story that isn’t often told, and when it is told, it’s never told properly. They met a few years ago, when Alejandro ran a taco restaurant chain and Donald was busy with …
LOVE
“I don’t believe in love,” was what Carol told me when we were at Carol’s home, having late dinner that she cooked, listening or not listening to music that may or may not have been playing from a small speaker in another room. “You believe in love,” I told her. “I don’t.” “You do.” She sighed. “You can’t just dictate …
Book Recommendations / Book Suggestions
These books have shaped me in one way or another. In a way, these books may shape you, too. So read them at your own risk. Norwegian Wood By Haruki Murakami. I read this when I was freshly dumped and overseas, on my own. Murakami writes a lot of weird shit, but Norwegian Wood seems to be one of his …
ABEL’S HAIR
“I just spent fourteen hours looking for the right shoes to go with my new chinos,” Jude said. “No you didn’t.” “I did.” “Fourteen hours,” I said. “Fourteen hours,” he repeated. “Fourteen hours straight.” “Yes, fourteen hours straight.” I faced him, thinking about how stupid he sounded. “It’s impossible to spend fourteen hours straight looking for shoes in the shops.” …
SILENT PERIOD
It was a few minutes past midnight, and this guy, Bill, whose boyfriend was supposedly a “scam artist slash DJ slash art dealer from like, London who had like, fifty thousand followers on Instagram,” had some kind of cover of Earned It by the Weeknd playing loudly from a gigantic iMac placed on a pile of magazines, and I was …
ANNA AND THE DEFINITION OF LOVE
I remember once knowing exactly what love meant. I was about nine years old, I think, and to me, love was what my parents had: it was being happy with each other once in a while, it was being upset at each other once in a while, it was posing happily in photographs, it was a guarantee that they’d be …