Bonkers, Brilliant, or Brave?

from another letter to julian, from last night. i saw him today. nothing happened, but, it's always good to see him...

"...but theyre all, these french girls, they just say unexpected things, real things, like i feel like so many people have just canned responses.

so i cant say i blame you jd

Midwestern grown where they grow em tall n pretty, midwest, middle class, but with NYC roots, always felt a little out of place though you always apparently fit in very well? thought your family was kinda weird (well what kid does not as ET says everyone is strange, some are more strange zan ozers), WASP/RC mix like JD salinger style, franny and zooey, new york neurosis and brit repressed emotions and irishcatholic guilt, some storminess, some worldliness in the middle of america, maybe thought your older sibling was a little weird, which made you more self conscious than you seemed, and your family had some issues and you were a little kid and you started observing people's behavior a lot, not consciously.... and you yourself were interested in a bunch of weird esoteric shit hahaha but you always had nice friends. and you were always ambitious. and, like all attractive men, didn't really know you were attractive until girlies started telling you so. and they did. you went to college. people were telling you you're brilliant, and you're special, and girlies telling you you're pretty, and you were like you know what I AM! and im gonna get the F out of here and go live in europe.

and so you did and you came back relaxed and happy and more stylish and more self assured and more impulsive. and still ambitious. and a little arrogant because everything came easy to you. and you were sociable and well spoken and well mannered and attractive and overachieving and outwardly easy-going, you were still always questioning things because you cared about things, and never really stopped questioning yourself because you were always changing philosophies and open to new world views and kept telling yourself you didnt know anything even though other people made you feel like you knew everything.

and there were a lot of girlies, messy personal life, possibly runs in the family, and then you were debating between law school and phd program and law school was kind of tempting cuz you knew youd be good at it and make a lot of money and people were urging you to go, but you didn't wanna wear those damn shoes, and phd program seemed easier, and it meant california, and you always wanted to go there and you played the beachboys in your car but the real reason you chose it was because you started feeling your white light and your truth and your exploration and your curiosity and your wisdom that you had all along but didnt admit it to yourself...

and there you were at Stanford... given privileges and responsibilities only given to the elite group.... lost in the meritocracy... and there was lots of work and there was lots of BS and lots of girlies and you kind of missed your friends in the midwest, surrounded by LA weirdos, and you met this one girlie you really really liked and really fell for and it all seemed perfect and then she turned out to be less than you thought she was, and it haunted you, and you hated her, and you hated everything for a while. and then you met this pretty french girlie and she was really intellectual and totally different and from this good family and it was worldly and stylish and everything you wanted and you were starting to see your career going really well and you were kind of impulsive and you went to france and met her family and you moved in together and you got married and you had kids and you had houses and............

you want to kill me right now dont you.

if all of this is totally wrong, i'm just an idiot, if some of it is right and you think its an insult, youre wrong, because it only seems RELATABLE to me. and because anything i think about you, is never an insult. because you know, i think youre so fucking amazing. so sorry about that, i hope youre not gonna be mean to me tomorrow because of it, please dont, i was just thinking about this... because i think about it. my pills are making my eyelids droop PERFECT its 1 20.

oh i got some money. i always got you J. cuz youre priceless

good night

love
s"

bonkers, brilliant or brave?

And furthermore,

The girls at the club- allllll collectively decided to dislike me. I don't give a goddamn, because as soon as I walk in, I plop myself down next to some duder who's gonna shell out all night, who doesn't like lapdances and thinks he's the first person to suggest, Can I just give you the $$ to sit here and talk to you? I don't wanna go in there... and I'm like, yeah, I totally know, it's kinda weird, I'd totally rather talk to you here too, that would be cool... And THEN I don't have to give the percentage of it to the house. So at the end of the night there's the little list with our names and X's next to them for how many dances we did, which determines how much of our hardearned greenbacks we give up, I've got like, one, or three, or no X's... but anyhow... yeah, I just don't talk to them, at all, I come in dressed already under my hoodie and plop the F down.

So this inglorious ho' whose dancer name is so marvelously retarded and gross I will certainly leave it to y'all's imaginations, well the duder she was sitting with pointed at me, as I walked by, like Can you get that girl over here? And S--F-----, who was eating, a fucking hot dog, in the club, no F.N. joke, made an obscene gesture, and I was loaded up, so I walked over there and leaned on the table and smiled at her. And she goes
What
And I go, Hey!
And she goes, Can I help you
And I go, Sure!
And she goes, What?
And I go, I just saw, you makin a little gesture over here, is there a problem?
I wasn't making a GESTURE! Someone OVER THERE... made... like a gesture at ME, so I made a gesture back, I'm just sitting here eating a hot dog!
Okay! Have fun!

So then later while I was talking to a duder she came up to me again, with her spiked insane hair, which she just bleached, which is doing nary a damn thing for her, and like insane makeup, and little latex top and pudgy little boy body-- (I have to give it to her, she puts on quite a show, she can like climb up the ceiling like spiderman, and wears a blindfold and shit, but its not sexy, just.. nuts...) and says, Why did you come over to my table while I was talking?
Same reason you're here at my table now.
What, why, I wasn't even doing anything, I was just sitting there eating a hot dog-
Got it
I pretend like you're not here, you don't even exist to me-
Awesome
I was just sitting there eating a hot dog
O-KAY NOW

This little lady has been dancing here for YEARS and thinks herself quite the queen bee, and is always bitching and complaining. I'm over it. But she and the sexy girl are friends now, that's what they all do at the club, they become little best buddies like, what's that damn game called, where you circle 'round the chairs? Oh, Musical Chairs. yes. like musical chairs. and then talk smack about each other. it's some kind of stunted development high school bizarre objectifying stripper thing. I abstain.

The Psychic and the Psychologist

Yesterday, I didn't get to touch him.

But I brought up the psychic thing. We were talking about my mom... I was, I mean. He was silent mostly and I laid on the couch looking up not at him and I just let all sorts of things spill out, viscera floorwards, but poetic, wistful, funny... He was kind of mesmerized... I turned around at one point and he was watching and I said What??? And he said What?? And I said, You were... looking at me like I just came crashing into your office from the moon... and he said, Oh, no, not at all...

And then I said... I know you don't believe in them. But I do and I take some comfort in... communication with... spirits... Like my dreams about her... But they're never...

"So, you enjoy these dreams that you feel are- you enjoy communicating with your mother?"

"Well, no, because they've never been good." I looked at him. "It's always like I'm panicked, I'm asking myself, what the fuck happened, didn't she die?? When was that? Did I tell everyone she was dead? Like, she's often not there, but her presence is there, but it's, it's dread, I'm in the basement of my old house and there are canvases everywhere, and they're charred..." I sat up and hugged my knees. "And then there was one where she was sitting on, we had this big yard you know, with a, a patio, and she was sitting on the patio with her feet on the grass in a nightgown and, she said, Don't you know? Don't you know I'm dead? Touch my face," and I put my hand on my cheek, "See how it's cold?" Julian kind of nodded, slowly.

"I knoooow, they're just manifestations of my own uncertainties, my emotions, constructions of my mind, right, yes, and all that shit. I know." He didn't say anything.

"Whatever they are, explained or unexplained. Magic is just a matter of semantics. I'm sure I sound like every walk-in wacko. But. So it goes." I laughed. I wasn't looking at him.

"I have predictive dreams too." I looked at him and half-smiled. "Crazy, right?"

He half-smiled.