2002-02-04 - 12:45 p.m.

And yet I am still haunted by the one week I spent with Pat. Still haunted by the beautiful letter he wrote me. The letter that told me that I had left an impression on him, that he would miss the entanglement of my limbs, that the way he saw it, we were "stuck with each other" because he couldn't wait to get to know me. The letter that said he hoped to step off a plane to meet me in a bright LA sun.

And now I wonder, does he think of me, still? Did he say those things as a lark in the middle of the night, or does he still feel that way?

Because I do. Not because I'm obsessed. I've done a very good job of not talking about him, not writing in my diary about it, going on with my life, getting my shit together down here . . .

But I long for someone with whom to share all this joy and goodness and love inside me. And I long to wake up in someone's arms. And I long to have the tantric sex I've always wanted. And I long to trip mushrooms with someone who is that one, or who has the potential to be that one.

And its just that Pat -- well he was so everything, and our time together, it did leave an impression on me, it did make me want to know him more.

Who knows, maybe after knowing him longer we wouldn't be compatable. Maybe he's not the one, or maybe he wouldn't fall all the way in love with me, or maybe we've got different directions and paths to go on, or whatever. We may not have worked out as this couple thing.

But I just want to tell someone about all the ideas in my head. I want someone to listen to the ideas I have for stories and totally go nuts brainstorming with me. I want someone to think my ideas, or my abilities are special and want to collaborate with me, or put me in their movie. I want someone to kiss my face in little kisses in the morning. I want someone to want to be a part of my family, and come home with me for Christmas and be the one that I can take aside to laugh with. I want someone to give me pep talks. I want someone to want to take me out for a drink to celebrate when something good happens. And of course I want to be that for him, whoever he is.

And I guess I'm just totally confused about this thing with pat. Because one silly phone call on my part couldn't turn someone off, not when we'd had such good times with each other. One phone call could be weird, but it wouldn't freak someone out.

So the only thing that could have happened is that my friend, my so-called-friend, went back to Canada and shot off her big mouth. And told him the truth. I know she didn't lie. But the truth can sound so freaky when it doesn't come from the source, when it comes from someone 3rd party.

She told him that the people I moved in with in LA are my best friend. And my ex-boyfriend of two years. The truth, but that can't sound good.

She told him that on our trip down the coast we all got drunk and did shots of tequila off one another's nipples, in a big group. It was a blast. But I'm sure it sounds like an orgy the way she'd tell it.

She told him that I asked her to read his letter to me aloud a few times while I was driving. I had just got the letter that day, and I was excited about it, and i drove 13 hours straight that day because my friend didn't know how to drive a stick. So we were girls and she read it to me.

She told him that I told her that I was in love with him, and that I would marry him tomorrow in Vegas if he asked me. Its true, and its true because I know myself, I am a great judge of character and very attuned to myself and other people, and I just knew that I was in love from the first moment I met him, and I knew that he was a great person, and that we'd work well together - I trust my intuition and I know these things. But of course I would NEVER tell him that. It would have been 6 months or a year at least, especially long distance before I would have told him that I loved him. Because you just don't go around saying things like that when you know them, you let the other person feel it too and you don't feel the need to rush, you wait until the right time presents itself.

But my friend told him that I was in love with him and wanted to marry him and I'm sure he thought:

Wow, I must have really misjudged this chick. I thought she was mature and together and that we were starting something beautiful -- but it looks like she's just another over-excitable melodramatic girl, the kind that I've always seen around. Maybe I didn't really get to know her as much as I thought when we were together, maybe the days we spent together were an illusion, and she's normally a really ian obsessive silly girl.

And so, i have not heard from him. And so I will not hear from him again. And part of me really wants to call him again and set it straight, but I know if I do that it would just seem like i was obsessing. So whatever I do, i can't call him.

But I can't let it go completely either. I mean, i've been trying. but when something feels so right, and touches you so deeply, fills you with such joy -- you can't forget that. I'm hooked on those feelings I felt with him, i'm hooked on the way he touched me, i'm hooked on his mind, there is a whole world inside there that I haven't seen, full of stars and space travel and physics and Russian mobsters and spirituality and everything else we touched on in conversation that I want to know more about.

And I guess i'm just sad, because for once, for once in my life a man wrote me a letter, for once in my life someone said they wanted to know me like that too. For once in my life it was mutual.

And i got all excited.

And then I got let down.

Its like, if you were a kid and your parents told you that a fair was coming and on saturday you were going to get to go on the roller coaster, and you got all excited, and bragged to your friends at school, and spent the whole week picking out your outfit, and planning your trip, and reading about rollercoasters.

And then on Saturday your parents just said, geez kid. we don't feel like going. Maybe next year.

And then you went to cry to your friends and your friends said: Don't be so obsessive about the roller coasters. Just shuddup why don't you. Meanwhile, they had gone to the fair themselves with their parents, and had a good time, and told you all about it all the time.

Its like, if I get excited over something, and it doesn't pan out, i'm supposed to just forget about it . I'm somehow not supposed to ever get my hopes up about things, or feel let down when they don't happen.

You know it always makes me feel good to see people happy and in love, but there comes a time when i can't help wanting that to happen to me too.

But you know, I really did like Pat. And I really am all those things he thought I was when he met me. And I really would have enjoyed writing him letters, and thinking about him, and continuing things. And now the damage is done, and we live to far away to retry this.

And I think that people like my friend who do things carelessly or thoughtlessly to make life hard on other people -- well its just not right, and its only going to bring them bad karma in the end.

And I wonder if he ever thinks of me, and wonder if he wonders if I'm as special as he thought I was, and if he wants to write me but he's holding back.

But I also wonder if that kind of fantasizing is doing me a dis-service.

I just can't figure out how someone could be so real with me in person, and write me a letter like he did, and then just flake out on me.

And I can't figure out how a friend could turn her back to make things worse for me.

And I can't figure out why there aren't more people on the planet like Pat. Why special insightful intelligent magical compassionate beautiful people like that are so rare. Because there are so many human beings on this planet, and each one is such a precious gem, but noone wakes up to that understanding. And so I am tired of being in the company of hundreds of sleepy people. And I am searching for someone fantastic like Pat. And I know a few people like that, and they're my best friends, but I meet them only once every couple of years . . .

I think I just must not be hanging out in creative circles. I think I just need to get out more. Not to nightclubs, but to gatherings and readings. And I think I just need to chill out and trip out and not search. Because you always find things when you're not looking for them. And I wasn't looking for Pat when I met him. And maybe if I can just stop looking for him now, in time he might just turn up in my pocket.

(I love it when I find money in my pockets, from weeks or months before, don't you? It totally rocks my booty.)

Anyway, my song of the day is "Get It While You Can" sung by Janis Joplin. When Pat and I went to the cemetery together, we looked at some graves of young people. And it was our last night together too. And this song came up in my throat and I sang a few lines.

And this song, the sentiment of this song, is what keeps me going. Keeps me going back out there, putting my heart right back on my sleeve where it belongs.

Get it While You Can

In this world, if you read the papers, Lord,

You know everybody�s fighting on with each other.

You got no one you can count on, baby,

Not even your own brother.

So if someone comes along,

He�s gonna give you some love and affection

I�d say get it while you can, yeah!

Honey, get it while you can,

Hey, hey, get it while you can,

Don�t you turn your back on love, no, no!

Don�t you know when you�re loving anybody, baby,

You�re taking a gamble on a little sorrow,

But then who cares, baby,

�Cause we may not be here tomorrow,

And if anybody should come along,

He gonna give you any love and affection,

I�d say get it while you can . . .