Nov. 2, 2008: 1

He resembled a goat as he bleated, "Fuuuuuck, fuuuuck...fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck." He was a middle-aged goat, scruffy dirty blonde hair encircling his head, his face, the back of his hands. With his neck stretched forwards above the steering wheel, he squinted at the road, but despite the squinting and the bleating, our headlights continued to dim as the car trundled and sputtered south down I-5.

It was almost midnight, and we were still two hours outside of Sacramento. We had been driving for over 14 hours on a trip that ought to have taken 8. It was no longer possible to find a comfortable sitting position in my seat.

When, having finished telling our entire life stories, having finished sitting in tranquil silence, he had begun asking strange questions, I started to think (I couldn't help but think), I should have known. All those signs--there were so many signs--I should have known.


"Okay, so suppose angels turn into chocolate when they die," he began. Then he paused, thinking, and added, "Don't ask me why they turn into chocolate, or how they die, or why they died, but anyway, suppose that's what happens, and you walked into a dead chocolate angel, would you eat it?"

"No."

"Oh, 'cause, you know, I would," he continued, "Okay, here's another one: If you had to choose between punching your mom in the nose and eating an entire horse, which one would you choose?"

I was tempted just to say, again, "No," but we had many more hours in a small confined space together, so instead I asked, "Is the horse still alive when I'm eating it?"

"Yes."

"That's easy, then, I would punch my mom."

"Really? 'Cause I could never imagine doing that, punching my mom in the nose. I can just picture her face. I could never do that to her."

That was when the speedometer needled began crawling towards zero and the headlights started to fade and the strange goat-man beside me began to bleat.

Aug. 14, 2010: S?

He was panicking.

"Shit, shit, I can't believe I just did that." Turning away from me, he buried his face in his hands. "I spend so much time making sure I don't demean women and I just did that to you. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Well, it goes both ways, babe, I didn't say aloud. I held him against my chest, his head beneath my chin, and I wanted to squeeze all the fear out of the room, shove it back and out and away into the chilly deep-blue early morning air that I could see through the windows.

I couldn't tell him--I didn't dare and anyway I didn't know how--that I wanted his child. That I felt he'd given me something that I wanted--that I needed--to keep. Later, days after Plan B, it was as if something valuable were bleeding out of me, as if it were something real and important being flushed down the toilet. You're sick to be thinking like this, you freak. Stop it. I was angry at myself because I wasn't angry at him; I couldn't hold him responsible.

Not thinking, still Aug. 31, 2010

I don't even know his last name. He didn't tell me, and I didn't ask. My earliest impression of him was simply that he was kind, later to be appended with "hospitable" and "considerate," then "intelligent" and "articulate," "ambitious," "wise," "honest." It was like blowing up an inflatable doll that just stretched and stretched and stretched until it no longer resembles the sickly, plastic-thin rubber heap it was (and still is, just pumped full of hot air).

Aug. 31, 2010: My future half-Indian mistake

He got out of the car, and I stared at his chest as he spoke because I couldn't see his face. 

"I'm not paying for your services."

"I know," I laughed.

"I'm such a man-whore."

"Good night." I didn't hear a response, just the slam of the car door, so I drove home. Maybe I should have said, "No, you're not. If anyone's a whore here, it's me." I could have said, "No, we're just two very young, commitment-phobic, and oversexed individuals who found each other." But I was exhausted, and I didn't want to think about pre-cum sperm, or being pregnant, or even seeing him again.