The Solodemic

Last week, I came across a “Modern Love” call on The New York Times website. They were looking for personal stories from people who are self-isolating solo. I wrote my version relatively quickly and submitted it online. I don’t know yet whether it will be published, but I’ll post an update here. If The New York Times doesn’t publish it, I’ll either submit it elsewhere or publish it on my blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

After I got divorced in October 2017, I waited a few months, and then I started dating. Since, I've gone out on exactly 22 first dates. I know this because I kept a list. Or, more specifically, I maintained a list of what the men I went out on dates with did for a living.

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A Pandemic Love Story

From my Pandemic Fictions series with animated versions on Twitter / Instagram.

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Call Me

Finally got around to seeing “Call Me By Your Name.” Don’t know why it took me so long, since “I Am Love” is one of my favorite movies. Having seen “A Bigger Splash,” I’ve now completed seeing Luca Guadagnino’s “Desire” trilogy. The movie is gorgeous and superbly acted. Timothee Chalamet is a wonder, and Armie Hammer, well, he just looks great. It’s a beautiful interrogation of desire, love, and heartbreak.

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LA, Changed

WeHo

9 Likes, 1 Comments - Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) on Instagram: "WeHo"

It's been some time since I've lived in Los Angeles, and I'm happy to have moved back last month.

Here are a few ways it's changed.

It's more politically correct

It used to be that California was a bifurcated state. The North was where the hippies lived in politically correctness. The South was where the heathens lived in political incorrectness. Now LA is more politically correct. The recycling. The bag policing. The Priuses. Still, there's a layer of muck below the surface. Thick black tar, underneath it all. It's PC as performance.

It's more crowded

In LA proper, the streets are glutted with traffic. Nobody can agree upon the driving rules. The drivers are more aggressive. It takes forever to get anywhere. After dark, the freeways are red and white glowing streams of people trying to get somewhere, anywhere but where they are.

It's more expensive

In Los Feliz, the one bedroom apartment that I used to rent for $725 a month is now $1,850 a month. $2,000 a month gets you a dump near a busy street and maybe no refrigerator. Hollywood, the Valley, and the areas east are a bit more affordable. This is New York City, without the brownstones.

The food is better

Poke bowls. Handmade mozzarella. Fried Thai ice cream. Pop up restaurants. Food trucks. Fine dining with a side order of attitude. It's all there. And it's fucking delicious. Every bite of it.

There's a lot of art

The sculptures made of dead bodies. Whatever the hipsters are doing these days in Echo Park. Those loaded Broads. It ain't the Met, but I'll take it. Because the palm trees are Rodins, and the faces of the ladies on Rodeo Drive are Cindy Shermans, and the Hollywood sign is a Barbara Kruger.

See Moonlight

Didn't see this until Friday. Wow. Just breathtaking. Gorgeous, and heartbreaking, and true. It's three stories in one. It's everybody's story in one movie. It's a poke in the eye of white people everywhere. It's complicated, and simple, and beautifully written. I cried multiple times. I got my heart broken. It is one of the best movies ever made. Hurry up. It's hard to explain. Just see it. It'll open your heart, and your mind, and your spirit. 

True Romance

This is how me and my husband @DaneGrant met 😊 pic.twitter.com/WHWamMfJjw

— Dayna Grant (@Daynastunts) March 20, 2016

What She Said

Time.

"Time."

Buy THE TUMOR: "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."

Just Say It

Image via NYT

The NYT has an odd/interesting/fascinating video story of a couple. The couple don't tell each other they love each other. The video looks at how/why/what. It's strange/lovely/weird.

"'I need to tell my boyfriend that I love him,' Ms. Leppo wrote in. 'Year after year I kept thinking "Oh, maybe this year," but it never happened, and now it has gone on far too long.'"

[NYT]

Dear Valentine, Horoscope Edition

Image credit: Free Will Astrology

"I hope you have someone in your life to whom you can send the following love note, and if you don't, I trust you will locate that someone no later than August 1: 'I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.' (This passage is borrowed from author Jonathan Safran Foer's book Everything Is Illuminated.)"

[FWA]

30 Days of Fiction, Day #30: I Made Her a Love Machine

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)

After she left me, I went in the garage and gathered together a series of spare parts: a broken muffler, the faded keys of a vintage typewriter, a rag dipped in motor oil. For years, I worked on the machine, adding and subtracting items, dumpster diving to make ends meet. I had no time for a job. A decade passed. One day, I finished. That afternoon, I presented it to her: a device that embedded my words on her body like some kind of spoken tattoo. She tinkered with it for hours, adjusting the lettering, bleeding out around the sentences.

Time: 13 minutes

Word count: 100 words

30 Days of Fiction, Day #23: I Can See Forever From Here

(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.) 

She wanted a house, so he found four leftover toilet paper tubes and an old shoebox. He taped the tubes to the top of the box. He went on a walk, collecting small sticks and large leaves. Back at home, he weaved them into walls. For the roof, he removed the shirt from his back, cut out a piece of it, and sewed the canopy over the tubes and the walls. He skinned a baby rabbit and used it as a throw for the matchbox bed. When she got home, he invited her inside their tiny life together. 

Time: 5 minutes

Word count: 98 words

THE FIXED HEART

This week's Modern Love column in the New York Times is wonderful: "Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting." It's about how a doctor overcomes a broken heart in an unlikely place: the hospital in which he works. The accompanying video is spectacular.

When I started my work as a doctor, it took every bit of concentration to put aside my private sadness and focus on my patients. I was lost, and it’s a wonder I didn’t hurt anyone. In moments of downtime, and especially in the depths of night when the unit was quiet, memories of my ex and my longing for her would overtake me. Like a persistent virus, loneliness lived inside me.

[NYT]