I related to Woody Allen too much. He’s got all that sexual stuff going on in his past, stuff with his wife and stepdaughter and so on, stuff I’ve got no opinion on, no real knowledge about, but it leaves him with a bad rap, possibly deserved, maybe even probably. I don’t know, but deserved or not, I relate to him too much. He’s a guy that finds a joke in everything and wishes he didn’t. He looks for the loopholes in perfection. Some of these things everyone feels, surely, to some degree, right? But the neurotic whining, the rambling, the tangents, the worried way he carries himself around people because he feels lesser somehow yet how he looks at them and knows he’s smarter, but it doesn’t amount for much confidence. Obviously he’s a more brilliant version of me so he went out and made a career from it. My mom asked me, speaking very softly like she knew I’d just spent a walk through the muggy neighborhood dusk with Lady arguing with a cop. Not a real cop, but one in my head because it’s been a day without you. At that point less than a day actually. Maybe I finished the walk near the last email I got from you, but I sure didn’t start the walk and god it’s dragged and I need to talk to someone. Maybe a professional, like I said I would but I’m cheap and not working and the editors at the barking rain press haven’t gotten back to me if they’ve got work for me. I know I haven’t told you about it because I didn’t want to be disappointed telling everyone about it then not get it but I deserve it. I have too many fantasies about it that I know aren’t real too. It’s like the movie theater drive time. It feels like it’ll take 30 minutes, that’s the crazy talking, realistically I’m thinking it’ll be 20 minutes but it actually takes 15 and I know this and I know that I know but I just can’t help but hedge a little and bump my realistic expectations to longer. Why can’t I just relax for the extra 15 minutes? That’s time to do something. Well with the editing job, I’m expecting to edit a book or two a month, probably realistic if I get 30 pages a day, though surely there’s more to it than just editing, discussion and fighting with the author over the clichés he wants to keep in and his creative voice and vision and all the while not realizing half of that is crap and it’s the story the people want. I’m also expecting to make these little books—have you heard of the barking rain press? It’s tiny. It’s a dot org. They’ve got 10 genres listed, each has 1 to 6 books listed. If that’s all the business they’re doing—I hope it’s just current releases—then I’m screwed. This isn’t a career. I’ll get a book a year and 20% of sales on some no name writer that’s apparently better than me is going to be enough to cover their advances. That’s $50. That’s nothing. Not even a full release game. I’ll have to get jobs at 10 different presses to make this viable and yet I’m expecting to turn these little books into literature that’ll hit audiences. I’m not that good. I won’t get the license to. I won’t get the potential, or make connections and it’ll be back to Korea. So I was thinking since I’m not making any money and won’t be probably maybe I can’t go to a therapist, but Jordan and alcohol might be some instant relief. School starts soon so I’m planning it out a bit. Planning when to break down to my best friend that I don’t get to talk to you for a day. And in this plan, the fantasy world that’s not at all like the real one, the 30 to 15 all over again, Jordan and I are walking with an opened container—past tense, but it’s got a lid—and a cop stops us citing as a warning open container laws, which say you can’t walk around public carrying an open can, bottle, or bag of alcohol, but in the fantasy, I’m arguing with the cop about the grammatical difference between open and opened and that ours was opened but is not currently open and maybe I’m slurring a little but they should still sound different, right? And he tells me the law doesn’t make a distinction between the two, which quite possibly it has passages for open and opened and both are illegal, I don’t know, but I’m so fucking arrogant that I think I know better. If the law is so fucking stupid to not distinguish between past and present tense then we’re all fucked. Then I go off on verbs as adjectival modifiers and call him stupid and he whips out his pepper spray because I’m irate and a threat. Suddenly we’re in court, I’m showing pictures of my eyes and face and all the other shit that happened because I’m pissed off at authorities abusing their power that anyone doing it deserves verbal shaming, and I’m talking about the assault of the officer, making me fear his violence, and describing his pistol as a silencer used to keep people from speaking out against him, and the battery when he pepper sprayed me and handled me roughly to arrest me, which I didn’t get any bruises from and so no pictures of as evidence but I tell them that it’s wonderful to tell abuse victims that if it doesn’t leave a bruise, even if it hurts, it doesn’t count. Which is all arrogant bullshit and I hate myself for it, but I have a whole walk of this scenario in my head, long enough that Lady wasn’t stopping or pulling on the leash to go elsewhere because she was thirsty for home, and I walk in and I’m getting an ice cream sandwich and my mom asks what I’m doing next like I’m doing nothing now. I hate that. I hate that people assume that in the window that they see me, the tiny portholes filled with oily glass, I tried looking up what they used to make windows out of because I know they used to be cloudy and not really worth looking out but I can’t find it. I think they were oily though. But people think they see five minutes of my life or even a day of it and they extrapolate that that’s all I’ve done. They’re wrong. I spend my life up in my room basically when my family’s home so they never see me and when they do I’m getting food but I’m not 700 pounds. I’ve put on some weight and I’m at my heaviest, but I’m not constantly eating but if they’re going to be ridiculous and assume my life is one of laziness, then I’ll take their same damn logic too and show them I’m not 700 pounds. I’ll step on the scale if I have to. It doesn’t make any goddam sense. I’m applying for jobs. I have people contacting me back once, then I go a bit without hearing more so I send a polite nudge to check in and I get nothing back. What am I supposed to tell them? I took one day to see a movie. I helped Jordan move and see him twice a week but that’s going to change. Our noon to midnight schedule is going to change in a week when school starts and I’ll see him once a week, probably Fridays from 5 till he gets tired because he’ll have plans on Saturday or Sunday with Laurel, so we’re getting sick of each other now so we maximize our yearly time together. And other than that I’m making videos. I’m writing. I’m still trying to get this script finished. I’m applying for jobs. I’m exercising. I’m taking care of the dog. I’m doing whatever chores they ask me to. So when she comes in and asks me in her softest voice, “You’ve been home for a month now. What are your plans?” I walk away annoyed because I don’t have any more than what I’m doing. I’ve got money. I’m looking for a job I’d want. And yet, I’m rushed because I’m still here. I’m a failure to them. This isn’t torture or misery, but I think it is. The 15 to 30 thing again. And I do it to myself when you’re not around. You took me off Skype. I’m not blaming you or doubting you. I know you did it to protect us so if they find your skype they don’t see my name. You probably deleted all the photos and emails and everything too and Facebook and whatever else. I’ve got everything backed up so I can send you whatever you want, but this has to be temporary. The day is too damn long without you. I cry too much. I cried during the new Annie trailer with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. I cried during the new Christopher Nolan movie, Interstellar, which looks loads better than Inception.  No stupid action movie crap. I cried during the first scene of Guardians of the Galaxy and the theater wasn’t packed but there was enough light on me that the people sitting a few seats over probably could see the silhouette of tears. Annie Hall tells Woody Allen that he’s so egocentric that he puts her missed therapy appointment in terms of his misery. I’m sorry that I’m doing that. I know this is even harder for you and I’ll be here ready to listen or talk or joke or cry or do whatever you want me to or whatever you don’t want me to. I’ll be here until things get normal again if they ever do and I hope they get better than normal but I’m scared. I love you so much and I’m scared you’re gone forever and that the days feel so long because I’m counting my breaths till I can talk to you again and that it’ll never come but I’ll wait and wait till I’m old and miserable and finally wise up and just fucking end it. But I won’t do anything. I won’t email. I won’t talk to you on Skype. I’ll make YouTube videos and blog posts and promise you, the future you that actually gets to see these, that I’ll always be here. And I hope you don’t have too much catching up to do by then because that’ll mean we’ve been apart for a long time and it’s already too long. I love you, Miri. I miss you.