Correspondence.

I just received a little email from my adviser, after months of being incommunicado, and something about his style of address always makes me relaxed and calm. Such a sweet and old-fashioned man, for someone who is probably not over 40.

I haven't been writing anything in this space, my blog-space, so here are some excerpts from messages I have written (and received).

"Hi Alex,
I've never seen "The OC" either. Maybe I'm just being contrary, but I hate all those shows that try to glorify and sex up the experience of high school on principle. My high school experience was dumb and ache-y and dramatic and silly and sad, and a lot of it consisted of sitting with a friend in some kind of cheap diner setup eating fried fish sandwiches or 2am breakfast combos, and everyone had bad skin and couldn't smile for pictures and drove cars that cost in total less than one thousand dollars. I resent the implication that it could have gone any other way, or that it should have."

"Man... your whole paragraph on "Academia and Fulfillment": I just sat there nodding my head, "uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh." It is hard to explain, but I know what you mean completely. Besides a few idiosyncracies, my early-20s experience is matching up pretty well to what it might have otherwise been in academia. So, I guess, G-d bless to you weathering the breakdown."

"venice is pretty amazing it may be my favorite place in CA so far. I like that it unashamedly lives up to the cliches, when my dad came out here to visit me he really wanted to fo to Venice beach to see if it was like on TV, with the rollerblading girls in bikinis, the skateboarders, graffiti, and muscle beach. he was not disappointed.

and oh the sunglass vendors! it´s the only place that i can find clip on´s that fit my frames. i need to go back and get another pair, i lost my last on a tequilla and rum filled ¨adventure¨. I´m only a little ashamed to admit it but i secretly would like some of the ¨kanye glasses¨"

"Roots! I need more of them. In actuality, I have been sort of dating a boy for the last few months (not "serious", actual dating) who is leaving LA for a 6-month stint in Vietnam at the end of this month. I've always known he was going, since he bought the ticket before I met him, but I thought for some reason that that knowledge would keep me from getting attached to him. Alas, it did not. And here goes another root, about to get pulled up.
Your statement made me think of him particularly because he spends so much time talking about how he doesn't want to ever get married or have kids that I am sure he'll have both within the next 5 to 10 years. And I have sort of realized that I do want such things as well. For one, kids are awesome, and for another, I think finding a partner and then making a family with them would be probably an amazing and transformative experience. Of course, I generally try to keep these thoughts to myself."

"you are back in the US, so I should ask you: what's your phone number, benjamin?"

"I can't help but think henry miller was just kind of a hack! A friend of mine has Opus Pistorumon on his bookshelf and he challenged me to open it randomly to a page and start reading, in order to show that there was nothing but sex on every page. I did open it to a bland passage somehow anyway, but the point being that Miller just wrote a lot of smut over and over again still stands, I think.
Of course I guess boys like smut, and literary boys must like literary smut."

"We explored the city a bit, as well. I wish I could describe to you the sort of magic I see in this place sometimes. We traveled past closed shops, and the neon lights and signs in the windows mixed the most eclectic set of colors I can imagine. We drove past what would be mansions if they were transported to Beverly Hills, but because they're near the 10, they're "slums"... or are they? The Los Angeles I grew up in did not contain this sort of intrigue. Echo Park, where I live now, where I'd never have come close to when I lived here for 21 consecutive years, is full of this magic. Yes, it's a little dirty and seems a little dangerous, but it also seems to have this really interesting spark of hope to it, as well. As you may know, this area used to be completely gang infested, but now it's strange - you can walk around at 1 or 2 AM outside without feeling like you're in danger. The best I can liken it to is, at the end of Armageddon, or any disaster movie, when people come out of where they were hiding and have that look on their faces like "Is it over?" That's hope, mang."