I should have snapped a fresh pic. She was as usual a super stunner last night, but I didn't. You'll just have to take my word that I had an excellent sushi/sake/asahi tour with an old one last night, a many times previously mentioned one called Lindsey Long...
She's got a lot of ink in these pages. We chased each other around Africa for a little while, so there's a depth there I can only mention and not explain. Me and Lindsey usually try to hook up every once in a while, touch base on life and love and all that good shit when we aren't crossing enough paths. This time around, at a little sushi bar off Sunset, we settled into theme holidays and got down with it.
I have two things working in my favor that makes this relationship soar in places where other ex-couples seem to fail. First, I'm not the slamming door type. I believe if you find depth with someone, and if you fall for them and you go through all the shit and beauty we all go through in a committed relationship, it's so regressive to throw that away because of a break up - it's just not how I work. I respect people who behave in the opposite manner, I have to...I have...I'm just saying...
Secondly...and this is usually where it kicks...I believe, steadfastly, at this point in my life, that if a relationship doesn't work, it's never going to. Or more importantly, just because we can sand down a square peg and fit it into a circular hole, that doesn't mean we should.
Lucky for me, LL is in the same place, and has a darling lover to boot -- so we're left with this great thing -- Super Friends. I cherish her for that. Recently, I started putting her down as my emergency contact. Huge!
And aside from all her wisdom and the ears she lends, I got something great out of the night, always get something great out of her that I don't get from many places. Humility. And I think so many of us avoid our ex-flames because they're a reminder of how we've failed...or we feel betrayed for all that we shared, or gave up. To me, I think this is the exact reason to run back...she checks me when I need it - she'll always be there to check me and I'll always be there to check her.
When we were done, we locked onto each other for a moment in the parking lot, professed our mutual appreciation for the other's existence and pulled off in separate directions...
I was rolling down Crescent Heights, close to home when I realized this drunk had snuck up on me and I started thinking back to this time we rented a car in Johennesburg. We were driving it up to Kruger National Park to get fucking wild and had something like a 5 hour drive along this notorious South African logging route.
Thinking back, I'm sure it wasn't exactly like this, but it was something like this...
The speed limit was like 165 - in kilometers per hour. Still, when you start seeing any speedometer go into the mid-100's, you better believe your heart starts fucking moving. Also, the lanes in the road seemed selectively painted, everything blending together, and narrow. And every driver in the country drives with a fucking death wish. It's insane, just weaving and honking and zipping.
Also, the road was peppered with these log carrying semis that would back up single lane traffic for football fields at a time. When an opening came, passing the semis was like playing fucking Frogger. Excuse my profanity - I'm getting worked up just thinking back to it. And then the kicker...so these logs, these massive trees that were cut and being carried by the semis...every 20 or so kilometers, on the side of the road, a single one would just be sitting there, hanging out. So add to the equation, this little bit of fun that every now and again, a giant fucking tree would fall off the fucking semi and wander and bounce itself around in the fucking road while you're cruising in the one fucking fiftys on your way to one of the world's great wildlife parks.
Africa, baby. Africa.
So there was already enough going on. Plenty. And I don't remember the fight we were having, but we were having one - maybe one of our best of all time. There was so much anger in that car. I don't remember what it was about, we didn't fight that often -- both too rational, I think. I think one of us always knew at least slightly, when we were wrong. But one thing I do remember was this need to roll the window down. And when I did, the wind outside - which was also blowing at what had to be something close to 50 mph - would just tear through the inside of the car and cover the music, adding this extra insane factor to the already swamped equation. I wanted it down, she wanted it up. And maybe because we were already fighting, and pissed, we both stood our ground while the world was literally falling apart all around us. So damn scary, everywhere. All she wanted was to take some of that away, and I understood, but the way she was telling me -- no chance. It stayed down, mostly because I'm capable of being a bastard asshole. When things cooled and I became more scared than I wanted to handle for purposes of spite, I rolled the window up and said maybe one of the stupidest things I've ever said in my life, something like you obviously don't know how to go on a road trip. And I don't mean stupid like piss her off stupid. I mean stupid, like if you could wrap up the most childish, most power stripping, dumbest thing anyone has ever said, ever, in any situation...this could compete.
I don't remember what she said back...probably nothing. I think in that moment, in that fight, we both knew...I was finished. It still makes me laugh. And driving down Crescent Heights, I couldn't stop, wanted to call her up, talk about it...
But I didn't. Instead, I'm here, writing about this great girl, and my great memories. And I think of how grateful I am to have people who move me like that. That and because I've got these brilliant pictures of her in the world, just brilliant...
