thursday february 15 2001    |    4:20 p.m., i shit you not

the valentines i received:

a phone call from mom.

a lovely virtual angsty one from kev.

a lovely virtual diy one from keara.

a smokey session with jules.

the most amazing package from erick. with a mixtape. a book on michelangelo. a card. and ten packs of camel special lights. as if he read my mind. i think he does, i think he can. i think he knows me a lot better than i think. far more surprising is that he understands and he likes whatever he's picking up on. even with my moods and my reticence and my wandering eye or whatever. but when i'm with him everything else fades into the background, like it's been designed as a backdrop for us. he has this way of looking at me like i'm a part of him he loves, and this way of letting his hand fall to the small of my back sometimes when we walk, and when i need space somehow he intuits it, and he listens to everything i say, he listens actively, like it's part of his life too. and somehow we always come back to each other like we haven't been anywhere else in between phone calls.

fritz said something to me the other night that really got me thinking. that when she goes back home and sees her boyfriend again it's like "thank GOD! it's true! he's really everything i'm in love with, it wasn't just the phone calls and the letters, he's wonderful!" god i can't wait till these two weeks are over so i can go home and be with him. TWO WEEKS! already it's only TWO WEEKS. fuck everything else, i can't wait.

and so this is my valentine to erick. a valentine he'll never see, as i listen to patsy cline on his tape, maybe it's a valentine to both of us, but it's more than i can express. i think i might be falling . . .