the easiest way is if you keep a good blog.
ten years ago this december i took a road trip up to canada to see mr matthew good
along the way i got an email from a blogger who i admired who went by the name of The Pants.
she was probably the best blogger in the USA at the time. her prose was bukowski-like, her aggression, her pain, her creativity, and her humor was all right on the mark.
she lived a sort of white trash lifestyle that was full of a unique glamor that you couldnt put your finger on. but i wanted to see if i could. so unlike many invitations that i get to meet people from my blog, i accepted hers. so after a stop in umpqua i journeyed to her home in tacoma and instantly fell for her. it started with her cd collection. did she really have three replacements cds? marry me. right now. put on some pants and marry me.
she was funny. she was beautiful. but what she really wanted to do was get drunk and sing karaoke at a club that once kicked out an early incarnation of Nirvana. lord knows i cant sing but i can drink and drink we did. so much so that i puked before we got in the cab back to her place.
she lived in a house with some other people. but she had the best room. it was on the top floor in what appeared to be the attic.
there was a vacuum cleaner at the foot of the bed. i assumed that she had vacuumed the carpet so i could have a clean place to sleep. but luck was with me and she took off her shirt and revealed a colorful bra and the palest skin.
another way to make me fall in love is to have the palest skin while telling me i wasnt going to have to sleep on the floor.
i believe the cure played as we fell asleep and i thought to myself, blogging is the greatest thing in the entire world and i will never stop doing it because where else can you just travel around and listen to the best music and learn about foreign towns and meet the coolest people and sometimes theyre secretly beautiful. so what if theyre a little wacky. im a lot wacky.
and in the morning i woke up and she woke up and we went to jack in the box and had breakfast and then i drove to canada and had sushi for the first time ever. which i didnt fall in love with immediately, like i did with the pants.
update: im being reminded i did not take her to the jack n the box in the morning, indeed i ate there alone at lunch and wrote this blog post.