Guerrero St. Dream Journal

V and I broke up. We're going on a date when I'm back.

15 May, 2026

I fled to the coastal highway two weeks ago, May... 15th. The 101 was how I remembered it, in the words of the writers who wrote about it before me.

22 May, 2026

I got back home a week ago, and Guerrero St. was the same, minus her.

Excited and nervous for a first date with V, deflated when Karthik says...
You seem to posess less clarity than you did before you left.
What?
What was the point of leaving, then?
Karthik tells me I'm repeating a pattern of some sort, and I lose more air.
I wasn't expecting him to say that. I don't even know what he's talking about.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say I'm not repeating the pattern, if there even is a pattern, which, maybe there was, at some point, but.

okay. What can I do or say, on this date-not-a-date, to my girlfriend-who's-not-even-my-girlfriend, to not be doing the pattern, I ask.
That's the pattern. Karthik.
Now the balloons are on the floor.
Great, I say.
He tells me, Enjoy your date.

23 May, 2026

Now it's today, and she hasn't called me back, anyway.
I guess it's over, I think.

Might as well enjoy my night. I wade through a street festival to the gallery opening at Minnesota St. It takes so long to get there I miss H and F play.
We went on a field trip here first year, and look at us now, I think, as I pour more free wine.
Well, look at them now. I go on my phone.

Shoot, she called me. Two hours ago.
I thought we were having dinner at 6, she says.
It's 6:46. Fuck. I just smoked.
If you're not here by 7, I'm not going.
Fuck, fuck.
I run to the dorms.

The substances sloshing around in my near-empty stomach and the sobriety running down Potrero Hill generates battle it out, my brain the collateral damage.
I guess I do always fuck something up. There goes that last second chance. At least I'll save on dinner.
I love her, in my own particular way. That way just rarely works out well.

She did her makeup all nice. I apologize a lot, in between deep breaths.
Whatever, she says, which, ouch.

At Ramenwell, I win her back with my disarming personality and new windswept look. Soon our knees are touching, my hand's on her thigh.

I present her with her presents from my trip:
- Flowers from the pond in the mountains where I swam and screamed for cold and for joy. You already pressed them!
Well, yeah, I had to get them home.
Okay.
- The manifestation soap, which I think is funny, and she is so-so on. (Scent: "Deliverance")
Do I smell? No, no. Open the last one.
- A corny, heart shaped stone I found.