I am reality

We were walking through Tompkins Square Park, Matt and I, and passed a young couple sitting on a bench. The guy - tattooed on the neck and hands - was holding onto his girl, who was sprawled across his lap, her head lolled back. She was beautiful, with clear, pale skin and long dark hair. Her unconscious face revealed total, blissful oblivion. The guy’s head was tilted back against the bench, equally blissed out. But the tenderness between them was real.

"You always like to say that if you were young and starting out again, you'd do this or you'd do that, but I don't think anybody seriously means it and it's not going to happen anyway. I took myself out of the world early on, and looking back now I don't think I ever got close to anybody, and of course you get judged for that... But what everybody  needs to understand, you get to a point where you can't do anything about who you are anymore. And the same applies to other people, so that's who you're dealing with. And then the best you can hope for is not to do anybody damage, and good luck with that. I don't know, maybe I'm just talking to myself here; Who made me the big authority on what everybody needs to understand? It could be that I never got the memo, and that it's all about love, so-called, but am I the only one? You'd hate to think so."

my kind of roommate

oh god oh god. Finishing up my Dad’s Vietnam letters: