the past and pending.
when i was about to leave Iowa City for an internship with a film production company in Los Angeles in late 2014, preceded by the most decimating breakup i've ever experienced and my college gradation, i found myself fixated on walks.
you see, one of the cruelest parts about this heartbreak was its geography. my apartment was in the 800 block of Jefferson St., just East of campus (campus being 0 in this equation) and my ex lived in a giant, decaying house on the 600 block of Jefferson St.
so for the last two months-ish that i had in this small city that had been my home for 3 and a half years, i had to edit my route to either go a block North or South so as to avoid the source of my heart's plunging, merciless aching.
the cold seemed to reach every cell in my skinny bones that winter, and with the incoming graduation and move my head seemed to become more electrified with the need to LEAVE and thrive, although i wasn't convinced the latter was even possible given how severely my world had been torn apart.
even when i did avoid her street, i'd either see it from neighboring Market St. if i had decided to veer North or picture it in my mind if I was South. knowing it was there was draining to my soul but exhilarating to my potential new soul i could spur a bloom from once i just made it out to California and to my inevitable dreams in comedy and film and tv. which would obviously be easy. *cue record scratches on a loop*
the music that was heavy for me during this time was but is not limited to: Beck's Morning Phase, the entirety of Pavement's discography—especially "Spit On A Stranger", "Frontwards", and "Here"— Ben Kweller, that damn song from Linklater's Boyhood, Cataldo's Guilded Oldies, the 88, and perhaps most importantly and painfully, Waxahatchee's American Weekend (supposedly recorded all over a weekend acid trip), which felt like it had purposely been written with me and my sentimentalities in mind.
So i stretched my legs in speedy bursts, many of these moments wasted or hungover, and tried to make the time past as swiftly as possible. news of my internship had spread through my friend group and university PR dayjob (spread by me), and it seemed everywhere i went people were asking me for more details on what i would be doing. i could see the nervousness in some people and the overconfidence others had in me for how a life in Los Angeles would go for me. many times i felt i expertly could discern whether someone looked at me always having known i would get the fuck out of iowa someday and those who thought i'd wimp out 2 weeks in and request to move home.
at a morning office birthday party (or maybe it was a going away party for me?i honestly can't remember) a bunch of staunchy PR ass university corporate fuck types whose names i can't even now recall congratulated me on my next big step in life, and i found myself more tolerant of them than i expected to be, even paling around and faking an interest in the latest university basketball game. when the small party ended and i walked back to my desk, i was reminded of why it had seemed to fun for a moment there, why i believed them so much for a second. the reason was because i was still quite drunk from the night before. i hadn't showed and i looked like shit. but that was going in and out of my awareness and care. i mostly just tried to focus on the humor of having had trouble staying on the sidewalk on my walk to work that day. i was almost to drunk to walk. the hangover that bled in wiped the smile off my face pretty damn fast, however.
but positive or negative, buzzed or plastered, i pressed on and these moments and days that only really encompassed November 1 to December 20th or so couldn't help but secure themselves as assuredly monumental. even as a (extremely recent) Psychology minor, i knew enough about the acuteness of my depression at that time and pop culture-influenced magnitude set behind the changes of graduating, leaving my home state, and losing a lover i could tell these times would not be easily Spotless Mine'd.
if i ever write a memoir, even if it's 25 years from now, i feel i would have plenty of still visceral pain to draw from and recall. but in case i don't, here are a few of them to keep in mind:
my shitty orange coffee maker
the sea of flannel shirts and sweaters i mostly had to throw away having bought them with my ex or been gifted them by her
sidewalks, sidewalks, sidewalks
the creepy Seashore Hall building where my filming equipment was stored
the late nights i would get drunk with Cara or Kylie or Emily or Alex or whoever was drinking
the endless anonymous tumblr's where i published my heartbroken thoughts
the smell of the gluten free bread from the cult-y co-op grocery store
speaking about my ex in the present "together" sense to the stem cell researcher during an interview for one of the University of Iowa CORP's many squeaky-clean bullshit PR schemes
that last night of drinks with S***** in that wooden bar that only took cash
that last kiss or hug i can't recall which
so many tears in the cold, cold, Iowa wind
the corkboard Nikes and green denim skinny jeans i wore during this time
the way i hated me hair and didn't want it cut or long
the way i despised having been broken up with by someone who i knew never found me attractive at all and continuing to try to impress them when much healthier people were actually interested in me
Okay, wow, so there is some fodder for the future. Delicious details, highly ranging in cliche level. why does melodrama feel so good. still so apt for this period of time.
I don't know if I could ever go back to Iowa City and not go back in time.
the last time i remember being there was for the Floodwater Comedy Festival in either 2018 or 2019. even though some restaurants had changed and buildings had spurted higher and kids looked really young and the t-shirt shop in town (yeah, it's the one you're thinking of) was no longer hip and was in fact, passé, i couldn't really accept any of these updated details as a reality. i kept seeing the places i'd first been drunk, or high, or twisted (drunk and high). The first house party, the first time i got lost, the first time i was threatened, the first time i interviewed a university official, the first time i'd been broken up with in an academic building, the last time i saw her, the last house show i went to, the last time i ate her p****, the first guy i kissed, the second and third guy i kissed, the first time i felt overwhelmed, the first time i felt silly for feeling overwhelemed, the last time i felt like a kid, the last time i felt like a fool, the last time class ended for the rest of forever.
leaving Iowa City in December 2014 i felt like i'd aged a decade even though it had only been August 2011 when i'd arrived. i was heading out to a big place i had trouble understanding (and still do), but now, at 30, in my North Holllywood apartment, with a handful of scripts and a few albums of songs, many standup gigs and improv gigs and sketch gigs and entertainment gigs under my belt, i can finally fucking say i know myself better than i used to.
sometimes i miss not knowing, but i know the search isn't done and neither is the hurt or the cum or the laughs or the sunsets.
gag me.
-eric
