Much like the subject in question, this entry is going to be a bit of an anomaly. While Learner’s Permit has been a series dedicated to exploring my educational history, I feel like certain contexts would be lost if I didn’t take some time to tangentially talk about the world outside of it. I’ve previously discussed the impact of Myspace as well as how various childhood memories shaped my outlook on life. In this entry, I am doing something I’ve only done once before and likely won’t do again. I’m going to be spending the next few pages talking about one person. She is someone who, even over a decade since we could reasonably call ourselves “friends,” lingers in my mind and has shaped my worldview for better or worse.
This differs from the other entry. In that case, Dave was as much someone I liked as it was a teacher-student relationship. For this entry, I’m not entirely sure how it all connects, but I feel will help explain the bridge between my high school years and my early 20s.
As I’ve grown older, I find myself trying to find the right way of describing “Her.” She isn’t necessarily “the one who got away” because that status would suggest some deeper romanticism that wasn’t there. However, it’s the only phrase I’ve found to describe our platonic connection. I’ve spent years since that time realizing how much she meant to me and thinking about what I possibly did to fracture my relationship with “Her” because, in my mind, I was irrational throughout my early 20s and was pushing people away. As much as I could point a finger at “Her” and say she did this or that, I’m ultimately drawn to the feeling that what I did was much worse.
The best that can be said is that the fallout was humbling and forced me to consider the way I was treating others. Suddenly youth’s ability to restock wells of social groups was fading and now as I figure out where to go in my 30s, I realize how much I wish I could’ve redone a lot. I’m not necessarily saying that I want to relive my teenage years. I suffer from a sense of wanting to edit moments to have them hold more meaning and potentially shift paths.
When writing this, I worried about the perception that focusing so exclusively on “Her” would give the reader. There’s a toxic nature to people who ruminate on their past and bitterly recall their relationships. I’m going to do my best to say that my experience with “Her” is closer to anecdotal than something that has festered in my heart. While there are times when I’m deepest in depression that I will think of “Her” and kick myself for everything I did wrong, she has mostly faded into a memory. Do I cherish the thought of potentially running into her for an afternoon? Of course. I think it’s as much to know what she thinks of me and if I’m too much in my head here, as it is to know that life has treated her well because, to me, everyone I was friends with is much more successful than me.
A major reason I want to run into her and discover those new truths is because I miss her. I want to hear her voice and know how it’s changed. I want to know if she’s a mother or the free-thinker she struck me as. There are so many people from high school who just disappeared and yet she is the one I wonder about most. Maybe it’ll hurt to know she’s been better since we parted, but I want to believe I’d eventually come around to being proud of her.
I think there is something strange about what I want from “Her.” Unless she’s eager for a social media-level casual connection (which I doubt), I think I just want to hear that voice. It’s one that made me so happy for years and yet, looking back now, I realize it wasn’t even a decade. I’m not sure it was even five years. I’ve known people for longer who don’t fall on that radar. As it stands, I only have one rogue video of her from long ago. Most of the pictures have gone missing and other documentation is hard to find. Given the server crash of Myspace, a lot of correspondences aren’t there. She mostly exists as this video. I’m not going to describe or exploit it. All I’m going to say is that every now and then she comes up. I don’t know that my current trajectory would be the same without her.
Again, I worry that this sounds more like obsession than what it is. I want to believe everyone with any life experience has had a “Her.” Even the most adjusted people needs that one person who existed as much for company as they did some deeper life lesson. You’ll regret how it ended, but can you regret a lot of what came before? No. For me, it brought about a lot of joy and laughter that has been unmatched. I think as I’ve changed as a person, I want to believe things could’ve continued differently had I been more insightful. Maybe it wasn’t me at all. Whatever it is, it’s a motivator to keep trying to find that feeling again somewhere in someone or something. And yet I watch Past Lives (2023) and wish for that moment too. It’s so simple and yet not everyone will achieve it.
I’m sorry for the long preamble. I wasn’t sure how to open an entry dedicated to “Her” because a lot of thoughts have evolved from concrete to more amorphous. The more a memory gets away from five years prior, the harder it is to place everything on a surefire timeline. Part of it is how much has happened since, but also memory is faulty.
I have struggled with self-criticism and sometimes believe that the people who don’t talk to me were driven away because of me. For all I know, the reality is much more mundane. We just grew older and took on new responsibilities. That’s probably what actually happened. And yet it feels true for “Her” specifically. I’m as likely to run into “Her” and have “Her” say, “You were an asshole to me” as I am a more supportive conversation clouded by the good times.
Anyway, enough with the melancholy. I want to start moving into the actual post and try to help you make sense of these strong emotions.
I will begin by unpacking a general description of “Her.” For the sake of this piece, I will give her the pseudonym Carsen. She was a year older than me meaning that when I met her as a Junior, she was a Senior in high school. At the time of our friendship, she described herself as looking similar to Katy Perry or Zoey Deschanel. She was Jewish and was pursuing a career in dance.
The first time I knew of Carsen may have been years before I met her. During my Freshman English class, Vann had a lecture one day on the difference between fact and opinion. As examples, he used sentences like “2Pac died too young” that helped to convey his greater points. Among the mix was a sentence that read, “A.F.I. is the greatest band ever” to which I jokingly yelled “True!”
This was around the time of their seminal classic “Sing the Sorrow.” I had seen them the previous year when they were one of the headliners for KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas. They were a continuous presence in my music rotation. At the same time, I had no belief that anyone else really liked them. They were a great, atmospheric band doing interesting things, but I doubted as a Freshman not yet exposed to the art kids that anyone had much to say on the matter.
And yet, two years later, I remember sitting in the same classroom and somebody was playing “Decemberunderground.” I wish I liked that album more, but that’s beside the point.
Visions was starting to ramp up for the upcoming school year. I was a Junior and about to be introduced to the group that I still considered my favorite. The majority were seniors who I would also befriend in creative writing. However, there were one or two that fit more into peripheral roles. They were neither actively steering Visions nor someone I knew from a class. At most, they were in meetings trying to determine how they could treat it as a part time gig.
For all I know, I met Carsen prior to Junior year without realizing it. To go back to Sophomore year, I was a Visions member who was casual friends with the leaders. Among them was Sara. She would’ve been a Senior at the time and is one of the only people who in later years asked if I was still friends with Carsen. I’m sure at some reading I could’ve been talking to Sara and Carsen was there in the background saying something.
I like to think that a lot of the art kids wanted to be my friend because I had an optimistic perspective in my writing. With very few exceptions, my poems were comical and more inspired by a small interest in stand-up comedians. Most readings featured people walking up to me with a few compliments afterwards. I want to believe I was likable. Maybe it was also trying to find any way to escape my nervousness and fear of public speaking that they related to. I was doing something that some of them never actually achieved.
Because of this, I can’t suggest the first time that Carsen met me. I have to believe she was intrigued by my presence in Visions.
In my mind it started by accident. I was bored sitting at a desk. I was bent over, leaning on my hands in a way that could either look thoroughly bored or deeply enamored depending on the receiver. It was very much a nothing of a stare, but I remember at some point I became entranced by a woman sitting across from me. As I looked up and down, I was less keen on making friends and just appreciating a moment to zone out and look at anything. I have to believe it was Carsen because part of me remembers looking upward and finally seeing her smiling back at me. I couldn’t tell you anything about the meeting itself, but I remember her smiling back.
That’s how this story begins. I can’t be sure how many conversations we had before the next part, but they were probably flippant. At that point, Carsen meant little to me other than my fondness for Visions people because of affiliation.
There was a day not too long after where I was just walking around campus. Before I really found a group to hang out with before school, I found comfort in just circling random buildings for the 10-20 minutes before the bell rang. Joe once saw me doing this and said that I looked like I walked “with purpose.” To him, I was on a mission because I kept my eyes forward and focused on whatever was ahead.
There was an area right by the theater department that I especially liked to circle. This was because of the tall, looming trees and the backstage area of the theater that gave it a distinctive look. It wasn’t just a two story building with classroom windows looking out to you. That and my assumption was that the back area wouldn’t allow for a complete lap because one side might’ve been closed off by the football field bleachers.
This was where Carsen emerged. In my memory she was standing there as if trying to psych herself up. It might’ve been less monumental than that. She walked up to me and abruptly began the next few years of our friendship with a line that caught me off guard. Even Laura, who was very chummy but in a more distanced way, never referred to me as more than someone she liked spending time with.
If I had to rewrite our time together, the opening line would be easy to pen. Standing next to me, she said with assurance, “Hello best friend.”
It caught me off guard for many reasons, notably that we never actually hung out to the extent that we were the “best” anything. Whatever Carsen was doing, she willed into existence. Had she not pursued this conversation, I’m willing to bet that I’d never know who she was. And yet as I look over trying to make sense of this exchange, there’s assurance in her voice. There is a desire for us to be best friends.
I’m sure at the time I thought it was confusing, but also as a teenager you tend to be more vulnerable to any compliment. Much like the Myspace relationship I had two years prior, I bought into any positive feedback I could get. Unlike that Myspace relationship, I could see Carsen. She was real and willing to give me a hug as she left for morning classes. I have to believe that it’s the giddiness that exists within you for hours afterward. You felt seen when somebody calls you “best friend.”
There’s part of me that was probably driven by skepticism. Back in fifth grade, I had people send compliments before being mean to me. Even in middle school when everyone was nice, I never felt close. There was Alex, but I don’t know that we were intimate in a way where we’d share personal secrets. We had late nights watching movies and did sleepovers. There were actively more hours with her than most people in my life, but at the end of the day it felt casual. Even Joe who was as close to a partner in crime during Senior year wasn’t exactly “best friend” material.
I wish I could recall why Carsen chose me. I think it’s one of the more pleasant mysteries in this story. With that said, the early days of being “best friends” was akin to merely seeing each other around campus. When Visions held readings, it was assumed that we would be sitting together and talk for 20 minutes before the show started. Maybe she’d wander around to her other friends, but she had a moment where she filled me in on her day to day.
My reciprocation came in supporting her personal interests. A common opinion in my youth was that I liked to dance. I wasn’t coordinated or professional by any measure, but I wasn’t afraid to get up and move. According to Carsen, she believed that the dance squad would’ve taken me with my skills. I don’t know how much was empty compliment and what was untapped potential, but she did like that I shared an interest in dance. If there was any hesitation to go further with it – besides the limited hours in a day – it was the idea that the dance squad was 99% female. It was so feminine that one time when I delivered mail to the dance practice room, the teacher looked at me and said (verbatim), “Uh-oh, boy. Look away.” I respected her wishes, especially since I assumed that the dance room was a safe space.
Like theater, the dance world was one I was fascinated in but felt too removed from. To this day I am entranced by the way the physical form can move. I watch it in live theater and So You Think You Can Dance and am in awe that anyone can be trained enough to possess grace in every decision. Most people my age would make fun of it, but as I’ve aged I’m envious of those who have that control and poise. Given my small awareness of dance careers outside of school, it’s even more amazing that anyone would want to put themselves up for that level of judgment and use your body in such a demanding way for money. On a deeper level, I have longed to have any way of possessing forms of expression that are more visual and external.
In that first year, I was introduced to the dance department because of Carsen. At one school assembly, they picked a handful of performances for the upcoming show. She was part of it in a number set to The Brian Setzer Ochestra’s “Jump Jive An’ Wail” that featured some tap dancing and upbeat choreography. It was cute.
At some point, Carsen invited me to Dance Night. On some level I'm convinced that she thought I wasn’t going. Not only did I show up, but as she exited the theater and received flowers from her family, she saw me off on the side and hugged me saying, “You came!” I did my best to be supportive. There will be more a little later on, but before I get there, I want to touch on a tangent.
I went to Dance Night over the course of two years. Probably the most enthusiastic I ever saw an audience respond to dance at Millikan was when a group did Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).” The grand finale was the female dancers being picked up by the men before being wrapped around their waists snake-like. I remember both times I saw it that everyone in the room went wild. Other performances included people tap dancing to The Mario Bros. theme song as well as Golden Earring’s “Radar Love.” I also remember an excellent number set to Timbaland’s “The Way I Are” that exists in my memory for how visually stunning it was. My sister was once in a performance of A Chorus Line’s “I Hope I Get It” that she claimed hating so much that she resents the actual show.
But what is probably my favorite story is from the second year. I went with Tony and we sat in the front row. There was a scene transition which required dancers to run across the front. From opposite ends of the room, two women were running to their marks. Because of low visibility, they ended up running headfirst into each other right in front of us. While the show was able to recover, it was a funny moment that I still think about. It was setting up some number set to Scissor Sisters that had the vibe of an extended “mega mix” finale.
Carsen was very much a theater kid. When she wasn’t doing dance, she was also involved in the plays and musicals. One of her claims was that she was in The Crucible playing a character that, despite having a monologue, was so doused in make-up that nobody knew it was her. When the 2008 spring musical ended up being Fiddler on the Roof, she recalls the theater teacher asking her for advice on how to make it more Jewish. I went with her to the show and we sat front row. She wrapped a shawl around her head to get into the spirit. She’s the one who told me that my sister, who played one of the bottle dancers, looked scared.
The most interesting part of the following chapters is that she was the one who stuck around. When The Class of 2007 graduated, I lost contact with a lot of them. While they might show up to future Visions readings, I had to rely on Myspace correspondences to know what they were up to. The next group was taking root and it was clear that not everyone was game to celebrate the more music-oriented direction things were heading in.
I’m unsure if I stayed in close contact with Carsen, but she predictably transitioned into a post-high school life. I want to say she tried moving out for a time but found it too difficult financially. She also began working on Belmont Shore at Buffalo Exchange. At some point she returned to Visions and had a whole poem comically detailing everything that annoyed her about the customers’ handling of the clothes.
Around June 2008, I would get my driver’s license. For a variety of reasons, Carsen got hers later on. She would take the bus down to her shift. In order to share more time together, I made a deal to pick her up. I would park in an area that she’d call “the boonies” which was a neighborhood street often several blocks away. I’d pass by a house that was colored yellow which was an odd change from the bland shades that surrounded it. I would hang out at Fingerprints next door, specifically looking through the bargain bin they placed in front of the store. I’d find rare stuff like Up Syndrome and Mad Capsule Markets for dirt cheap. Eventually she would come out and we’d go home, talking about whatever was on her mind that day.
I have a weird romanticization with Belmont Shore. It’s a miserable place to commute. There’s stoplights every block and parking is even more unreliable than Downtown Long Beach. However, I loved Fingerprints until it moved to a different location. I rarely went into Buffalo Exchange, which had this aura that was intimidating and boojie. I can’t entirely explain why, but it was Carsen’s corner of the world. I’d hear stories and that was enough. I only went in once when we decided to have a day wandering around Belmont Shore and she needed to pick up her check. I wrote a blog post about it that Carsen loved so much that she shared it with her friends talking about how much she liked me.
To backtrack, I think it would be unfair to not talk about other things Carsen and I did during my high school years. Around 2008, I was forced to move into a new home towards the end of my senior year of high school. One of the coincidences is that it moved me within a few blocks of Carsen. Not only did it mean that we could hang out more, but it meant that it gave us a connection that had many pros and cons.
It felt like we’d trade back and forth whose house we went to. When I visited her, I’d often be greeted by her mother, who was a nice older woman. I’ll admit that I was socially awkward so I think that I never felt that connected to her. However, we’d sit around watching Degrassi and just enjoying the afternoon. I think it felt more special to go to her house, but it could just be how used I was to mine. My place was more liberal and allowed Carsen to be more candid. She got along with my sister and had somebody to fall back on when she was bored with me.
Because of Carsen, I did have a chance to attend Passover. While I am closer to Catholicism, I was becoming intrigued by Judaism and wanted to better understand their practices. Because I was nervous, I was maybe a bit too jittery to be considered “respectful.” I didn’t say anything offensive or do anything inherently sacrilegious. However, I was called upon to read from a book at some point and I remember that I was maybe tilting back and forth too much. It passed and I was mostly stationary for most of the night, but I feel self-conscious about the fact that I wasn’t invited back. Maybe it was coincidental. For all I know, I just gave off the air of disinterest that resulted in me sitting quietly as the older members spoke about the housing market. To Carsen’s credit, she was trying to make the most of the night by squeezing Matzoh balls so that they made squishy noises.
I forget what type of Jews that Carsen’s family was (reform?). The only thing that I could say for sure is that they would go to temple on Friday. That was the one day where I knew she wouldn’t be available.
The further away we got from school, the more I got to understand who she was. When she’d come over to my house, we’d often go to the computer and bum around Myspace. We’d fill out surveys and post them on the message boards. She was very much into TV like South Park and Wonder Showzen, even buying the DVD set of the latter from Fingerprints. She wasn’t above crass jokes and would complain about how her pierced ears without earrings looked like cat butts. She was the type to hear a song on the radio, like David Banner’s “Get Like Me” on the radio while we were driving around and vibe before making it her Myspace song. We were both very much on the same page in terms of humor, however I think that other interests differed.
For starters, she was a proud smoker. While she never smoked around me, I was aware of her habit. Even if my father wasn’t approving, she wasn’t shy of discussing it. She was self-conscious enough to say that she wouldn’t introduce me to smoking because of the stigma it would bring her.
With that said, the one instance where it did come up had a strange impact. In an upcoming entry, I will discuss in more detail my car crash of 2008. What needs to be known at this point is that following the event, I was dazed to the point that I needed someone to talk to. By some luck, I not only got out of the crash unscathed, but I was able to go for a 40 minute walk around the neighborhood immediately after. As one can guess, I reached out to Carsen hoping she’d be able to give me any condolences. Instead, she said that she was way too high to be dealing with me at that moment. Similarly, she had accidentally dropped an empty cigarette box on the floor of said car. When my dad found it, he spoke very critically to her about it.
I wouldn’t say there were many moments where Carsen let me down in that way. She was the type to post pictures of her online not necessarily smoking, but of her making weird faces that were likely the byproduct of being high. I never really judged her for the behavior and was more curious how anyone in a pre-legalization era got marijuana since enough people I knew had “getting high” as a pastime. Still, it was a moment which suggested that for as much as Carsen could be my friend, on some level we weren’t able to be the “best” that we once strived for.
Before shifting into a more obtuse time, I want to briefly touch on her college years. As I’ve mentioned before, the only community college that I refused to consider was Long Beach Community College. It was perceived as High School 2.0, and I wasn’t a fan of doing that. However, Carsen chose to go there. Much like her job at Buffalo Exchange, we had a deal where I’d occasionally pick her up and drive her home. It was in the same area, a mere 15 minute drive from her house.
I mostly knew her in relation to her dance class. Before they built the parking tower, LBCC’s parking situation was a nightmare and meant that I often had to leave early and maneuver strategically. I’d sometimes be early enough that I had to chase bunnies around and loiter out front, watching students come and go. Every now and then she’d come out sweaty and exhausted. She was self-conscious and I don’t blame her now. However, I think I was too eager to give off the impression that small things didn’t bother me so I’d offer her a hug.
One of her first events was in the dance practice room. It was another variety show where different groups performed odd numbers. The only thing that I remembered was that their closer was a recreation of Michael Jackson’s iconic “Thriller” routine. According to people there, what made it special was that the choreographer for said dance was also their instructor. As a result, I got to see Carsen in the group with her weird stare trying to be a zombie while doing the wieldy hand gestures.
I think the last event I saw her at regarding dance was in one of their auditoriums. I had been reading Carsen’s rants for a few weeks about how she was working hard. It was some tropical dance set to a song about coconuts. It’s maybe the most lighthearted routine I ever saw her do. I remember standing around afterward with people I’ll just assume were her family and began talking about the show. They said stuff like “Carsen sure is special” and I had no choice but to agree.
I’m not sure if I saw her in other contexts, but that was the extent of my dance history with her. I am unsure if she’s still performing or not. Part of me imagines that she grew older and found other careers to pursue. Then again, I don’t have a dancer’s mind. I don’t know what their second act ultimately is.
For the next part, I am going to go a bit out of order. However, I think it helps to inform the larger point that I am going to make…
At some point, Myspace created a new feature that centered around sending messages anonymously. Because I was more keen to take risks, I decided to write this poem for Carsen that was maybe a bit too affectionate titled “We Close Our Eyes” after the Oingo Boingo song. I didn’t mean anything romantic about it, but given that I had no way to really discuss platonic love, it came across a bit too yearning. The funniest part was that despite the anonymity, she wrote back “We’ll talk,” giving off the impression that she knew exactly who had sent it.
I forgot if we had planned to see Smart People (2008) before or after this exchange. However, it would be a pivotal discussion for both of us. She was going off the impression that I had a crush on her. How could she not? We had been hanging out for close to two years and had gotten used to spending some part of our weekends together. We looked for movies to watch and just take in each other’s company.
And it was from the adjacent food court that she told me something so personal that I could sense saying the wrong thing would mean not seeing each other again. She had formed enough trust in me to say something that was kind of predictive by that point, but not entirely obvious. I had gone through half of 2006 believing she had a crush on Josh and may have secretly been dating him. I wasn’t too sure, but then again I wasn’t the quickest to pick up on social cues. And from across the table, she said the words “I am gay.”
She was the first person who actually told me that. Given that 2008 was a good seven years before any national gay marriage legalization, we were growing up in a time where it was still taboo. Even if Carsen regularly talked about The L Word and spoke about how Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” was about her, there wasn’t the sense that anything greater could happen. While there was a considerable fight that would emerge in the form of Prop 8 in California, I think the lack of marriage rights meant that there was still an otherness to queer communities. I wouldn’t doubt that a lot more of the people involved with Visions were gay. However, Carsen was one of the first who expressed it.
Even if I wasn’t capable of perceiving myself as queer yet, I was actively trying to be comfortable enough to support others. In a time where my father was confused by women who had short hair (i.e. bobs, nothing too esoteric), I think it would take a lot of personal work to learn and empathize. What helped was knowing Carsen in more trivial ways to the point that being a lesbian wasn’t her defining feature. I didn’t have the mythical lesbian that commercials liked to throw at me where they fell into water fountains and through soaked shirts kissed for crowds of cheering men. Carsen wasn’t like that. She was just going to complain about her job and plan her next event.
With that said, there were some odd moments that at least allowed me to see part of the late 2000s through the eyes of a queer woman. Following that conversation where we quickly went from the “is that fine?” question and the “I’m cool if you’re cool” response, we just went back to joking about life. Carsen was special for a myriad of reasons and I only hope I was interesting enough for her. When we went inside, I remember we saw a trailer for Speed Racer (2008) and her telling me that she thought that Christina Ricci was hot. At another point when we went to the midnight premier of Watchmen (2009), I watched as she loudly cheered at the credits scene where two women kissed. Reading over old documents, I discovered that Tony had tagged along and was apparently asking her invasive questions about being gay. Not in the homophobic way, but in a way that would suggest they both liked cute girls.
Because Carsen was also more of a party girl, she was one to find herself in social situations. She’d go to San Francisco with random friends and talk about how she saw some guy getting blown in an alleyway or how her roommate defecated on the floor. I was partially jealous of her ability to see all of these weird deviant moments of life. Everyone praised me for being somewhat naïve and having an innocent view of the world, which hurt because part of me was dying to see something weird and unpleasant, even if I might’ve regretted it later. At another point, she won a meet and greet with Jeffree Starr. One day she talked about how she wanted to go to a gay bar with her friend while singing Electric Six’s “Gay Bar” before making it her Myspace song. Maybe it was because I was under 21 or just that she didn’t like exposing me to debaucherous activities, but I wasn’t invited.
There’s one random detail that I now seem jealous of Carsen about. Sometime in 2008-2009, I recall her saying that I didn’t need to pick her up because she was going to a small event for Lady Gaga. If you’re familiar with the era, it was a time before she blew up, so it was a local venue. I remember telling her that I didn’t know who she was and she proceeded to write on Myspace, “I can’t believe there’s people who still don’t know who Lady Gaga is yet.” I feel called out, but I think it’s a fair point given where her career took her.
With that said, there was one moment that lives as a formative memory in my mind. As I was keen to do at the time, I went to Goodwill and decided to pick up a variety of clothes. This included a trench coat that I thought looked cool. Carsen came over and things slowly spiraled from there. It started with the joke idea of a trench coat being associated with flashers before suddenly we were building a whole new personality for me.
At the time there was a game of having your stripper name be certain details. I can’t recall what exactly would lead to this name combination – I’m willing to believe the surname was a street thing – but we settled on the name Courtney Belmont. As I sat there enthusiastically, Carsen applied a face of make-up. For the first time, I felt the brushes poke me. It was exciting.
I think a small reason that things were coming together was because that evening was a Visions event at Acres of Books. Prior to its demolition, it was one of Long Beach’s greatest landmarks and testaments to literature. It was a used bookstore that had an impressive variety of texts. Some were even obscure. If you were at all associated with the art community, you had to go there at least once. If I remember right, Anthony tried to create some zines to be distributed there. With all that said, we got access to a small poetry reading room where I would perform.
We stopped by Carsen’s house on the way downtown to pick up a top that she gave me. Because of that, I ended up having to run into a coffee shop very quickly and change in the bathroom before heading out, still wearing the trench coat. When I got to the venue, everyone was laughing and having a good time. Garrett was talking to me about the Kurt Cobain diaries. Another group of guys was talking to me about how they found it difficult to wear make-up.
In all honesty, it was one of those nights that I loved even if I didn’t take it seriously enough to mean anything. To me, Courtney Belmont is a persona that lives on in spite of her lack of presence in a lot of my life. I was being cattier and more off the cuff in my presentation. While my dad wasn’t a fan of me coming home looking “like that,” he couldn’t remove the fact that I had a great night. I only wish there were more nights like that. I also wish that I still had that shirt, if just because of what it symbolized between the two of us.
With moments like that, I think Carsen symbolized my early connection to LGBT+ subjects. For as much as I still had to learn, I knew people who identified with the community. I still had to differentiate between good and bad politics. I probably said a lot that was dumb or insensitive at the time because I was jumping back and forth between the more mainstream homophobia and a group that I mostly knew from caricature. To be honest, I was in high school when Brokeback Mountain (2005) came out, but I feel personally that I was too young to appreciate it on a deeper level. It would take until Milk (2008) for me to make that connection. With that said, there’s nothing forgivable about me giving an unenthusiastic positive review of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007). I didn’t realize it was that way until apparently it inspired Calvin to see it. That movie was always bad.
Another connection that I had with Carsen was an appreciation for A.F.I. I’m not entirely sure when she discovered that I had seen them, but it was a big enough detail to make her interested in me. As time went on, she let me borrow her collection so that I could burn them onto my computer. She also introduced me to side projects like Blaqk Audio. We would also go to Hollywood to see Hunter Revenge open for The Vandals. Because of how things played out, we ended up meeting Hunter and had a picture that I hope exists somewhere. Of every picture we took together, it’s one of my more cherished images of our time together.
But the one act that made me realize how much she liked me was when she decided to invite me onto The Despair Faction. For context, it’s basically the A.F.I. fan message board. Carsen met a lot of amazing people through there and the idea was that it would welcome me into their world. Even if A.F.I. was the central discussion point, there was room to talk about anything. Given that it was 2008, we were talking about The Dark Knight (2008) a lot. I was so enamored with being there that I contemplated buying a membership that would give me more perks, though I never quite worked up the effort to actually go through with it. I would settle for preordering their albums online and being grateful when they showed up a day or two early. Even if I wasn’t wild about “Crash Love,” I was happy to have a small moment to share with the fans.
I don’t wish to get into any specific conversation that Carsen and I had on there, but it was an interesting mix of people. She would try to recapture the appeal of the website on AIM once or twice, but it would always end with 40 people talking at once so cross-talk would make any continuity confusing. I would be talking to some third party and suddenly Carsen would be there saying, “This was a mistake” and shut it down.
Between Myspace and Despair Faction, I got to learn a fair share about Carsen. Apparently at one point she had shoved a screwdriver through her hand and deeply regretted it. She also joked about how she was annoyed by lip hair and felt she needed to “get that shit waxed.” I feel like it’s a website that embodies my inability to fully say what I need to say directly. I misused the phrase “step out of the limelight” because I misunderstood the latter. Even if I’m critical and focused on language now, I think there was a time where I was so unbothered by mistakes that it ended up starting complaints that I had no idea what I was talking about. To that I say… fair point.
Meanwhile on Myspace, I had the odd luck of deciding to read Carsen’s blogs from the beginning the day right before she deleted/hid them all. As excited as I was to learn more about her personal interests, they were quickly taken away. All that I could see were her photographs, just as self-critical of the bad ones as you’d expect. There was one where she was stretching and doing ballet poses in her room and she thought it looked embarrassing and I couldn’t figure out why. With that said, in the time I knew Carsen she would remove dairy from her diet and claimed that it made her feel better about her body.
I’m sure that I have forgotten a lot of great memories. However, I want to start shifting into things that may be considered problematic or at least contributing to the greater downfall. There’s a decent amount of regret now, but I think that I was just in a bad head space in the early 2010s to the extent that so much slipped away because I chose to actively push things away.
As one can guess, I loved living near Carsen. To me it was one of those comforting things that made me believe that everything was going to be fine. However, because I am also paranoid, I had a bad habit of needing to worry about things. Think of it like writing the final essay for a course. You’re scared about failing, so you check over and over trying to make sure that there’s zero mistakes. There’s no way to be completely sure what’s missing, but so long as you can see what you intended, it’ll give you some relief.
And that’s how I felt about her house. I’m sure some of you can already determine what is wrong here. Basically, I would go to school in the morning and come back in the afternoons. Before I got home, I would drive by her house. For the sake of context, her place was in a roundabout street, meaning it only connected to one neighboring block. The street itself didn’t actually connect to where I needed to go. I just found comfort in seeing her home and having that feeling of hope that she’d be home.
To outsiders, I’m sure it looked militant or even stalker-y. I realize how poor taste that behavior was, especially when I had no reason to visit her. However, being young, I needed to see that house to soothe some part of me that couldn’t take the irrational thought that the house would disappear. It would come to the point where Carsen had to tell me that I needed to stop because the neighbors were complaining. I respected her wishes, though it didn’t come without some level of shock and disappointment.
With that said, I also briefly would go for evening walks. While my paths would change based on how much effort I wanted to put in that night, I would be lying if I said her house wasn’t on a few of those paths. Again, there was something about walking by and seeing those lights on and feeling comfort that she was there. I wouldn’t approach the house. I just needed those few seconds of seeing the house to feel like everything was okay. Around the corner was a cat that I would stop and play with. Eventually my pathway would change to one on the opposite end of the neighborhood, but I realize how much my insecurity drove me to want to see a house.
Moving into some odd exchanges, there was the night where she went to see The Dark Knight at midnight. I was stuck at home watching Freaks and Geeks for the first time. Somehow, I couldn’t get to sleep, so I ended up catching her on Myspace when she got home and got her immediate feedback. For whatever reason, it was one of two times where I had long nights of being unable to sleep that lead to me walking to her house and dropping a note on her door. I can’t be sure what that letter said, but the next one was a bit more painful.
In 2008, we had agreed to do a gift swap around December. We settled on DVD’s. I would get her The Dark Knight and she would get me Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008). As ironic as the event appears now, the fallout was an awkward occasion. Carsen said that a friend already got her The Dark Knight. I knew she was obsessed with the movie and had cut up an old I.D. card so that it said she was from Gotham. I found a special cased one with the Batman cowl on it. I had it in my room. She failed to pick up Forgetting Sarah Marshall and was open about it. However, I felt awkward having this DVD set in my possession. As a result, I decided to go ahead with the swap without receiving anything in return. On another sleepless night, I walked to her house and dropped it off.
To this date, I don’t have a DVD copy of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. With profound levels of irony, I made a personal pact with myself that I wouldn’t buy it until Carsen gave me one. It is an act of respect that’s since evolved into foolishness. She’s never going to buy it nor do I think she remembers this exchange. I am unsure if she thanked me for the gift. Given the subject matter of the film, I find it an amusing meta commentary. I’m also not keen on rewatching it even though I find it to be one of Jason Segel’s best. Then again, I took years to want to relisten to A.F.I. following our fallout. Maybe one day it’ll be easier to move beyond this.
To move into the final stretch, I think that I brought a lot of problems on myself. In 2008, I started college. In my mind, this is where things fell apart. However, certain details would suggest that there was still more time to appreciate everything. I want to say we were doing things well into 2010.
I wasn’t taking post-high school life too well. During the Spring 2009 semester final exam, I ended up writing an apology essay to the teacher admitting that I was depressed. Part of it was the byproduct of doing an 8 AM class, but it was also just that certain realities were settling in. I wasn’t going to be seeing the people I wanted to see as much. While they would be there well into 2009, other things weren’t. My initial semester of journalism was great, but the video department fell apart by then, meaning I had hours of free time to myself. If I wasn’t at work, I was alone at home playing Duffy and Elliot Smith while being super mopey.
The exchanges with Carsen felt less frequent and because I had no idea how to handle it, I took it as a sign of separation. Given my fear of abandonment, this was not a good time to be dealing with anyone. If I took the signs literally, I would have to say that Carsen never seemed to hate me when she talked to me. I just read into it. I began to relate to films about feeling isolated and alone, especially Taxi Driver (1976). My writing became more bitter and reactionary. To look at it now, I’m a bit bothered by how much I walked into the fire willingly. I read it now and cringe, being like, “No, no… don’t.” It was awful.
Part of the byproduct was that I essentially ignored Carsen when she was at our house. She was there to see my sister. They had their own activities going on, though I couldn’t tell you what. For whatever reason, I remember sitting there just being evasive. I’d talk to her, but it was always in a way that suggested I couldn’t be bothered to care. I sincerely believe it was also a byproduct of my sister and father populating the house so often with activity and people that I never felt allowed to calm down. I was so stressed even during my relaxation periods that nothing meaningful could happen without working through layers upon layers of clouded anxiety.
I don’t blame her for maybe finding me unpleasant. Maybe I am projecting onto her my own insecurity and she didn’t care. Again, I wouldn’t know because the reality is that our conversations would dwindle.
I remember being confrontational about whatever I did say about her online. She became an enemy if reading the text literally. At some point she complained about an embarrassing period and I made a poor taste joke about it in another post. In my mind, it was karmic when all it revealed was an insecurity to address my frustrations in a meaningful way. I couldn’t be sure why I was so easily attacking her.
With all of this said, the previous event and the following two happened in a forgotten order. I think there’s a way that they occurred otherwise, but this makes the most sense to me.
On another day, Carsen invited me out to a coffee shop. I must’ve been having a bad day at work or was struggling with my home life because of how bitter and defeated I was when I got there. I felt exhausted and probably bothered to be coming out to a weekend drink with a friend. Again, I look now and say, “Don’t do it, you asshole!” but I wasn’t exactly at the age of taking good advice.
Carsen told me about a personal experience she had with a stalker. This person was following her to work and home. It’s a very uncomfortable situation and it was clear that she was very concerned with what to do. I can’t believe that I was flippant enough to downgrade her problem, but I don’t believe either that I was altruistic enough to seem caring. All I know is that she would eventually turn to me and ask, “What do you think I should do?” and I responded, “I don’t know.” In my mind, I was so monotone that it probably came off that I didn’t care. The conversation slowly fell apart from there and we went our separate ways.
Something pains me about that being our last significant conversation. Part of me believes that if I was the heroic type, I could’ve proven that I still cared. Instead I gave a useless shrug. I don’t know that it was enough to be outright dismissive, but I have to believe it was enough to convince her that the spark between us wasn’t there. It was a platonic spark and one that I wanted to believe in a better mentality could’ve existed much longer, but this was where I was and how I felt.
Again, I have to ask… why was I pushing everyone I loved away? Was it just behavior that I carried with me since fifth grade? I think of how that insecurity drove me to feel disconnected from people who were great friends the year before. Even in middle school, I had a great chemistry with everyone. And yet, I felt the need to differentiate myself from them. I needed to move on. It came with the expense of sorrow that I wasn’t “connected” to anyone for a long period of time. I don’t have a childhood friend. I can’t call up someone and recall the good old days. It’s sort of come back in more recent times, but not without years and maybe decades of separation.
And yet I hate how I treated Carsen in that moment. Because I didn’t know how to deal with my problems, I ended up pushing away the goodness, believing that I needed to suffer and rebuild. Why was I keen on losing Carsen? Compared to other people I liked, such as America, I lost them gradually. Carsen felt like a clear blueprint of what not to do in a friendship… and it was all my fault.
The finale to this story features us in almost the same place we were in 2006. I forgot what event I had attended at Millikan, but I was in the auditorium on the second floor. Looking down, I could see Carsen entering with her boyfriend (and later husband). We had our own enjoyable nights from considerable distances. I remember standing outside and she walked by without acknowledging me. There didn’t appear to be any malice in the movement, so I texted her, “Not going to say hi?”
…
…
…
There are a few moments that deflate your soul quite like the lingering void of an unreturned reply. I have only experienced it once after on the day I realized my podcast Nerd’s Eye View had ended without any formal notification. It’s the type of pain where you can only sit there and pray that things end differently. There is nobody you can turn to and have that closure. You’re left with this message not being responded to. Part of you wonders if it simply didn’t go through. After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time that our text messages failed to reach each other. I still hold out that delusion that maybe it was all a mistake.
And yet, that is when things ended quite clearly. Outside of a stray comment here or there on Facebook that lacked any sense of “let’s be friends again,” I haven’t talked to her since that day at the coffee shop. I do find it amusing that our relationship began and ended with a greeting. Even then, I find myself struggling to process. I grew up and believe that I became a better person. With all of that said, I have to wonder… would she like me now?
As mentioned, there were a handful of unfortunate things that followed. Myspace’s server crash meant that a lot of files were lost forever. My account is gone altogether meaning that I can’t withdraw the pictures and writing that I posted throughout that time. All of this exists in my memory, and I tend to be critical enough that whatever wasn’t completely determined good has room to be considered awful. Part of the effort of writing this series is to try and normalize everything and make me realize that maybe my life isn’t as bad as it seems in my head…or at least make rationality out of festering thoughts.
To give a post-script to Carsen, I should say that just because our friendship ended doesn’t fully mean that my awareness of her dovetailed. As mentioned, she had a boyfriend when I last saw her. While I can’t be sure what this means about her sexuality, I can say this much. In light of their dating, he did reach out on Facebook and added me as a friend. We don’t really talk to each other, but I do think that is a sign of some goodwill that I probably doubted was there. This isn’t to suggest that I was significant enough to invite to a wedding, but I also haven’t been totally removed from the equation.
It's maybe the one thing that I have tried to hold onto. Without fully engaging with it, I do try to hold onto Facebook because it has friends that I added over a decade ago who have gone quiet. I still hope that they’ll talk to me again one day and that maybe things will be rekindled. It doesn’t happen often, but there’s been a handful that gives me hope of something greater happening.
I think I held out that hope for Carsen until a few years ago. Even if she hadn’t engaged with me in a long time, she was still on my friend list. Maybe she had just forgotten to delete me, but I was there. It was a cryptic angle however as she mostly posted pictures and provided very little context. In all sincerity, she hasn’t changed from what I can tell. That isn’t a bad thing. She still seems like the free-spirit thinker that she left as. She seems happier now, and I can’t be mad about that. I can’t be sure what she does with her time, but it seems to be eventful.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if I have properly conveyed everything that she has taught me. If nothing else, it was one of those relationships you wished could last forever. I think if I talked to myself at 20, I might’ve felt differently, but that was because I was evasive. That is why even now I think about her with a lot of regret and desire. We were close enough to feel like we could rely on each other. She inspired me and I want to believe I amused her. I don’t know that this constitutes the status of “best friend,” but it should speak to something.
I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up one perspective that speaks to the problems I was having during the time. On the day that my nieces were born, my dad was talking to my sister’s husband Jason. Somehow the subject of Carsen came up. In everything said, my father said that she “Took advantage of me.” Jason, not knowing her, took him at his word.
Especially in that moment I couldn’t help but disagree. Maybe there were moments that could be seen as manipulative, but Carsen wasn’t doing anything against my will. There’s the off chance that maybe my memory has removed the bad behavior, but I refuse to believe that.
So I look to my father. He is the type to gaslight you when you’re losing a fight. He’ll manipulate the narrative in order to be seen as the hero. Basically, YOU hurt HIM. As I’ve gotten older, I have tried to keep social and familial lives somewhat separate because I feel like he’s too willing to control everything. I sometimes wonder how that’s impacted other relationships, especially given that Carsen and him interacted on quite a few occasions.
It explains why I have such a negative self-image. It speaks to how much of the world I’ve fought to see as something greater. For all I know, I’m blowing this moment out of proportion and it was your typical “That’s life” reality.
However, I find myself realizing even in 2016 that I didn’t feel like Carsen was taking advantage of me. Maybe it was the idea that we were friends and nothing more. It’s a perverse way of looking at things and one I reject. With that said, it confirmed that I still thought of Carsen in positive terms.
I remember that I was writing messages on Facebook and posting songs that referenced her name in relation to what was essentially a break-up. For irrational reasons, I even quoted Jay-Z’s “The Takeover” to seem cool. That can’t be a mistake, could it?
But I suppose to quote myself, “That’s life.” I can try to be as good of a person as I can, but what’s life without making mistakes along the way? All I can do is hope I don’t screw up the next precious relationship to the extent that it hurts me as deeply as this one.
As of now, I have no idea what Carsen is up to. Even when typing both her maiden and married name into Google, I can’t find anything. Maybe she’s a hermit and has escaped social media’s grasp. If so, I’m very proud of her for escaping those shackles. Otherwise, I can hope she’s using it responsibly.
I want to hear her voice and know that she’s fine. Maybe we couldn’t be as happy as we once were, but I think with uncertainty clouding everything, that I would like an answer. It may hurt, but it will also be a relief. Even if I am as terrible as I think, knowing why we stopped talking will give me some guidance. If I’m not, then it’ll relieve so much burden that I’ve carried for over a decade. Either way, it may get me to stop thinking about her.
With that said, I am still grateful for our time together. It meant a lot and it opened me to perspectives that I am grateful to still carry with me. I wish nothing but the best for her and hope life has taken her somewhere wonderful.
As for me, I hope this helps me to heal and begin seeing things in a much less paranoid way. Only time will answer that. For now, I end by letting out a deep sigh, close my eyes for a few beats, and look forward, hoping to find what lies ahead.
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