Pushing Send

I did it. I sent a friend request to my high school best friend I haven't talked to in...? A decade? I looked up some of the other "kids" yesterday. The boy I crushed on & off for years, who I kissed beneath the giant tree in his back yard during a ritualized make-out party before 7th grade... has an incurable brain disease which affects his balance and he's making a film about how surfing helps. The girl I idolized still looks fab in a recent pic with her high school sweetheart handsome surfer dude. Yes, I grew up in a beach town, adding to my teen angst as I ducked in the face of the oncoming volleyball. But we also had a fantastic bookstore two blocks from the beach, with a whole 6-sided room for poetry, so that saved me.
Along with those tacoburritos that we used to scarf down at the pier.

the Rusty Bucket

I dream "The Rusty Bucket" and it's such a great name I look it up (dream google) to see if anyone else is using it. I find pages of notebook paper with a davinci-esque sketch in brown ink of a rusty bucket and my name, very small, and there is Brett Palm's name, too, the ideal boy of my childhood, who was often beside me, thanks to alphabetical order. The rusty latch of my childhood diary, the rusty bucket lowered into the dream well, tingly taste of cold metal,  brick-orange flakes, and rippling reflection in black water... so this is where they keep the poetry.

Is it mean to my 14 year old self to read out of her diary to strangers, who will laugh?

I just know that when I did this before, to a small bunch at The Whistle Stop in South Park, that it was very satisfying, especially when I read, "why am I talking to a book like it was a person? oh well, it's almost like talking to someone." Then to look up to a room full of real people, smiling and listening.

I asked Susan if anyone has shame attacks after they perform and she said no, they're euphoric.