Summer's End

This is already a problem, I know. @relationships is this Twitter account I started following a few weeks ago and it just has the best/worst things to say about well, relationships. I have no idea who runs it, what this is for, but me and almost 400,000 other people can't be wrong. I like to imagine this is stuff I'd say to girls, or stuff they've already said to me. Or just advice I'd like to dole out.

A few of my faves:

• "I know we're not dating, but whenever I see someone else flirting with you, I want to shoot them in the face!"
• "He saw you. He met you. He wanted you. He liked you. He chased you. He had you. He got bored at you. He left you. He broke you."
• "Promises: we break them. Memories: they break us."

It all makes a nice companion/counterpoint to the Helen Gurley Brown obits that have been going around.

"Helen Gurley Brown, or H.G.B. as she's known in the Cosmo universe, is the patron saint of Cosmopolitan's sex-centric brand of female empowerment. The author of the then-scandalous self-help book 'Sex and the Single Girl' -- which advised women on how to better enjoy their jobs, relationships and bodies -- Brown re-branded the magazine with her frank, sexy tone in 1965, when most women's magazines were focused on family and home economics."
-How Cosmo Conquered the World-

Over the weekend one of my favorite people in the whole wide world came back to visit San Diego. She used to live here maybe seven years ago. The story of how she met AMR and Henry is a great one. In fact, I need to record AMR telling it, in his inestimable way, and then preserve the video for eternity. It involves my craptastic Old Navy Oregon tee, some random girl's boobs, and lots of squishing. I wasn't even there to witness, probably because I was at home dealing with some pre-breakup post-makeup soon-let's-breakup almost-not-yet-makeup stuff. Definitely that's what I was doing.

The ensuing summer was a great time to be in San Diego. Gems was leaving in a few short months so we had limited time to make the most of it. Everyone was single, everyone was ready to play, and it was late nights and fun times on dance floors everywhere. I forgot who took the credit for bringing Gems in. This was like a big deal then. Getting the credit for bringing a person in. Whichever of you it was, AMR or Henry, great job!

Now that I think about it, that was probably the last classic San Diego summer, ending our 2003-2005 run, before everyone split and moved away. #nostalgiaultra. The other night we drove out past Belmont Park's Big Dipper roller coaster, to Gem's old house on Mission Bay. The whole place was dark but we analyzed the exterior for changes and tried to figure out what kind of people lived there now. Certainly they were no naughty nurses, or night owls. We sat in the car, blasting a few Hall and Oates tracks and then gave it up one final time, fists in the air.

Closure.