hey how you doin. it’s so hot here oh my god. I got a letter from a girl in phoenix, it was pretty scribbled and two sentences took up about one whole page, and she used some phrase like you gotta do, or ya just gotta do something. this was a girl I used to depend on, years ago, like at hard times when I barely knew anyone and was all kinds scared about my future and what I would be like in it. (I one time I think I said to her: “okay, you might find me curled up on your doorstep sometime early next fall.”) anyways she moved and I moved and this was before the hey-day of email, if you can believe it, so that’s why we were trying to write letters to each other to keep in touch, but I was never very good at it. I’m not even into long emails, so letters never had a chance. but I tried, I did try, or at least remember trying. and like I say her letters were all scribbled, dashed-off, more weather and sleep (I’m so tired because) related then anything real if that makes sense, and I’m not sure what I felt, but I told myself I didn’t want to keep putting all the effort in. I felt like I was trying more than she was. so I never wrote back after I got this letter, and I’ve moved 3 times since then, so I don’t know whatever happened to her. maybe I screwed up. maybe I was right to do that. but I hope she’s somewhere, happy and fine and not too tired and all that (I did a search for her name and got nothing), but I never know what’s the right thing. how hard to try, how hard to keep trying. I’ve let a lot of friends go in the last few years on account of feeling like I was trying harder than them and it wasn’t worth it, or feeling let down or continually let down by them. and I don’t know, I don’t want to fix any of it, but I don’t know.