Los Angeles

Jon and I used to go to the gym together in the morning before the baby was born. We used to A LOT of things before the baby was born, and the gym thing along with that part about staying awake past 10 PM have fallen by the wayside. Now I work out in the basement during Leta’s first nap, by myself with a big bottle of water and a CD player full of MP3s. We don’t have any exercise equipment, just a set of seven steep stairs that I go up and down 500 times. And that last sentence just proves to you how insane the author really is.

Back when I didn’t burn through so much bandwidth on this site I used to put up a weekly set of MP3s of music that I was listening to. That lasted about two or three months before too many people started downloading them, but I saved all the setlists and that is what I listen to when I work out. Consequently, I am always reminded of my time in LA when I run the stairs in the basement: the crazy hours I used to work, the 45-minute commute to the office, the months that I dated Jason, Paul, August, Scott, Eric, Mark, and a few others whose memories are a little fuzzy now, and thank God for fuzziness.

This morning in the middle of the workout a Liz Phair song came on, and there is a line in that song that brought back the strongest memory of LA that I have, that of reconnecting with Jon and knowing that my life was going to change. It goes: But I can’t imagine it in better terms/Than naked, half-awake, about to shave and go to work/I won’t decorate my love.

In him I found the person whom I knew I would never get tired of, even in the most monotonous of times, even in the routine of being together every single day. I never thought I would find that.

If you haven’t already, you will, too.