Sometimes, I'm just the sidekick.

I drop him off at his place around five in the morning. Turning around his corner I stop at a 7-11 and pick up a bottle of gatorade. As I'm headed out the door, I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the sliding glass. My hair pops out on the sides, and more closely resembles the bowl cut of my elementary school years than at any time in my adult life. I look like shit, but I feel great. I smile as I think to myself... this is quintiscentially LA.

Yesterday, I was having one of the best first dates I've had in a while with a guy. Let's call him J. We didn't actually do anything since it was so late, but we talked and laughed a lot. Anyway, I told him about how I was so amused that I had so much in common with Carrie, Sex and the City's thoughtful bombshell. Among our other conversations was one about how I was fascinated when people ate alone, and how I felt proud at the times when I could do it without being embarassed.

We go home and watch an episode, and 45 minutes later at the closing, Carrie gives a short monologue as she eats alone without the armor of books or something to do. She just sits and makes peace with being single.

It's not the first time I've found myself identifying with a popular heroine. Perhaps they're popular because they're so identifiable. I like to think that I'm a little bit more in sync with them than most--that the writers have been through and thought the same shit that I do on a regular basis. Watching another episode today, I realize that she's shorter than the other cast members... which proves my theory. Height and intrigue are inversely related.

When I was in High School, I found comfort in a little journal they sold at Barnes and Nobles. On the very front was the saying, "I am the hero of my own story". It made me happy. If it were true, it would mean that there was always a point to what you were going through. Stories didn't exist if they weren't saying something, and heroes weren't written if they were static from start to finish.

As I spent the night with J, I had realized I was rewriting my story again. Or at least the part about love. We went to Life Plaza in massively asian Rowland Heights, and I remembered that I had been there at one point with all of my previous boyfriends. Did the memory of my first three lovers get fainter when I brought him there? If my life is a story, and each of them are a chapter how does one analyze the change in me? Life Plaza, this place I used to hate, becomes some kind of landmark. It's the only thing they all have in common.

The thought brings me to J. He's seemingly perfect for me, or at least he is for the time being. But, of course, I'm leaving Friday and he know's it too. The last time I was in a one week relationship it ended horribly and I had a broken heart (or at the very least a broken ego). I look at J and he's nothing like that other guy, which makes me feel happy and even a little safe. But then I consider for a moment, do I really need to do a personality check on the guy, or should I dedicate more time to restraining myself?

I've never been able to just be a fuck or a fling. It's always about emotions with me. I'm going to get attached, and we're going to part ways and I'll be sad for a while. Had the city of Shanghai not existed, I might be in Los Angeles from now on. I might have had the chance to see where it would go. I know that the chances of me being in an actual relationship in China are much lower, and it makes me glad to know that. Maybe now I've earned so much distrust in my decisions that I've decided to put an ocean between me and temptation.

I'm always the one getting hurt these days. After I came out I enjoyed a brief period of invincibility where it seemed like no one would say no. But more likely I probably just didn't give a shit about the people back then who would. Carrie speaks of masochism in Season 2 and the exquisite pain. After thinking about it for a while, it starts to click. What a great adjective for pain. How can an adjective so seemingly positive come out of something as abjectly miserable as a broken heart? The word "exquisite" hints at hedonism--to indulge in something rich and full. But doesn't it matter what it's full of? What is it that some people find so incredibly delicious about hurting themselves. What the hell is so tasty about sulking and bathing in your own misery.

How is it that there is comfort in heartache? I used to believe, coming out of my depression, that I loved the pain because I had lived so long feeling emotionally and mentally numb. When you live in a world where you go to the gym to get the exercise you're not getting because you're working at a computer all day... and you pay $4 for a cup of coffee to make up for the rest you didn't take, crying becomes one of the most rewardingly natural things you can do. So, I wonder if it is really possible to feel good when you feel like dying, simply because you've spent the last couple of years feeling already dead.

I worry about myself a lot, but I think from his side of the story. If I were writing his biography, I would be the fling who comes in for a part of a chapter and maybe even appears a couple times later through the book. Maybe I'd change things or maybe I'd just provide contrast. I learned from my last boyfriend that while you may be the hero of your own story, others will quickly cast you as the comic-relief, the catalyst or even the villain. It's experiences like those that really ground you.

You begin to realize that you don't have to come out on top all the time, because when you're not the hero of the story, it doesn't matter where you end up as long as you're not dead.