For the past few days I've had a swollen throat. A result of the sickly smog of L.A. My voice has been croaky, my words crooning over the air and reverberating back to my vocal chords, clumsily stroking their strings. I wore a black strapless cotton dress today, with a big brown leather belt and black leather gladiator sandals that snaked up my legs. I wore a straw hat with a thin black bow wrapped around it and danced with a red umbrella in my hand. And I sang to myself in the shade to no one in particular. I must have looked crazy, with my croaky voice and red umbrella in the hot hot heat of summer. But I don't mind.

I go back tomorrow but I don't want to. I've been busying myself with old friends and dark dive bars that play French music to accompany gruesome Peter Jackson films where men and women have their hearts pulled out by demons as the elegant French subtitles drift across the screen. And I've been dancing underneath mirrors and neon lights to the subterranean poundings of electro beats.

I met someone who told me that the baguettes in France melt in your mouth and he said I was a beautiful girl when his girlfriend's ear was turned away.

The whole time I've been watching all this as if it was behind the pixilated screen of a T.V.

I'm afraid if I go back I'll sink deeper into something I've tried my hardest to avoid. Its a tough thing to accept that you're the only one responsible for being so sad.