The Shards

by Bret Easton Ellis

This annoyed her. “God, you sound like you want to date him.” “Date?” I said, smirking. “Is that a possibility?” I was joking but I wanted to test her.

Susan glanced at me, smiling at first, and coy, Wayfarers on, lips lightly touched with bubble-gum gloss, and then she said seriously, “No, I don’t think so. No, it isn’t.” The way she answered this with such a casual finality annoyed me. “Jesus, Susan, I’m kidding,” I said, even though, of course, I wasn’t.

“Calendar” section of the Los Angeles Times on what to see (the only way in 1981 to find out what was playing where and when)

yes

Good Earth, a modish upscale health-food restaurant

so good!

Chart House

💙💙

Tower Records or the Wherehouse

“You’ve been rather insistent, Bret,” Matt said, resembling a bad actor in a mystery where he thinks he’s found out who the murderer is—the “rather” sounded completely unlike him, as if he thought it was a word that would make him seem smart.

I drove home carefully because I kept crying so hard: Matt had never felt about me the way I’d felt about him, which would be a recurring theme for the rest of my life though, of course, I didn’t know this yet on that September afternoon in 1981, when I was seventeen and still navigated on hope.

Shadow Ranch Park in Woodland Hills

Cactus Cooler

do they still make these??? so good

theme from the TV show The Greatest American Hero,

THE best

Promenade mall in Woodland Hills

we were listening to KROQ