I don’t love endings. I don’t love saying goodbye to people, or finishing books that were inspiring or even giving away clothes I haven’t worn in 10 years. And I’ve spread ashes in waters off an island where I’ll probably end up myself one day. It doesn’t get more “goodbye-y” than that.

Goodbyes are  _____________________.  Any connotation of “fucked up” will do.

This is what I went to bed thinking last night, so I dug up my favorite endings I ever wrote.

“Love, Fear & Scary Monsters Under The Bed.” 1/20/13

I married a man three weeks ago, a rare and priceless vintage Cartier watch kind of man, a man who came from an exotic land down under where the deadliest spiders in the world live and a dingo might eat your baby. A man who drives a black 1968 Porsche 912 and lets the grey grow out in his beard because he knows I think it’s hot… A man who giggles like a kid, hungers like a man and has no problem telling me how much he loves me 100 times a day. I don’t think he’s afraid of anything. His very essence is brilliant as a roaring bonfire, fantastically sustained by sweet, passionate, raging love. We were meant to be together, like lips and kissing, staying up all night with Pink Floyd and Rickie Lee Jones in that Hollywood bungalow in times between whiskey and water, under the spell of each other and crazy, consuming, fiery love. 

~Read “Love, Fear & Scary Monsters Under the Bed.” ~ Anne Clendening

❤ ❤ ❤

“All The Boys Love L.A. Chicks.” 10/16/12

One Saturday afternoon not long ago, my boyfriend and I were sitting poolside with friends in Hollywood at The Roosevelt Hotel. It was unbelievably hot that day. Everywhere you looked you could see tan, tattoo’d bodies in bikinis and belly button jewels. There was a DJ, and people were dancing, like a summer daytime nightclub. I had on a white dress that day, and my favorite old, worn pair of motorcycle boots.

And I found myself warmly, deliciously trapped in a dreamy vortex of pleasure-soaked vibes and beautiful people, while we all sipped sexy pink drinks with murmurs of peaches and a strawberry garnish.

It was so LA.

And the hottest chicks will be here, laying out by aqua-toned pools and driving down Sunset, desired, desirable, waiting for the boys to be boys, chillin’ like Bob Dylan on a breeze that disappears at day’s end into the west.

~Read “All the Boys Love LA Chicks.” ~ Anne Clendening

 ❤ ❤ ❤

“Why Men Are So Dastardly Fetching.” 8/28/12

I have an old-fashioned side. I think loyalty and trust are important. I live with a man who has loved me, taught me, fought for me and ruled our domain like the fierce protector he is. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve bled for love in the past… some of the guys out there have some pretty sharp teeth. Sometimes in life you have to endure a few puncture wounds.

And you know what? I’d do it all over, all for the chance for us to find each other again, and go full-moon crazy and prowl together and howl together like two feral creatures basking in the dusky glow of night.

My grandparents are buried in a little cemetery tucked away in an L.A. suburb. When I was young we would visit sometimes on Sundays, and I usually found myself wandering off to look at the movie star’s grave marker on the wall. And my mother would ask me, “Did Marilyn Monroe have fresh flowers today?” And the answer, well, you already know… yes, the fresh flowers were there, sent by the man who loved her.

I look at my boyfriend, my love, a man who traveled here from an island half a world away to end up with an L.A. hippie chick. He’s real, that supposedly unattainable man from all those silly lists in the world. He’s looking at Porsche’s right now on his computer. And he’s not wearing a shirt.

I find it hard to behave. I’m waiting for the moment I can move toward the other room, and he’ll look up and smile… and I’ll give him a glance back that says come on, baby, fetch me if you can.

~Read “Why Men Are So Dastardly Fetching.” ~ Anne Clendening

❤ ❤ ❤