michele was my first california girlfriend. we were together for three years. best friends. i did a lot of things with her for the first time.

she called me a year and a half ago and asked me to remove her last name from the stories that ive written about her because she is a famous childrens book author and a mommy now, so i said ok.

without michele i would have not been interested in poetry or journalism or the cure or u2. she taught me to appreciate all of those things.

her family was and is wonderful, and incredibly loving and free. the parents let the kids do anything they want including letting fools like me spend the night on many occasions. i love them all very much and sometimes when im in malibu i will stop by and say hi – even if i have a different girlfriend to introduce to them.

michele lives in washington now, or oregon, or somewhere beautiful and natural. for a punk rocker she had many hippie qualities about her. she would weep at the sight of a whale or a dolphin, she would weep at the news story that would talk about global warming, she would weep at the newspaper articles about womens rights issues.

all of this was very eye-opening to me, who was from the suburbs of illinois and never thought twice about enviornmental affairs, or gender roles, or sylvia plath.

and fuck if i ever considered free verse valid.

michele allowed me to take lots of pictures of her, and for that i am indebted. in many ways i owe her big time. in many many many ways.

she was my buddy and my first real friend here in the golden state and if it wasnt for that begining guitar class in santa monica college my whole life, as dramatic as that sounds, would have been completely different, and its hard for me to think it would have been different in a better way.

i was eighteen when i met michele and im 109 now, and yet somehow today is only her 23rd birthday.

apparently she still has many more lessons to teach me.

jason + je_apostrophe + jason