Phone Call

- Hello?
- Hey, it's Dad. How are you?
- I'm doing ok. How are you?
- I'm driving, right now, I'm on my way back up to Angwin from LA, I'm making good time, I should be there by noon.
- What were you doing in LA so early? Or were you staying…?
- I went down for the weekend. Spent some time with Grandma and Grandpa since I didn't get to spend much time with them over Christmas. And I went to La Sierra and met with them. That's finalized, I'm gonna tell PUC when I meet with them this week. So I'm definitely going to move.
- Oh, good!
- I'll stay in Angwin through December to shoot the movie, Napa Valley Dreams. I'm really excited about that. I'm making my first film! And La Sierra is building me a sound stage, like a… a TV studio so I'll be able to shoot The Closing Wood and have the cathedral in the studio and have the rest be CGI. And with the camera I now own, from Napa Valley Dreams, I'll be able to keep shooting my movies. And there's a pay raise too. So I'm really excited, I think this move is gonna be really good.
- That's great, Dad, I'm so happy for you!
- How are you? What's going on in your world?
- Well, I don't know. I've been kind of sad.
- You've been sad?
- Not like seriously… I'm kind of purging, I think. Like the issue's already dealt with and I'm just getting over it emotionally. I don't know, I've been thinking about relationships a lot. Too much. And I feel like, I guess I don't really believe in them. I feel like those interpersonal connections are just illusions.
- What? I'm having trouble hearing you, it sounds like this is important and I'm only getting about half of what you're saying.
- Ugh, ok. Um, I'm gonna hang up and call you right back, maybe that will reset the connection.
- Well it's on my end because I'm driving-
- I'm gonna just call you right back, ok? Bye.

- Hello?
- Hi, is that better? Can you hear me?
- Yeah, actually, it is. So what were you saying? There was a problem with Lizzie because you were going through something Lizzie had already been through?
- … What??
- Were you saying something about Lizzie?
- What? I don't know what you're talking about. This has nothing to do with Lizzie.
- Oh good. I'm glad to hear that.
- Lizzie's the only exception to this rule. Not that it's a rule. I don't know. No, I was saying that I feel like the whole human connection thing is just this stupid biological illusion meant to propagate, you know, the evolution of the species. But I REALLY want that connection, I mean, everybody wants a connection, everybody's looking for a connection.
- Yeah, it's ok to want a connection.
- Yeah. I just really don't believe in it. You know, we create our own world and everything passes through this filter of perception but there's this huge desire to sort of reach out and break through that and find some evidence of an objective reality that really doesn't exist. Or even if it does there's no way to know because we're all, you know, sort of trapped in our own phenomenology. Are you still there?
- Yeah. Can you hear me?
- Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you could hear me. But, like, I realized that I have this really strong physiological/emotional/whatever urge to have a family. Like, this deep urge to build a really solid, loving family unit, but I don't really believe in that. I mean, other people can do it, I've seen it happen, but I don't think I can. I feel like its just this really stupid biological desire that doesn't really make any sense and I don't want a family with, like, an illusion. I don't want to find someone and have kids and get a divorce, I don't want to find someone and have kids and stay together for the kids and be miserable. I want a real connection with someone, not something I just made up. But it's all made up, at least on some level, you know? The whole idea of real human to human connection is like this mental illusion. And I just-

Beep beep beep (call disconnected)

Fuck.