My ex-girlfriend died and that's all I can think about

I've never met anyone whose mind moved so quickly

Kiki and me in 2017

I have a running list in my head of topics I want to write about in this newsletter (and I welcome suggestions!)—starting a weekly list of what I’m reading/watching/listening to/attending and asking for recommendations, sharing past articles and essays and stories, writing tips, etc.—but this week, my world got upended when I found out one of the people I loved most in this world, my friend and ex-girlfriend, died. That’s been all I can think about since I heard the news, wishing so badly I could tell her one last silly pop culture morsel or news from my life. I’m so sad for all the things she’ll never get to experience but so glad she packed so much into her short life.

I don’t want to talk about her death this second, other than to say she was way too young and it’s so tragic and awful. But I do want to share why she was so special to me. A few weeks ago we did an Instagram Live together, which started as a way to show off the Page Six Six Six t shirts we bought to replace the ones we owned when we dated in 2003, but evolved into us just talking a mile a minute about anything and everything. We jumped around so much and I’d never done an Instagram Live like that so I couldn’t really tell how many people were watching, but definitely imagined viewers getting bored as we were in our own little world of memories and pop culture and self-help and all sorts of topics. We were catching up in real time even though we messaged and emailed every day for the last few months. Part of me wants to link to it but I’m not sure if it even saved, and that would be too painful right now. If you missed it, picture two women talking super fast and feeling like we were in a room together even though we were separate by many states.

She was the first one I told good news to, after my partner, and someone who intuitively understood me in a way only someone very good with people and who cares about you can. That ability seemed to start from when we first met at Telephone Bar in the East Village in 2003. I’ve talked about that meeting in interviews before, because my personal and professional lives have always been intertwined, but no more so than around meeting Kiki.

I wrote my erotica story, titled “Monica and Me,” and that was published in 2000. I did a reading for, I believe, another story, at this little bar, Telephone Bar. Who organized the reading and who else read that night is a blur to me, but I know someone’s hair caught on fire from a candle and I know she passed me a note that asked something like “Did you write the Monica story?”

I said yes, we went outside and talked, and basically never stopped. We went to drag queen bingo and saw the gay heavy metal band Pink Steel and may or may not have seen Mindy Kaling’s play Matt & Ben at P.S. 122, right near where she lived on 9th Street. We went to dinner with my family at Sammy’s Roumanian and stole a photo of Monica Lewinsky off the wall and joked that the giant bottles of diet Coke I carried around were our “baby.” We went to Butter in New York because we’d read about it and wore Page Six Six Six t-shirts because Britney Spears had, and went to some restaurant, I believe in Malibu, because she wanted to try to meet Jennifer Aniston.

Unlike my life now, we never stayed in. We were always out and about, taking advantage of being young in a New York City full of fun things to do. We did so many things together it’s a blur; I only remembered us going to a taping of The View by going through my photos. This one is a photo of a photo she kept that I saw in 2017 and was so touched that she’d saved it.

with Kiki at a taping of The View, circa 2003

More recently, we would ask each other, “Were you at…?” Because 20 years is a long time and one of us would sometimes swear the other attended some event but the other one couldn’t remember. That didn’t matter, though.

There were a lot of other dramatic elements of our relationship but even after it ended, we still kept in touch, sometimes more often, sometimes less. We each found amazing partners and moved out of New York, me to New Jersey, her to Florida. I’d have to comb through my messages to see how exactly when we reconnected more recently.

We always kept in touch to some degree, but over the last few months, we were in almost constant contact. She was the first or second one I told about so much, and she recommended so many writers and books and shows and movies that I will now dig through and check out because I trusted her judgment and was always curious about what her mind gravitated toward. Whenever and however our reconnecting happened, we did basically pick up where we’d left off, but as friends. She was, and especially recently, became, a rare person who got me instinctively, in ways that felt so natural and right. I didn’t have to go into some huge elaboration about my inner workings, and had time for me, and cheered me on and believed in me, and I hope I did the same for her. I miss her so much and the biggest solace I’ve had this week has been from speaking with people who also loved her and sharing our memories.

She wrote me this card last week, with its giant “YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!” on the front, and the last line says, “Here’s to all the things that go right in life!” She underlined “right” but I can’t figure out how to do that here so I bolded it. She was congratulating me on a small professional success. I am going to think of her whenever things go right in my life.

She was beautiful inside and out, charismatic, vibrant, brilliant, with a mind so sharp and fast that took in so much information on a factual level but also had a huge amount of emotional intelligence. I was always sending her either podcast transcripts or summarizing podcasts because she didn’t listen to them for the most part, but did watch Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown on YouTube, and got me into it; she would have loved seeing Dr. Gabor Maté being interviewed.

I guess I’ll bring this full circle to a TV show recommendation that she was so passionate about I bumped it up to the top of my viewing list: Wellmania on Netflix, starring Celeste Barber. She was right—it’s hilarious and madcap and also has a deep heart (it’s a comedy, but have tissues handy). I will probably rewatch it at some point and smile and remember how much fun it was to share both our cultural obsessions and the deepest parts of our souls.

I will never forget her and I’ve been so touched hearing from people who met her once or a few times who also have strong memories of her. To everyone who cared about her, I send my love. Please take care of yourself and remember her essence, how vivid and lively and caring and passionate and compassionate she was.

I once wrote a poem about her, the only poem I’ve ever had published and maybe the only one I’ve written. I’m not seeing it in my email archives and it’s not online, but I remember it was about how bewitching she was. I loved that even though our relationship ended, we weren’t at the end of our friendship and deep connection. I hope we’re still not.