My phone buzzes for the first time today, it is 3:57pm. The screeching robotic alarm accessorized with the dazzling yellow triangle commandeers my screen. The notification reads “ This is an emergency message from the Los Angeles County Fire Department. An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area….” It would take another 24 minutes for the LA Fire Dept to tell me it was a mistake. Below is a retelling of those 24 minutes, as I remember it.

Oh shit, it’s happening. Well of course it’s happening Jesse, It’s been happening. It’s been happening for two days now. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands have lost everything. Entire neighborhoods have been scorched into ashes. The Santa Ana winds increasingly rage against California’s already flighty weather patterns. And those of us not being directly hit, just sit instead. Sit and watch the horrors on our tiny screens or our medium screens or our huge screens. And wait for our screen to tell us it’s our time.

It is apparently my time and is now 3:58pm; I immediately call my best friend, Patrick. Not only because he lives five doors down, but he is also the best person in the world to run to in a crisis. Many a problem’s are solved with Patrick’s brain so I spend maybe 7 minutes chatting it up with him and our plan: load the pets up and head to Palm Springs to meet his gay uncles. Easy enough. 

I already had packed an overnight bag, my documents and photos, and cat things. I think to myself “okay it’s a warning so maybe I have 15 minutes.” I have 15 minutes. I, the person who couldn’t get off the couch yesterday because of the ungodly amount of weed I smoked juxtaposed with my worsening depression, have 15 minutes to scramble to do whatever it is you do in crisis. I, the person who also just happily paid my therapist $165 to explore my feelings of detachment paired with my personal narrative of being a feral child raised by wolves, have 15 minutes to grab whatever I deem important before losing it all. I, the person who has written hundreds of metaphors for their life being on fire, have 15 minutes.  

I grab a tiny pink suitcase and throw in what clothes I declare my most comfortable or stylish. Clothing has always been my first love. Clothing was something easily observable in this world. Everyone wore some version of it, and I wore some version of it, and then I had the versions of “it” that I desperately wanted. I remember being 11 at Wet Seal with my godparents who graciously bought me back to school clothes which were all corny graphic tees that said things like “I’m not short, I’m fun-sized!” But those graphic tees were the first time I remember expressing myself, and I’ve been chasing that high ever since. I take my moto boots, denim overalls, two pairs of patterned micro shorts, hoodies and leggings galore, and that’s about it. The last thing I cram in is a dress I wore once to the Beverly Hills hotel. I was wearing this dress when I proudly bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate my new love story. I was wearing this dress until it got pulled up in the bathroom as my girlfriend and I exchanged “I love you’s” in this gold-gilded, spacious stall. It is the Beverly Hills Hotel after all… I couldn’t leave that dress behind. Even holding it now, I can feel the love and smell the cigarette smoke that lingers almost an entire year later. Cigarettes we illegally smoked in front of the beautiful pinks and greens of the hotel. My 10ft wide, double shelved closet, home to so many pieces, but only one dress drenched in love. In it goes.

As time passes and the fires continue their rage, I decide to grab an already packed bag and shove the contents as far down as possible to make room for whatever last-minute things I find. I run to my top drawer in the nightstand that sits on the right side of my bed. I run there because I know another lover is in there. I cram her love letters and a baby picture of her inside this bag. I try to grab everything I see in this drawer that is from her. I grab the little drawings she made for me and a few polaroids.

I then remember the space in my cupboard where he lives. All of his notes, flowers, tickets, cards, little mementos, all neatly preserved in a lululemon bag. I’ve had this bag in this cupboard for almost three whole years now. I think the preemptive thoughtfulness and organization makes it obvious to see this bag is full of treasure. Sitting at the top of this bag, a piece of paper that reads “will you marry me… sometime?” If I had to guess, I probably won’t get married or if I do there won’t be a proposal it’ll just be a flight to Vegas, but at least I have been formally asked and, in my haste,, I decide I need the proof. I dwell only for a few seconds and grab that bag and wedge it inside.

Thankfully I already had my passport, documents and a bag of family photos. I am almost out the door when I remember some expensive jacket I thrifted, I think the brand is called Isabella Marant, that I got for $15 probably because the brand name was hidden in the pocket. The jacket is worth like $400 so I decide to go back to my room to get.   

I pass through my living room and realize I almost forgot my dad’s ashes. Oops. His ashes sit next to the bobblehead of a race horse who won the Arkansas Derby however many years ago. I start to grab the bobblehead but then remember my mother probably still has 20 in the garage. My parents had their friend at the racetrack steal a couple of boxes of them so my they could sell them on Ebay. I leave the bobblehead and grab the ashes and pray the lid is on tight.

Then I remember my CDs. The CDs that I’ve been collecting since I moved into this apartment. My perfectly complete collection of Lana Del Rey. I stare at the one on the player. Born to Die. How fitting. CDs are completely replaceable but the irony is too good to leave behind. I create a little safe haven for all the loose Lana’s and a few miscellaneous that seem relevant: Britney, The Beatles and OutKast.     

I go back to my room and spy the black ballet flats that are my friend Sam’s. I borrowed them on our trip to Japan a few months ago. I borrowed them when I went down to the seaside with Charlie, who I met at a bar a few days prior. I walked a Japanese beach with a stranger that I came to think very fondly of in these shoes that aren’t even mine but what a good treat to surprise her with. A random surprise paired with the romantic nostalgia, made sure that I grabbed them. No good deed goes unpunished, but I think the punishment has already started.

On my way to the front door, I spy various film strips on my fridge. Little black and white boxes of all my lovers. Some friends, some now foes, some perfectly frozen as they are in a photobooth at the top of a famous hill in Paris. I tear them all down. I snatch up Bree, my Parisian lover. I mustn’t leave her behind. Our perfectly captured kissing booth photo has graced almost every visitor I’ve had in this home. I have proudly shown her off any time I can. Then my British love Jade. I have so little of her already, I need this. And lastly, I stare directly at barren chest in another strip. The one I took a few weeks ago on Christmas Eve with Bridge where we flashed the photo booth but then got kicked out of the bar for not having our IDs on us, only for the bartender to awkwardly bring out our raunchy film strips that weren’t done printing before our departure. I couldn’t forget that one.

Suddenly I remember a 7-page letter my old boss wrote to me and I luckily know it sits right next to the Christmas cards the kids have given me sit. I take those too. 

I look at all my art. There’s not a spot on the wall larger than 2ft that isn’t covered with some painting, drawing, photograph, mirror, sculpture, etc. There’s just not enough time or strength or space to grab any or all of it. But I admire it one more time. I think of taking my naked woman in the washroom painting I got at an auction, but I can’t bear seeing her off the wall her rightful home. This was my first piece of serious art. It’s by far the nicest thing in my home. It’s important, Victorian, antique, well-kept and unique. I admire it every day. This painting has given me legitimacy, mostly to myself. The legitimacy to know that creating this little home of mine is the most important thing I’ve ever done. That my apartment, that I’ve tended to like a child, is a work of art by me. This painting of the naked woman is like my signature of the love letter I wrote to myself. I’m humbled to have gotten to see her as much as I have.  

It’s time to leave. It’s 4:19. I’ll have to make two trips with Gia, my cat. My phone buzzes for a second time today. It reads “Disregard last EVACUATION WARNING. It was for Kenneth Fire Only.”

I go sit back down and spy my beloved playboy magazines as my mind begins to decompress. There’s a fantastic Christmas themed one. They are so rich and full of history. They’re so glamorous and bursting with charm. I realize in this moment, I’ve been embodying these three cover girls as they traveled with me for the greater half of the decade. They’ve lived in three different LA apartments and even though the evacuation warning was a mistake, I set them atop my boxes and bags just in case the next one isn’t sent in error, the girls are coming with.

If you would like to donate time, money or resources for those that have been affected by these devastating LA fires, please visit this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KMk34XY5dsvVJjAoD2mQUVHYU_Ib6COz6jcGH5uJWDY/edit?usp=sharing