In the past couple of days I gave writing a break, because I felt it was clogging up my head with too much material. Thoughts were okay when abstract, but by materializing them through writing, I had made them real, couldn't handle it anymore. It's numb-er now.

Lots have happened since I came here last. But like someone said,

"Nothing about it wasn't a test."

Yesterday I went to a dinner with high school sunbaes. Sunbae means "upperclassman" in Korean, and connotes a certain aura of respect and elderliness and more bullshit like that, berry big in Asian culture. So we had dinner at an all-you-can-eat Sushi restaurant. The five of us sat huddled around a giant plate of sushi, excited at first, more excited to order another plate of sushi, and then I think we got a little too excited because we couldn't finish the second plate. We looked at sushi as if we were looking at an opponent's ammunition. Never had food been so fucking intimidating. The size of some of those sushi pieces! It was mad. We paid 16 more dollars to be allowed to take it home, none of which we actually wanted to take; we just felt uncomfortable throwing it all away.

Then there was an awkward window before my second engagement, so I went to Barnes and Nobles for some much-needed alone time, coffee, and reading. I picked up Eugenides and a Chai latte and a Parisian Vogue Catalogue (I realize that sounds uber pretentious, I apologize) and plopped on a sofa between two older men. One had an odd smell, but I kind of liked it, the "old" odor of places I had never seen. It wasn't a half hour until he started asking why I was reading Vogue in my free time.

"Are you in fashion?"

"No. I like looking at it because I hope to be in magazines one day."

"You want to write?"

"I want to write."

"Why do you want to write? Aren't papers dying?"

"Yes, but I would like to anyway."

"How does it feel to be running toward a wall?"

"I really don't know, I think I'm too young to say I'm running already"

His name was Richard. After a short dialogue of mutual appreciation and frankness, we shook hands and parted ways. He wished that we would meet again. I wished we wouldn't, because I feared I would lose the charm I knew he sensed upon our first encounter. That's the thing about charms, they fade, they're less charming as people meet more and more often, they lose the mystique of cloudiness. People like envisioning what lies behind clouds. Wondering gives things value, sometimes.

Then I went to some parties to celebrate Friday.
Then I came home.

"Warmth"

Guichanaso.