Slide

I had a party to get to.

A yakiniku tabehodai (eat-all-you-can Korean-style grilled meat) dinner and a night of drinking and dancing with friends who wanted to drown their troubles with alcohol and bury their self-doubts with loud music.

I had a party to get to. But it seems the rain had other ideas for me that night. Just as I was about to leave my laboratory, it released this great flood of water. It poured down in great white sheets, enough to make gutters tremble and enough to delay dinner for an hour and a half.

Finally, the pour slowed down to a trickle: a slow and very light rain one wouldn't mind getting caught in. A fine mist like perfume which made the streetlamps glow and created halos over un-umbrellaed people walking down the street. I put on my jacket and got on my bike.

In the middle of the ride, the rain got stronger, pelting me and my bicycle in a driving rhythm which to my ears sounded like mocking laughter. I trusted my all-weather breaker to do its job and see me through, so I shifted to high gear and pedaled on.

Out of nowhere, another biker came out of an intersection. I hit the brakes for the rear tire, but the roads were so wet, my bike skidded and fishtailed before I could fully control it. Nobody (and nobody's bike) got hurt, and we both apologized for whoever's fault it was. (My brakes'? The rains'? His? Mine?)

I got back on my bike. I had a party to get to.

Out of nowhere, a song plays in my head: "The pouring rain is no place for a bicycle ride, try to hit the brakes and you slide. And you slide, and you slide, and you slide..."

It's quiet here except for...

Boy. Talk about old news. I haven't had the time lately to update this blog, much less my life. But this page is beginning to look boring... So.

I had written a little something, but I'm still undecided whether to put it here. I was rereading it a few nights ago and not only was it poorly written, it sounded self-righteous, too. Grrr. Blame it on lack of sleep, too much coffee and too-loud-neighbors-fighting-over-breakfast-and-waking-me-up.

Today is the first of my two-day graduate school entrance exam, known as of today as the do-I-really-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-doing? day. Tomorrow will probably be thank-god-it's-over-I-can't-care-less-about-the-result-slash-time-to-paaaaaarrrrtttteeeyyyy! day.

(A friend of mine noticed before that whenever I hyphenate a lot, it means I'm having a lot of fun making fun of myself or other people, or I'm tearing my hear out in anger/frustration. Guess which is it today.)

Anyway, I hate it that I have left this blog to rot over the past month. And on such a low, so-much-drama, note. So. Here's a little something by that girl who is where/who/what/why I want to be: Ani D.

The title is Loom. Not quite my favorite, but the lyrics fit, and it goes out to "that poet who can never be mine." Go figure.


LOOM

you've always got those dark sunglasses
covering half your face
but if you promise to take them off
i promise i won't squander your gaze
i will be picturesque
i will be nice
i won't do anything you can't tell your wife
i will think before i act
i will think twice
just let me see your eyes

each time we've spoken, we've put in a token and ridden the tilt-a-whirl
i was giggling and dizzy
flirting like a 12 year old girl
the carnival of you and me is coming to town
watch how we spin and spin and then fall down
now we just say hello and head for firmer ground

you are the one-way glass
that watches me
standing in line at the bank
i always looked into your glasses
like a cat looks into a fish tank
but all i could ever see
was the specter of me reflected
i want a monument of friendship
that we never had erected
i want it to take up lots of room
i want it to loom

you always got those dark sunglasses
between us when we talk
after the party is over
if you wanna take a walk
we could just look around
not do nothing wrong
just try to be at least as brave as our songs
i will bring my heart
i will bring my face
you just name the time and place