um, tastes like a woman. that's what some lady said to me. after walking by and asking for a hit off my mango flavored hookah. just a capper on a very chill but very life affirming weekend. lots of tv movies from the couch (crimson jihad! doucement, do it slowly.) one on one with drew, lucy and cameron. video games up the wazoo. ping pong. freaky david blaine like escaping crabs. food from home, thus allowing me to stick to my $15 weekend budget. attendance (and free food) at the best fifty-five year old birthday party i've ever seen. the married couples were playing a version of the newlywed game and all sorts of hilarious answers ensued. when you ask parental units questions like "what is the most attractive physical feature of your wife?" you don't normally expect staid chinese parents to bust you up with some semi-raunchy humor. i miss parental parties sometimes. watching parents is always a hoot. everyone's a big kid at heart i think.



lots of good conversation too. about all sorts of things. being an asian-american child, religion, poetry, politics, adamantium, the floatation properties of metal. good stuff ya'll. i wish people were paid to converse. like you give a person a quarter each time you learn something from them. then again, that would leave me broke as hell. but hey, that's not so different from now.



i'm leaving you with a snippet of a long poem by harry mathews called "histoire." which for some reason, sums up my weekend perfectly.



tina and seth met in the midst of an overcrowded militarism.

"like a drink?" he asked her. "they make great alexanders over at the marxism-leninism."

she agreed. they shared cocktails. they behaved cautiously, as in a period of pre-fascism.

afterwards he suggested dinner at a restaurant renowed for its maoism.

"ok," she said, but first she had to phone a friend about her ailing afghan, whose name was racism.

then she followed seth across town past twilit alleys of sexism.