The Purple Tux
With just enough education to perform.Monday, February 28, 2005
This is from the wrapper of a pair of chopsticks from a local Chinese restaurant (typos, punctuation, and such are exactly as follows):
Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual.
Learn how to use your chopsticks
Tuk under tnurnb and held firmly
Add second chcostick hold it as you hold a pencil
Hold tirst chopstick in originai position move the second one up and down Now you can pick up anything:
___________________
I can't tell if the wrapper is so poorly written because it was actually produced in China, or if the manufacturer is just being humorously ironic.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Impotent.
Yesterday, I walked home by myself from the comic shop and Borders. I don't mind walking home. I used to do it all the time, and not just walking home from downtown, but walking home from campus. There's something about a peaceful, solitary walk that just reenergizes my soul. It's a fine opportunity to have some quality alone time, away from nameless people who just drain the life out of me. Plus, I've found that conversing with oneself is the surest way to enjoy sharp and witty repartee.
It takes maybe about fifteen minutes to walk home from Borders, and that was fifteen minutes of high-end brooding. I was completely lost in thought, having a meaningful conversation in my mind, when I realized that someone was walking up the sidewalk towards me. I glanced up and I saw a vaguely familiar but rather pretty girl about my age coming my way. Talking to a friend on her cell phone, she had a pleasantly feminine voice that grabbed my interest, despite that I couldn't make out anything that she was actually saying.
She was perhaps only five footsteps away from me. The sidewalk was somewhat narrow, so I briskly scooted to the side a bit so that we wouldn't bump into each other. As I excused myself from her path, I chanced a furtive look at her eyes, and I noticed that she had taken a glance at me, as well. Ordinarily, I would have been embarrassed, but I saw that she was smiling at me. It was such a pretty smile. I wanted to say something to her, at least a cordial, "How are you?" but I could only manage a weak grin, which probably came off as a confused smirk. This all happened as we walked past each other. All too quickly, we were out of each other's line of sight, and continued on our separate ways.
But I couldn't get her smile out of my mind for the next few minutes, as I walked on home. Many things traveled through my besmitten mind. Since she looked vaguely familiar to me, I tried to think whether I knew her from somewhere or not. I couldn't place her face, so next I wondered if she wanted to get to know me, or if she had wanted me to say something as we walked by each other. I wondered if it was too late to run back and find her. But I didn't go back. (I read in a book once that you can never go back again.)
When I finally arrived at my home, I kicked off my shoes and began to read the week's latest graphic literature, as is my usual habit on Wednesday afternoons. Despite the premium storytelling quality of books such as Grant Morrison's Vimanarama to distract my mind and take me on an adventure, I could not get the girl out of my mind. Specifically, I kept thinking about her smile. It simply drove me mad! Did it mean anything? Was she thinking of me as I thought of her? How could such a pretty girl, walking by me on the street, throw me such a pretty smile? Unthinkable. Her smile remained in the back of my thoughts for the next several hours.
Five hours later, as I was showering by myself (there's something about a peaceful, solitary shower that reenergizes my soul- plus I drop the soap all the time so it's good that I shower alone), I reviewed the situation again. I wanted to see her again, to have another chance to see that smile!
Then it hit me.
She was talking on the phone with one of her friends as she passed by me. Her smile was most likely a result of her joy at conversing with one of her friends. She didn't smile for me.
I showered in silence. Reality has a way of doing that to me.
