Watering Hole

I thought I could not be recognized four months after, but I was.

She gave me a hug and said: don't do crazy things like that anymore. Ok?

My girl friend said: she is not like that in general.

I am just missing our good time together.

And I will do it all over again, for different reasons, in a happy way.

Trust me.

But I asked not to sit in the exact seats you and I sat.

It will bring back too much memories and I did not know what I would do right there and then.

I was looking at the colorful bar counter and I felt like crying and crying and the deepest sadness for not being with you then, now.

Listening to Neil Young tonight

I remember what you wrote to me:

"Am listening to Neil Young right now. He's incredible. His politics are perfect. His music is the blues with a late 60's early 70's vibe.

It's incredible.I bought a copy of what's called his "Greatest Hits" for JP. This is his kind of music.

And then I bought a copy for myself because it's my kind too.

I miss you right now for all the right reasons and all the wrong ones too."

I miss you.

And it is not because I am sick.

I got three of his CDs from Tower Records the other night and am listening to Neil Young tonight.

Metropolitan Diary

Sharing

I was walking on a quiet back street days ago in a residential neighborhood. It was breezy.

I coughed a little.

I saw a guy walking his huge Labrador in a distance, looking my way. As I got closer, I saw that he was looking at me with a urge to talk.

"Are you sick?"

"No, but I might be getting a cold." I am on the verge of it for a month already.

I smiled a little as I walked pass him, avoiding further eye contact.

He followed me, in a about 3 feet's distance. Then as I sped up, as if saying the most natural thing, he asked loudly and warmly "Do you want to share it?"

........

"No thank you. I better keep it to myself."

Freaky characters out there, I tell you. And don't respond to strangers, girls, even they walk large and friendly dogs.

Relative Virginity

I am admiring my girl friend's new apartment, it is sunny in the evening, facing west. I came to her "Housewarming" party in early March.

"Yes, lovely alright." She said: "But I am still a virgin 'in this space'!"

Using that logic, a girl can be a virgin

-In the upper east side
-Since last wearing that dress
-within the last 10 entries of the blog

The list goes on.......

I Am Comfortable

"We will make sure you are comfortable with your portion", the lead woman said in her email, which is 2 slides for me to present. She is very nice.

I was pulled in last minute for a new business pitch with head of the office and some other people.

I replied "Sure!". I meant it. I am comfortable, with 2 slides or 20 slides; knowing nothing about this pitch or company. I am comforable because I have worked with much more smarter and picky people.

I am comfortable, because I am comfortable with myself.

I am comfortable that I am a flawed person but trying hard to be better, maybe I do talk too fast when I am nervous, and I get nervous even when I am comfortable.

I am comfortable trying to win the man I love back if he still does love me. I am comfortable now that I know him better and I know myself better.

I am comfortable knowing that we all could be weak sometime and choose to feel hurt to protect ourselves.

Believing that you are well makes me comfortable too, since that is ultimately what is the most important for me.

I am comfortable that I have followed my heart finally. I am grateful to know that I have grown so much through true love and pain.

I am comfortable for striving for the truth and testing the limit, I am comfortable to be a terrible tennis player.

I am comfortable knowing that I do love and care for my family but I need to be a happy person myself first to be a loving daughter and sister.

I am comfortable in missing you, I am also comfortable being alone, standing on my own.

Yet I am comfortable in believing that love is the best thing in life and erotic love is important part of it. I am comfortable loving you and what we have for all of its passion and mayhem and pleasure.

I am not comfortable that noisy and uninteresting people passing by my office which locate in a high-traffic area and peeking to see what I am up to.

You Draw Who You Are, Or You Just Draw

I was on a status meeting and I was bored. And this guy sat besides me talked non stop and he is a big talker, even not really having done his homework, too well groomed for my taste. He totally got on my nerve with his TALK.

I drew faces on my notebook from boredom and impatience. Then I wrote down: He talk too much! I know it has a grammar mistake in it.

After he was done talking, he handed me his red ball pen to "add the lip sticks". I guess he probably saw what I wrote then. But I did add the lip sticks--I was bored.

I am not good at drawing.

I always start with eyes, I don't know how to dress them and too shy to do nudity. So I can only draw faces. Actually even I am not shy with nudity, I simply get lost below the neck. And profile of my faces can only look toward the left. I get lost again if they want to look right.

When I looked at those faces again, afterwards, they all seemed a little bored or preoccupied. That was me in the meeting.

I took a picture.

I was thinking of you. Can you tell from these faces?

Things I Remember I Did or Saw in the last 2 days

A story about Africa that make me cry
A dry cleaning sign that said Organic
An American guy standing on the corner of the 72 and Broadway and was saying to his mobile: So are you going to Shanghai?
A jogging and walk to Riverside park that began to hurt my knee
A visit to the white washed museum where we visited together last
An email to you about the visit and other thoughts
A struggle of whether to get on the 1 train uptown or downtown
A silence
A day of work and boredom that continues with no reason other than keeping me in this city
A red hair that is too red in the mirror or people's eyes
A plan of diet and no carb for a month
A lawyer that writes bad poem

Things I want to see now: A kite in the sky, a smile on your face, Almodovar's new film

Multi Talented Laywer

My laywer is a middle-aged Chinese guy, who studied both in Germany and US, and is currently practicing law in tr-istate area. He is pretty dry and non interesting to talk to, as a typical lawyer. And he speaks English with dialect accent of the part of China he is from.

He was excited on the phone with me today and said "check out my website".

I went and under a navigation bar called "My brandname", I found out that he has a primary school named after him; a table tennis cup named and funded by him (All chinese are good players of table tennis); an aviation page since he is a pilot on the side. He also has funded a computer center in his hometown in China and supports a foundation that is for education of disabled children. The list amazes me.

Then he also has a link called Literature garden--very communist chinese style, when I clicked through it, it has ONE shy poem in it: Love will never die.

Love is like a perfume
that can be smelled and felt when it arrives.
You might suffocate when it is out of sight.
My dearest friend,
look up at the shinning star
shininging in the moonlight.
They will tell you that
Love will never die.
Love is like a wonderland.
In the right spot, it's not forgot!
with solid promises
Love will never die.

It crackes me up, but it also makes me wonder when did he fall in love, besides being a boring lawyer.

A love that becomes the only little flower in his Literature garden, on a website of his law firm.

I think this photo I took some time back on Madison Ave expresses the same sentiment we all feel toward love that will never die.

Highlight of the Day of a Data Girl or Woman

A more senior person in the group walked in with a piece of paper "Can I ask you a mathematic question?" "Yes."

I am not a statistician although used to be really good at math and physics, in the high school of China and I did get a perfect score in my GMAT math exam.

"Each segment has a life time value of $550, $640, $440, respectively. Each segment has different size. How do I calculate overall life time value per customer? I can not do (550+640+440)/3, can I?" "No, you can't (almost wrote can not, but still speak with British accent)."

I am relieved at the question and almost can't (here it go again) believe the answer he is seeking is so simple.

What is the % of size of each segment to the universe? "30%, 40%, 30%." OK, you just do 550*30%+640*40%+440*30%.

This is the so-called weighted average. Our feeling of existence is the weighted average of different expeirences and feelings caused by those experiences. Weight that we assign to different experience is the key here. I digressed from my point.

"Great! That works! Thanks!"

I goes back to my blogging and feels that I have paid my due for the day.

Photo Journal

This photo was taken by you in MOMA last time we were there, in Jan. You took this one illegally using my camera. I took it with me to Asia. I never erased it from the camera. I want to keep it to feel that you are close.

It also reminds me of how good you are in your drawing and writing.

This Spring I rode a lot along the bike route of Hudson river. Last weekend I rode up to Dyckman Street from 55 street, it was beautiful up near the Hudson Valley.

When I rode down south toward battery park, I was looking across the river. 2 summers ago, I lived in that yellow brick building on the pier across the river, on the middle toward the left on this photo. It was a beautiful apartment, on the water, but it felt empty. I was riding my bike on the other side of the river all the time, looking at Mahanttern, thinking of you.

Now I am here, on this side, riding my bike, thinking of you. Many have happened in our lives during.

Some say I have got what I want, I have enjoyed us, what else do I ask? I ask for having a real life with you together, like riding bikes together in the sun, like playing with a beautiful baby in the fountain at Columbus Circle, like loving you but not thinking of you, like living a life while not having to ask why or why not.

Clueless

The three of us were sitting in an old Irish Pub on Park Avenue, three girls after work.

Sara said: I am thinking what I want to do after graduation. Maybe a bartender." She is a funny girl, an fiction major in New School graduating in a month.

She could go wild for no reason. Last time we went out to a birthday party together last year, she went to the bathroom and exposed her breast to two guys who must feel like hitting a jackpot, they did not even ask. I find that amusing and crazy.

"Bartender sounds great. " I said, "You can write your novel on the side." I thought of Murakami writing on the counter of his jazz bar.

"I would be a bar tender if they sponsor greencard, and if I am not too clumsy with glasses, I tend to smash them." I said.

But she already lost interest on that thought of hers. The two of them began to tell me about a trip to a sex store down in Soho.

Sara was saying" No, this just does not stop. Too much Lub....".

We laughed silly. I was and am in pain, but I had to stand it. And you are supposed to laugh on those kind of jokes, it is almost like a protection--I can still laugh on sex toy jokes. Maybe I am still functional.

I want to go back to that subject, since I was thinking of what I really want to do with my life as well from here, or from the day when I am free of this work that I don't like.

"Serious, what is your plan, Sara?"

"I want to find a man who can afford me." She said slowly. She said almost like she just came back from Monte Carlo. She only SOUNDED expensive.

I looked at her. Then I looked back at my beer glass. I did not say anything else.

I felt sad for man who is going to be up to these kinds of expectaions--affording your woman. It is good that if they could and are willing too. But I still feel sad for woman who have that expecations. How about love? Was there something wrong in my built? Was I even a normal woman?

And I don't understand that concept, a man who can afford you so that you don't have to work. Afford like a minimum wage afford?

I almost asked " then how expensive are you?". Obviously she has not afforded herself very well judging from her outfit, shoes and bag. I know, I just became a little mean after that response.

And a trophy wife needs special qualities--apperances, brainlessness, heatlessness and shallowness. I am disappointed and sad to see that she has the ambition but not necessarily the material. And I do believe she has a brain.

I thought of the men I dated and loved or still love. Although to me generosity is an important factor for human being overall, not just for man, I am not sure whether I have or ever will judge any of my men based on this criteria, whether they can afford me, which has nothing to do with generosity. It is a description of financial status and the association of which to you as a woman who can provide sex and affection back in return.

I enjoy expensive gifts as well as a $5 rose. I enjoy $400 dinner at top restaurant as well as a $3 fried dumplin meal in my favorite eat-out in Chinatown. It is good to know that he would empty his pocket for a moment of happiness for us. Having the heart is everything, for me. Then I also have to enjoy him.

Respectably, the man I love felt that he should afford me or us. We had been to many good restaurants. We talked about going to Spain and Paris. But that is not a prerequisite at all for me. I want him to afford me in a different sense, I want him to afford my love.

I felt I don't have to explain these to you. You and I were close enough that we should have shared worries and problems as well as fun and great times, and that is how a Chinese woman like me loves her man, we share what we have and what we don't have.

Money is not nothing, and we all need some to be happy on the most basic senses. But it surely does not promise happiness, I tell you, going through poverty and much more well-off times.

I do have expensive taste with certain things, but good things does not always come at high price. I tell you that as well.

But who is it for me to judge. I shook off that thought and went back to smile at the old bartender guy. He is so old that you would think he might be working there for 30 years already.

When time came for the check, Sara went to the bathroom. My other friend just so happened that she did not have enough cash with her.

I paid off our drinks, it is not a lot--there is a reason this is called the cheapest place on Park Avenue, but left an extra large tip for the bartender.

Sara came back and said "I feel I owe someone money? "

"I got it. Don't worry about it."

I will afford you for this one, until you find your guy.

I still hugged goodbye with Sara, but I don't feel particularly eager to see her any time soon.

Don't just tell me this is a tough city for women, full of men-children who are being spoiled, while women want men who can afford them, besides everything else.

I don't know who is more clueless here, me or her.