Wednesday, August 23, 2006

lights out

Some fragmented, disconnected thoughts:

My room light in Providence blew out two weeks ago. I jumped, but couldn't reach the ceiling. I told the landlady about it, but she said not to worry, since I would be moving out anyway.

A few days later Felix and I chatted about manga; he asked what the Japanese word for "light" was. "Hikari," I said with assurance. Felix raised his eyebrow, and countered that he was sure it was "Raito". We were confused. It turns out, though, that we were both right: "Raito" is the Engrish romanization for "light". I groaned.

I remember watching Guillaume standing on top of his patio, trying to catch the dying sunset in his digital camera. I came to visit his place again, and the lights were out; he had moved back to Montreal. I hope he's doing ok. My summer at Brown is over.

Four days ago, as I climbed the steps to my new apartment in Worcester, I saw a notice: "TO ALL TENANTS: THE POWER WILL BE OUT FOR TWO DAYS AS WE WILL BE REPLACING THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM." Suddenly, the prospect of living on the tenth floor didn't seem so comfortable.

Yesterday, I flew back from Providence to LA to see my folks. As I entered the airport, I could hear sirens going off, and all the computer monitors were dead black. The electricity at the airport had blown, and everything was at a standstill. I sighed.

Looking back at the last few days, I notice that I've been leaving a trail of darkness in my wake.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

in bed

I recently went to a Chinese buffet restaurant on Sunday, and my fortune cookie for that day had an unusual property of passive resistance:

If you think you're too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.