When the sunshine broke through the thick white cloud, warmth sifted through the cold morning stillness and whiff of salt, brightening the patio of a cafe nearby the beach. Two cup of coffee, with lots of cream and a touch of sugar, sits prettily on the wooden table, emitting its last cloud of steam. Few tables away, on a railing, a seagull is eyeing lasciviously at the half-eaten piece of cake that I neglected long ago. The rumpled Saturday paper also neglected: Bono speaking at the World Economic Forum is something that does not interest me. Instead my attention is fixed on The Killer Angels. What does the Civil War have to do with MLIS I do not know, but the novel is one of the most interesting required reading for class. Lee, Chamberlain, Longstreet, Buford. These previously unknown names are now circulating wildly in my head as the novel progresses to its epic stage. N. sits leisurely across the table in her white poplin shirt and spotted chiffon skirt.

She is leafing through The Thurber Carnival. The book is one of those surprise find one encounters in used bookstores, while going through the rubble. What caught my eyes to Thurber was he does his own writing and his own illustration. I am not far into the book yet but it seems that I could learn a thing or two about life and humor. This is further evidenced by N.'s occasional amused countenance and suppressed giggle.
As the hour approached noon the empty morning street was thronged by tourists and shoppers alike. The seagull flew away and replaced by dogs chained to the railing as their owners come in to grab a bite. By now the unimpeded sun was glinting brightly over our heads. We paid our bills and left. We took obligatory walks into Borders and J Crew and Sephora and Banana Republic and Urban Outfitters before we left the beach.

On the drive back (we didn't really know where were heading) we stopped at a Trader Joe's to stock up on provisions -- my brie and baguette; her California merlot. Lately I had acquired from her the habit of carrying my own grocery canvas bag. Actually it is more of a "re"-acquiring because carrying one's own reusable bag is customary in Taiwan. I recall the time going into Carrefour in Taipei with my dad and each of us would carry two giant-sized canvas bag to haul our grocery goods home. Almost always N. and I were the only ones carrying our own bags in any supermarket. It seems conservation is such a lax idea in the mind of American consumers.

When we waited at the checkout line N. remarked that today is Chinese New Year. We had both forgotten. So what should be a day of celebration with families, instead we acted like two non-Chinese Asians wandering around the city indifferently, not knowing where to go. Not that it makes any difference. Had we known the day would probably be spent in exactly the same way. We simply have no choice.

Tags: N, Los Angeles, Chinese New Year,

A stroll around the desolate campus during the evening, a confluence of feelings, akin to meeting a long lost best friend, refluented so naturally and so freely that an unsuspecting grin broke out while I looked toward the darkening sky, letting out a sigh of relief. The night air had a cold, sharp quality to it, conducive to awakening one's tired senses. The stately performing art center stands adjacent to the stone bench in which I sat and marveled from. However flat and suburban the campus seemed during the day, shroud it in quiet darkness under a starry night and it too has few aesthetic qualities.

I can't believe how long it took me to come back to school and being a student again.

I had quiet some time before my first class starts. The realization has not sunk in yet. A woman's voice directed toward me from behind, asking if I belonged to the MBA program. "No, I am here for the MLIS program," I proudly replied, enunciating each syllable carefully.

For now and for the near future, this place will be my refuge, a refuge from the pins and needles of the business world.


The professor spoke in a slow and measured tone, introducing the small class to the world of MLIS. The MLIS world has definitely gravitated from the "L" (library) to the "I" (Information). It can also be said that Library Science is now a subset of Information Science (red flag!). I jot down each notion hurriedly -- the words looking increasingly like they have been swept by strong wind -- and wondered whether I can decipher the writing later on. I wrote and wrote: writing gives me a purposeful sense. It does not matter what I write, as long as the pen inked the white paper. Often I straggled behind the professor's speech, hoping someone might asked the man to slow down. It is my personality; I cannot help it. Instead a classmate fancied working in a Mark Twain library.

That was yesterday night. Today is back to the morass of office politics and petty business Emails.

While grocery shopping might not be classified as recreational or leisure, every Friday evening, after work, with an gleeful state of mind, I head over to the Trader Joe's, armed with an orange plastic basket, and begin selecting, with my present state of economic sovereignty, the nutritional intake for next week's worth. To be single and poor and an unwillingness to cook, for the past 12 months, I have learned that eating healthy might not be such an easy task. Back at home, with mom deciding what food should grace my stomach, I need not to worry so much about eating healthy. Not that I am a health-conscious freak, but there comes a time when one is tired of buying takeout at either fast food chains or Chinese restaurants or Japanese supermarket bento.

The traffic is light this Friday evening. The sky clean and crisp as ever, and darkness soon descending. Slowly, motorists turn on their night lights. I turn on Marketplace at 6:30 p.m. sharp, as the radio program is devoting a whole week's coverage on China. The calm voice of Kai Ryssdal, together with sound bites of various Chinese interviewee, spoken in different dialect of Chinese, shortened the drive considerably.

The name Trader Joe's invokes an image of mom-and-pop grocer. In many aspects, the store resembles one, despite it being a chain of several hundreds. Compare it to other conventional grocery stores, Trader Joe's is much smaller in sizes and a fraction of king-sized Wal-Mart and Costco. Its offers, while limited due to its size, are more focused, such as organic (or non) vegetables and fruits and cheeses. I went ahead and picked up some baby carrots and spinach salad, paired with a triple cream brie and a roll of baguette. There is nothing I love more than brie and baguette. I also love the little recommendation stickers placed throughout the store because they are mostly hand-written.

While passing the sweets section, I purposely looked away, passing by in resignation. I had the urge to take home the small whole cheesecake sitting coolly in the refrigerator, waving its sweet indulgence at my lack of self-control. I stood in stupefaction, and a glimmer flashed across my eyes at the sight of that sweet love. Eventually -- thankfully -- I thought better of it and pass up the opportunity to satisfy my sugar craving. My promise in grade school that I will eat whatever sweet products I crave when I grow up will probably not be fulfilled any time soon.

What follows one indulgence is another. In a few steps of trekking is the wine section. It is often that I spend a good 20 minutes looking over the small but eclectic wine selection, not to mention its affordability. I scoured through the big barrier of two-buck chuck (the $1.99 Charles Shaw brand proclaiming itself as from Napa) and Yellow Tail, and landed in search of the newer arrival from Bordeaux and Rhone and Spain. The prospect of drinking myself stupid over the weekend is very alluring. I got an $8.99 bottle from Rhone, thinking it might be great with my frozen veggie pizza. And just before concluding this shopping trip, a tea tree oil soup and a tin of Altoids found the way into my basket. At the checkout counter, I was greeted with a warm smile; and in return, when the final total price was flashed across the computer screen, I flashed a suppressed smirk back to the cashier: it feels great to shop cheaply and not feel guilty.



P.S. The above images are BORROWED from Google Image search. I don't have the thick leather skin to take my bulky Canon and start filming cheese and vegetable. So thank you, anonymous photo providers.

On my conscience a promontory stands at a distance, faintly visible, yet lacking distinctive shape or characteristics. Without a doubt that object is something I am chasing after. I go through the proper motions and jumping through various hurdles, just so as to know I am after something. Days and months and years go by, that something is as illusive as when I begun chasing it. After days of sombre overcast, the sky finally cleared up, peeking down from its azure, splashing the city with warm sunshine, and occasionally providing gentle breeze that rustles the window curtain.

I stood by the window looking despondently toward the blue expanse, my elbows resting on the windowsill. The weekend was passed in a celebratory mood, for my roommate had just earned a spot on the U.S. Kendo team that is to participate in the next World Kendo Championship. Up and down the house champagne corks were flying in all directions and beers come in unlimited supply. Naturally I knew nothing about kendo, but knowing how hard he worked thus far I felt truly happy.

But when the alcohol started to ebb and the party ajourned, there comes a period of self introspection wherein one falls into inexplicable gloom. There is only so much I could endue myself with other's success and accomplishment; and when reality checks back after a brief hiatus and patters on one's conscience repeatedly, I irrepressibly began to feel once again how inconsequential and twilit my life has been. That promontory's indefinable shape lingers somewhere ahead, but giving no hint as to what it is. For all I know it could be but an illusion.

In eight more days my days of ennui will be altered considerably. Besides my full-time office job I will be attending night and weekend classes for my MLIS degree. Often in the moment before I fall off to sleep, in the dark I degusted over being a student again, to relish that special feeling when one is situated in an academic milieu instead of a cubicle. I often tried to attribute the promontory as my striving toward MLIS. But somehow the puzzles do not fit snugly together. There lies something else, something unknown.

"The boy exhibits antisocial behavior occasionally, I am afraid."

The mother is doing most of the talking, and her voice is tinged with a slight helplessness. I sat opposite of her on the plastic booth, with two cups of coffee sitting atop the unvarnished table in the play area of McDonald's. Whenever the conversation comes to an awkward stop, I pretend to sip and linger over the coffee.

"But he seems to take a liking in you, have you noticed?"

I nodded in agreement, while glancing at the boy, playing in his own little world.

"So will you be so kind as to watch over him for a few hours this Saturday? Of course you will be paid, according to the hour. What do you say?" The mother let out an entreating look.

It is not so much the pay or the need for someone to watch over the little boy. It was just something that the mother and I wanted to try.

###

The boy is now about seven. I met the mother few years ago in Taipei, when the boy was just a toddler. He had a most beautiful pair of sparkling brown eyes, and always exuded that precious innocence which can only found on children of that age. Whenever I proffered my arms toward him, he would reciprocate his chubby little arms upward to indicate clearance to hold him. It was precious because no one but the mother had the privilege to do this. Not even the father, who was always away. The child is especially shy in his nature, therefore to see that glistening, trusting look in his pretty eyes while holding him gave me a blissful feeling.

The marriage between the mother and the father was not one to be envied. Despite their good looks, reasonable wealth and good family background, they got off on a rough sailing and the boat never settled. The father was a known skirt-chaser that often spent his time away from the family. Amidst the stormy days the boy took in everything: the shout, the wail, the things that a child should be shielded from. Gradually those negative elements coagulated and hardened the boy's mind; his glistening eyes are now cloaked by a distant, hard gauze. They are still pretty, as I look at the boy now, but long gone is that shy, trusting look.

The boy had trouble getting along with his fellow playmates in school. He has no trouble learning -- actually quite bright, I was told -- but his withdrawn behavior worried the mother tremendously. As a result, to prevent the boy from further retreat inwardly, the mother thought of educating him in the U.S., where a child can receive a more liberal, creative learning. The divorce was finalized before their departure for Los Angeles.

How is the boy to cope with the divorce? How will he react to an entirely foreign environment? How will his little mind be shaped by the equivalent of a seismic shift? These are the questions that ran through my mind as I watched him, diligently sipping orange juice by the mother's side.

Trays of succulent raw oysters, steamed crab, clams, fish and chips, and spicy seafood soup are invitingly laid upon our small wooden table by the window that looks over the King Harbor and the Pacific Ocean. The crowd is sparse this Saturday afternoon. Few men and women dotted along the pier with their fishing rods, hoping for their big catch. A large pelican perched itself on the wooden railing, drawing a small crowd of onlookers. As I take in the view of the pier, all that there is left on the oyster plate is a mountain of empty hard shells.

"I told you not to wander off your spacey mind, now the oysters are all gone."

"Maybe you should chew your food first before speaking," retorted I, half jokingly.

This lazy Saturday, the four of us, including N., took a short drive to Redondo Beach and rewarded ourselves with heaps of every imaginable seafood, washing them down with a bottle of Korean soju. I am usually not much of a drinker of soju, but given the consensus opinion among the three other diners I gave in. After a few shots a slight buzz is already lurking in the back of my brain.

"Drink, drink. We can't order second if you don't finish your glass," N. urges on, while herself is unfazed by the onslaught of alcohol, and her two friends nodded in general agreement. Are you kidding me? I thought in the back of my mind. And before I know it, a second bottle found its way to our table.


After way too many clams and way too much alcohol, we took a leisure walk around the pier. The large pelican changed its standing position a few feet down the railing, but still oblivious to the minor stardom it has gathered. The weather is mild, not a cloud over our head, and the clear blue sky formed a tender contrast to the emerald green sea. We stood against the railing, watching the vicious wave pounding against the shoreline. The occasional sea breeze rustled my drowsy head. The four of us stood in parallel, gazing into the distance where the sea and the sky meet, and each of us formed our own independent thought, perhaps about the future, about the present, or about how to proceed in life. But midway through my inward brooding, the refluent alcohol flustered my train of thought. It hurts to think.

That unmistakable resonance of heavy raindrops plashing against the windowpane awoke me to the new calendar year. There is still a trace of lingering champagne taste in my mouth. My body is bundled into sheaf by two layers of quilt, as the storm from the North descended and plunged heavy precipitation and chilling temperature upon the arid South. I bundled myself even tighter, savoring the warmth as much as I can, so as to make up for the lost time during days which work prohibited such luxurious pleasure. The rain continues its unimaginative thud on the windowpane, apprising the world to wake up and smell the rain -- and the new year.

After much inward debate I finally got up (fighting off the chill is no easy task!) and washed. I breakfasted on two eggs, toast and the Sunday L.A. Times. I had ample time before N.'s scheduled arrival from Taipei at 5:30 pm, so, with a $20 gift certificate from Borders bookstore, I went and got the just-released paperback Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

I read and lolled and had dim sum with a friend until it was time to head to the airport. The storm, after a brief interval, had resumed its furious roar as I stepped out of the door. By a mere five, six second exposure to the rain, when I ran to the car parked on the street, my shirts and hair were drenched with cold rain, and a shiver of chill crept up behind my neck so unsuspectingly that I just froze there for a good two minutes until the heater started cranking up warm air.

The whole ashen sky is shrouded in a sombre countenance, not a single gleam escaping through. Though the airport is only 15 minutes away from where I live, the condition on the freeway was not fit for normal driving (I had already a few instances where my tires were skidding slightly as a result of the rain). I arrived a little later than the intended time, but N. has still not come out from the terminal. I waited along with others in the waiting area, hands on the iron railing that marks the boundary of the waiting area, its coldness so penetrating that I thought of N.'s misfortune, and stood there like a bough, conjecturing scenes of upon meeting her fragile frame.

Her emaciated visage was marked out amongst throng of visitors, for everyone else featured a bright smile upon seeing relatives and friends, and her especial weariness had a protruding effect, despite her slender frame. When she saw me waiting she affected a smile, but unable to mask her mournful touch. We embraced one another; and as I squeezed her, I felt she was about to let out a cry. But she held back the tear in her moist brown eyes, and held check the twitching upper lip.

We remain unspoken until we crossed the traffic lane to the parking lot. "I feel like I have aged ten years...Oh, I brought a gift for you. You will like it much. Thank you for everything," said N. episodically, while flashing a genuine, lambent smile.

"Good to have you back, Kitty," said I, blushing for no reason.