Entries for October, 2006
Absolutely ridiculous. I haven't posted in a month. I mean, seriously, it's already been a month? It's already been a year since this time last year? That means I have less than a month to get my transfer applications done. I'm finding it hard to believe that it's already been two years since I last worried about my college apps a couple years ago.
Meandering reflections on the elusive qualities of time aside, I am currently employed as a barista at the local coffeeshop. If my observation of contemporary culture is correct, then my attractiveness level has suddenly skyrocketed to heights previously unreached by diminutive young oriental males.
Apparently, the secret to ultimate charm and charisma lies not in mythical pheromones or any sort of dazzling personality but in the alluring aroma of the coffee bean. In the short time I've been working there, my romantic attention has been solicited by all forms of females - from the cute to the absolutely horrific. I've been googly-eyed by the giggly middle schooler who orders a quad-venti-cafe-americano-sans-water because the sophisticated woman in front of her in line ordered one. [The horrified expression on her face when she eagerly takes a sip of four unfiltered expresso shots is priceless, by the way.]
I've been hit on by attractive college girls who inexplicably seem to lose all interest in me when I fumble their drinks and splatter scalding lattes all over their faces or vomit on their designer shirts out of pure shock and nervousness.
Then... then there are the utterly groin-wrenching encounters. Like the psychotic napkin-hat hermit lady. [Seriously, she's this emaciated, wrinkly old lady who wears a napkin on her head. Along with her 18th century petticoat, nazi army boots, and various shopping bags filled with random pieces of yarn and cat food. I also think she has jaundice.] I swear to God, that was the most revolting experience I've ever been in. It tops my smelly gay boyfriend episode. By far.
(Click for actual conversation)
I was so shaken up that I wouldn't come out of the back room until my co-workers coaxed me out with promises that they would crush my skull between the refrigerators and put me out of my misery. My assistant manager nearly split a side laughing at me. But whatever. I can cope with the fact that my ears were melting and my eyes were begging to be gouged out. I can deal with the excruciatingly horrific images of the woman's idea of a come-on.
I just have one question.
Why me?
Written by jihwan at 12:37 AM.
I was browsing through my entries when I found one that I'd written a few months ago. I'd saved it as a draft and had forgotten about it, so I'll post it now.
I am currently perched on an inactive lifeguard stand at the beach. The waves are lightly lapping at the shore, tinged pink and orange with the last reluctant rays of the sunset. It is a rather chilly evening as I sit here typing this out, but it seems some deity is rewarding my resolution by providing me with an inexplicable internet connection in the middle of the Santa Monica beach strand.
My evening class has been cancelled, so not wanting to waste my time and precious gasoline, I've decided to head on over to the pier to wander around. In accordance with all incarnations of logic and past experiences, when Jihwan decides to take an electronic device of any value, i.e. his laptop, to the vicinity of sand, water, and sodium chloride, the end result would probably be a jumble of soaked circuitry and a wretched fistful of hair. But thankfully, on this evening of perfectly aligned stellar bodies and pacific spirits I'm left alone to muse about fleeting subjects of the utmost irrelevance and to haltingly type out words as they float to the grimy surface of my written consciousness.
I remove my shoes and socks and curl my freezing toes into the silky, still-warm granules of weathered stone. The beach is a warm-blooded battlefield, shivering and sighing with each bitter gust of wind. The waves lightly crash on the shoreline in their endless attempts to scale the sands, brave assaults always ceded by disheartened hisses and effervescent sighs. Normandy eternity.
It's beginning to rain a bit, and I can feel the icy stings on my frozen face. I pull my hood as far over my face as I can, not wanting to leave just yet. I haven't written anything inspiring or brilliant yet, and I'll be damned if I succumb to a few measly raindrops and the possibility of a ruined computer. Going home with pneumonia would be the first sign of compositional genius, and dying from it would mean the achievement of my dreams. I presume that on my deathbed, my true brilliance in writing would miraculously manifest itself in my pen, and I would write a single poignant, earth-shattering line with the power to move nations and bare open the secret to humanity's deepest desires. With my last breath, I would scrawl my signature onto the piece of torn parchment; in doing so, the last fibre of my strength would give way and I would depart this world through the gates of literary immortality, embraced warmly by the likes of Proust and Aristotle. Give up? Leave? Not a chance. I must endure, weather, withstand. Amidst the glacial onslaught of mediocrity and uninspired scratches of ink on evanescent media, I must safeguard my untapped potential and await its glorious golden birth from death.
Damn, it's cold. I'm going home.
Written by jihwan at 08:03 PM.