Memories of Beijing.
(The restaurant in Chinatown)
I have plenty of fond, odd, discombobulated, even hot and sticky and a couple of uncomfortable memories of various tables at that place.
I think I have a favourite table there as of tonight.
Two, really, there were that many of us to banter with.
I wandered from the office, a slumbering stumble, dreamless and hot and stifling, asleep in my heels and silk tie.
I made it to town with minimal mishaps, and not too many "Hey, I can't believe I'm running into you" occurrences.
I waited for princess, perched on a marble wall in some park I'd never seen before, just north of Chinatown, across from the Monument National.
There were bright and cheery kids with their pants too low, jumping their skateboards over my shirttails.
They were talking about BBSes.
They could have been any one of my friends ten years ago.
So I went out for the birthday dinner of the boyfriend of some girl who I was convinced only invites me along for the entertainment factor. I was also fairly convinced that the man himself thought little more of me than petty foolishness.
Either I was wrong about that, or I was sorely mistaking the genuine-seeming smiles tonight.
Just as I've worked myself into an "I don't need friends I hafta work" frenzy a new group reaches out and sucks me into the sort of embrace that hasn't left my shoulders yet.
And princess gave me a box of gob-stoppers, just like exactly this time last year... On her way out of the car, she spun around and with that beautiful glee lighting up her face, she handed me a boxuvem.
I left work drained, and angry and cynical,
and I returned home warmer than the sudden stifling weather could possibly account for.
I am loved,
and I am tired,
and I am off to drop happily into sleep.