2002 MAY 29 IF ONLY CRETA KANO WOULD CROSS MY PATH

One of the most interesting things about living in Manhattan is the sudden change in atmosphere that occurs when Spring fades into summer. When I was in Houston, it wasn't as big of a deal: eighty plus fahrenheit weather was normal since mid-March. People stayed the way they were, with maybe a little less road rage and a bit more barbequeing. But here, it's different.

Walking down Broadway, the easiest thing to notice are the clothes that girls wear. They suddenly become smaller, tighter and brighter. Oh, and lower: I've probably encountered more cleavage in two NYC summers than ten years in Texas. But that's only the initial shock-based, first reason. A great onset of smiles also occurs; people are suddenly friendlier (as much as is possible) and less stressed out.

What's funny is that there's still a lot of black in the city. During winter, nine out of ten pedestrians I encountered wore black (or, if they dared, gray). Now, that number has been reduced to maybe three or four (and sometimes five!) out of ten. In some silly way, this is enlightening as white becomes more prevalent.

And companies have seemingly taken advantage of such as well. Gap and Club Monaco both are stouting their "All You Need Is White, Goddammit" (that is not verbatim, unfortunately) styles and are trying to make some profit on the obvious. Somehow, it always comes full circle to the corporate enfranchisement of our souls. Nice.

Of note: nycbloggers.com. When I was in Houston, I always wanted to read about the luscious lifetyle of the NYC inhabitant, but almost never found sites that reflected the nature of the urban jungle properly. Thankfully, this great site has a barrage of choices to pick from as it does a great job of giving a sort of cohesiveness to the area's web writers. I usually don't like touting things like this, but I found this rather interesting. Probably due to the subway map. That always scores.

2002 MAY 26 NO GOOD NEWS IN THIS POST

I started writing one of my uber-short stories and somehow it turned into a few pages long. Maybe it reflects my state of my mind, but it dealt with long-term relationships. Friends and lovers, as time goes by, that stuff always rattles and shifts. Friends become lovers and vice versa, and of course the best is when your enemies become your friends—or better yet, lovers. Something like that.

Note that I just realized that, as I wrote that, I was primarily thinking of female friends. My head's been infused with too much Murakami and real-life debacles with a certain someone who I haven't spoken to in a while. She's on my mind, and I don't know how to react to it.

Something amidst all this doesn't fit.

A quote from what I was writing:

"I'm not sure how I figured I'd go about telling her my decision. I mean, this was it. The end. El kaput. Finito. Only thing is that she didn't know. Not yet.

"I first met her in the third grade, which is an awefully young age to meet your wife. In fact, it almost sounds like it's straight out of a CNN report from some South Asian country where engagements occur right after conception. But this, it was different. We were friends, just that, and then she moved away. A few years went by only for her to suddenly fall back into my lap. Kind of.

"A relationship goes two ways. Love is all well and good, but you need to give. Give what you receive and a certain balance is kept in check. For us, from the very beginning, it seemed like a shift had occurred: I gave and gave but never felt that I got anything back. I found myself being the initiator, time and time again. Hell, if I had given up on her as I had nearly done sometime during college, she and I wouldn't be here today. Not that it matters anymore, of course."

My thoughts are fragmented. I don't have the energy to glue everything together right now. It'd be nice if someone would come and solve all my problems. I'd be in debt. Not money debt either, but the kind of debt that you can only repay by doing something completely and utterly precious. Yeah.