Sunday August 20, 2000

Ok, so a new phase in homesickness. I see american culture, really bad stuff like a terrible garage band video, or a jim carey outtake, and I feel sentimental. I hate this, not the fact of homesick or sentimental - I find it really amusing to be roused by these sorts of "home" things, but the way I experience the feeling of homesickness is this: I watch the clip, everything normal, familiar. It ends, and then I physically have this slightly uncomfortable pain/ache, which my immediate reaction is to suppress, I do not want to feel this, it is painful. Its a lot like being heartsick. But it's normal and to understand and realize it's homesickness relieves much of my uncomfortableness about the feeling.

Yesterday while I was making spagetti my Korean friend came in the kitchen and was also cooking. Juan Cun came in to say goodbye - he was going traveling. After he left we talked about what a good person he is. She said he was looking for a girlfriend - a good girlfriend. She asked if I had a boyfriend and I said no, and so of course the obvious was said, it was interesting. When someone else puts the idea in your head its very different.

So I'll think about it more seriously. The trouble is that I sense with him that I can't pursue. With most men its this way. Women can't chose their men and then get them the same way, most men don't take to it. But I need a man with great confidence who just enters me, quick and with passion. If they are too shy or too insecure I'm not interested.

**

My options for the evening: To go to the opera and watch singing. To take a walk on the wall. To smoke a little and walk around the gardens of the campus. Oh how nice to enjoy the serenity of walking in the dark, all lit up inside. Or just sit and enjoy my music, my candles, my little bird! Oh my new little bird, I have named her Sappho, I know it's romantic, but a songbird in China? come on, allow me the pleasure...

Still she is so nervous, unhappy all by herself in this room. I ought to buy another I suppose. Can they go in the same cage I wonder? Oh I just don't know... but she wants out and if she doesn't relax soon I won't be able to keep her locked up.

To be good at any art do it a lot and have an interesting life.