Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The persons of people

I've never been good with people. One-on-one, I can get along with just about anyone, make them laugh, pull a good story out of them, even enjoy myself. But add another person, and my balance shakes. The more bodies, the worse I am able to divide my attention. I try to avoid large group situations, I hide, or I stick with one person in the crowd.

At work, though, almost everyone is smart, interesting, and genuinely friendly. It's fantastic, but most of them are also very social and interested in networking, so I often avoid the myriad impromptu and plannef gatherings, which means that my introversion is exposed and I don't spend much time even the people I really like. I care. I would get to know them better. I just can't focus when so many others dilute my small slice of charm.

Now it's too late in so many cases. I just want to send out the sentiment, the knowledge that I care.

Friday, May 8, 2009

The air is thinner at the coast, as I imagine it to be at the top of Mt Everest. Perhaps it's not the altitude but proximity to heaven or the alternate. Earthly vales are stretched. Perhaps it's the beauty, casting fiction over the rest of the senses with its staggering bulk.

I watched the moon rise quickly over the coast range, full and miraculous. A sunrise I can appreciate.

Lately I overhear whispers from the other side, snippets of the goings-on. The streets are wet with rain there, as here. People rush by. Here I sit at my desk for hours, bruised by fluorescent light. There, giant lanterns beckon ponderously in the wind, and I know I will stop for a minute at the temple, searching for a cat to cajole. Red glow from vertical signs and grill smoke from tented alleys along the train station, two ghosts haunt the city together. I know where I am, here. But I want to be there, lost.