Mrrr.

I'm listening right now to a few tracks off the new John Legend CD. How thatll affect the tone of the post, I dont know. If, in the middle of reading this, you feel the urge to push away all the worries of the day and admit that you love me, and only me, will love me for the rest of our lives and want to spend everynight slow dancing in the middle of our apartment in candlelight, chalk it up to John and not to my writing skills. And put the roses away, I'm not into that romantic stuff.

If, on the contrary, you feel the urge to make banana pancakes and pretend like it's the weekend now (we could pretend it all the time!), I'm down for that. Cause, we all know things fall apart and tend to shatter, but I'm like that shit dont matter.

Ok, enough of this tomfoolery. No more song quotes. I'm not perfect, but I'm this that and this.

So Beijing is a beautiful city. Beautiful in the way that everything is beautiful, so long as you push yourself to see it. I'm becoming masterful at this. I thought that i was before, but 'before' i lived in Hawaii...not hard to see beauty in everything you see there. Beijing in the winter when you miss your family, miss not freezing, miss sunsets and sunrises and clear skies and clean air and beach runs with your friends...this can test even the most seasoned beauty seeker. It can seem a little, *gasp*, bleak. Luckily there are things that like hot sweet potatoes roasted fresh and whole over burning coals in little concrete drums on wagons in the streets. There are similarly roasted chestnuts in shops set up against the dower buildings, warm sweet finger thawing. There are fresh mandarin oranges in the mornings, peeled under a warm comforter in a cozy room, hiding from the hazy sunny gnawing frost. There are the dolled up girls, prancing in high heels short skirts thick leggings and fat fat waist length winter coats. They spit in the streets, the subways, and they make me stare when they walk past. Me in my knit hat, thick scarf, and long baggy dark blue coat. I make no one stare, save for the color of my skin and texture of my hair.

There is a crescent moon, pale orange through the haze, gracing the sky tonight. I look at it and i remember all the places i've looked at it before. LA streets lined up in the cold, Frisco pavement on the way home, Oahu park with a blanket and a bottle, Big Island beaches chilly and desolate. So beautiful, all. When I add to that list my current dark beijing hutong, icy dark and bustling, nothing seems quite so bad.

Tally for today:
2 kaui 3 mao for a bag of 6 mandarin oranges.
I think that puts me at 95.6 kuai spent so far.
Not bad.

love&luz