28.11.09
    Slept for eleven hours. Haven't done that in a while.

    I'm slightly baffled by people who have their portable music devices cranked up loud enough for the entire bus to listen to it. What's the point?
    Partly it's a personal thing, if I'm listening to my MP3 player, I have it low enough to still hear what's happening around me; transit updates, intriguing conversations, approaching vehicles. Also, if it's soft enough that you're not immediately sure of what song is playing, you end up listening more actively and hearing new elements within the instrumentation. Of course, this means you have music which actually contains a thought process behind the arrangement, but that's another issue.
    I don't see blaring music as a particularly effective mode of counterculture or protest. Will a muffled thumping base force me to re-examine my preconceived notions of perception or question my value system? Are you asserting your independence by ensuring you'll have hearing loss before middle age? Or is it a semi-public expression of your tastes, sent out in hopes of recognition by other like-minded though hearing-impaired individuals? You're like a trapped fly repeatedly ramming headfirst into a window; annoying and self-destructive and deserving of a whack with a rolled-up newspaper*.
    And the claim of opposition to mainstream complacency only applies to the people who are listening to anything progressive or alternative. I have no explanation whatsoever for the woman in the front of the bus, who, of all things, decided to treat us to the greatest hits of Celine Dion.

    *Figuratively speaking, because trapping people under a small container then releasing them outside hasn't proved to be an effective behavioral deterrent.

22.11.09
    Not enough hours in a day. Not enough days in a year.

08.11.09
    I was at one of the Asian malls on thanksgiving weekend, buying ingredients for a salad to bring to a family potluck that night. I was dispatched with a specific shopping list: celery, lettuce, cucumber, green onions. These are all vegetables readily available at any neighbourhood grocery store. I, however, was here, with no other produce places particularly close by or on my way home. There were three produce stalls, each crammed full of merchandise and people so as to produce instant gridlock given the length of the checkout lines snaking through the space.
    A view of the merchandise was obscured by all the people, so I plunged right into the least busy, finding a stack of short English cucumbers, slightly soft, but not alarmingly so. Next, I wound, backtracked, and elbowed my way to the lettuce. There was a sad stack of browning icebergs crammed onto a shelf. That was a dealbreaker. The cucumber went back into its neglected box and I hit stall number two.
    The green onions here looked great, still in their shipping container. Celery was easy, and a leaf lettuce was a bit limp, but not beyond the point of no return. Cucumber was evasive. Little pickling cukes were readily spotted, but not the longer varieties. I did a few turns of the narrow passageways, around lotus roots, fresh bamboo shoots, enoki and king oyster mushrooms. Nothing. I found a woman on the periphery preparing bundles of a vegetable I couldn't recognize.
    "Do you have English cucumbers?"
    "No" was the response, along with a bit of a baffled look, which could have been for any number of reasons, really. Possibly it was that I had just blown my cover as an acutal Chinese person. (You know, Chinese Chinese.)
    So I was standing there with an armload of vegetables facing the prospect of starting over yet again. I chose to tough it out and wait in line to pay before moving on. The line moved, albeit slowly, past the little shrine set up on an upper shelf with incense and an pomelo left in offering. Elderly couples crossed back and forth, handing extra items to those already waiting. I paid for my things, dumped them into my non-woven polypropylene grocery bag (the only one in sight), and went to stall number three.
    The first thing evident at the third place was a high wall of sparkling fresh lettuce. Inwardly cursing, I found a nice stack of English cucumbers amid fresh water chestnuts, taro, and a multitude of leafy green things. I grabbed one, and went to stand in another line. We inched past a bin of celery bunches, and a stack of neatly trimmed green onions was nearby. I hit the checkout, where four remarkably efficient women were tag-teaming customers. As I counted out my change, the first cashier started processing the next person's items, leaving me confused as to what to do with my coins.
    "Zhè lĭ," said the woman to my right (and what's more, I understood her... eventually). I handed her the cash and she presented me with my already-bagged purchase.
    Escaping, objectives attained, I left the mall. If we were planning yu choi with fresh shiitakes, I would have been in and out in five minutes, but no; I needed my four boring vegetables to go celebrate the bounty of the harvest.

01.11.09
    I kept overhearing people's conversations on the bus. Maybe the book I'm reading isn't that engaging, or people have been having louder, more interesting exchanges than normal. Here's a couple:

    Young Asian man on his cell phone, black shirt, blue jeans, white leather loafers. Enthusiastic about a website he found with instructional videos on cooking.
    "We've been cooking steak wrong all of our lives!" He went on, extolling the merits of various methodology, occasionally flipping between Cantonese and English.

    "What are you going as for Halloween?"
    "A cougar."
    Puma concolor? I guessed.
    "I've got this ugly, tight, leopard-print dress, I'm going to do really bad makeup and long, red nails."
    Oh.

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