What stuff goes by that was salient and is now forgotten because I didn’t write it down anywhere. Whole lives like that—most of them.

These last two weeks, busy.

I attended a four-hour HIV/AIDs training, which was required by the state for counselor registration. The class was fantastic and I’m glad the state requires it; everyone should take it. If I ran the show at the department of health, training in domestic violence issues would also be required. Frankly, I wonder why it is not already a requirement.

At the beginning of the class, the instructors asked each of us if we had received training in HIV/AIDS issues and most of us hadn’t. Most people had gotten information in middle or high school, or from TV, and none thereafter. I was the only who had studied it in college. But, that was years ago and much has changed.

Then my new computer arrived early!! I can’t believe the clunky computing I tolerated using that decrepit laptop. Holy cow. I mean, the speed of this thing is astonishing! I’ve discovered a weird paradox: I used to keep several applications running at once because it took forever to load them, despite that doing so really bogged down the laptop. Now that I have a machine that can multitask effortlessly, I don’t need to. Applications load in a blink.

And the monitor! Oh my god it’s bright! The poor laptop’s screen is dim and listing toward the green end of the spectrum. The new monitor is HUGE! At first I worried it was too big. I have to turn my head to see everything—it’s like being at the drive-in! (I want a little mono speaker to hook to my chair.) Of course, I’m used to the size now and everything else is puny.

The little CPU hangs dutifully, and silently, on the wall, the slivery wireless transmitter clipped to the case. Computer components are finally achieving the correct proportions.

The next day, whatever day that was, another editing project arrived. So I got to work on that and slogged through grammatical atrocities until the brink of cognitive meltdown. I want to know how a writer can make a living without being fluent. It’s one thing to know that you don’t have to write perfectly because a progression of editors will tidy up the thing, but it’s incompetent to craft nonsensical sentences and leave them like that. That is not writing.

Saturday, deadline day—FedEx closes at 5pm. It was 4pm when I got into the car. I put in Talking Heads, Lifetime Piling Up on repeat and loud, and raced down there, slowly waking from the paralysis of a week in the chair, my head in words. That song reminds me of liberation, the sense that bloomed throughout the spring in Seoul of 1998. I was always walking—to the bus stop, to the store, on the trail, to everywhere. This song reminds me of magnolias and one afternoon along the trail when the boys' middle school released its boys onto the path. The swarm parted to let me walk, but not without each one of the lithe young men brushing his shoulders against mine.

Friday, with the deadline imminent, I went out with friends to see Adaptation. It’s playing only one venue in town, The Big Picture, which is that private theater where I saw that Ophul film. The theater has gone public, and I love it. You know what I love about it? It fulfills this fantasy I had about what it would be like to be an adult in an adult-run world. Somehow I thought that being an adult would grant me access to cleaner, elegant things, which it never has really—that was a misadvertised outcome, of course. And I don’t mean formal balls and expensive restaurants and that crazy pretentiousness of the SUV yuppie culture. But something more like freedom and trust—like drinking a martini while I watch a movie, in a clean, comfortable place devoid of throngs of teenagers. You drink out of glasses and the popcorn comes in a reusable plastic container. And you know what else? The price of the ticket is the same or slightly less than the cineplex. Though the theater is quite small, you can still buy tickets just before showtime. But I know that once hipsters get wind of this, the place will be packed.

Today we slept late and went for afternoon breakfast. I love how on Sunday afternoons the breakfast places are filled with couples still tousled and rosy from sex.

Tomorrow I begin another contract, this one for Microsoft. I’m a third-party vendor, and I will be working in Fremont full-time days for about a month. Wee! I miss Fremont. As you know, I used to live there. Much has changed, thanks to Suzie, but it also means there is much to explore. I’m glad for getting out of the house and to be working on a team again. I’m glad for the fucking money.