"sipping air"

Lo Ling; listening to: "Bring It All To Me" - Blaque ft. JC Chasez; 11:21pm; my room, DB; feeling: honest

So a few nights ago one of my mom’s colleagues took us out for her celebratory college graduation lunch.

The best part (besides my thai iced tea and my brother's chicken chow mein--we went to Banana Bay) was that, as thank you gifts, she brought us miniature handcrafted clay flowers from Thailand, --which were simply astounding in terms of craftsmanship. I was fixated on them for almost the entire dinner, and resentful that the girl sitting diagonally from me had received plumerias.

Plumerias are my favorite flowers.

Plumerias:

(the amazing miniature handmade Thai clay flowers we received)

So I realized some things during this experience of lunch with pseudo-strangers.--

I think I have what one would call “active listener’s disease.” I'm sure you can figure the symptoms and diagnosis just from my cleverly descriptive title, and you are welcome to call me terrible for calling this a disease-- or, you are also welcome to sympathize with me because you know what a blessing… and a curse, it is to lend an ear and offer yourself to be genuinely interested in what anyone is saying to you.

I was seated across one of my mom’s colleagues at the dinner, who is nice, young, a UCLA alumnus, somewhat insecure about herself but cute anyway, and an avid but friendly chatterer. So knowing me, and having nothing better to do, and knowing that when in a social setting one must… socialize… as she lent me countless stories and topics of conversation, I repayed the favor by lending her my active listening and festive banter.

After a while, a combination of physical exertions that constitute good conversationalism in a formal setting brought me to realize that good conversationalism can be exactly that… physically exerting. There is the constant focusing of the eyes, the tensing of the ears, the nodding of the head, the stretching and the tightening of the vocal cords, the raising of the hands and the few other certain hand gestures, not to mention the neurons that now must constantly be firing in your already overworked brain just to retain this working memory—and you realize that this ish gets tiring! So after a few rounds of that I decided that I was well, tired. I just wanted to escape to my food, which I decided I didn’t like so that wasn’t any help, and just started staring off into space as I got lost in a trance wondering why we can't just sit and enjoy the company and what others must do to get away because I'm never alone in my uncomfortable experiences.

Then I realized how great phones were. Which I had left at home.

I do still believe that texting in public settings such as dinner parties is extremely rude, and I will never get over that belief. However, I did realize what a lifesaver they can be in times like these. You just don’t want to talk, or listen. I just wanted to be there, and that was all. Just be, not do. Soak up the festivities and enjoy the company, take some time to recuperate for the next round of oratorical doubles. Seeing as how I had no phone or food to retreat to, I deliberately began moving my eyes all around the table scene, making sure to avoid eye contact which would certainly serve as an open invitation to you know what. I pleasantly found my wonderful glass of water next to my almost empty thai iced tea, and just began to sip...

It was perfect I realized. The perfect escape from conversation. After a while I realized I could no longer take in any more water, at which point I started faking it and was virtually sipping air.

And in my mind that sounded really beautiful to me, “sipping air.”

Ask me what I'm doing next time I'm sitting alone, content but quiet, "sipping air," or aimlessly walking around a room acting like I have somewhere to go, "sipping air," or as you try to look busy as your boss walks by, "sipping air."

I dunno man I like it.

Anyways.

Things that came up today:

• Good commercials - MasterCard "We Want the Funk"
• Colligative Properties
• Megan Fox
• people who know what they're talking about