smiling back politely.

it goes from having one of your best friends take you to his favourite place for breakfast. he's been raving about it for some time, and eventually you see it's this tiny crack in the wall of local family-oriented neighbourhood. and there are two older (one elder) women behind the strip of a counter as you squeeze onto the stools. they say things like, "dear" and rant about having performed the splits right there the other day. they tease each other about 5th marriages and accidental pregnancies. and they welcome every customer in as they would their own grandchildren, and the whole time i'm thinking, "movies are REAL?!" finishing our meal, we walk out and my friends tells me more about this place. when the middle-aged cook is not there, her brother usually is. though they are both a little bit... "retarded" he says. "they are loud" i say. "no, i mean. i think they were once into some heavy drug stuff. you know, one of those, have half of your brain scooped out stuff." movies are real.

yesterday, taking a stroll through the city (please refer below to rainy day soundtracks), i stop at a local thrifted jewelery store. the bright pink linings of the building had always been a bit seductive to me. in a holly golightly & tiffany's way. awhile back, due to various social conditions, i had inadvertently sparked conversation with a very thin, frail, blonde girl. and when i asked her where she got her gorgeous clunky sparklingly necklace from, she directed me to the pink lined store. so on this day of doing nothing, i heard the ring of the doorbell, as i stepped into a type of sparkling paradise. beads, colours, stones, glittered from all corners, and i spent quite a bit of time, just perusing. i had walked in on two older customers who i eavesdropped were there to support and visit their friend - the owner. an older bland, slightly overweight woman. bland women always have the most access to gorgeous, gorgeous, things. and one of the women bothered me so. she was from france, and kept dismissing all positive references with a french sigh, proclaiming that she "still wasn't back from her travels." presumably she had visited somewhere in East Asia. it would explain how we stood by side observing the beads around our mutual necks. or rather, how she peered over to stare at me, as i watched myself. a post-colonial kind of mirror reflection. she, like many pale coloured beauties found my skin appealing in a "darling artifact" sort of way. in the end, her friend politely inquired about my ethnicity. said something abrasive like, "you should get that necklace on your indian skin. it would look gorgeous." an indirect insult and compliment. i smiled back politely.