2. Asian Market

It's really better when you don't have a reason to go, but even so, there are plenty of reasons to visit the Asian supermarket. My friends and I would always play the 'Is It Edible?' game, which is when you wonder if foods like kimchi are edible. Kimchi comes in these jars and so it looks marbled, like someone's long forgotten homunculus still stuck gestating in a jar. It really looks awful. The fish fare only a little better in the edible game, but only because the fish look like fish. The smell usually keeps me away, however, and if I do happen to get close the eyes of the fish always nauseate me. I'm sure the fish would look fine if they were slathered in kimchi, though. he kimchi would probably look more edible too. Two aesthetic birds with one stone there.

But believe me, the Asian supermarket is a serious place and isn't only about games. It's also about candy, noodles, and seriously delightful mascots. There's serious culture shock too, since many of the products come in packaging that looks pretty similar to American name brand foodstuffs. There are snack cake that are packaged in the same thin rectangle that Little Debbies are and have almost identical designs on the front. But instead of some snack cake vixen in the upper left corner overseeing all and pronouncing it tasty, there's an arguably cuter bird that has rabbit ears. And this bird, god bless it, is actually eating one of its own snack cakes and having just a great time. If you bought these frosted cakes, you'd be having a good time just like the bird-bunny. Melinda, my ex-girlfriend, always said that the rabbit ears are where the bird stores its extra marketing sense.

I've listed some great reasons to visit the Asian supermarket. I didn't come here for any of those reasons. I just came to soak up the ambient vibe. I checked some bok choy over in the produce, but none of it looks good. I don't often have a reason for coming to the Asian supermarket, and like I said earlier it's better that way. I might check out some of the Asian pop cds they have for sale, or see what Asian films the video section of the supermarket is selling. That's the really beautiful thing about the Asian supermarket: they're so much more than weird food. They sell cheap kitchen equipment, cds, HDTVs, videos, and more toys than your kid could choke on. Some of the supermarkets even have jewlery stores. It's got loads more character than Wal-mart does, that's for sure. It's got almost everything you need for a good time with your friends. If you need candy, go to the Asian supermarket. If you need a video to watch for the night, then go east! And pick up some skewered whole fish snacks while you're at it.

So there's my praise for the Asian supermarket. They have everything you need to get by, plus a taste of exotic foreign culture. I'm walking around it right now, enjoying the mixture of the foreign and the familiar. There's the friendly flourescent lighting and cheap tiling every supermarket has. Then there's forty kinds of seaweed on the shelf. It's wonderful. I'm not buying anything though. I actually haven't bought something from the supermarket in awhile. Back when we were together, Melinda and I used to come here and pick up some candy, a random Asian pop cd, and a random Asian film. We did this every month, and the ladies running the store always smiled at us and never said a word. Sometimes they would talk amongst themselves about what we had purchase, but never let us in on any of their insights. Everything they said was hidden behind their language. Perhaps, the best reason to go to the Asian supermarket was to experience the mystery of the new, and it always was new to Melinda and me. Our unfamiliarity with the language kept us in check while we wandered the store. Our English words couldn't attach themselves to anything within; we simply experienced, and left. Eventually, we even stopped talking while we were in the supermarket, and we just silently touched things, observed them, and left. When we came back to the market we would touch and observe the same things as though we had never seen them before. Nothing was familiar anymore. After a few years together it felt like being quiet in the Asian supermarket was necessary to keep some kind of equipoise in our relationship. I always felt like she was the one off in the far east exploring open-air markets in Beijing, while I was watching her from a telescope here on the east coast.

So, here I am in the Asian supermarket. I lied when I said I didn't have a reason. I remembered why I came when I saw the rice cookers they have for sale here. Melinda always told me I needed a rice cooker. So I'm finally getting one. It's been almost two years since she told me to get one, so I have a lot of rice meals to make up for. I pick out the biggest one they have because I like eating rice. The cooker is colored pink and white, which is a pretty standard color scheme for certified Asian supermarket rice cookers. Now I'm at the checkout counter and the lady is ringing up my purchase. She's talking to me! I can't believe this! Since when did they talk to English-speaking customers? Is this some new job training? She's actually asking me questions. She's asking if this rice cooker is just for me. I say yes it is. She is shaking her head and saying that this rice cooker is better for two or more people, and best for a large happy family. She actually used the word happy. I'm staring in disbelief at her, but I know she's right.



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Word of the Day: Equipoise

1. Endings

"It just seems like you'd rather feel sad."

That was it for Sara. There was no reason for Daniel to be say that. None that she could understand, at least. At that moment, which was crowded with her tears, her only understanding was that words should not be allowed to cut so deeply, especially when there was no reason for them to be said.

"Just because you cry doesn't mean you're sad." Sara's face was already red and sore with crying. Her indignation didn't change the color at all. Daniel shrugged.

"Happy crying never made sense to me either."

"I'm not happy!" (Daniel almost laughed at this) "I'm not even really sad! The ending just got to me, that's all."

"But it was a sad ending-"
"I didn't even think it was that sad."
"It was a pretty contrived ending, yeah." Daniel smirked and crossed his arms. He had thought about putting his arm around Sara but he didn't approve encouragment of this kind. "But that's why it's even more weird you would cry."

This wasn't fair. Sara didn't deserve to be questioned this way. It was bald emotion she had displayed at the end of the movie. It wasn't physics class. There was no direct cause and effect in her crying. E !=MC squared where C=crying, or something. She didn't know. She wanted a glint in her eye as she wove for Daniel some harrowing childhood tale that leads up to this very point: to why she cries at the end of bad movies. Something so ridiculous it had to be true. Something told in hushed tones like the secrets of some ancient order. Like, maybe she was watching Logan's Run on VHS with her first "boyfriend" in elemntary school and near the end where all the people all crowding around Peter Ustinov so they can play with his hair or something, the "boyfriend" tried to kiss Sarh but missed and almost poked out her eye, however that would work it doesn't matter. And it'd be weird anyway becuase they were still in elementary school and Sara didn't even know much about kissing or romance and so she was completely, irrevocably scarred. for. life, and could never watch the ending to a movie without thinking of that tongue or nose in her eye and wondering why oh god why are boys so weird.

"It's not weird," she sulked. Daniel rolled his eyes.
"it's just the way the music goes at the end, and that fake drama it adds. It gets to me. Look what does it matter anyway?"

"You're basically saying you're manipulated by the movie. You're letting it get to you." No Daniel, actually, I'm not being manipulated at all. You see, this all starts with Michael York, who lives in the distant future, where people live happy lives free of sadness.

"And what really bothers me is that this is hardly sporadic behavior on your part. I think that nearly every movie we saw that has some vaguely sad ending made you cry. Even if they didn't have sad endings, you still cried." Except for the runners, Daniel, everyone is numb. The runners want to be free, to choose for themselves how to live. Isn't that beautiful?

"I mean, you're not particularly sentimental, Sara, so . . . Look, it's really not a big deal. I just want to figure out what makes you tick. It really seems like you want to be sad. That's interesting to me."

Sara was tired of being angry at Daniel, and her tears were almost dry. "Why would I want to be sad?"

"That's what I want to know." Daniel decided to put his arm around her this time. Sara just looked at him.

"I don't think you'd understand, really. I don't know if anyone could."

"That sounds hopeless," but Daniel didn't withdraw his arm. "Crying is pretty important. I'd like to understand the important things about you."

"It's really not important. I mean, it's as important as a lame movie with a corny ending. And it's not because I'm sad. Endings are just mysterious to me, I guess. It's like, it means time has passed and things have changed."

"Remind you of death?" But Sara shook her head.

"No. Maybe a little, but I'm not thinking about that. I think more about how things are perfectly wrapped up in endings to movies or books. Things are exactly the way they should be. That makes me cry because I'll never find that anywhere else but in stories."

Daniel withdrew his arm and scratched his head for emphasis. "What does that have to do with time passing though? LIke what you said just before?"

"Nothing I guess. It makes sense to me, though." Sara shrugged. Maybe she should tell Daniel about Logan's Run? About what it means to be free in the most simplistic, cheesy, and market-friendly way possible, and still feel good about it, to still know that you're crying only for yourself, because you feel like you should, and just not caring what other people think. Maybe he'd understand.

Daniel leaned back and peered at her. "That's really weird." He sneaked his arm around her back. "I'm sorry if I was kind of hard on you, but the whole idea of crying at these movies is really odd to me. It's so obvious to me what these tear jerkers are doing. I've really never felt the urge to cry at a movie. But, maybe you're just different, and that's it. It's a mystery, like you say, and so I'm glad I know at least that much about you. So, yeah, I'm sorry. I won't bother you about it again."

Sara smiled a little at him, but not too much. "You've really never cried at a movie? I don't know, I think everyone has."

Daniel grinned. "I knew you were going to ask that. I'll admit, I cried during Braveheart." Sara tried not to laugh but couldn't help herself. She even snorted a little and quipped "you're such a guy." Daniel explained, "Yeah, it's corny too, I know, but, the idea of fighting for your freedom, for what you love, even if you die, it's totally lame but I can be a total sucker for that stuff. Free to do what you want to in life. I mean, I'm an American. I feel like I have to embrace it. And what's wrong with wanting to be free, even in corny films."

Sara wrapped her arms around Daniel, but she was mostly thinking of where she had put her Logan's Run tape, and if she could find it tonight so they could watch it.

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Word of the day: Sporadic

One Day, One Story. One Special Word

Here's a little introduction to catch you up: I need to write more. I got this idea about how to do it.

I'll write a story a day, I thought.

Cue the blog funeral band, this one won't last too long.

But no! I was born under an ambitious sign. I was also born over a lazy one so we'll so how it works. But I'm going to try. There are worse blogs already in coffins. Mine will go down fighting into that plain pine box.

The conceit behind this blog is to take the Dictionary.com's Word of the Day and work it in to the story. The word can be the epicenter of the story, or simply be used off handedly. Whatever works. As long as the story is written. I'll spend one to two hours each evening writing the story. These will be short stories, usually less than 1500 words, and they will range from science ficton to not so sciencey fiction. I might do something about ancient Greece, maybe, I don't know. This is going to be unfiltered writing. Just trying to get stuff out onto the electronic page. Now that you know this story, I hope you enjoy what I've got.