Entanglement

I went on an OK Cupid date today with a Physicist. It's strange that you know in an nanosecond, not that I know how long that is exactly, if the other is meant for you or not. I walked into the cafe and met his gaze and I knew. A lovely, quiet, humid afternoon in a sultry, depopulated cafe. The perfect recipe for romance, given the correct ingredients, which are Party 1 (immovable object) and Party 2 (irresistible force). Or insert any of your two combustible, highly flammable compounds: Here. In this way, perhaps online dating will help me to strengthen my instincts, my love instincts. So of course, the physicist is not for me, but he will be a darling for someone else, though we spend the better part of four hours discussing theoretical physics, Robert DeNiro, and comparative cuisines of the Mediterranean. He told me about the concept of entanglement--which means that you cannot measure the position of an electron while also measuring its speed. The electron is entangled. This concept was very helpful in elegantly getting out of the inelegant situation that always happens at the end of the date when one party professes a desire to see the other again--and the other party doesn't. "It's very mysterious," I said. "I'm not sure...can I think about it and get back to you?" I demurred. I suggested that I couldn't possibly measure my feelings while simultaneously making a decision about the probability of two strangers drawing toward each other like magnets. He understood. I said goodbye. Science is forever, love is delicate.

Ballade de l'humeur vagabonde

Summer is here. There is a song that's on my I Pod by the legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau called Ballade de l'humeur vagabonde and the last verse goes: Il ne faut rien regretter, après l'hiver c'est l'été, et aujourd'hui comme hier je serai prête à tout recommencer. (One should regret nothing, after winter it's summer, and today, like yesterday, I will be ready to start from the beginning.)

This song came on today as I walked through my neighborhood where I gaze at green, full, bushy trees that have grown so tall and wide over the last few months. It's as if they've supped full at spring and gotten fat and verdant, juicy with life. Everything is green and it's a light, grassy green that covers everything in a splendid act of spontaneous exterior decoration. The drapes match the carpet and everything else--green is nature's black. This green contrasts perfectly with the occasional Japanese maple, whose aubergine and fire leaves suggest red headed beauties rushing through the forest. Testarossa--like the woman, like the car, like the tree. The street slopes in a way the Pacific Ocean slopes at the end of Wilshire Blvd.--toward you, coming at you like wine in a Riedel glass as it goes down your gullet. The effect is the same too--somewhat intoxicating seeing the trees looming and swaying, birdsong echoing against their massiveness, against a late afternoon sky, steel gray, mackerel or maybe steelhead trout, with the ends of sunlight seeping through--all coming at me like wine in cavernous glass--sumptuous, sensuous, and slow.

Walks like these do make me appreciate the world as it is. It's so hard for me to do so sometimes. I hated it here for the longest time and now I am tied here due to job. I never thought I would be in a place so green, and yet here I am. Not hating the winters, not hating the provinciality, not hating the remoteness from perceived centrality. The center is me, I guess.

These plants and their colors make me also temporarily forget my aloneness. And the ghastly online dating bullshit. I so dread doing so, but what choice do I have? I am going on a short trip then going at it like a salt miner or someone digging to China. Soon. After the weekend. Then, my life will be complete.