Dumplings

• I wanted to write in codes all the time, but somethings sometimes just have to be reported unallegorized. Why would I want to? I guess to broadcast to a Big Other but keep my privacy. What an oxymoron. Maybe it's just a fear, a fear just revealed. Now that I know it I can't turn back. Only one way to deal with stupid fears, drive into them. Like a nail. • Today a recurring event happened. Once in a while I'll be in a place that has chairs and people waiting, and this is inevitably what is on this place's people's minds: nothingness. For me it was/is always painful, senseless waiting, lack of teleportation. For others I don't think they notice it with their conscious minds, but they definitely feel it, I see their empty eyes. Some try to distract themselves unknowingly with headphones or books. The eyes are empty anyway. Here, if I haven't successfully distracted myself I people watch. Not men, that's too dangerous I feel. I watch the fearful, mostly I watch women. • There was an epoch in my life when I did this a lot. Looking back it was an admirable, but comically ineffective and desperate way to escape the Languishing. The good ol' days when I didn't know someday I and everyone was going to have to buy our time. I went out, took the tram and went to the end  of the line and back, and only returned home when I felt the day had been properly wasted and was unsalvageable. • Trams, waiting rooms, coffee shops... they are all 'this' place. A place of transition, people aren't prepared to register the other people they see here as people. Time is too short, there wouldn't be time for anything if anything were to even have a possibility of happening. Best to just while away and wait for our stop. Easier. Be part of the Big Wait. The Shinjuku train. There have to be a lot of people meeting here everyday though. They must... • I looked at the women. There are millions of combinations of features that can make a strange woman beautiful, and hence a fantasy. Plus she's still, so you can appreciate it all for a while, maybe even different perspectives. You notice\enjoy them more when they're alone, sharing in the waiting, no friends to distract them with giddy nothings. There's also an exhilaration because you never know when it'll end, in which tram stop will she step out, when will she get up to take her bus, when will her date arrive or when will she finish her cup of coffee. And it'll be so sudden! Better drink in as much as I can. And here comes my Gaze. I have no fear, well, very little, sometimes. I stare. For a long time I'm not noticed. It doesn't enter most people's minds that they'll be watched. Even I've been caught off guard by Starers. They always seem to me to look weirder than me. My Gaze is trained. It's not forever that you can go undetected. The longer the Languishing the more this becomes certain. No one is that self-absorbed that they won't scan around to try to distract themselves from the Waiting. They will see me. And most times I won't even smile, it's a way of extending the plausible deniability of the Gaze. And when they look, my heart jumps, but I'm trained enough that I don't avert it. And the game begins. They don't look away instantly, they need an extra second or two to make sure if it was an accident or if they are falling victim to the Gaze. Then they look down. Some thoughts. I don't look away because I know what comes next. They will throw me a second furtive gaze and look away again terrified. And then they'll collect themselves, rock stare at the floor and almost always I know they can't help but do it, but they try one final courageous decided Glance just to make sure. And still they meet the Gaze. They avert it one final time. After this I finally look away and try not to laugh, again this maintains some deniability. Actually I don't need to look anymore, I know now I exist in their mind, now I'll look away for an extended time until they find enough courage to throw a new Glance, and when they see the Gaze is gone, doubt is cast on their minds, could they be imagining things? Maybe I just want strangers to have me present in their minds like I have them. Perhaps there are hundreds of ugly women and other unnoticeables every day doing this to me but without the guts or technique or boldness to Gaze-trap me. Maybe. Some people are too weirded out after the Three Stares to even look at me again. Some look back a few times. I keep giving a subtle but deliberate Gaze every minute or so, but now I have the priviledge of looking away, they're already mirroring me. But, eventually, it'll be too much for them, some circumstance of their lives must prevent further Glancing. Sometimes though, like today, the opposite happens. • She had curly hair. Sometimes there is a variation in the Three Glances, they're unnaturally long, with a taste of shock. By long I mean an extra second to second and a half longer that usual, an eternity. But I've seen enough (milllions?) of womanly glances to know when they are stirred, and with each passing second the mystique will only heighten. In the following minute gazes, I, recognizing this will put on an infinitesimal smirk, subtle, yet unambiguous. Now Glance after Glance they'll be gathering their courage, but will try not to show it. They'll become stiffer reading their books. Today's book was called "Hiszpania." We must remember though, this isn't the Night, this is the Day, what is happening in unnatural. If it was the Night, I would be asked like I was so many times before "Are you from Spain?" And finally it'll come, she'll look up, calm-looking, Glance and smile. My response is monstrous: I smile back. Their eyes run back to their book, terrified and exhilarated. My heart also jumps here, but I think I'm trained enough for it not to be seen. Now she will avert her eyes for long long minutes, a panic, and now we're in the Dead Zone. I've long given up on taking any bold next step. It'd be too far-out, too unreal, this isn't the Night after all. • Now I'm fulfilled, no more expectations. Some more loose women will actually Glance and smile some more times, but this is even stranger to deal with. Rainy daze. No, just let it got. But there is one more thing to wait for. Just before they leave, there's nothing to lose, so they gather their things and their wits and as they exit the stage they will give one final long Look, a true Look, no Glance, and give a big smile as they disappear forever, as it to say with it "I could have been yours..." • Today was another textbook example, they'll keep happening for many years until I become unsightly. One of these random but eventual pleasures, like strawberries or rollercoaster rides. But I'm somewhere I've never been before now: I'm in love, and at the same time constantly sexually satisfied, which I also never was before. And yet I still want to do this, I still want to fantasize and be a fantasy. • I remember two men from my past, average guys' guys. One seemed like a guy you'd like to have a beer with, only he never touched alcohol. The other was different but similar in the essential points, but from a different nationality. They gave me the same speech. They were both naturals with women, that elusive attribute, and both very faithful, it appeared to me, to their girlfriends. And their point was something to the effect of "Even though I'm completely in love and faithful to my girlfriend, a man always needs the thrill of the hunt, even if, by choice and virtue they refuse themselves the end prey." Back then I was confused by the contradiction, but now I see it's sound. It's a special case of the larger truth of "The destination doesn't matter, only the Journey." • What does this mean for me? I have no clue. But I had a vision of just going back to one of the clubs where I was so miserable and happy once, where I suffered and learned, and just sit there, One Night, on an old table with a beer and just watch, and walk around aimlessly (but with an aim) like I did so many times before, and now have no reason to, or so I think, or think that I think, or want to think, or think because she wants me to think so. • Warmth, I'm good Now. Yet Nostalgia has that magic to it, no matter how bad less good it used to be. And more, sometimes things are cyclical. What was once a distant memory can always become a new Now.