delicate splinken please, not this again. 030305 ... epitome of incomprehensibility "Don't tell anyone, but my front teeth are fake," E. said, smiling but lowering her voice. N. said that no one could tell. I nodded, and was about to talk about my wisdom tooth extraction (the dental surgeon had been impressed by my "curvy [tooth] roots"; those sexy curves meant they had to blast the tooth in half) when E. started explaining. I shut up. E. had been walking down a street, a routine walk, when a bomb blew up in front of her and a piece of shrapnel hit her in the face. She said, calmly, that if she'd taken another step forward she probably would be dead now. "But it was only my teeth that were knocked out. And thank goodness it didn't destroy my beautiful face." She smiled defiantly, a bit sarcastically. Her smile, being pretty close to objectively beautiful, belied the sarcasm. N.'s eyes widened and her words were shocked sympathy. B.'s were admiration at her bravery to go on and do things. I didn't say much. I frowned at her almost getting killed in the past, smiled at her "beautiful face" quip, and decided not to mention wisdom teeth. I sat with her that day at lunch. It was still summer. She wanted to sit in the shade since, she explained, she sunburned easily. If you looked at her face (pale, even-featured), listened to her tone of voice, or considered her mannerisms, you might think "delicate". If you're me, you might think it a bit dismissively. You might want to read The Glass Bead Game instead of answering anxious questions like, "Do people here usually wave when they see someone they know? What's if they just want to say hello? No? Not to a stranger? If I want to ask my landlord for something, what's the best way? You don't know? Can I just walk into the McGill campus? When I was at the University of Damascus, you had to show your student ID to get in. Not here?" The department in Damascus was better for her particular concentration of research, but the war forced her out, and she'd gotten her permanent residency after a student visa. When the 25,000 refugees started coming she was not quite them. Her mother was still in Syria, relatively safe but far away. She complained when the air conditioner was too cold. B. thought she complained too much. Privately, she said to me that it was "almost insulting" that B. and N. consigned her to boring, repetitive tasks - even as an intern she could do more interesting things. "Is this what administration is usually like?" Is it? ... Notes to self: 1: Those who escape deadly danger are still entitled to complain about little things. It's a semi-free country! Even more, it's a Complain About the Weather Country! 2: "Delicate" can be tough. "Excessive femininity" is not a complaint I should make about anyone, male, female, or otherwise. 3: I'll probably see her at the artisan show, but will we say hello before then? Is everybody as busy as I am? Can I make friends? Can I make friends if I keep writing about people? 160929 ... e_o_i She didn't come to the artisan show, but I did see her at a grocery store this past Saturday. After saying hi, she asked why I hadn't given her a recommendation on LinkedIn since I said I'd do that. I also gave her my number and said we'd get in touch, but I walked away thinking, "Annoying, annoying. I'd forgotten how annoying she was." But when I got home and dropped off the stuff I was carrying, I realized I HAD said I'd write her a recommendation thing and I'd forgotten. So, that was on me. And carrying lots of stuff shouldn't make me irritated with people who stop and say hello. Oh, and I'm glad I wrote about her on blather or else I'd have forgotten when she did the internship. I guessed summer 2016 but I wasn't 100% sure. 190610 ... tender square these streets are slicked with the threat of hydroplaning. electric in your element, you charge me—my spirit lingers like a droplet on the precipice of slippage. bathe my body in clove water, fill my limbs with airy gypsophila, so that i may meet night with my fingers, to comb through the tangled tributaries of stars in search of release. 210912 what's it to you? who go blather from