I could win with 清一色 and two flowers if I could just complete the eyes.

Your birthday falls on a Thursday this year.

— Google Review of Industry City

a loss of signal
now a constant rendering
this app is useless

1/5 stars

At the Hong Kong import video store in Sharpstown, De-di would find cantopop karaoke LaserDiscs. He unwrapped each sleeve like he was producing an iridescent moon. He had an impressive Sony Hi-Fi setup that took up the entire closet no one was allowed to touch. Before I was born, you both still drank Heinekens and sang.

While peeling a pomelo, you always joked, 呢個係囉柚-唔係碌柚.

1. I’ve Heard That Song Before – Harry James & His Orchestra
2. Paper Doll – Mills Brothers
3. Sunday, Monday Or Always – Bing Crosby
4. I’ll Be Seeing You – Jo Stafford, Paul Weston & His Orchestra
5. Don’t Fence Me In – Kate Smith

YOUR HIT PARADE
(1943 – 1946)
Record 3
Side One

想你想你苦痛
等你等到我心痛

I didn’t realize there’d be quizzes at a bridal shower. My only reference point was that one episode from The Summer I Turned Pretty that I didn’t pay attention to. I made a joke about the question that asked what wedding object symbolized “the vein of love.” No one laughed. As the bridal party took photos around a wall of plastic leaves, I thought of the wedding photo in your bedroom. Your wide smile crowned with a tulle bonnet. I could see your little crooked tooth. I had a matching one before Invisalign. You told me your dress was rented.

I wonder what determines what you remember about dreams after waking. Last night, I had an extended dream. Attempting to retrace it this morning, I was left with certain vivid details and a sense of loss. There was a large home I was attempting to furnish. While giving a home tour to a friend, I found a room I had forgotten about, blank and stark white. In the center, a jumbotron projecting a boomerang of some girl I knew in middle school who was on the varsity soccer team. She was flashing her jersey number: 4. 四.死. The room led to an abandoned mall with wide halls and shuttered stalls and three auto walks that undulated like hilltops. I was walking beside Mitch Graham who was arguing with me about the distinction between “sun-smell” and “outside-smell.” I believed (and believe) that the smell your clothes accrue outside, when drying or walking around, is an accumulative outside-derived smell. Whereas Mitch Graham argued it was a purely sun-derived smell. To end the debate, I laid belly-down on the autowalk as a joke, but as I reached the crest, I realized I was alone. There were no guard rails. I shook awake to that falling feeling.

Where are all the fushigi balls now?

We found a mahjong set in the rec room closet of the cruise ship, so you taught us how to play. The tiles still sound like waves to me. When I kept losing, you ushered me to the restroom. You rubbed my soaped hands between yours, assured me we’d wash away our bad luck.

During filming for Top Hat, Ginger Rogers walked off the set, refusing to perform the dance number for “Cheek to Cheek” unless she could wear an ostrich feather gown she’d designed. The studio had considered it too excessive. America was still recovering from the Great Depression. But Rogers got her way, infuriating Fred Astaire, who had a tantrum about the flurry of feathers in his mouth and eyes as he twirled her through the air. He nicknamed her Feathers.

我講比你聽, 我家姐真係我嘅仔.

At my summer solstice party that was just a cover for a birthday I didn’t want to celebrate, Ryan surprised me with a blueberry chiffon cake from Paris Baguette. He brought it into the apartment the previous week wrapped in an orange safety vest and convinced me it was discarded coolant from his factory. I believed him. I don’t know what that means about me. After the party, I noticed the cake had gone sour overnight. I didn’t have the heart to throw it away, so I let it rot in the fridge for another week until Ryan returned from Massachusetts.

I bought myself a rug that I’m ashamed of. One that I nearly missed a therapy session over and had to blame on a fictitious overzealous work meeting. More shame. There are too many rugs in this world and too few available in a 5-mile radius on Facebook Marketplace. The shame emerges from a sense of excess. The rug emerges from a warehouse in Las Vegas.

The Monmouth Camera Club awarded you first place in the Beginners category. I learned this from Melissa. I checked your blog. It’s been abandoned since ’22. Per usual, I had to go searching for you. I found your photos. I really want to ask where you find these overdressed models.