-^-for posterity-^-

(don’t read this unless you read the one below first)

today i had breakfast with my friend who traveled all the way down from ho chi minh city to see me after reading an article about me. i didn’t live up to her standards.

the first time she met me you could see the glitter of expectation in her eyes. you could see the shear joy of meeting someone she had only read about before. i went from a grainy black and white picture and became a real person.

today, when we were eating and she was asking me questions, you could see her disappointment melting away like a mound of crisco in a warm pan. it wasn’t my vietnamese, it wasn’t my answers for her many questions, it was simply the fact that i was too bland and normal for anything she had ever met. i was over-glorified and she came to realize that. i was not some god-like human; i was simply a misdirected boy who had grown up a little but not too much.

we talked and i asked her if her trip down here was worth it. sure, she said. she had never visited long xuyen before and she was glad she did (even though she found it slightly boring). she was also glad she had met me and made me promise that i would meet her the next time i went up to ho chi minh city. however, there was a sparkle of disappointment in her eye. she didn’t look at me the same way she looked at me the first time i opened to door to find a tired, dust-covered girl with a gigantic smile and expectant eyes. i had melted away from a majestic mound of crisco that is white, pure and has character into a bubbling mess of fat in the bottom of an old, char-stained pan.