by syaffolee

It’s hot. It must be the humidity. It’s surprising how much you forget about a place when you haven’t been there in a while. It’s also surprising how much home doesn’t really seem like home when you’ve been away. It’s my parents’ home now. Everything is alien, like trying on a different shoe that looks like yours but really isn’t. My old room–I can’t feel comfortable working there because I feel as if I’m invading someone else’s privacy.

But my main complaint is that it’s hot. The atmosphere, using my Mom’s term, cooks. The clouds always look bilious. It wants to rain but doesn’t–a bloated Venus. Wearing lots of clothes? Insane. Wearing as little clothing as possible? Also insane. Exposed flesh is mosquito fodder, and I’m the most awful mosquito fodder there is. My skin swells red in an area the size of a grapefruit. And it doesn’t itch. It hurts, like hell. It’s almost as bad as my allergies during September.

Being “home”, I realize that I miss diversity. Although I didn’t quite fit in on the west coast, I blended somewhat. Here, I stick out like a sore thumb. Whenever I have to talk with someone, I hope desperately that the first thing out of their mouths is not, “Do you speak English?” Everything here, though, (except the Chinese food) is cheaper, and I guess in my mercenary mind makes it mostly better.

I’m proud to say I’m not turning into a couch potato. I only watch the television when my Dad remarks, “Oh, the news is supposed to be on in a couple of minutes.” Then I spend my time making fun of the local journalists, Barbara Walters, and the intervening car commercials. Even if I wanted to watch the television, I would have to interrupt my grandmother’s Chinese soap opera watching marathon.

So see you after the weekend. I’m escaping to Atlanta.