in the end we fried them

Five layers on top and two on the bottom. Winter is here. Unpeeling to pee is a surreal sense of digging to uncover one's lost self. There are two big fish in a red plastic basin on the bathroom floor, with a rusty bottle cap at the bottom. One is dead, one breathes carefully. Poor TS. His gifts went unappreciated. The girl at the yoga place screwed up her face, gave the exact reply we had. You're giving me a live fish? I don't know how to fry fish!

Just make a soup with some tofu, he said.

We went to his house for lunch Sunday. I sat in the sun - on a pillow on the wood floor - and tried to read self-help books in Chinese while almost everybody else hovered in the small kitchen. The lunch that resulted was incredible. Sweet, sour, spicy, salty - dishes to fit anyone's taste. Fish ball soup with mushrooms and cabbage and then we walked to the nearest park with a blanket and a pomelo. A perfect Sunday afternoon.

My roommates had decided to try to set TS up with another counselor. (He's 28, and already has a house; how could he not be ready for marriage?) They hadn't told me, and I didn't get it for a long time. I kept laughing at HY's, "No really, what kind of girl are you interested in?" and "Since you've bought an apartment in Nanjing you must want to marry a Nanjing girl!" and changing the subject, trying to protect the poor guy. In the end he was unruffled and maintained an enigmatic near-silence on the subject.