A couple weeks ago, while walking to the park in the evening, I discovered a pretty amazing sight - a sitting hummingbird. Because my mom has a sprawling garden in our patio, I have been able to see the hummingbird quite often since I moved into the apartment, but I had never seen one sitting on a tree branch. It was quite tiny, and I would have missed it if I had not seen it flying about from the distance. The sun was setting, and the bird sat on a high thin branch of a lemon tree that curled toward the hues of crimson and blue - it was really a beautiful sunset. As I went up closer, I saw that the bird's head was constantly twitching from side to side, probably keeping a lookout for a sneaky predator. I knew hummingbirds take these short breaks throughout the day because they use up so much energy when they fly, but I started wondering what that bird was thinking. Which thoughts would be within the hummingbird's intellectual capacity? It could be complaining to itself about how the life of flying for a bit and having to rest is fucked up. Especially if the bird is getting old and doesn't qualify for Social Security or Medicare. Well, maybe not complaining but animals often plan ahead to increase their chances of survival, and they could be thinking about their next flight already. Maybe the bird was thinking about its potential soulmate. It knows that the hottie hummingbird dining on daisy nectar on the next block (probably of Latin American origins) already has other suitors who are far superior, but he can't stop thinking about her. I mean those guys can stay in the air longer, drink more nectar than he can, and make cooler buzzing noises, but who knows? She may find his russet feathers attractive. All he knows is that he has to get married soon so that he can pass on his genes to his sons and daughters. Or maybe the bird was just admiring the sunset. He has a better view if he decides to fly, but then he would have to do a hurried corkscrew routine to make sure some cheap bitchass crow isn't waiting to devour him. Sitting on the tree branch would be much safer, and besides, the fragrance of lemons just gives off the right vibe for these things. A hummingbird sitting on the tree branch just chillin' out. Someone please roll up a blunt for this fellow.

Recently, I've fallen in love with massage. I've become stiff and inflexible over oh the last six years or so, and a lot of tension's built up in my back and neck. My temporary solution has been to ask Jonathan Chang for massages. That man knows how to give a proper massage. He is naturally gifted with strong, firm hands (reads like a WR scouting report), but his true prowess lies in his thumbs. Once he finds the stress spots, he presses gently and then makes graceful circles with varying force that really loosen the muscle up. After about a minute or two, I feel 15 years younger. All my worries and wants have disappeared, and endorphins surge from my pituitary gland. But I know I can't always go to Jonathan for massages because giving massage is a pretty tiring activity so I've been trying to find time to go to an official massage parlor. There are a few parlors around here, and I've researched prices and everything, but for some reason I can't muster the will to go. Part of the reason is that I have developed sort of an idealized vision of the massage parlor. Beautiful exotic women dressed in theme clothing (how much does the wild jungle mode cost?), fragrance of mango and perfumes satiating my senses, candles lit next to the massage bed... my god, a happy ending bitches! (Ok I am joking about the happy ending, completely serious about the rest) So for now, I have opted to watch youtube videos of other people getting massaged. I try my best to live vicariously but the pleasure just isn't the same.

Two days ago when Mai Anh and I finally finished working on our latest issue of The Gamut and went to press, it was about 9:30 p.m. I walked out of the English building through the back door toward the basketball courts and the soccer field, and it was completely dark except for the lights of houses. For a second, looking out at the vast field, I thought I was at the beach. The line where blacktop meets the grass reminded me of the edges of waves, and the night breeze had a salty, smoky incense to it. If you think about it, the presence of night is really an arbitrary thing. It just so happened that this planet Earth rotates around the Sun the way it does, and sometimes there is light where you are standing and sometimes there isn't. And it just so happened that life is possible on this planet, and humans are living on it. Now there is such a thing called nightlife, all because the two arbitrary conditions aligned. Somewhere else in the universe, other creatures are waiting for the bimonthly explosion of the natural Hennessy volcano. And the volcano shall spew in accordance with a lurid aurora borealis...

A GilbertArenas-esque announcement: I don't think I'm going to prom. Want to avoid the hassle and the bullshit.