Simona

I couldn't write this post until after I moved the blog because Simona has been a regular reader. I've been spending a lot of time with Simona, starting just around the time of the Great Yuko Debacle. Shopping, dinners, Japanese study sessions, and watching and laughing at sappy Korean soap in the dark under a curtain/make-shift blanket. It's even less romantic than it sounds.

She took a few dance classes. She also played a decade-plus of piano. She paints a little, and writes a bit. She doesn't watch TV but once watched the whole X-files series in marathon sessions. She drinks infrequently but in great quantity (I still remember, at Tyler's party where I met Yuko, she brought a whole bottle of 2 buck chuck "for my personal consumption"--who does that?). I think she spends a lot of time on the web/chat. She talks slower than most, but I'm not sure if it's because she contemplates about what she says, or if it's because she's from Iowa. At any rate, she takes the time to answer some of my best questions, which I appreciate.

She was a philosophy major but doesn't, or can't namedrop philosophers or books. She's smart, in an offbeat way that is appreciated by few and offends the rest. She's sharp enough to have piercing observations about people and situations but isn't sharp enough to keep those observations to herself. As far as I can tell she's capable of some really sick humor.

She keeps comparing me to this other Stanford guy she knows named Patrick Iber. I don't like it when she does but I haven't told her that.

To be continued.