A good chunk of ancillary piece
Between you and me, there are OKRs and business strategies. By day, I’m still a tech girlie.
Dear friends,
“Please do remind me who chị H. is,” the partner responded to me as I told him we had spent some hours ranting at Blackbird Đặng Dung.
Riding pillion on a Grabbike, “the one that said ‘Go nuts baby’,” I texted him back.
“Chị H. is A.’s bestie
an innovative agriculture expert
remember the sending-T.-to-the-States operation amid the pandemic?
I dropped my luggage at her place on Cửa Bắc
then stayed over at L. and A.’s Tông Đản apartment”
“Oh okay,” he replied with a firm thumb-up.
Sardined in congested traffic on the most Hanoian street of Phan Đình Phùng, I traced back collective memories with chị H. and her friends.
When was the first time we met? The ice cream parlor in West Lake area she brought me to on a gloomy morning is now permanently closed. I remembered browsing their Facebook years ago and learned their Saigon branch still stood.
Memories bring back memories. It feels like an extensive bibliography of my previous life from which I extract bits of footnotes to lay in front of a new person I’ve just invited into.
“Open sesame,” has someone even said that to you?
Sometimes it’s not even a fresh introduction but a network of connected dots.
“The person who shared lunch with me on Lý Thường Kiệt Street’s sidewalk, remember?, and the person whose dad has a detailed biography on Wikipedia that my friends and I only found out when we were waiting for our nem lụi to be shipped and having nothing to do rather than reading countless entries on Vietnamese public figures, remember? Those two persons are actually this person [pointing to a random screenshot].”
Lengthy is the statement and most of the time it makes little sense. However, isn’t it how you picture a human being who in a certain timeframe presents to your life – a glimpse, a slice, a moment, a lazy afternoon lounging in a coffee shop after indulging three glasses of espresso tonic?
And by doing so, you expose some fragments of yourself.
“Hey, take a look, this is the way I see others.”
Have you ever thought of how a footnote about you might be read?
And if it’s too much to ask, I hope you have someone in your life you feel safe sincerely sharing about the bubble embracing you within.
Till next time,
T.
P/S: Human Rights Day today. I wish you freedom and health. Always remember, love is an absolute human right.
This week’s top picks
An “interesting” piece on bedtime stories with AI-generated voice mimicking Jimmy Stewart
A “documentary” series on Andy Warhol with AI-generated VO
A podcast ep ft. Mona Chalabi.
A draft recipe:
Braised silky egg tofu with mushrooms [use porcelain/clay pot if you can]
Sautee minced garlic and onion with a splash of hot oil
Add mushrooms (king oyster, oyster, enoki) – stir-fry over high heat
Add sliced bell pepper
Season with oyster (woah too much oyster) sauce, salt, MSG (don’t come at me you know I always use MSG), hot sauce and soy sauce to taste
Add egg tofu, give it a light smash, cover the lid
Serve hot over rice!