the worst part in my dreams about korea is the part where i die there. actually die. crushed underneath a red hot subway car or hit by a random falling helicopter or strangled in a back alley (they portray gangsters really scarily on the new videos). or, feeling utterly alone in a country of people i have dismissed categorically, and momentarily depressed, i do something ridiculous. so to die, all alone with undevastated relatives and an ocean between me and anyone who cares. subconsciously, distance really is a killer for me. honestly...! i wouldn't write this (because how embarrassing to come back all alive and having written this) if i didn't actually fear it. already i feel a great distance between me and the place i am right now and the people in it. like, for most people i know, this is the last summer, and for me, the last few weeks, that we can really anticipate spending in poughkeepsie. it's a town of ugly policemen and little girls with uncombed hair and bare feet; it's a town where you might have to go from one fluorescent-lit diner to another to convince yourself you're not in your house (gas prices being what they are, pointless late night rambles are less feasible and less liberating); it's a town where the new housing developments spiral endlessly, modular homes which are just outgrowths of huge, crap-filled garages. a place where you can judge how well-traveled someone is by how well they know the silly names of said housing developments. maybe not how well-traveled...how many doctors you know. regardless! none of this sucks, per se. and it's not that depressing to live here or even just to visit here. if you want to be depressed, after all, you can always find something about a place and nearly any person. but just the mood i'm in now, the one where i fall asleep at 4:50 in the afternoon then wake up an hour later, and think that it's 6 in the morning. but that i need something or i need to feel, as soon as tomorrow morning or hopefully saturday morning, that things aren't finished and that i still have things to think about, if not talk about. it'll come... :^) i was thinking - at least on a 16 hour plane ride, i'll be relieved to alight on a touchy new ground and the momentary shock of a different language could actually just startle my heart into happiness.