NO VACANCY
The Monkey King

In every really loving relationship there is always that moment when you realize you like each other very much. For me it came scrunched onto a small couch with three or so other people (maybe?) one of whose pulse I could feel against my arm every time her heart beat. It was the middle of summer at a conference in the mountains of Pennsylvania, no air-conditioning and very hot and sweaty – particularly right then. Smashed up against her I knew right then that she liked me and I thought I liked her very much.

She was smart, brilliant really; and mystifying in the way she left herself so unexplainable. When giving a speech on my travels to China in front of several hundred people , I thought about not being nervous because I knew she liked me and she was more impressive than anyone else in the room. Why worry about what anyone else thinks when you have her right beside you with her arm right there against yours. I still feel that way. No matter who I fail to convince I know she still thinks I’m alright to sit beside.

It is nice to impress other people though particularly when you are surrounded by brilliant people so much of the time like I am in my graduate courses where people publish academic articles in five languages and I’m still struggling to do it in one. I may impress a professor or two with some small bit of diligence but they'll never like me for-real like my little Nvwa does. So when I give Jennifer a snide response to her advice to stop drinking coffee if I want to sleep a few hours later, or tell her to do whatever she wants (i.e. I don’t care. Stop babbling. You don’t really matter) when she comments on the durability, but aesthetic failure, of some small article of her clothing when we are folding laundry, I’m really asking for a big disaster. I still need Jennifer squashed up on my side telling me I’m ok, because I’ve never loved anyone so much.