Blank Doll ruminates on a rainy day.

How quaint, that a singular creature could alter the meaning of a mere word, shorn it of the sophistication that was its right and then make it a cles-main of pathetic-hood. Yes, I am speaking of the word 'rumination' and if you have to ask then you haven't read it yet.

Dinner was fulfilling. It was all dishes in preparation for Chinese New Year and non-Chinese people would only think it gross so I shan't recite the menu as I usually do when I'd had a particularly delicious meal. You know, I should be one of those old socialite reporters who duly recount the conversation du jour, the exquisite menu where the Comte de Valiere had capons simmering in cream and jus des truffes, the chef in question being M. Roulles and without questioning, the remarkable topaz worn in cabochon style and flanked with a filet of diamonds, the mentioned article worn by none other than the Duchess of York-Estaard. Oh think of all those dinners, all those mornings spent at the Longchamp, all that gaming a la Macedoin at the salon, think of the weekly hunts, the nights at the demi-monde. Think of the gout, the VD, the guillotine, the liberals, the *gasp* working class.

Yes, I certainly would enjoy it but I am Chinese and nostalgia means something else for a Chinese, especially a Chinese who cannot trace his blood-memory back to China but must construct his heritage from texts by Anglo historians and the recurrent whispers that seep by the immigration counters, by the famine-ravaged ports of Canton and sink, embedded within the subconscious of a Chinese who cannot rightly call himself a Chinese anymore than he may call himself a French.

But therein lies the difference. The Chinese is still an Asian, as am I but I will never be European, that vulgar brood that when raised to the pinnacle of the world by virtue of luck, engendered an order that is no order, a community based on exploitation, the destruction of international accord.

I speak no more for now.

C'est tout.