Today’s soundtrack: I land to sail, island said
Today at 3:02pm: Me and Shady scrubbing the windows with newspapers.

To me, there’s Us and there’s Them. Us is me and my immediate friends; Them is everybody else. I’ll go out of my way for Us but I’m not jumping on any grenades for Them. The ruthless logic of crowded lives demands you do some editing, of both activities and people.

Anyways, Ben asked me to hold a surprise party for Eumi at my place. Which didn’t seem unusual because my apartment has often served as a social nexus; what seemed strange was the reason for the surprise party, Eumi’s decision to attend grad school. Lots of people go for their Master’s, few receive fêtes in honor of such.

Nevertheless, Ben is one of Us and so is Eumi, so I spent the afternoon tidying my place up and getting it guest-worthy.

At the appointed hour, 10:30pm, there are a dozen of us hiding in my living room. Ben and Eumi walk in.

“Surprise!” some of us yell, in a disjointed and disorganized manner.

Ben suddenly speaks up. “Before you get all excited, I gotta tell you something. You thought this was a surprise party for Eumi but it’s actually a surprise party for you.”

Before I can figure out what the hell he means, he takes Eumi’s hand and raises it in the air.

There’s a rock on the finger.

He couldn’t have done it any slicker; everyone’s kinda shocked and I know my own jaw is agape. It takes me a second to process Diamond Ring + Finger + Ben + Eumi = Wedding. In a second the room erupts into applause and congratulations for the two of them. Holy shit! Two of our friends are getting married! He had proposed to her earlier that evening.

I’ve been to my share of weddings, but they were all acquaintances, Them. This is the first time one of Us--pardon me, two of Us--will be getting married.

When I moved to Japan in ’98, Eumi was just an acquaintance who was subletting my apartment. She lived there for a year while I was gone. Ben, who lived down the hall from me, met Eumi and began courting her that year.

Four years later the two of them walk back into the same apartment, where all of us are waiting, and announce their engagement. Not twenty feet away from the spot where Single 1998 Eumi used to sleep. I wonder if they could have ever imagined it.