its my last day at work here. the office recently moved to a different wing in the same building, its fancier now, river facing, large deck/terrace, more space, looking over the local statue of Liberty and Gellert hill, the castle, etc. but I kinda miss the old office. the rooms here look unfinished, unhomely, not yet ready for conversations and musings. today though I found a nicer one unlocked; it looks onto the old office windows and doesn't get the sun either in the morning or in the afternoon. (it is summer here too, and finally I am turning away from the sun). most women fellows when they leave, they spend time saying their goodbyes to other women, getting them small gifts, having cake with them... and a brusque handshake is enough for their male colleagues. to me it feels both like my first day was just yesterday and that I was a different person when I came here. it feels both very short and memorably long. and the two people I feel I got to know the most are men. my saying goodbye was thus a few drinks at a place. it started out slow, but soon we were talking about age and gender, and from there onto monogamy and fidelity and philosophy/bullshit. the guy I at first thought was cold, is actually just hard to read, and I told him so after a couple of caipirinhas. the other one mostly just watched and listened to our opposite views. it all grew into something we will remember for sure. I walked home wondering how and why i let out so much; I also divulged that I think I am bisexual and that maybe there is no line separating hetero and homosexuality. and so today I am relatively quiet even though the talker was goading me into a continuation of yesterday's conversation... the quiet guy i have felt a strange connection with. it calms down when we are together. people around kinda blur out. and he talks when others are missing. he said he doesn't like opera, ballet, or poetry. and the last thing he read was something by Bukowski: short stories. are a poet's short stories that different from his poetry? what is poetry anyway? since the conversation with him, I looked up the short story that lent its name to the collection. and I read a couple poems by him too. poems feel like short stories without the skeleton of one, i.e. without the skull, ribs, bones of a story, without the assertion of having a beginning a middle and an end. poems feel like moments picked randomly out of a continuum of storytelling. and that short story felt like a poem, with the rythm and life of the person who was its theme, her energy and death both tragic and lyrical. i saw mental illness in it, and some history of trauma (that's what I have been reading about). but you could say we are all ill, traumatized, and tragically beautiful. alive, and in death if someone grieves for us. i am in a strange mood today. its not sadness, its not regret. its stocktaking maybe. or being quiet after an unplanned confession of sorts. a few days ago I told hubby i was falling for this guy. that i could finally probably understand how someone could love two different people simultaneously. yesterday's conversation with drinks, however, gave me perspective; i barely know him and vice versa. maybe in a different universe it would have gone differently. and today I saw his eyes rest for a moment on my white shirt, maybe my pink bra was showing through under the breast pockets. the thought causes me discomfort. and yet it feels like a small detail to forgive, in comparison with the air that we share, the times his eyes searched mine while going out of sight, and the way we ask how the other is the very next day as if we can sense and want to ease the turbulence we cause each other. life sometimes overwhelms me. and at times like these death seems a small part of life itself. like today's news of Shinzo Abe being shot. how are we capable of feeling and absorbing so much. how do we not drip, leak, and spillover?