recent conversations in the new age

A and I go for asam laksa at a Malaysian place in Chinatown. Before we eat, she says, "Can we hold hands?" I'm startled. Why? She takes both my hands in hers, which are thin but strong. She closes her eyes and says I need not do the same, but I do, and I think about how nice it is to be sitting outside with a friend, hungry with a bowl of noodles in front of me.

C says, "Is it ridiculous to pay $75 for a 1/2 hour psychic reading?" Then she says the money might be better spend on "rolf and craniosacral stuff, " to "balance [her] body out." She talks about "sacred knots." It is a question of the relative weight of L.A. spiritual esotericism versus immigrant thrift. "I might need more psychic therapy. I want some guidance...but that's a little ridic, right? $75 for a psychic reading."

R, who hardly knows me, says, "You're a funny person, but you look heavy today." She says, "You want to be an artist, don't you?" Later in the conversation, she says she needs to dangle a pendant over my heart chakra to see which direction it spins. She is from San Francisco and speaks the local language: "Girl, I'm pinay...I can bring it on the dance floor," for example, and "I used to be hella straight."