Another coinki-dink?

Can't get onto my page, dammit. Wonder if anyone else is having this problem?

The usually uber-reliable Blogger is chapping my hide.

Not so much to report this Monday. I went to another party, but it was very different from the Smeagol thing of last weekend. Curly threw it at his guesthouse, and until 11 or so, there were eight people there. Etsuko and I arrived at a little after 9 or so, and we paused outside the house, wondering why we couldn't hear anything. Upon seeing the paucity of shoes in the foyer (remember, we take them off before entering houses here), we looked at each other and smiled a little. "Not like old times, is it?" Etsuko asked. "No, not at all," I answered in regretful tone.

When KB and Borough were still living there, if you'd arrived by 9, there was usually no more space in the small foyer to leave your shoes -- you had to take them off on the steps outside. And the inside of the house would be so crowded that separate little parties appeared to be taking place in the bedrooms.

"As we always knew," Etsuko said, "[KB] was the popular one in this house." It's true that KB had a lot of acquaintances, being the friendly, open sort of guy that he was. Feeling rather badly about the implicit comparison we were making, I said, "Well, there was [Borough], too. And the turnout isn't that bad for a one-host party compared to three."

The party was very quiet, and conversation a bit stilted. Some more people came around 11, but we left at 11:45, when I begged off with the excuse that the subway was closing (true, but in the past, of course, I would have just slept over at their house).

That was pretty much all the social interaction I had this weekend. Even my grandmothers were out of town, so I stayed home alone, intermittently watching American movies and working on this damn reference book job.

But wait just a blessed moment, Batman! Holy moly... I just had a brain fart and looked up an old entry to confirm that yes, those coincidences, they keep a'comin'. At Curly's party, one of the glamorous Russian twins showed up. The twins, both thin, blue-eyed, dark blondes who dressed to the nines each day, smoked like chimneys, and rarely smiled, like the good Bond girl prototypes they were, both graduated from language school with Curly last year. They were famous in school, as much for their language ability as their style.

So a year ago? To the day? Oh yes, and I ain't lyin'. Not only did the same twin show up at a party I was attending on Saturday, June 27, 2003, KB and I walked her home before I stayed over at KB's again. I remember saying to KB, as we walked back to his place, "There are just these nights that you don't forget, and I'll never forget this night, walking a pretty Russian twin home with you at 2 in the morning in Seoul."

Indeed, I haven't forgotten. What's more, I haven't seen Irina since that night a year ago.

Goodness gracious, St. Ignacius!