You want me to tell you about Gab? Ok I can try... I will not be successful but maybe you can get a sense of how I think about her.
Well I guess she's just about the only person I know in China. I mean that's sort of a tangential detail to what I think about her as a person. I actually don't know her from the internet. She used to live in town here. I like to think that if she still did live in town here we'd see each other all the time. I haven't talked to her much lately but she pops in my head a lot, and sometimes I still miss her pretty hard. It's been years since she left, now.
Back when I knew her in person I felt like we were building a really strong connection. It was really exciting for me. We only really spent serious time together on a handful of occasions but it was like an explosion of possibility when we were in current together. You could feel the quality of interaction, like the conversation wanted to go on of its own volition regardless of what the two of us were doing. It scared me a little bit. Her mind is sharp. Open enough that I could put something she'd never seen on the table without her rejecting it, and she'd consider and respond, and yes demonstrate understanding. Particular and attentive enough that if I put some bullshit on the table she saw it. I don't think she'll ever settle down into a cemented worldview that never shifts again because I don't think she'll be able to ignore what's wrong or inconsistent in any set of ideas that she spends enough time with. That's a good thing, in my book. I guess if you really pried I'd have to admit that I kind of fell in love with her, in that way that I fall in love with every woman who can engage me like that. And there haven't been very many of them.
We didn't get enough time to really know each other, but I knew for sure that I wanted to know her. Felt like she wanted to know me too. Incredibly thrilling to feel worthy of that. A lot of what she likes to do with words is a lot like what I like to do with words, and that made me think we had something similar inside, which is exciting. But maybe she's into it for whole other reasons than I am, and that's exciting too. Never mind she's beautiful, beautiful is a whole other kind of scary. I guess on the other hand all my close friends are beautiful. I used to wonder if that was a character flaw or a sign of success. I'm just talking about myself now, I guess.
I hear she's feeling down about the path she's on. On principle I flatly refuse to believe that she's truly any less brilliant or capable than she was when I knew her. But I do imagine that it would take a lot to keep her engaged for very long and I totally believe that some environments would stifle her. Like I say, she's fast, and she wants to engage the world deeply. I'd hate to see her spend a lot of time at something that didn't keep her turned on and tuned in, excited, full of wonder. So anything that tries to box her into some structure that doesn't give her every outlet and stimulation that she needs to feel herself fully is my enemy, for whatever that's worth.
Plus she said she liked my writing. And oh my lord no she writes the sexiest cutup word salad that I have ever seen.