October 31, 2021:

She's like a teenage girl who knows the boys are looking. Flashing smiles, standing up, sitting down, dancing, turning on the charisma, in a manner which is calculated, and self-aware.

She has perfect skin. Glowing bronze beneath a black sun dress, Hawaii-bound. She has perfect teeth, perfect posture, product of finishing schools, or modeling schools, of training in any event, and money.

We make each other nervous. She wants me to look, to grant my admiration. I don't want to look, in part because I find her frankly unattractive. There's something too nouveau to her, as though her perfume were Eau de Vested Options, a Silicon Valley fragrance.