Last week, I voiced a corporate video for some smooth, silky, lingering chocolate. It was an internal, non-broadcast piece about market growth in China and therefore did not require so much of the luscious, velvet touch, or tones really, to sell the milky swirls. Was I offered any of the product as perks during the recording? Consuming dairy coats the vocal chords with mucus that clogs the throat and results in instant professional death by chocolate. No, but tempting, it was.

As a relief from the bitter, winter cold, I like to go toasting to warm up the body thoroughly as well as give my slow circulation a bit of a stir. Now that I have been exposed to enough radioactivity to match Chernobyl, I gave up my tanning salon membership that also maintained my healthy glow. Instead, I opted for an afternoon of beauty maintenance and pampering: oxygenating facial, rejuvenating eye-treatment, along with a full body scrub, followed with a short steam, then an all body mud mask under a heat wrap of 75°F. What kind of mask? Chocolate, of course. I slithered slimily as not two, but four deft hands smothered every inch of my bare skin with warm, dripping, aromatic chocolate. I giggled under wraps and sweated away, luxuriating in heat.

My sweet tooth is awakened, as well as heightened, especially during the holiday season. Benefits of having accommodating, generous friends who are also chefs? Gourmet fudge brownies on request, baked from scratch, no less. Just let me taste it already. Oh Creamy, come linger my way.

Highlights: Viva Voce, Yum

At a small gathering this week, it came up that a friend's brother was killed in a car accident back home in Europe. Our friend received the news while out at a bar here in Shanghai, his reaction itself that day could only be described as 'awful, simply awful'.

A close friend of mine yesterday informed us that he found his sister dead in their mother's home in the US earlier this week. She had died in her sleep, proper cause unknown at this point. She was in her mid-thirties.

How are we supposed to reconcile with life's injustice and cruelties? How does one begin to accept that life can indeed be unfair, and be at peace with that when there's still so much pain to wade through? Where do we find the strength and courage to trudge ahead? Why didn't our loved ones have enough of the same strength and courage to make it through in the first place? Why simply isn't there enough of it to go around?

Bloody full moon again, the biggest of the year. I can't stop crying.

My grandfather died today twenty years ago.

Highlights: The Universe