A couple days ago I was in the public library and I saw a woman who I found stunningly attractive. She was three tables away from me and I kept on looking up to astonish myself at her beauty. Perfect hair, round face, perfect skin.

Mind you, I'm done with relationships. I'm done with "being attracted to" people. I'm done with intimacy. These things, as a matter of practice, do not cross my mind. I have no problem in seeing someone of the opposite sex and objectively observing, even appreciating, their aesthetic qualities, but such an assessment in no way ever gives rise to desire.

But seeing this woman in the library, it was different. I was bewitched. I imagined that given the proper sets of circumstances, I could find myself drawn into entering a relationship with her. If we had a common language, if we were in a social setting to get to know each other, if we had commonality to be interested in each other . . . I just might be tempted.

Or not, in reality. I resisted Hyun Ae and there's no reason to believe I couldn't resist any other temptation. The calculus involving considering where this would all lead to, and the conclusion being, from a practice point of view, no where I'd want.

But I couldn't stop looking at this woman. I was having trouble establishing an upper limit of her age. She could have been young enough to still be in her 20s, but I finally decided that it was possible for her to be as old as 37. Within my range.

But as time went by at the library, something changed. I don't know if it was a trick of the light, but as I kept looking up to catch glances at her, she changed. She didn't change before my eyes, just between furtive glances.

She wasn't beautiful at all. She was no where in her 30s, but late 40s at best, even 50s. Her hair was dry and middle aged, and her face wasn't round but oval. At first I wondered if the original woman had left and this was someone completely different, but no, her clothes were the same as well as the pen she was using.

After that, I continued to steal furtive glances to acknowledge a complete misperception.

I'm not reading anything totally strange in this incident. My pragmatic, scientific side sees it as psychological misperception. Mind fooling me. It wasn't something magical or mystical whereby the appearance of something changes before my eyes (or between furtive glances).

Still, there's a side of me that doesn't totally side with science. Science does science very well; science is great with science, but I also don't believe science explains or can explain all various phenomena in the human experience.

Subjectively, I remember seeing a woman who was ravishingly attractive at one point, and then ordinarily old a little later on. I'll accept an objective conclusion of delusional perception. I would never testify my experience as evidence of anything. Still, I recall what I saw, and I have to acknowledge to myself that strange shit happens even just to teach us something and that makes it no less real.