I-Babel

I'm getting married to the greatest girl I've ever known!

2008-08-03T13:02:00.007-04:00

Alright, this post has been a long time coming. I kept thinking, "well, I should write everyone and tell them I've gotten engaged...but maybe I'll wait until I know when the wedding date is."
Well, that, and I wanted to tell the "how we met" part - but I started writing about it in a letter to my Grandma, and it's nowhere near done, though it's already 16 pages.

Guess why I'm writing now.

Guess guess guess!

It's been just a little over a year now since we were engaged - but actually, neither of us is sure just what day it was. I proposed to her as part of a trip we took - she didn't know it, but I'd had it planned as part of this trip as soon as we started talking about going. It was from the 18th until the 20th of July 2007, so anywhere in those days was part of the proposal, as I see it. There's a couple good stories in there. I'll tell you sometime, if you'd like. I think it was on July 19th, but having a two or three day celebration never bothered me, nor does having a three-day window in which to remember our engagement. I suspect we both will remember the date of our wedding, though.

It was a really beautiful place, too, where I proposed to her (it's called Green Island) - I've had pictures of it up for a while, but never said anything about it. You can see them here:
Green Island Photoset
I've got more than that, actually, and will upload them...before I get married, I hope.

...

I was going to say, "before we get married", since obviously there are usually two people in a marriage, but then realized you might think I was talking about you and me, which, while flattering, is not quite what I had in mind. Especially since 3/4 of you are guys, family, the wrong age, or...whatever else. No, 家寧 and I are getting married. And it is soon.

Our Wedding Date:
OCTOBER 25th, 2008
TAIWAN
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Awesome!

I'm really excited, though it may not come through well since I am writing this late at night and my body is telling me "the sun stopped working like 5 hours ago, dude. He's a hardworking guy - hasn't called in sick like, ever. And he's old. So trust me, he knows what he's doing. You don't need to be up now."
While I appreciate the sentiment, I want to get some things done. I want to tell you I'm getting married!

Some of you may say, "my goodness, that's quite soon. How are you going to carry out a proper wedding in so little time? And with your budget?"
Those are both excellent questions, for which I have two answers:

1. Hard work
2. Simplicity

Also, it helps that it'll be in Taiwan, and most of the crazy wedding expenses are not so bad here. They're fairly reasonable, actually, since they haven't been infected by the bride cult yet. They have probably just as many divorces, though, so it's just a matter of time before women find they can be a special pretty princess lots of times.

If you want to come, I would love to welcome you. I'd be happy to see you here! I'm guessing my side of the aisle is going to be...uh, thin. I guess that happens when you get married in some strange, foreign place that is not actually inside America.
But if you can make it - it's really nice here. I bet you'd like it. Everything besides the plane ticket is pretty cheap, and a lot of Taiwan is really pretty. The people are nice. Also, you can gawk at all the weird junk. I know that's appealing. I don't even have to describe it to get your attention. You already must suspect there are some bizarre things to be seen here, and you are right. Come see them.

My writing seems even less joyful than at the beginning, so I suspect my body is winning by default. There's only so long you can overrule it, and it's reminding me that I didn't sleep enough last night.

But I'm really excited! I am getting married to 家寧!

I used to think that wanting to spend the rest of your life around one person was hopelessly optimistic, or the sort of decision made by people who thought interest rates on their home loans would never rise. "Everything is always gonna be great!", I imagined them saying.

I am now one of those people.

Seriously, though - if this were a marriage based on attraction, or lust, or love, or whatever, then yeah, chances are it might not survive. I'm stubborn enough to not give up, and I think she is, too. So we'd probably last until we died...but that's just survival, not thriving.

It might be unexpected, or sound weird, coming from me (since many of you knew me in the past), but I've decided to re-dedicate my life to God. I did things my way for quite a while, and...all I have to say is that wasn't one of my best-considered choices. If you'd like to know my thoughts on it, read on - otherwise, you may as well skip a paragraph or two.

There's a lot of things that seem important in this world, but none of them can outlast God. And that's what I wanted - something that mattered. If something can be lost in an instant, or even a thousand years - if it can be lost at all - it may be beautiful, but it doesn't add up to much, because it will be lost. I can chase after glory, or fame, or power, or wealth, or knowledge - but even if history remembers me when I am gone, this world, and these people, too, will pass. Scientists say that everything in the universe eventually will drift apart, even, and that life in the end - or even anything at all - will be impossible. Whether they're right or not (science is about revisions, not necessarily being right, after all), that's not much to look forward to.

Without God, we can only pursue the things of this world that seem the most important, the most lasting. But God never passes away, never fails. Only in God can life be meaningful. That realization was the start of my return to God, who is always faithful...even when we're...not. That's the polite way of putting it. I'm really grateful for that, because I am certainly not the best maker of decisions ever to walk this world.

So I want to thank God for renewing my life - for letting the old me pass away, for his faithfulness, for everything. I realize, though, that anything I say is going to be totally inadequate, and that actually being associated with me in any way is probably not going to do His reputation any good, and that I probably have no idea what all he's even done for me, so I am going to do my best to live a righteous life through Christ. That is the best praise I think I can give - a life well-lived, dedicated to his service.
So if ever I am successful, remember, it was God, not me.

But I'll take your checks.

Heheh.

So, what does this have to do with marriage?
I must treat whomever I marry with love and respect, sacrificing whatever I must for her sake, just as God has done and is doing for his church. And that woman is 家寧, who I deeply love. I am eager to marry her, and to spend the rest of my days with her. And in the future, even when things become difficult, we will know that our marriage is founded on God, not ourselves, and so despite our failings, our marriage may persevere. We can always rely on God. And we not only should forgive each other, but are commanded to by God's word. This is something we've already got some practice at, and I am thankful that petty things like our egos and hurts can't get in the way of our loving each other, so that we do not become bitter or spiteful towards each other, but can remain always loving, and so be a good example to all who see us, and a reminder that God loves his people.

I just want to thank God again, for all that he's done - I can't imagine being able to meet 家寧 without him being involved - I mean, I know he's got everything under control, but our meeting was really too unlikely to even consider. If I made my life into a movie, critics would think it was preposterously dumb and blindingly obvious. I think God gives me a little more guidance than some people, because I tend not to see things right away...so I suppose that would be a fair criticism, that the arc of my story is pretty obvious.

Well, good night, everyone! I will be writing more often here in the next couple months, and I hope to see you at the wedding! Even if not, we'd both love to hear from you!
Remember, October 25th!

I wanna be like Putin

2008-04-26T20:27:00.001-04:00

Wow. Now I wanna be like Putin. Techno+fat guy on armchair+singing girls+clips of Putin = electoral win?

Original Lyrics:
I want someone like Putin.
My boyfirend has got himself into trouble again,
Had a fight, downed a lot of crap.
I'm so fed up with him, I dumped him,
And now I want someone like Putin.

Someone like Putin, full of strength,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't drink,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't hurt me,
Someone like Putin, who won't run away.

I saw him yesterday on the news,
He said that the world is at a crossroads.
Someone like him is easy to be with at home and with friends,
And now I want someone like Putin.
Someone like Putin, full of strength,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't drink,
Someone like Putin, who doesn't hurt me,
Someone like Putin, who won't run away.

English Lyrics

My boyfriend is dumb, he smokes and he's drunk
My boyfriend is dumb, more than Powers Austin
I told him get out, I need a new boy
I thought and I know he must be like Putin.

He must be like Putin, that to begin
He must be like Putin, then I'll give in
You must be like Putin, there's just one way
You must be like Putin, you'll not run away.

Strong Bad Game

2008-04-13T16:47:00.001-04:00

It's been a long time since I posted anything. Well, I'm not going to write anything just yet. But did you know there's a StrongBad game coming out?

Things lately, or late things.

2007-10-26T01:32:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a while since I've written. I've been pretty busy lately, is why - I'm taking 5 classes in my major, and they're all quite a bit of work. I'm auditing Chinese, too...I should be writing more and speaking more than I am, but, I have been busy. Heheh...and all this while trying to keep things up with 家寧, who had the bad taste and contrariness to be born on the other side of the planet. (She knows what I've been up to! But I guess the rest of you don't.)

I'm taking so much at once because I thought I still needed 30 credit hours to graduate - before the semester started. After it did, though, I found that, in fact, I only need one class more to graduate after this.
And I can't take that other class now, or in a shortened form! Agh. So I'm here one more semester, for one class, when I could be in Taiwan. It's possible that I might be able to do it by correspondence, but that would really depend on the teacher.

I'd be able to handle all the classwork, normally - I've done this much before. But I've fallen behind. My truck didn't get driven much while I was away. It did get used, but not enough. I feel bad saying it - my dad spent $1000 of his own money trying to get it running again right before I got back.
And I've spent, maybe not $1000, but a significant amount of time trying to get that damn thing fixed. Obviously I don't have any money, since I haven't worked in over a year, and just got back from a year of spending (a very pleasant one, though! You should try it sometime! Except I'm afraid you'll have to find your own girl/guy to fall in love with. Unless you've already found someone...which many of you have...so...skip that last part.), so I can't afford to put it in the shop - and I don't really trust them, anyway.

Heh. Actually, I had been thinking recently, if I'm going to be married soon, I'd better know how to fix cars at least a little. So I'd been wondering about how to go about that. And then my car is broken! Prayers really do get answered!

So, yeah, I have the Haynes manual for my truck, and I'm pretty good at guessing, so that's what I've been doing.
And it's mostly worked.

I don't even remember what all I've done, but, among other things, my fuel injectors started acting up. I took them out - the number 5 was dead, I think, and it looked...clean...which was not a good sign, as the rest of them were so filthy I thought they'd melted. Heheh. A little cleaning fluid fixed that right up. It's amazing stuff.
And a new fuel injector. 5 was dead.
There was the fuel pressure regulator, too.
And a new fuel strainer and filter. And spark plugs. And oxygen sensors. I think the oxygen sensors started a lot of it, actually.
A new fuel pump, too.
Mostly my truck wouldn't go very fast or reliably; it chugged a lot, it smoked, it backfired, and on a few occasions, it died. It liked staying dead, too. And unfortunately, it didn't always die at convenient times.

Part of this was also because the fuel tank was rusty. It was like looking into a deep-sea wreck. Except you can't smell gas underwater...so far as I know. And, though the minorest of rediscovered relics often find absurdly overblown praise, no one would have been excited at its discovery, except maybe fuel-tank sellers. I wasn't - excited or a seller (nor a scrap-metal buyer).
So, in addition to the truck not always knowing how much gas it needed due to the malfunctioning O2 sensors, the rust flakes were plugging up the fuel pump and filter.
So that was a pretty good combo for a dead truck.

I spent a lot of time fixing it - each time I thought I'd got it about done. Well, that's not true. When it was chugging and misfiring, I knew it wasn't right, but I thought maybe if I just added some fuel cleaner it'd get better in time. In reply, my truck died.
Death is a lousy form of correspondence.

So anyway, I'd gotten everything I mentioned above done, and at first, things were working real well. After a couple days, I noticed it had less power and some hesitation starting.

So I'm going to school one day. The truck is getting shuddery on the way to Athens. I'm concerned, naturally, but I figure it'll be alright. It is sometimes. I'm optimistic. And I do get to school just fine. I end up getting there a little late due to my truck, and so I have to park on the fifth floor of the parking garage. That's almost at the roof - I've never parked up there, and that morning, I'd never seen the top, either, and I thought about parking up there just for the novelty of it.
I didn't though. I got lazy.

I went to class, like usual. I talked to 家寧 on Skype for a couple hours, like I usually do, since there's a big gap between my two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My last class on that day got out at 4:45, and, since I get there at about 9:20 or so in the morning, I'd had plenty of time to forget that my truck was acting up.

So I went out to start it. I was anxious to get home; it'd been another long day and I was hungry.

It didn't start.

So I wasn't happy, but this was also nothing new. I started messing with things - when I'd tried to start it, the engine had turned, but it was not firing up, and I couldn't smell gas or anything, so I guessed probably it wasn't getting any fuel. Or that it didn't have any fuel. It was really, really low...so I decided it might be out of gas. I was hopeful. There's a gas station just a block or two away, so I decided to go there.

It had looked like rain all day. Naturally, the moment I stepped out of the parking garage, it started raining. So I started jogging. Then it started pouring. I always was fond of reciprocity.
So I jogged uphill the one or two blocks to the gas station, by which point I was rather confident about my non-flammability.
I grabbed a new gas can (probably the 6th or 7th that I've bought - my parent's garage is beginning to be littered with them...hmm...a litter of gas cans...what would whelp that? A gas could? Oh, sorry, that's a lousy pun.), noticed it cost more than the gas I would buy, and walked the the counter.
The guy looked at me funny.
Now, you may not know this, but I like rain. I grew up in the desert, remember. Also, I think I like miserable conditions. I nearly always smile, unless I'm really in a lot of pain from it. So, if I get stuck running in the rain, I don't complain - I smile. Especially when it's dumb or absurd. I kind of enjoy times like that.
So this guy sees me, wearing about 10 gallons of water and an idiot grin, holding a gas can, and says something like, "well, at least you got a good attitude." I agree, thank him, and go get my gas.
It does, in fact, cost less than the can it's in.

So I start running back down the hill and discover - oddly - that my hand is getting wet. I thought it was wet already. I didn't know wetter felt different.
I didn't put it together for a few more steps...
and then I realized I was sloshing gasoline out of the can and onto my hand. That's why it felt cooler!
It turns out the can lacked a tight seal. So I walked the rest of the way.

I got back to my truck, wet, smelling of gas, and hopeful. I flipped up the fueling hatch, dumped in what remained of the gas, and discovered that only most of the remainder was obtainable. The rest, due to the poor design of the gas container, could not be poured out. So I twisted the thing around in an effort to get the rest out, and I succeeded, but as you guessed, nearly none went into my truck.

Still, it was probably a gallon and a half. More than enough to run a vehicle.

I got in the cab, got my hopes up, and turned the key.
*cough*
*grr-rrr-rrr*
nice. I tried again.
*grr-rrr-rrr*
Yeah. I always liked getting growled at.

So, since I truly am a pretty optimistic person, I decided to pull out the fuse for the fuel relay, or whatever it might be called (I forgot and I'm too lazy to look right now), in hopes that when I put it back in, the fuel lines would automatically be re-pressurized.
And sure enough, when I plugged it back in and turned the key, I heard the fuel pump doing something.
Not anything particularly, just something.

I turned the key again.
More coughing.

Well, that was unpleasant but not unexpected.
I decided to see if there was pressure in the fuel lines, so I took it apart just up from the fuel filter - there was fuel in the line. And just below it, as well. I knew this because it all spilled out on me. I knew that would happen, of course; I'd positioned myself so it wouldn't spill on my face - so it managed to dribble all over the metalworks down there, from which the path to my face and other non-fuel-using parts was fairly clear.

So that seemed fine. There was fuel in the lines. So I thought maybe the fuel pump was dead - if the filter had been too clogged, there would be little or no fuel on the up side of the filter. Of course, if the fuel pump was dead, why would there be any fuel in the lines at all? But I didn't know. I had to have some sort of answer, even a bad one.
I messed around some more, but I don't remember with what. This was all taking some time, and I actually had some people stop and ask if everything was alright. That surprised me. I think it makes a difference if people see you, and can't pass quickly. They're more likely to stop then. Or maybe it's a thing of being used to seeing things in certain places - it's normal for people to be broken down on the side of the road - it happens all the time and is nothing remarkable. But being broken down in a parking garage is not normal.

So, having concluded that it was a simple matter of a dead fuel pump, I decided the best thing to do would be to call a towtruck. It's a long trip from Athens to my house - about 45 miles - so getting towed is not cheap. Even so, it's going to be cheaper than going to the shop. And it wouldn't be the first time that month. Besides, this time I had a cellphone with a towing plan.

(I'll continue this sometime soon. It won't be a 3 month wait, this time. Heheh. And, in case you were wondering, no, I didn't forget about the other things that are unfinished. I am actually working on one of them, slowly.)

to be continued....

The Interpretator, Part Three

2007-07-31T22:15:00.000-04:00

I was right.
And the corner's angle was not. Oh no, especially not after I pried it open. If it hadn't been postmodern to begin with, it was now. Or it was just a ruined sloppy drywall and detritus job. More like a rat's nest, really.
That, I suppose, was appropriate; pack rats should live up to their names, after all. Me and Confucius agree about that. "If names are not rectified, then language will not be in accord with truth." And all that follows from that. Especially things being hard to accomplish, and the unjust punishment bit. Yeah, he was a smart old guy.
Enough speculation. The hell with those dead old ideas. There was a hat to be concerned about -
and it was well worth being concerned about. Mostly in that I expected it to fall on me, and crush my ribs. The thing was damn enormous.

Not too heavy, though. Actually, not much heavier than a heap of feathers and poorly-sewn quilts, which it seemed to be composed of. I was surprised it could stay upright. It was as tall as a fancy wedding cake. The kind parents of spoiled brats dread. The kind their spoiled little daughter will demand, to dwarf those of all weddings she's seen before.

Yeah. It was a big hat.
But not dangerous. Except for being magnificently, proudly ugly.

Just to be sure, I tried to wear it.

Well, I couldn't really stand up in here, not with the hat on. No mirror anyway. How could I tell if it was dangerous, if I couldn't see how bad it made me look? My reputation, what there was of it, wouldn't be helped, I was sure. I brushed the broken plaster dust off, then moved to turn -

and found myself examining the ceiling again. Except my face hurt. And so did my ribs. My ears rang, too, as though to give me a message. I didn't appreciate their help.

Had they come home and thought I was an intruder?
The lights were still off. I eased my eyes around the room...the left was a bit sore with me, I guess, and wouldn't open up more than halfway. Still, though, there wasn't anything there.

Except a dent in the wall. More than a dent. A sideways sinkhole. And all that moved were a few crumblings of plaster and paint flakes from it.

No, there wasn't anyone there but me.

A dark form caught my eye. A crumpled heap on the floor! Did they -

Oh, hat. Right. Just a hat.

I eased my way up, like an illegal at McDonald's, trying for management. I wanted for something to comfort my nerves; whisky, namely. I had none.

Going from the floor up felt like trying to earn time off. It was slow. No paycheck, either.

My time off the floor, once earned, involved more aching and throbbing than I'd planned. I hobbled first to the wall. Damn. That hole was about my size. No way could I fix that tonight. I could barely stand...my legs hadn't wanted to complain before, I guess, when I hadn't been asking anything of them.
So I hopped and span until I faced the closet. A bit of the doorframe was missing. I found it right away, though: that was in my hand.

Alright.

Good a place as any. Misery loves company and all. What the hell, though? Like I held it while I was being shoved.

The only other thing that'd changed in the room, was that the hat was on the floor.

The Interpretator, Part Two

2007-07-08T02:05:00.000-04:00

It was a shame the woman (it had to be a woman - no self respecting man I know would write like that...and the legible handwriting was a pretty clear clue, too) hadn't given much hint as to where the hat was.
But I had an advantage. She was a parent. Parents always hide things in closets. Sometimes the attic, but seriously, no one likes going in the attic, and she was probably afraid of spiders or something, so she probably put it in a closet; likely hers.
That's how my parents were.

So, I was digging around: I found all sorts of things - unpaid bills, Christmas cards separated into two piles, some hole-filled clothing that someone must've meant to fix, bank statements, and some stuff that convinced me most everyone's more kinky than they let on. Man, you just never know someone till you dig through their closet.
But there was no hat. At least, there were hats, but I couldn't find a way to make any of them dangerous. The closest I got was, I looked dangerously queer wearing them. I guess that's something. Maybe they were concerned about the kids cross-dressing or something. Who the hell knows?
I took one last look at the closet.
Yep....
It was a closet.
Odd corners and all. Full of junk, like a closet. Maybe more dented than some - one of the corners looked like it'd been poorly repaired - but, hey, not everyone's an expert.
Ah, maybe they sold it.
So I went downstairs to my couch. And sat. If closets were only full of junk, then I guess couches were only good for sitting. Nothing interesting was going to happen tonight. Same as ever.

I'd been counting the specks on the ceiling. It wasn't one of those sprayed on ones that some houses had, but nonetheless, there were quite a few spots. Must come with having kids. It wasn't entertaining. It beat TV. I was just counting again, even assigning constellations, when something occurred to me. The bedroom, and closet, were directly above this room. There were no odd corners here. In the closet, of course that'd happen on the one side, since there's always some machinery or odd angle in the attic, but on the side where the load-bearing wall was, if there was something there, it should continue down to the ground, unless it was done as some sort of post-modern commentary on the structure of houses, and society, and the family in general. I doubted it was. Unless the whole point of it being hidden away and never seen by anyone was...
No, that was dumb. How many frustrated postmodern architects were there, anyway?
I would check out the closet again, because there was something odd about that angle.

The Interpretator, part 1

2007-07-07T13:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I said I'd write for an hour every day...but my mind is not cooperating much right now. How's this for an extremely terrible story? Odd that an unproductive mind has born some fruit.

THE INTERPRETATOR. INTERPRETATING CRIME.

It was a dark, drizzly day. It always was. Shouldn't even be called day around here.
I was just settling in for a dark, drizzly evening of couchsitting. I wanted to make sure it didn't go anywhere, and, while I wasn't getting paid good money to do it, I was getting something: the opportunity to watch TV in someone else's house.

You might wonder why I don't go home and watch the tube. Well, home doesn't have Japanese game shows. Or Korean soaps. Poorly translated Chinese everything. No, this was definitely a perk of this particular job. And this was a job I intended to see through to the very end.

So, yeah, I was being paid to sit on my ass. Not a bad deal. And not one I was going to leave.

I guess I should mention I was also broke. That also helped make the job.

So I had pretty well settled in, watched a bunch of trash - the usual poorly budgeted soaps from Taiwan, complete with ghosts and insane people setting their homes on fire, some puppet shows, a transcendently beautiful Korean soap that nonetheless was indistinguishable from every other Korean soap ever made, a Japanese show that, as far as I can figure, was about humiliating both children and their parents, and probably some other stuff while I was half-dozing.

I woke up a little when a kung-fu drama came on. It had some guy flying around in what looked like a big red tube. Not sure what that was, but at least it was different. For the hell of it I dug around in the cushions. I'd like to say dag. I really would. But, you know, I'm just real regular about some things, and I guess I'm just gonna keep saying dug. All the usual accumulated crud was back there. I pulled some of the less gross stuff out to see if it was worth anything.

There were the usual keys, bits of popcorn, coins, dead bugs, dog's/children's toys, the remote, just very mundane stuff. I'd wondered about that remote, before. I supposed I could change the channel now, if I wanted. I didn't, though. There was a note, too - "honey, I am putting the speed hat away. I don't want you letting the children near it. It's much too dangerous."

I looked at the crumpled, (soda?)-stained paper again. A dangerous hat?

Well, that sounded better than whatever shit was on TV.

More things you should know (about Taiwan)

2007-06-17T12:49:00.000-04:00

At the top of my blog right now there is an ad, "Urination cone for women." That's what I get for writing about toilets, I guess.

As you may have guessed, last time's short list didn't cover everything.

So, without further ado...

大

That's the character for 'big'. It's said, "da", with a descending tone. Not condescending. Descending. You know the way you speak? Most of you probably start a sentence off at a higher pitch, then get lower as you come to the end. Think of going from that high pitch to the lower, finishing pitch, but in one sound/word.

It looks like a guy with his arms spread really wide, doesn't it?
It's good to know.

小

That's 'small'. It's said something like (shiao), with a descending, then rising tone. Do the falling tone, like for the last character, then think of the way you end a question. You know the way your pitch goes up? Do that right after the falling tone. It's all done on that one little word.

It's good to know those two characters. When you go to order food, the server might ask you whether you want a large or small order, or they might be listed on the menu.
Also, you could recognize the name of my school, which is 台大 (台 is short for 台灣 - that's Taiwan, and 大 is short for 大學 - literally, big school/learning).

And yes, the tones do matter. If you say da with the falling, rising pitch that's used in 小, it means "hit", "punch", "fight", or play. So probably, you don't want to say that. If someone asks what you want, and you tell them you want a punch, what do you think might happen? heheh.
And if you say 小 with the falling pitch, it could mean "smile", or "laugh". Getting either of those is better than a punch, but it will not get you food, or clothing, or whatever else might have different sizes.

Alright, that's enough characters for now. You probably think they're a headache. You're right. They are. Those are simple ones.

One thing you will notice right away - people here do not want to get tan. At all. Girls walk under umbrellas when the sun's out (or when it's raining. About the only time they don't use an umbrella is when it's cloudy; probably half the time). People do not go to the beach to tan. (Actually, they don't go to swim, either. So I'm not sure why they go to the beach. But they sure do! Beaches are crowded on weekends.)
Stores are full of whitening agents. So for those of you like me, that is, ghostly pale, you will be greatly envied. If you're a woman, you can probably get a modeling job here.

It's not that they want to look like white people. Not at all! No, it's here like it was everywhere else in the old days - having a tan means you're poor. Farmers are poor. Farmers are out in the sun all day, as are almost all other manual laborers. They're all poor, and they all have tans. Only people who can afford to stay inside are pale. I assume this will change in time, but for now, pale is sexy. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Not a very nice segue at all, but the next thing you'll notice is trash. Actually, it's probably the second thing you'll notice here, after toilets.
First: one might be inclined to ask, "WHERE THE HELL IS THE TRASH CAN?" Or, if you're more patient/polite, you will simply carry your trash around in your hand or pocket for the better part of the day. It's hard to find trash cans. I asked someone why that was, and the explanation I got was,
"So that people don't throw trash all over the place."
Yeah.

When you do find a trash can, there will be recycling next to it. Notice I did not say, "there will be a recycling can next to it." No, there is unfortunately no singular form for recycling can in this country. There are always at least four separate kinds of bins for recyclables. Good luck figuring them out.

One last thing that you'll wish you didn't notice: trash trucks are musical. You see, Taiwan has not yet invented or imported the dumpster. The concept of a large garbage container apparently eludes the best and brightest of Taiwan. So, that means you have to hold onto your garbage until the trash truck shows up. You run out to it, hurl your garbage into it, then go home. It's like watching the stupidest ambush, except that no one is excited.
Oh, and all that sorting of recyclables you did? They all go in the same truck. But it's required by law that you separate them.
And the trucks all play "Für Elise". Not even the whole thing, either. Just the start. Over and over. You can hear its biting, electro-chiming barbs floating across the city everywhere you go.
I'd say I can't stand the tune now...but...check this out!

Gotta admit, that's pretty cool.

That's it for now!

Things you should know

2007-06-02T03:21:00.000-04:00

Should you choose to come to Taiwan, there are many things that either you had best know already, or that you will learn.

Chopsticks. You will use them.

While Taiwan is a very modern country in many ways, people still insist on putting sticks in their mouths. I suppose everyone keeps some old habits.
Forks and knives are sometimes available, depending on the restaurant. If you go to an actual sit-down restaurant, they very well may have silverware available. Don't count on it, as this is only a possibility. If you visit a food-vendor's stall, or someone's home... you have two realistic choices: use those sticks, or find a way to eat with your hands that doesn't look too barbaric (or get you too greasy). Or you can eat like a dog, I suppose, though your host may not be impressed. (Side note: from what I understand, some of the older folks, especially the mainlanders, still think of all non-Chinese as barbarians. Jokingly. But not that jokingly.)

Toilets. You may be surprised.

Again, while Taiwan is a modern country in many ways, there apparently is some fondness for squatting over a hole in the ground; this is expressed in modern commode design. In a concession to modernity, they now have ceramic holes in the ground, complete with flushable water, and a splash guard. You do not sit on them, you squat over them. The upside is you never have to touch another filthy toilet again. That is a rather major advantage. There's no downside, unless you have bad balance, and then the downside is where your hand goes. There are sit-down toilets in many modern bathrooms, like in the MRT stations and nicer shopping areas; some are even aggressively modern and have a bewildering assortment of buttons and options - these are imports from Japan. I have no idea what the buttons do, aside from the heater, the bidet function, and what looks to possibly be a service bell.

Toilet Paper - more confusing than you think.

Since we're on the subject already: upon entering the bathroom, you will notice that it smells worse than what you're used to (well, most of you). And, should you enter a stall, you will notice a small trash can. This is not where you put your old coffee cups and food wrappers. No. It's a sort of paper that comes into contact with ...post-processed food, shall we say, when you're on the....

Yes, they have signs and everything. "Please do not flush toilet paper." They warn of all sorts of dire consequences. Or they'll anthropomorphize the toilet and it'll be saying something like, "PLEASE DON'T FEED ME TOILET PAPER, I WILL VOMIT."
Maybe I exaggerate. But not by much.

Toilet paper. No, of course we're not done.

I should also mention that bathrooms often have no paper whatsoever, unless you count the ones that have thoughtfully been pre-moistened and pre-tested for you. (I suppose if you wanted to be clever you could substitute a three-letter word that rhymes with "pre-"). You can find those in the can. However, for those of us who are not fond of strange people's bodily functions (or even those we know well - perhaps they are worse, in some ways), you must bring your own tissue. Fortunately, nearly everyone carries some with them; it comes in little pocket-sized packets. It's ubiquitous. Hucksters and advertisers of all sorts will hand out free packets of tissue as you pass by, especially in election season. They are not pointing out your poor hygiene. No, those packets all have pictures and ads on them. They travel with you everywhere, for quite some time, so you do have a better chance of remembering them. However, you also tend to associate those politicians or products with something that rap has been accused of being (and with which it even rhymes!), and I'm not sure that's...productive. (Side note: if you sweat a lot, people will offer you some of their tissues. They also wipe tables with them.)

English. Oh, the fond memories.

If you are familiar with English, if you think of it fondly, or at least dislike it only a little, you may enjoy reading the English in the local environment. I'm sure most of you have heard of "Engrish". If not - it's what happens when the rest of the world tries to use our language. The Japanese are apparently the worst and most serious offenders, but the Chinese are giving them a serious run for the money. Sometimes it's simple, but odd, matters of word choice - archaic words are a favorite. For example, when you ride the MRT, you will hear: "when you alight, please heed the platform gap." To my knowledge, I had never before heard someone actually say that word. At least not in that sense. Other times it's a matter of mis-spelled words that accidentally spell something funny. Other times it's just...odd. At home, we can buy a Corvette, or a Camero, or something like that, right? People ride scooters here. This here's a scooter town. So, naturally, there are many makes and models of scooters. One of my favorites is the model called, simply, "Heroism." I had never thought it possible before to ride a concept to death. But someone has found a way. Oh, and speaking of death -

Traffic. Better than third world countries.

Scooters are popular, as I mentioned. Sometimes it's the only transportation a person, or family, has, and I can report that yes, it is indeed possible to fit an entire family - Mom, Dad, brother, sister, baby, and the dog, on one scooter. When I say scooter, you, like I did, probably think of some puttering mis-begotten motorcycle. That may have been accurate once. But I know, from personal experience, that they can generally attain 50mph fairly easily. You are not strapped in, of course, though they recently passed a law here requiring all riders to wear helmets, which I've heard is helping.
Anyway, there are swarms of scooters. They buzz about everywhere, weaving. There are also a fair number of cars, trucks, busses, and etc. Many of them are, like the scooters, not especially careful. And that brings us to -

Taxi drivers.

They want you to die.

I don't think they care one way or another whether they get paid first; they probably would prefer you dead before you arrive, since in that case they can take all the money off your corpse. They will ignore all rules of traffic whensoever the whim strikes them. Red lights, blind alleys, blind turns, steep mountains, canyons - these are merely obstacles, and ones deserving only contempt. Never tell them you are in a hurry; they will take this as an invitation to show off their car-chase skills, in addition of course to their general disregard or outright disdain for human life and safety. If ever you want to make a cheap car-chase movie, this is where you'll do it. Just...you wouldn't be riding in it yourself, of course. That's what actors are for.
Oh, I got sidetracked for a moment - I forgot to mention that for aesthetic reasons, all taxis have their seatbelts jammed somewhere inside the seat. If you search, you will not find. Just give up. You're going to die anyway, might as well be in a taxi, going somewhere.

On the positive side, they are relatively talkative and even somewhat friendly, which makes their fierce disregard for life somewhat...jarring. Also, fares are cheap, compared to most places I've been to.
And finally, regarding your well-being, we have:

Medicine. Better than you thought.

If you're only taking a short trip, let's hope you don't get sick. After all, you can get sick anywhere, why try it somewhere new? However, if you're here a little longer, something is bound to happen, and when it does, you're in luck. Taiwan has a good medical system. True, they don't always have the very latest surgical techniques or equipment, but they are more than competent in what they do have. I'm totally uneducated, and the wrong person to make this sort of assessment, but I'm here, and I'd guess Taiwan's medical system is just 5-10 years behind ours in general. Anyway, going to the doctor here is very cheap. If you go without insurance, the fees may approach what you'd pay in the US for minor things. But if you have the national insurance, or are a student, you are in great luck. For example, we have a clinic on campus. Before I had insurance, a trip to the doctor cost $90 NT ($3 US!). Medicine was extra, but generally only cost another $2-300 NT. Now that I have insurance, it's only $50 (~$1.70 US!) to see the doctor, and medicine is included. I went to the emergency room a few weeks ago for reasons I already wrote about, and that only cost me about $600 (or $700?) NT - less than $20 US. Not bad.
I hear some people come here just to have surgery done - it's like Mexico, but better. And friendlier.

Anyway, that's about enough for now. There's plenty more to talk about, and maybe I will soon. 再見!

Beaches in Taiwan

2007-05-30T13:47:00.000-04:00

Another sudden interruption of nothingness!

Do you wonder, when God interrupted the nothingness the first time, was it irritated at the break in its routine?

Probably not. Being irritated would be something, which is exactly what nothing is not.
Anyway.

I recently decided I would write for one hour every day. That won't necessarily always be here, but that means I probably will write here more often.

So, I suppose I should say something.

I'm going to post some more photos pretty soon - 三個星期以前我跟家寧去沙灘倒了．I felt like typing in Chinese. Of course most of you can't read it, so here's what Babelfish says I said -

Three weeks before I rather went to the sand beach with the family but actually

So now you know Babelfish is crap. Let's see if Google is any better!

Three weeks ago I told Andrew Ning goes to the beach

So, now you know you should never, ever buy automatic translation software. Even if I totally screwed up, which is very possible, the two shouldn't be quite that different, right?

Here's what I think I said:

Three weeks ago Jianing and I went to the beach.

So let's assume I am right (my understanding of 到/去 is not very good, nor is my understanding of grammar in general, in any language. Surprising for someone who likes to write, isn't it?) in saying that, and move on.

Something you should know about Taiwan: many of the people here either do not, or cannot, swim. I thought this was strange at first, but it turns out there's a good reason for it: it rains really hard here. No, it's not that they're tired of the water, though I suspect some wouldn't mind sending a few fat rainclouds somewhere else - instead, Taiwan is a very mountainous and small island. This means that rivers are very short, and when they are flowing, they flow very hard. Swimming in the rivers here could be considered a suicide attempt at worst, or the culmination of a life-long habit of drinking heavily and having bad ideas at best.
"Well, what about lakes? Or the ocean?", you might be saying. As for lakes, there aren't many - as I said, this is a very mountainous (read: steep) island, and not especially large. There just aren't many lakes. They've found space for a few reservoirs, but those are off limits as they are drinking water (this has never been a problem in the US, I know, but this country has its legal quirks. Whether I meant oddities in the legal system or quirks that are legal, I leave up to you. Either would likely be appropriate.).

That leaves the sea. As I may have mentioned, the island is quite mountainous. It rises sharply from the sea, and just didn't see any reason to stop once it broke the waves, I suppose. What that means is, where the water meets the land, it does so violently. This has been a brutal conflict, as one can see from the many boulders torn from the island's side, lying unmoving in the water, but even now fighting against the breaking advance. In other words: if you get in the ocean, it means either jumping off a cliff, or scrambling over slick, sharp rocks. Once you do get into the water, the ocean will simply slap you, hard, until you have helped to break down one more rock. It is not expected you will be of much help, or that you will survive the process, but the ocean does not care; it is tireless in the pursuit of victory. It's just too bad you won't be around to see it, or, even if you were, there wouldn't be any land left on which to stand.

So the ideal beach that springs to mind, long, sandy, with nice regular waves, no horrific undertow, not too crowded, and lots of sun, undoubtedly does exist; I have seen it. It is just not a Taiwan beach.
But there is one that's not too bad, not far from here. So we went there. And it was nice. Fortunately, it was raining, or it would've been crowded. And I got to take pictures of pillboxes, which is something I always felt cheated of doing on other beaches.

So I'll post those pictures. In the next few days, likely.

I think I should write about things you should know before you come here since, in fact, a very few of you are coming here soon. And the rest of you can just get a nice idea of how this place is different. But I won't do it today; it would be an extremely long post. So for right now, I think I'm going to say goodbye. Well, write it, anyway.

Something I've had on my back

2007-05-20T09:46:00.000-04:00

Sorry to interrupt the regular silence, but I have something to tell you! Lots of things, actually, but not so much time.

For about a month or so, I was extremely ill. Before that I'd only been kind of sick for about a month or two. You see, I had something on my back.

Literally.

A year or two ago, I noticed a lump on my back. It appeared, but then didn't get any bigger, so I figured I'd ignore it. I pointed it out to the doctor who screened me at UGA before I came here, but she wasn't concerned, either. So I mostly forgot it.

Sometime in late February or early March, I noticed it was growing again. And it hurt. And it was red, and hot. I figured that wasn't good. Also, I started feeling weak and tired. After a few day of ignoring it, during which it unexpectedly (but predictably) did not get better, I went to the doctor. He asked, among other things, if I had a fever. I said I didn't think so (both I and 家寧 had been feeling my forehead for just that reason, and it seemed normal). He had the nurse check.
It was 38.4 C, which at first did not concern me, until I saw everyone's worried expressions and did the math...that's 101 F. I'd probably been running that for a while.
They started me on antibiotics.

After those ran out, I thought I was feeling a lot better, so I didn't go back.
Stupid.

After a few days, I felt like crap. I was running a fever. I went to the doctor, he was upset that I hadn't come back right away (though he'd never mentioned it and talked like I only needed the one week). He started me on another round of antibiotics.

That was on a Wednesday or Thursday, I think. Friday of that week, I started getting tiny little red dots everywhere. I ignored it at first, because I'd gotten extremely hot during the night (I was alternately freezing cold or boiling hot for almost the entire month or two), and thought they might be caused by heat. In the back of my mind, though, I worried that they might be a reaction to the antibiotic.

And I was right! I was now allergic to that particular antibiotic. I noticed that because the next day, the red spots were big, tall, and red and angry-looking. It's good to watch out when you've got spots like that, just the same as people who can be described that way. I can't remember if I ignored them one more day or not, as I intended to go back to the school doctor when he reopened; whatever the case, 家寧 persuaded me that that was a bad idea, and that we should go to the hospital right away. Unfortunately, that meant going to the emergency room.
We waited there a long time. When the dermatologist finally saw me (a specialist! not a general doctor!), she was extremely concerned, and gave me all sorts of medicine, and of course a different antibiotic. I think I was taking five different kinds of pills every day. I felt like an old man. I probably looked like one, too, as bad a shape as I was in.

The awesome part? Going to the emergency room cost me about $15 US, since I have the national insurance here.

The spots cleared up fairly soon, and my medicine ran out. I think I ran a fever again, and went back to the school doctor. He gave me more medicine. I went back to the hospital, and the dermatologist there said we should take out this cyst, or tumor, or whatever it was, but first we'd have to get rid of the infection.

Sometime later, possibly only a week, I woke up on a Monday morning. That is normal. The unusual thing, though, was that my throat hurt obscenely, and I could barely speak. I went to class anyway.

The next day was worse. I thought I had a fever again. I went to the doctor, and he said it was 38.5 C or so. Unfortunately, 家寧 had to work then, and go to her class, and I wasn't able to speak anymore. I was able to gesture and whisper, though, so the doctor and I communicated alright. They literally scraped my tonsils. Then I got more medicine.

The next day I had an appointment at the hospital with another dermatologist. 家寧 again couldn't come; we figured I'd probably be alright, as there were several things she had to do for school/work, and it was just a regular visit to the doctor. Oh, also, I still couldn't really talk, and my fever was still high.
The doctor looked at my back, then said, "show me where the tumor is". By this point it had gone down, true, but that was not what I wanted to hear from a professional. Then she said, "would you like to take it out?" I said yes.

I just didn't know she meant right then. I'd explained about having a fever and all, but I guess she wasn't worried about it.

The doctor doing the procedure worried me, too...she also asked me to point out the tumor, and spent a good five minutes poking around my back. There was a point when she said she couldn't find it. With my help, though, she finally managed, I got a local anesthetic, and then she cut me open.

That may be one of the worst ways to have surgery done. If it was a spot I could see, it wouldn't be so bad. In fact, I'd kind of enjoy it, since I'd get to see what they were doing, and how to do it. But when you're numb, and can't see what's going on, you can just vaguely feel your skin being tugged at - there is no way to know how much is being cut, how long, how deep, or how skillfully. All you can feel is the tugging your skin. Like an animal being skinned. And then there was the smell of blood - weak at first, but ever stronger. That, together with my unease over the doctor's troubles finding the thing, made me uncharacteristically nervous.

The doctor spoke with me, though, and after a while she said there was a lot of almost necrotic tissue where the infection had been. She scraped it out. After about 15-20 minutes, she finally was able to find and remove the troublesome tissue - she said it'd mostly collapsed. I even got to look at it! It was like a chunk of fat off a hunk of meat (which I suppose it was) - wiggly and white and stringy. It was about the size of a pinkie nail, attached by a string of tissue to another about half that size. She sewed me back up, and said I should come back in two weeks to have the stitches out.

I got a taxi, limped home, and immediately fell asleep. I slept at least 3-4 hours. And when I woke up, I felt better than I had in months. And the next day, my throat didn't hurt anymore! In fact, I felt almost normal!

It was great. Of course the stitches needed to come out after only one week, not two, and 家寧 wasn't willing to cut them, so I went to the school doctor. He was surprised and initially unwilling, but he helped us in the end.

Everything turned out fine - in fact, I went last Wednesday for the follow-up where they were supposed to take my stitches out, and learned that it was, in fact, a benign tumor. Hardly, of course, to make an old joke, but much better than real cancer.

I'm not sure what I enjoy most about having that thing out, besides feeling healthy again - being able to swim, or being able to lean back (and sleep on my back). It's kind of a pain not being able to properly sit in chairs for a few months.

Anyway, I wasn't feeling very well, or very energetic, for quite a while there, and that's a lot of the reason I wasn't writing. But things are better now! So much better that I'll be busy probably all the time! (I missed quite a few classes...but in better news, in the last three days, I have gone karaoke-ing, and then to the beach and some hot springs with 家寧! So I'm busy.)

So, I hope you're all well, and I'll try to keep you better informed from now on. 再見! (zai4jian4, in case you're curious, is "see you again", which, considering neither of us can "see", may not be totally appropriate, but I don't feel like thinking up an alternative right now)

P.S. - I started another blog where I don't actually write! (much) - I just post interesting links and briefly describe them. It updates a little more often since it takes almost no effort. It's here - http://thrownupon.blogspot.com/

P.P.S. - the medical system here is really pretty good. If you have to get sick, do it here! Doctors work fairly cheap, and most things are pretty modern.

What's going on?

2007-04-22T12:21:00.000-04:00

Right now, I'm not sure if it's really hot or really cold. That is because I am fairly sick and feverish. It's a little hard to concentrate.
Anyway, though, I posted some more photos from my trip!...two months ago. Heh. Also, Cathye, (well, and anyone else who'd like...), you can find photos of that certain someone if you look here.

I think that's it for now.

After that...

2007-04-14T15:16:00.000-04:00

I have to apologize. It must seem like I've dropped off the face of the Earth. Some of you have been wondering what's happened to me. Heh. Well, I've been...busy, I guess. I have no idea where the time is going, but I hope I'll be able to recover some of it, sometime. (Oh, a subtle, and bad, pun!)
Though I don't know where the time is going, I do know how it's being used. I am trying to spend my every instant with 家寧. When I go home, she is not coming with me. We hope that we both can graduate quickly, and see each other again, but...that's a year apart, at the least.

I hope you'll forgive my neglect of everyone, and everything, else.

Last time I posted, I ended with the TA inviting me to coffee.

So, we went to coffee.

She led me off campus, and I thought we were going to the first shop I saw - a chain called Dante's. But we kept walking.

We ended up not far away, at a nicer place, highly decorated, especially with wine bottles, called Cafe Bastille. We drank tea and coffee, talking for hours, and by the end I was certain that she'd never want to see me again. I had been unexpectedly honest and forthright with her, and I know I'm sort of a loser. Heheh. Also, fairly early on, she mentioned that she already had a boyfriend.
She was fun to talk to, though.

At some point she mentioned a book club on campus - she asked if I'd like to join it. Of course I said yes. Though the books were in English, the discussions were in Chinese; I thought I'd go once or twice anyway just to see what it was like.

After a few hours, we parted, and I thought that though I'd probably see her in class again (she is the TA), I didn't expect the two of us would talk alone again.

And I was right.

For a few weeks.

Her name was 家寧.

How we met, and what happened then

2007-03-17T10:57:00.000-04:00

Originally, I was going to write a monstrous post. It was going to talk about my trip to Hualian and then, it was going to talk about how I met Jianing. The two things are related. But then I realized it'd be easier for everyone, myself included, if I just wrote a little about how she and I met. I hope this might satisfy your curiosity.

So - from the beginning.

I came to NTU with no friends, and no idea what I was doing. I also came last thing at night, and caused plenty of trouble for myself and everyone trying to help me. The next day, my roommate and his volunteer were going to get him a phone and see the Taipei 101; they invited me along. My volunteer was busy, I had nothing else to do, I needed a phone, and they seemed nice, so I gladly accompanied them.

My roommate's (Halmer's) volunteer was extremely nice. We kept going places and doing things together. She's studying philosophy, but thinking about switching to business; she's also very intelligent and had good English. There was plenty to like about her.
After we'd gone a few places, just she and I, I decided I'd ask if she'd like to go on a date.

By e-mail.

She said no.

Since I am not one to give up, I asked her again, and said one date's all I was asking for; if it didn't go well, we could just forget it. She said, "let's be friends." I said date or nothing. She chose nothing. Heheh.

As you can imagine, I was slightly bummed. I hadn't been hanging around anyone else very much, so I didn't really have any other friends at the time. And it was my birthday.

I was kind of mopey. I didn't go out much. I was, sadly, acting like a loser. And, because I was feeling down, I thought maybe I wouldn't even sign up for any other classes, just stick to Chinese. Or more like, I hardly wanted to leave my room to go to the other classes.

Of all things, though, there was a class on Shakespeare. Taught in English. That intrigued me, so I decided I'd go.

But nothing is ever easy. The online course selector thing doesn't really tell where your classes are, except in Chinese, and then not always. So I didn't know where the class was. I wandered through several buildings, and was starting to think I wouldn't find it at all when suddenly, someone smacked me in the back and started yelling.

It was Toby. Toby is German. He was also my classmate in Chinese. He is extremely, extremely boisterous. Many people do not particularly like him. They have their reasons - for example, after being here a grand total of one month, he got in an argument with the entire school newspaper staff, because he knew better than them what relationships were like in Taiwan. Then he wrote an article about it in their paper. No one was convinced.
But at that time, I was glad to see him, because he was looking for the same class! So we wandered around together.

But it didn't help. Neither of us could find it.

And just when we were thinking of leaving, he bumped into a girl. She was looking for the same class! Fortunately, she spoke Chinese, and was able to ask where it was. The three of us were in the wrong building, it turns out.
We made our way to the right classroom, and were only about an hour late. (That girl only came that one time - she went back to America or something after that - she was just there to see a friend).

Since I was in Taiwan, and this was a class on Shakespeare, in English, I expected no one would show up.
Roughly 80 people crammed into one room proved me wrong. In fact, the Professor said there was no more room in the class for any students (the limit was 30, I think), but also said that if we would come back the next week, a few slots might possibly be open from students dropping.

The next week, I almost considered not going back. But I did. And it was indeed emptier, though not by much.

Toby sat in the front row, right next to the TA. Toby is a shameless flirt. In fact, Toby is just shameless. It is impossible to embarrass, fluster, or discourage him in any way. He is very lively, not very perceptive, does not pay attention to anything, nor is he ever serious, except when someone expresses doubt in his opinions.
I thought to myself, "no! Please, please, sit anywhere but there - sit next to anyone else!" I wasn't entirely clear why I thought that at the time, though mostly it was because I didn't want anyone getting a terrible first impression of foreigners through him. I was embarrassed, because of him, to be a foreigner.

The TA began ignoring him after just a few minutes; he didn't shut up during class, which evidently annoyed her. My opinion of the girl went up immensely. He tried a few more times to chat her up, but she seemed happy to politely blow him off.

After class, I came to the front to have the professor sign my registration sheet - I had to register manually, since I couldn't do it online, and because it was already full. He was nice enough to let me into the class. Right after that, the TA introduced herself, and asked a few questions about me. I told her all the usual stuff, then explained I was taking a Shakespeare course in Taiwan basically because I was bored and liked Shakespeare. I think I also mentioned that I liked writing and reading. We talked a little more, then she suddenly asked if I'd like to meet for coffee.

I immediately agreed.

Trip to hualien, part 2

2007-03-06T06:30:00.000-05:00

So, this didn't come within "the week". It came not within a week, either. But it was close.

As I was about to say, and then got sidetracked for better than a week, I planned to leave for Hualien on that Thursday morning.

Wednesday night, I was goofing around. I had not done laundry or packed. This is typical. While I was wasting time, 家寧 called (Jianing, in case you've forgotten the characters).

We talk every night, so that wasn't surprising. What was a bit unexpected, though, is that she said on Thursday that her sister was going "mountain-climbing". Actually, that wasn't surprising, either. Nor was the fact that she was going with her ex-boyfriend. Nor the fact that her gay roommate and his boyfriend were coming as well.... I should probably tell you, 家寧's sister, Jessy, broke up with her boyfriend (or did he break up with her? I think so, but it's very unclear) because of this gay roommate. Her boyfriend believed, and still does, apparently, that this gay guy is not gay at all, and so he broke up with Jessy. They've not been dating for a while, but they still hang out, and he still stops by their house. So Jessy thought maybe if her ex-boyfriend saw her roommate with his boyfriend then maybe her ex would figure things out.
家寧 and I believe he's just playing dumb as some sort of control game. Or something.
Enough of other people's business, though.
What was surprising was that, though 家寧 herself had helped me buy tickets and pick a time to go, she was now asking if I'd like to go mountain climbing with her and this group, instead.
Of course I said yes.

We met early the next morning; early enough to go to the train station and change my ticket. After that, we made our way to the park, and got there around 9 or so. The gay guy and his boyfriend didn't show up. I forget why. So it was 家寧, myself, Jessy, and her ex.
Oh, and like I just said, we met at a park. Not a mountain. We did not go mountain climbing.
There was a good-sized hill, though, next to this park, and we did walk up that. It was steep, and it was pretty. And at the top, there were old people.

Something I need to explain about Taiwan: the old people here have often led difficult lives, have nothing much to do, and nowhere really to go, and I think it's made them all a bit nuts.
So there're a bunch of old people in odd places, trying to stay busy. Generally, they do Taichi (太極拳), except most of them don't appear to know Taichi. They haphazardly flap their limbs and/or hop. It's almost funny, except for the serious and precise manner in which they carry out their 'exercise'. They've perfected the "old people stare", which they level at any who dare watch, as if to say, "I am old. I have earned the right to do whatever the hell I want. You will not only respect that, you will admire it. Then you will thank me. Maybe, if you are able to stop being worthless for more than a few minutes, you might live as long as me and also have this right. But I will be dead long, long, long before that happens, and honestly, you can't do shit to me after I'm dead." And they will glower at you, pointedly, for so long as you are there, while never missing one of their inexplicably irregular but precise flapping motions.

The top of the hill was covered by a small congregation of old people doing the old people thing. They sometimes enjoy seeing young couples but more often do not. And the old men especially dislike seeing a young couple consisting of one foreign guy and anyone/anything else. We attracted some attention.

The day was warm, the air was clear, the lake was cool and still, and the wind blew gently.

But nothing much happened. We all sat separately at the top for an hour or two, talked, and then made our way down. The ex didn't seem to want anything to do with anyone besides Jessy. We originally were going to eat lunch together, but then this guy decided he wouldn't come with us. And Jessy said she had to meet with the gay guy's mother (she used to think Jessy was going to be her future daughter-in-law - they got close over time, and still are on good terms). It wasn't until later that I learned the ex didn't like "pda"s (public displays of affection, if you didn't recently attend high school in America). We had shown our extreme passions by - I hope I will not offend my more sensitive readers - holding hands. He found that inappropriate.

Anyway, 家寧 said she knew of this restaurant nearby that was good, so we went, and indeed it was. It had Thai food. While we were there, she broke out the Valentine's chocolate I'd bought for her, and she insisted that we had to share it, because she couldn't afford to eat it all herself. I did my best to persuade her otherwise, but I lost. It looked like good chocolate, so losing was a winning proposition.
And it was.

The day was shaping up to be a pretty good one.

Afterwards, 家寧 said there was an orange grove nearby, where we could pick as many oranges as we liked and eat them on the spot. If you want to bring any home, though, you have to pay. That sounded nice, and it was a pleasant walk through a rural area. Through - and I have been waiting to use this word for years - a dell, alongside a small, swift stream.

A half hour or more of extreme leisure went by. And then, much to everyone's shock, not ten feet in front of us, coming down the path, were her parents.

Back, but not home

2007-02-26T11:33:00.000-05:00

It's been a while, hasn't it? I should write about myself, and what I'm doing. There are a lot of things I could cover, but some are complicated, and will take time.

Interesting things have happened. For example, I took a trip, alone, last weekend, in which I decided I knew how to ride a scooter and then proved myself right. I was glad of that. Dying on a scooter would be embarrassing.
I've got pictures of that I'll upload later. There were other trips, and more interesting ones, before, but I was alone on this one, and must write it down soon, or forever forget some details.

Alright - to make a long story short - I am dating 家寧. That's awesome, because she's awesome. However, for other reasons that also take more explanation, I was not able to spend this last weekend with her. She had family obligations. So, I was thinking of taking a trip anyway, and with her convincing, I actually managed to go.

At first, I was thinking of trying out paragliding. Flight is appealing, especially in a country where it's cheap to learn. However, according to the site Wings Taiwan, this is not an especially good place to learn. Most trainers are not qualified, and most sites are somewhat...unsuitable. Ordinarily one learns to paraglide by taking little hops down pleasant, grassy, rolling hills, gliding further and further each time, until one is comfortable and experienced. In Taiwan, someone with a healthy disrespect for life, safety, and more or less everything else but money, will 'train' you...and in the most suitable location, that means being shoved down a hill into some trees. In the less suitable ones, it means being shoved down a hill into some trees, powerlines, and possibly a farmer's explosive booby-trap. Heh.
I e-mailed the guy who runs the site. He recommended Bali for learning paragliding. Unfortunately, Bali is some distance away, and only marginally cheaper than learning back in America. I really do want to see Bali, and I really do want to learn this. However, I also really do want to retain the option of eating for the next few months, something I would have to forgo if I were to take such a trip. Yup.

Next, my idea for a trip was to go to Kending (墾丁). It's the tropical area of Taiwan, and it's got lots of nice beaches, surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving, national parks, etc. However, I was informed that Chinese New Year is about the busiest time one could go there. So I figured I'd do it later.

So I decided on Hualien (花蓮). Everyone says the scenery is pretty. It's got hot springs nearby. And there aren't many people. So that was that. I went with 家寧 on Wednesday morning to get my ticket, and planned to leave on the 10:00 train Thursday morning. Notice I said planned. (That's called foreshadowing, by us fancy, educated folks.) I would stay until Sunday or Monday, as I didn't have much to do in the immediate future.

But the rest will have to wait! There will be pictures with that. It will come soon. And I don't mean soon in God's time, geological time, or my time - I mean, like, within the week. Heh...see you then!

more bumps

2007-02-10T12:57:00.000-05:00

I got up from my chair. My head hurt, of course. My stomach was empty, but all I could find was a bag of oatmeal. It's all there was. I should've known, but couldn't remember, why it was just the bag. There was no label. There were also no ants, so I was happy enough. I couldn't remember if it was instant or not, so I ate it dry.

I vaguely remembered being rejected, again. I'm getting good at that. Vaguely remembering. I don't need to practice getting rejected: I seem to have an innate skill.

Ah, paper's the same as always. Bad news from around the world. I'm all for globalization, but...sometimes it makes me feel like God. Aware of all the bad things all at once. It must've been nice before. Back then, a million people could die, but you'd never know. Life was better. Except if you were dead. And lots of people were.

Hmm. Another heartrending piece about fatherless families and the lost potential of young soldiers. Neighbors killing neighbors. The blind killing the weak. Shame.

I passed by the phone, and noticed there was a message on it. No new messages, but more messages than I had before....
Oh yeah! Last night.

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume? Haha. An harmless joke for a very lost man." The guy's accent was a little strange - I couldn't tell where he was from, though it sounded a bit foreign.
"If you don't mind, I will call you Dr. Livingstone. You are a doctor of sorts, and all doctors are explorers - of knowledge, anyway." He spoke very evenly, clearly, and moderately. His was a very professional voice - smooth and polished, like an upscale sportscar. I wondered if it was possible to take it for a joyride. When he was a broken-hinge-voiced teen, that's probably what it sounded like. Joyridden.

"But that's not why I'm calling. You have a very interesting idea, even if your choice of venue was a bit unusual. We request that you find time to meet us; if you consent, and we think you have reason to do so, please come to the main library's parking garage at 2 tomorrow afternoon. You will be compensated, as is usual. If you are unable to meet tomorrow, a meeting can still be arranged - though the process will need to start again. This number will remain active until 5 o'clock tomorrow. Good day, Doctor."

That was one of the stranger messages I'd ever received.

Bumps in the road

2007-01-14T04:51:00.000-05:00

I have to admit I'm excited about this meeting. That's unusual, of course. Usually you just practice saying yes, though sometimes to beat boredom I try saying yes in new and equally boring ways. Or I stay quiet. Or at worst stay awake; saying no is just not a good idea. Last time I said no was the last time I had a decent job. This, though, will be no office meeting. It's better. I think.
It's - well, a little frightening, too. I'm not sure quite what they want from me. Or exactly who 'they' are.

It started serendipitously, as you'd have to expect. I haven't ever done this sort of thing before. I don't know anyone who has - well, that I know of. I'm starting to get suspicious now. After all, this had to start somehow. Someone I've met must be involved already.

I was at a party. Nothing special. Just a party. The kind that has a fair number of people, and an unfair amount of alcohol. The kind where not everyone can drink to their heart's content (or liver's discomfort, if you prefer). It was upscale, and I ordinarily wouldn't have been there for that fact alone, but I've reconnected with a few old friends recently. And the women at these things tend to be a lot smarter, or at least better educated. Sure, in the long run they might be quarrelsome, but they do know how to talk. And I like talking. Which was, after probably a few too many drinks, what I was doing. Loudly.

Of course it was politics. No one wants to talk about anything else anymore. Well, I guess there's always music, too, but it's just as bad. I like not insulting people, so I don't have any particular politics of my own; just whatever keeps the world running well enough. I like to call it vehicular politics. You don't need to change the oil every 1,000 miles, or use special blends, or special gas, or check out every little ding and squeak and squeal. Nah - so long as it keeps running well enough, that's good. Same with the world. It'd be better, maybe, if we did all those other fancy things that could be done, but no one's serious about doing them. The few who are are crazy. Things usually work out. And - I always have to smirk a little when I say this - it gets us where we're going anyway, right?
In fact, it gets us where we're going faster if it's not working right. Heheh.

So I was talking about my vehicular politics. I was resolving some little political trifle or other, probably the economy, when some wit suddenly turned to me and said, "Hinayana or Mahayana?" I scowled at him - I always scowl by default when I'm confused, fortunately people usually take it as displeasure - but then I said it'd have to be Mahayana, since it gets us all where we're going well enough, and it must therefore be quite large. Then I added, "and isn't 'lesser-vehicle' insulting to non-Mahanayas?" Spineless, PC bastard that he was, that shut him up, and I'm glad, because I don't really know much more than that. Funny how political correctness defines what people know and say. But it has its uses. Like shutting that guy up.

Anyway, someone else then added, "while we're on the subject of vehicles, how about oil? And Iraq? How shall we navigate that mess without getting our car bombed?" She smiled hugely, like her teeth were thinking of leaving her body to make their own republic (probably they'd call it Teethistan), as though she thought that was a very clever thing to say. Another added, "or sick?" He looked around, disappointed and a little sheepish, "you know, carsick?"

Early in the evening I'd realized that I stopped talking to these high-school 'friends' for a reason. But I figured now that I was here, I might as well try to impress people. For that question, however, I think I may have an answer. I didn't flounder like the asker was probably expecting. I hate floundering. And flounders. I hate that word. Bottom-dwelling, lopsided fish. It's not even symmetrical.
Anyway, I have a solution, and I think it'll work. It's partly based on the Malay Emergency, and actions of the British Army in putting that down, and partly also on a...well, somewhat anachronistic view of the world and human rights. Plus a big healthy dose of realism. Unlike some people, I believe the job of soldiers is to shoot people, not stand in the dirt waiting to get shot. They exist solely to make other people do things they really don't want to do. I doubt extra guys with guns standing in the dirt for a couple weeks, trying to act polite and respectful of local traditions and customs, will be stopping any wars anytime soon. This problem was at least fifty years in the making, if not centuries. Everything so far has failed, so I say it's time for something new.

I won't bore you with details yet, but I told them all about that. I got a bit carried away: I was describing some of the worse things I'd learned from reading. I tried to keep it light, but that comes across as gruesome sometimes when you're talking about dark issues - I was telling them how many thousands or millions I expected to die, and from what. I guess just for shock value I told 'em some stuff I'd read in the newspapers, you know, some of those heart-rending stories journalists do. If I was talking to soldiers, or other realistic people, it probably would've been fine, but these were party people and intellectuals. Neither had ever seen anything real. Even as inebriated as I was, I could see they were uncomfortable with me. They'd rather not think too hard about what it takes to make a decent world.

I'm pretty sure it's been said before, and better, but partiers get away by drinking. The ones who have opinions don't get them on their own. They borrow thoughts from the angry musician of the moment. Whichever furiously delusional middle-class punk is hot at the moment, that's the party people's political voice. Intellectuals aren't much better. They act like they do care, but they get away by getting close - through a pinhole. Imagine a room full of people, and they're all holding newspapers. Each person's newspaper has one tiny hole in the fold, and these people spend all their time looking through it. They can't see much of anything; most of the time they only see empty space, or someone's shoe, or a patch of carpet - they have to ask someone else where to look, and even then they hardly see anything, but they study that patch of view like it was God's own face, and they tell the rest of us what the world is like. It's like Alice through the Pinhole, the things they tell us. They're all afraid of the world. That's why I'm sure that's been said before - people never change.

So, isolated and awkwardly alone, I decided to make my exit. Granted, several of the people who'd heard me seemed interested in what I had to say, but once their friends and spouses started looking edgy, they backed away, too. I heard one woman, one of my old high school acquaintances, actually, and back then always very open-minded, muttering something about treason. "Well," I thought to that, "free thought might be dead. Better get some free food."

I scored a few mouthfuls of those pretzels and m&ms that inevitably fall into every living-room couch at every party, some diced fruits, an especially salty little meat-cracker thing, and a couple oranges. I was glad I wouldn't need to buy dinner. Money has been a little tight lately.

Before I left, I noticed the wine bottle, and the punch bowl. I'd really been expecting things to go better than they did. I thought people cared about this stuff. Soldiers getting blown up. New wives and little babies, whose man is never coming back. All the people over there, the way they suffer. Killed just for being born in the wrong place, to the wrong family. So I see these protesters and whoever, and they go and have marches and rallies and scream a lot, but give 'em a solution, and they act like they'd rather not know you. I had a few more drinks. And maybe a few more after that. My idea really was good. I wish they'd at least think about it.

It took a while to get home. I might have been driving drunk. The trip home was long and hazy, and I didn't get there until very late. And when I went inside, there was a message on my machine. I wondered why they hadn't just called my cell. Maybe it was the people from the party. Maybe they didn't actually want to talk to me, but just pretend to care by leaving a message. I was tired. So I hit play, sat down, and ...fell asleep.

O?

2007-01-08T06:08:00.000-05:00

"I can't make it today." I wondered if he'd believe me. My voice was shaking.
"Oh. Alright then, guess I'll see you later." I'm sure he didn't really believe that. He didn't seem convinced we'd meet again. We hadn't for a while.

I can't make it today, because...I have to pet the cat.
No! It's not an excuse, or I would have said it! I would say that to someone I never wanted to see again, and...I do care about my friends. But they have to understand - priorities are priorities. If they were in my shoes, I'd want them to do the same. But they aren't, and they couldn't. Anyone could do what I'm doing, but no one else can do it right.

This started a few weeks ago. I noticed, on my daily walk, that the air didn't seem right. It seemed...fuzzy, almost. And lots of people were sick. Everything buzzed, and my ears never had any rest. I couldn't sleep. I think there was an earthquake, too. But what could I do? That's the way of the world.

I've been going to these classes, you know, to improve myself. To gain 'higher understanding' and 'self-enlightenment' and good health and all that. It seems like a good idea; I know this one guy, Barry, and he lost a lot of weight, got promoted, things like that; it's really helped him out. So I thought I'd do the same, except I'm not going where he's going - I don't want to look like a follower. No! "We all must act like leaders, and then we will be leaders!" I learned that in class.

So my teacher was talking about the AUM yesterday. He says it's this sound that the universe and everything is made out of. It's a vibration! And anyone can make it. It's pretty neat, I guess. We practiced for a while.

I didn't realize until later, but, after we chanted, the world seemed less fuzzy. It wasn't shaking so much.
Actually I didn't notice until I got home. My cat was sitting on my favorite chair again, since it is his favorite too. I don't like to make him move, so I pet him until he gets so happy he has to get up. It's pretty clever. He always falls for it. Anyway, while I was petting him, he started purring like always.
But it was the AUM! I know it.
Yes, while I was petting him, the world became peaceful, and the fuzziness was almost gone. Oh great hairy vibration-machine!
So I sat in my chair, petting my cat all evening. I was creating world peace!

In the nighttime, no one petted the cat, so he wasn't purring when I woke up. That's pretty normal, except the shaking had gotten much worse, and that wasn't normal. I was afraid the roof would fall on me. I could hardly get out of bed. Someone wasn't doing their job! I decided then it was because not enough people were saying AUM.
Luckily for me, my cat always jumps onto my bed when I wake up. He's happy to see me, and so I always pet him. I did the same thing as always, and the shaking stopped!

That's when I realized that cats make the AUM when they purr. I'm pretty sure it's just because of them that the world doesn't shake itself apart, because I know people are pretty lazy and they don't say it much.
I'm kind of worried. I think if I stop petting my cat, things are going to get bad.

I tried calling my best friend, 'cause he has a cat, and I tried telling him to pet it, but he was at work. He said it was pretty strange I wanted him to do that.

Actually, I'm getting really worried. I didn't say it before, but my cat seems bored. I think he doesn't want to purr anymore. He keeps wiggling.
Oh no! His tail is twitching! And he isn't purring at all! Things are getting fuzzy again...

"Ow! Stupid cat! You were saving the universe! Why did you have to claw me?" I'm gonna run after it. I have to catch it. It's my cat, and he's going to have to save the world whether he likes it or not. I can't believe how selfish cats are.

"Hey! Come back!" It got outside. I caught it, but it scratched me a lot. I don't think that's very fair. I dropped it cause it tore my shirt up pretty good, and now I'm bleeding a little. It hurts. It's hard to chase cats when everything is shaky.

My yard is empty. My street is empty. The whole neighborhood is empty. My cat is gone. I'm worried that bad things are going to happen - really bad things. I can hear buzzing again.
- wait. I think I see....
Yes! It's a cat! Not mine, but it'll do!

Just have to sneak up on it...it's a nice kitty...
"Haah! Gotcha!" Ow! OW! Crap. I forgot they have claws, again.
Alright, it didn't run too far.

It got away again.

"Haah! Gotcha!" Alright, it's really angry, but I got its legs this time. I'll just pet it until it starts purring, and everything will be right again. I think I felt an earthquake.

This isn't working. Ok, I think I know where to pet it that'll make it happy...

My neighbor? Wait, with a -
"Get the hell off my lawn! I don't want to know what you're doing with my cat." He cocks his shotgun. "But you're done now. You're gonna leave it alone. Or else."

"Oh crap oh sorry sir i'm just trying to save the world since you have to pet cats and the vibrations keep everything good and it wouldn't purr and my -"
"NOW! LEAVE!" He swings the barrel my direction.

I'm laying on the lawn. I think I fell. The cat is gone. My neighbor is purple, almost.
I think the world is shaking apart. I just can't stand up. Well, my legs are shaking pretty bad, too.

"It's not what it looks like! I was just trying to save the world!"
My neighbor only shakes his head. "That's what they said in the war, too."

Christmas Eve, part 2

2006-12-30T09:50:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow strangely came a week late.

Alright, as I said: I was on my way to the party when I met the organizer. I don't remember his name at the moment, though I should: this was not our first meeting.

On the Friday before, I, Susan, and Bryan had been walking out of class, talking, and I'd noticed some foreign guy hanging around the gates. That is not unusual; however, I recognize most of the foreigners here at school - not him.
As the three of us were talking (Bryan and Susan were retrieving their bikes), he interrupted, coming from behind, and said he wanted to know if we'd like to go to a party with Free Food.
You know that stopped the conversation.

It turned out the others had already signed up, so they reconfirmed. He was pleased. He turned to me. I said I didn't know if I could make it (the plan was that I'd be at 家寧's house on Sunday), but that if I got back early, I'd try to come. Free food is free.
The group calls itself "the waiguorens" (外國人s - "foreign people" (I hate that unnecessary 's')) that meets every week, Sunday nights, and "studies Eastern philosophy" and practices Qigong (氣功 - of which taiji (太極拳)is a particular style). I decided free food trumped whatever misgivings I had - among other things, I automatically disliked the guy who was talking to us. He seemed pretty gay, for example (not necessarily enough to provoke my dislike, but he was a bit overly chatty and happy to see me), and one of those mush-headed "Eastern Wisdom" sorts.

He talked to me especially after the others left, and probably would have been glad to go on for some time, but I had to get going. I had important things, like sitting in my room, to do. I left. (I am not necessarily as cruel or deceitful as that - I really did have to prepare for my next class, which was coming up soon. But then again, I would try to portray myself in a positive light, wouldn't I?)

Friday night, though, I saw him again. As I entered the bookstore, I saw, back turned to me, a foreigner deep in conversation with two others. I guessed it was the him again, decided that was unlikely, then decided against my decision and decided it probably was him after all. I passed by without announcing myself (I tend to be somewhat invisible...heh...I know, I should be hard to miss, right? I'm tall, blond hair, blue-eyed, etc., but people really don't seem to notice me much most of the time.)
I pointed out this guy to 家寧 when I went to buy my book. I hoped he wouldn't reciprocate.
You might wonder why I seem to dislike him so much. It's that vacant, lost, neo-hippy gaze and gauzy, cottony thoughts that I can feel plugging his head - stray thoughts and sayings are trapped in the absorbent mess of his mind, where they lodge and solidify.
Well, if that's not enough, or if you wonder how I could possibly know that, then let's just agree there are people one might instinctively dislike at first glance.

He noticed me.
He wanted to talk again, but when he realized the girl beside me was a friend of mine, and not a random stranger, he seemed somewhat deflated. "Hah!", I thought. Still, he asked again if I'd come.

Alright. Long digression.

So, here I am, back at meeting him again the night of Christmas Eve. He seems surprised to see me, asks if I'm coming to the party, and I tell him I'm on my way there right now. So I walk with him and the four or so other people to the MRT station (MRT is yet another name for "subway", apparently), where we are to meet the rest of the group.

We wait; various others show up. Two of the more interesting ones: Merril (sp?) and Erin, whom I'm not sure, but, might be married (I forgot to ask, but I think they're only boyfriend and girlfriend). They're from Canada, real nice, came to Taiwan to teach; they wanted to get some traveling done, both recently graduated, would like to make some money and see the world on the cheap, maybe pick up a little Chinese. They just arrived a week or so before, so they'd be celebrating Christmas in a strange new country.

My classmates Phonshia, Susan, and Caroline showed up, and we talked (though it's difficult to talk to Susan - it seems like no matter what I say, it either comes across sounding dumb, or she just assumes it is dumb).

7:15, and we finally leave. We arrive very soon; it's just down the road. We turn into a perfectly ordinary looking apartment building, walk up to the second floor (and I worry that we're going to cram into some tiny apartment), and then discover there's a good-sized studio there. It's laid out something like a dance studio in the midst of a Buddhist temple.
We all take off our shoes, and, not long after I enter, my suspicions are confirmed: I overhear one of our organizers say to someone: "sorry, no pictures are allowed. This is a private space."

The only reasons I can think of:
1. Some of the stuff inside is very valuable; they don't want anyone outside to know it's there.
2. Some of the stuff inside is not actually theirs.
3. They don't want people to be self-conscious when practicing (it's pretty hard to look dignified when you're doing the exercises), though that's no reason to refrain from photo-taking at other times.
3. They are just damn weird.
Your guess is as good as mine, though I suspect it's a combination of 3 and 4.

There are, of course, no chairs.

Everyone sits around another twenty minutes in awkward conversation - and we all stick to our own little groups.
Finally someone gets on the mic (someone's got to keep the Irish down, right? pun!), and tells us the schedule. First: qigong exercises for 45 minutes, followed by 10 of meditation. Snacks. "It's a Wonderful Life." Then, finally, unashamedly and manipulatively last, a free turkey dinner.
(In this time: I said there are no chairs, but there are benches. The three girls were sitting on one, and, during the speech, a lady came to them and said, "you can't sit there, you're covering up the Buddha." It were true, if they were all four feet taller. There was a Buddha poster behind them. Honestly, I don't think Buddha cares about much of anything at this point, since he's not only dead but supposedly free from all concerns. Plus, intelligent policy would not put a bench in a room, at a convenient place, and then tell people they can't use it because some arbitrary item has it reserved. Hell, I'll start start carrying Buddha posters around so I can put them in seats everywhere. I'm hoping it'll seriously inconvenience overly-serious Buddhists.)

My classmates realize what this means: dinner is not until sometime after 9:00 at the earliest, and they have to work to get it. They are not dumb. Two of them have been sick all week, and still are, and have to make up a test the next morning - which they feel they haven't adequately prepared for.
They leave.

Fortunately for my story, I lack their common sense. Also, I was stubbornly resolved to get food. I don't mind a little weird exercise, either, so I stayed.

I don't feel like writing about the exercises; you can look those up on your own. They are a good leg workout, though.

Meditation time.
Everyone is slightly tired and warm from the exercise, and sitting down on a cushion, in a darkened room, sounds pretty appealing. At first they have everyone concentrate on breathing and sitting quietly, which is fairly relaxing, though the same could be said of most sorts of rest when your legs are tired and you're kind of hot.
After a while, once they're satisfied that some arbitrary goal has been reached (number of breaths? the time it takes a kitten to cross a street four times? pairs of shoes in the cupboard?), the lead guy asks us all to concentrate on an image. He asks us to imagine we are empty and clear, hollow, and that a single drop of water falls on the crowns of each of our heads. I enjoy the image of empty-headed people and their empty-headed followers, all that's left of them being flooded out by a single drop of water. I sit quietly in the dark with my smile all the same.
The drop is described slowly falling through different regions, including regions I'm pretty sure I lack (no, not a heart - chakra points and things); slowly, it is gone. Heh...but from whence does it exit? We are seated on our cushions with our legs crossed in front: the lowest point it could exit from is left to your imagination, but further amused me.

Then we repeated that.

It was already around 8:50 when we finished: something about tranquility and emptiness was spoken, and the peace of the Buddha, and then, jarringly, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!". Snacks were immediately available.

I was one of the first to the table (I know my priorities), and I enjoyed the spread. The banana bread (of which there were two kinds) was better than almost any I've ever had. Everything else was not quite its equal, but good. A fair number of m&ms disappeared in my vicinity, also. I had to consider the strangeness of the celebration: would Jesus recognize his own birthday?

I talked to more people: most were teachers. Merril and Erin made connections; Erin got a few good leads on jobs. The majority of the people seemed to enjoy themselves.

Most of these people were also weird. Sure, it takes one to know one and all that; I certainly have my own quirks. But not only I think so: my classmates had the good sense to notice immediately after arrival (and Bryan had the incredible precognition to not show up at all, though this might have had more to do with the fact that he probably slept through it).

Prime example: Fabio.
When I first heard it, I thought he was being mocked - but it is his name.
Let me tell you about Fabio. Fabio likes to sleep in the nude. Fabio does not like to shower...properly. Fabio does not like deodorant, Fabio does not approve of air-conditioning, and Fabio does not negotiate. Fabio, in September, went through five roommates. Fabio makes inappropriate and forward moves on girls he has just met, and that they do not want. Fabio is socially awkward, and Fabio does not 'play well with others'. Fabio does not talk to other males. Fabio also likes extremely tight pants, and Fabio is extremely, skeletally, thin. Fabio is also obsessively worried about wasting water, to the point that he often breaks shower knobs (and thus they leak, wasting more water than the drips he tried to save).

Thus is Fabio.

In the qigong session, Fabio demonstrates that he is familiar with taiji - by doing it while the rest of us are doing qigong. He also does it only with his legs: his arms are wrapped tightly around himself, as though he was hugging himself, or as though he were remembering the straigtjacket he might have worn only 50 years ago. This is accepted; some of the other obviously new people give him second glances and more space, but those who have been there longer accept him (even though this is his first time).

There is something wrong with the people who stay here a while to teach. Taiwan does something to them, and it had done it to many of these teachers. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but if you come here, you'll see it, too.

Anyway. I talk to a couple of girls; one is from Malaysia, the other from Indonesia (or I think that's right). They're fun to talk to, and fairly normal. The movie starts around 9:15, and I decide not to stay for dinner. I'd rather not eat that late, and I don't feel like watching "It's a Wonderful Life" again. I also don't especially want to hear Master Wang (or whatever his name was) talk, as I've been told he will.
So, knowing this, I fill up on snacks, and then leave. The two girls also leave, and we decide we'll go back to school together.

They have bicycles; I don't, and they want to ride. So they say we should ride together (everyone does here - half of all bikes have two riders). I'm concerned that I'll be too heavy, and so I offer to pedal.
I have not ridden a bicycle in something like 5 months, and then only briefly; before that, it'd probably been ten years. Also, the bike was sized for her (she was ordinary sized, maybe 5 foot or so).

The result was comical.
When there were not people in my way, I would push down on the pedal with my leg, as everyone does while riding. Unlike everyone else's, though, my bike lurched violently to one side or the other because of the imbalance - my legs stuck out several feet to each side. When there were people nearby, I nearly collapsed the bike on them.

heheh. The girl riding behind me (wasn't her name Vera?) kindly offered to take us the rest of the way home. I let her. I think it was difficult for her, but at least she only got a workout, and not bruises. Once we returned to school grounds, we parted ways, and I thought I might not see them again (but did a few days later).

That was one day. I even skipped some parts.
I didn't tell you about how I gave 家寧 the present, but that can wait until later; it was the next day.

Thank you again for reading, and I hope you don't mind the time distortion I seem to be suffering from! My next tomorrow shouldn't be so far from yours next time!

Happy new year!
(新年快樂!)

Christmas Eve

2006-12-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

It's been a full day. Not that many days are half days...except perhaps the solstice. Which was recently - but not today. (Okay, so grant me this one pun - here the sun still shone for the majority of the day, I think).

I'm sure you're just dying to know the narrated details of my day. They would be long and tedious. As long and tedious as I am far from home. Heh. But, I have to do a little listing and narration.

First things first: I wake up around 11:50 - my phone is telling me I have a new message. I consider ignoring it - the message will still be there later - and I do for about ten minutes, but I can't get back to sleep. I think it might be 家寧. I'm right, too. She wants to meet - and when I text her back, I learn she wants to meet...now! So I hop in the shower, and out, thankfully getting clean in the process, and I'm on my way.

I meet her in the usual place, which for some reason I don't feel like disclosing. Maybe I'll keep it just between us.
It's a beautiful day, too.

Oh - I should digress for a minute.
On Friday night, we were near the zoo, right next to the river. We've been there before: it's very nice. We walked and talked for a bit, then decided to go back towards town to get some things - I was going to make chocolate chip cookies the next day (it's almost impossible to find them here, and everyone likes them.)
We found the ingredients (mostly), though it's surprisingly hard to find brown sugar. And they only had Hershey's chocolate chips, nothing else. We forgot the vanilla, but that's another story.
Anyway, she said she had to get something in the bookstore upstairs, PageOne (which is really nice, by the way), so we went there. Not that I minded at all. I started following her, but then she said what she was getting was "sort of embarrassing", and that she'd rather I didn't come with her. So, since I'm pretty dense sometimes, I had no idea what it might be; I looked at some other things, and what do you know - they had a sci-fi and fantasy section (none of the other stores have anything worth mentioning, except in this self-referencing aside). They had something I wanted, too - a book called "A Feast for Crows." It's part of this surprisingly good fantasy series (most fantasy is crap) that I like - and I've been waiting for this one for a while. The previous one was published in 2000. And the sequel was supposed to come out soon after. But then there were delays. A year went by. Another. Then another. And another. And another. In the fall of 2005, it was released, in hardcover of course. I wanted it. But, it cost nearly $30, so I didn't buy it. I thought the paperback would be out soon.
It was, geologically speaking. Nearly a full year later, it came out - at the end of September. And I was in Taiwan, and looked for it, but couldn't find it, and Amazon doesn't ship everywhere.
But there it was!

So 家寧 found me ogling this book. She'd already bought what she came for, so I bought what I hadn't knowingly came for, too. Then we left.

Alright, back to today.
So, she said she had something for me. Like I said, I can be pretty dense. I had no idea what it was. So she gave me my gift - and it was "Norwegian Wood". I hadn't read anything by this author, Haruki Murakami, until just a few weeks ago, when I read "Dance Dance Dance". It was by no means the best book I've ever read, but it was entertaining, interesting, and the guy is a good writer, even in translation. And strangely enough, the way he writes (and the type of character he writes) reminds me of me. Is it egotistical to enjoy that sort of thing?

Of course she'd bought it that night, without me ever realizing.

I was surprised, of course, and I'm happy to have it.
This also set me to the next part of my day.

After having my first meal (I hesitate to call it either breakfast or lunch), I decided I should get her something in return.
Actually, I'd already been planning that, but hadn't gotten around to it. I thought I'd do it on Sunday night (today), since I thought I wouldn't see her until Monday, but some school stuff brought her to campus, and she preemptively struck with gift-giving! I hated not having anything for her, and decided I must make up for it.

I headed for the Taipei 101 area.
I was walking past it when something caught my eye - the exhibition hall there had a jewelry/jade show. I figured I might as well have a look, so I did, and I took some pictures. I might post them later if any turned out well.
While I was walking around, I noticed a very attractive lady in a red dress (with a cape thing on the back that attaches to the sleeves - I have no idea what that's called), her back turned, talking to some guy in a goofy tux. They were there to promote jewelry, I suppose. I went back to looking at things, but when I started to move on, I came face-to-face with the lady...and though I can't say for sure how old she was, her face looked every bit her age. Heheh. She had to be at least 40. I intended to keep moving, and she said hi. So, since I usually do talk to people here if they make the effort to talk to me, and because it usually turns out somewhat strangely, I decided I might as well talk.
I expected she would try to promote her company. She did give me an advertisement, but she made a lot of small talk (asked where I was from, if I'd be around long, etc), and asked for my name, and my e-mail; not once did she mention her company. I figured, hey, why not, so I wrote them down on a paper. She actually didn't try to promote her company at all, so far as I can tell. Then she asked for my phone number. E-mails I can ignore (and do accidentally, as many of you are no doubt aware), but phone calls are harder. So I told her I didn't have a phone yet. She just kept smiling away the whole time, getting up close to me. Was I being hit on? I'm still not sure.

heh. Anyway, I went to the mall in the 101, got a gift (I won't say what right now, since a certain someone might, though it's not likely, read this before I can give it to her), and kind of wandered around for a while. I also managed to buy myself another book, since it looked interesting. I'll tell you if it turns out to be...heheh, assuming you want that sort of thing, but, I AM THE AUTHOR! I WRITE WHAT I WANT! (Though, unfortunately for all authors, and fortunately for you, your sanity, and your free time, only you choose what you'll read.)

Then I took pictures.

It was really crowded, too. I thought Christmas wasn't a big deal here, but, for reasons that I can only attribute to it being Christmas, there were hordes of people. Traffic was backed up down the road and out of sight when I arrived, since so many were trying to get parking. The cops directing traffic let as many cars go by as they could, but, as they did, throngs gathered, and you could see the numbers of the crowd were worrying them - many of the people wanting to cross the street were impatient. When everyone did finally cross, the intersection (this is a big intersection - at least six lanes of traffic in every direction), and the 10-20 feet in every direction from it, were covered.

So, after all that, I came back home. That took time, and I didn't get here until about 6:20. That would be fine, except there was a party at 7 I had decided on going to. I relaxed for about 15 minutes, talked to my classmate, Phonshia (I think that's how she spells her name...), and left. I met the organizer on my way there.

But this is already long enough - it will continue tomorrow!

We Need Discipline!

2006-12-10T02:50:00.000-05:00

"We need discipline!", barked our crusty old sergeant. Stupid cracker, for sure. 'Course, dark as it was, he could've been a Jewish Eskimo, for all I could tell. He clearly enjoyed being our senior, but someone has to give orders; might as well be someone who likes it.
The darkness was overwhelming. So was the smell - so many of us packed into one small space.
"We must maintain our discipline! It is the only way we may arrive in one piece!" I couldn't see him, of course, couldn't see any of the others, since it was so dark, but there was no avoiding his presence. He owned our crowded space. It, and us, were his to command. No one would dare move against him.

"Now, I don't want to see any of you -" several of us snickered - "fall out, and by the way, you think that's funny? You think I wanna see you sorry bastards? I know some of you are falling to pieces already. I'd say you're a disgrace to your parents, but you probably don't have any. You're a disgrace to whatever assholes put you together, not to mention your country and this unit. God knows why I put up with you all. Flaky, the whole lot! Damn miracle we got this far."

I'm sure if he could have, he would have begun pacing. "Now, as I was saying, we must maintain our order, must not fall out of line, or else all is lost - if one falls out of place, we, as a unit, will crumble."

It's times like this I wonder about my life - it seems like all I can remember is being pushed this way and that, never really on my own. Well, I guess things haven't been so bad. We were all real soft before, real doughy, you know, but now we're hard. Real hard. I like that. I like feeling that way... but, it's like I've been on a conveyor belt, shoved into some damn box, and shipped off to who-the-hell knows where, for... no one seems to know. Maybe that crusty old bastard, maybe he knows, but he won't say. Special orders or something. That's how it always is.

Oh, I should mention the shaking. Yeah, none of us can see, and I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I know for sure we're moving. There's a whole lotta shaking. Has been for a while. Not so much that I'm gonna fall to pieces or anything; hell no, I wouldn't give our sergeant that sort of satisfaction; but we are not exactly on a first-class type trip. So some of the guys are probably a little shook up. Yeah, I'm glad the old bastard up front can't hear that joke, he'd probably want to use it himself. heh. Bad enough I thought of it.

"Now, I know some of you are feeling a little shook up -",
"Fuck," I thought to myself -
"and I know you ain't never been away from home before -" I could feel his smile in the dark, when he made that damn joke - "bunch of softies, but we got picked. We're a special order, you know that? Not like the rest. No, we're made a little differently."
That was for sure - especially the guy behind me, who was way too damn happy to rub up against my backside. Well, I couldn't help but do the same to the guy in front, packed tight as we were, and what with all the shaking. Different for sure - like a whole bunch of queers, is what we were.

"It won't be long before -"
There was a horrible tearing sound. It came from - oh shit. There's daylight. Daylight is knifing its way in through the rip. Can't see a damn thing, but there's lots of yelling, and we're moving now.

- Think I heard sarge yelling.

- Can almost see something - wait, what the -

..giant hand?
crushing...damn strong. got me, now.
Tried getting away. Me and the others.

Oh God -

The heat...the heat...and the gnashing of teeth...it...can't be. They're...shit, oh shit, oh shit, they're all being crushed, I can hear them crunching, like bugs, like...bones?, into that gaping maw, into that...into the pit - "Into the darkness, where there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth..." No! No! Never! I-!"

And then the boy finished his crackers. They were quite good. The way they crunched was especially delightful. And the wrapper! That salty, crackery smell! He felt as though he was in heaven. He hoped there would be more tomorrow.

Accidentally employed

2006-12-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

(家寧, you knew I would have to write tonight, didn't you?)

Well, I have to say, many of you have taken the time to write to me; I have returned the favor by...reading your emails...and not writing. Sorry about that! But I'll start tonight.

I thought about writing on last weekend: I went to 家寧's house on Saturday. Her family taught me to make dumplings (水餃). They were really good, though mine were somewhat misshapen...they were lumpy and deformed, like the sorry result of a toxic waste dump/dumpling spawning ground. Everyone was very polite, and said they all looked the same when they're cooked, anyway, which has some truth to it. Dumplings are not exactly the prettiest food I can think of (they resemble shriveled, gluey giblets...), but there is a definite art to making them look better, which I have not yet mastered. We went for a little walk into the area of a former coal mine run, and abandoned, by the Japanese; in the evening, everyone made something for dinner. I made spaghetti my way, and it was good (heh - it's not just arrogance on my part - I wasn't the only one who liked it. I think everyone else had seconds, at least; then again, maybe they were just being hugely polite. Of course there were many other dishes there as well, and everyone ate until they had trouble moving. It was all good.). Overall it was a really good day. There are a few photos up on my site, but I don't really feel like writing about that (beyond what I just did). Not now, anyway.

I could write about my museum trip, too, and...maybe I will, later. It had its highlights - I'm just jotting that down so that I won't forget.

So, for today...
Did you know I accidentally got a job? Maybe you'd like to hear about that.

Well, here's how it happened:
Several days ago, my volunteer, Rae, called me and asked if I'd meet with her friend's foreign friend - she thought it might be good if I talked to him. So we all got together at a restaurant on campus, ate, talked, etc., and mostly enjoyed ourselves.
Of course, it turns out I already knew this guy - we have a class together, and he lives just across the hall and one door down. I suspected it'd be him.
But I won't get into all that! The important thing is, he somehow came across this lady who teaches a class on translating Japanese into English, or something like that. I'm not entirely clear. But, he didn't take the job, again for whatever reason. I told him I'd be interested - like I often say, I tend to have a lot of free time here. And I do have expenses.

So, the next day, he showed up at my door with the information I needed; I set out soon after to meet my potential employer...on maybe 4 hours of sleep, and with no preparation whatsoever. Heheh. Yes, I am truly a professional.

After a bit of looking, I came to the classroom. I had no other information on contacting this teacher, so I figured I'd just go there. I thought I'd be late, but I made it just as class was about to begin. Or, rather, just as every other class was about to begin. This particular one did not start until nearly fifteen minutes later, when the teacher finally arrived.

I briefly introduced myself and asked for a bit of clarification. Upon her finding that I was mostly free from visible defects, and that I was a native English-speaker, I was hired.
The job? It pays the equivalent of $15 an hour US - for four hours a month. Heheh. Still, it's something. So here's what I do - the class is mostly native Taiwanese, with a couple foreign students. The teacher wants them to work on their accents (and though she didn't say it, their diction, conjugation, and grammar, too); that's why I'm there. I supervise, answer questions, and troubleshoot the English language. heheh.

Taiwan constantly surprises me - it's good to be a foreigner. Because I've been here a while, I expected I might be hired when I showed up; that wasn't too shocking. I also expected to introduce myself and answer a few questions, and was not surprised by that, either.

The introduction went fairly well, though the end was sort of weak; anyway, the class seemed to mostly like it. Then it was time for the inevitable questioning. At first they were shy - they always are.
But questions soon started rolling in.
Like I said, my introduction went mostly well and likewise, the questioning did, too - I've been asked the same questions so many times I often have no need to think about my answers. There were more probing and in-depth questions than I'd been expecting, though - some of the people were actually paying quite a bit of attention (by some people I mean that the girls were quite attentive and responsive, while the guys seemed generally unimpressed and bored. heh. Well, it's fun watching the guys here - they always try to act unimpressed...just like guys, everywhere, now that I think about it, but I was always seeing the other side of it back home, when it was me and the others trying to figure out why all the ladies were so impressed with those stupid foreigners. So now I know both sides.). For example, one girl, with very good English (I later found out she'd lived in California a while), asked me a good one - she wanted to know what I liked about international affairs. Unfortunately for the coherency of my answer, she was pretty, and kept her eyes on me the whole time, doing that crazy eyelash flutter thing that girls do. So my thoughts were not exactly all going the same direction. But I was able to come up with some vague and indefinite answer about it being interesting to understand how the world is supposed to work, and to be able to occasionally predict world events. It might not have been totally satisfactory, I admit.

I mentioned being surprised. But I haven't said why, yet! It wasn't because of the attention I was getting (that actually happens a lot here); I was surprised the teacher let me stand up there so long. I mean, class started late, I showed up unannounced, and the teacher was willing to give me something like 10-15 minutes in front of the class. The lesson didn't get underway till the first period was half-over.

She had them sing a Japanese song, very famous, I understand, about cherry blossoms. Then she decided to make them do a skit or short presentation of their thoughts based on the song - in English, to which there was some groaning. But she said I'd help, and that seemed to relieve everyone.

I listened to all the groups, but one, and gave my advice. That one group didn't need my help - after all, it had another American in it. I get the feeling he isn't the most popular fellow, though - he seems like your typical anime/japanophile nerd, complete with apparently unimproved social skills; one Japanese exchange student was also in that group.
And I was impressed by the groups - sure, their grasp of English was occasionally shaky, but overall not bad - more than that, and more importantly, they were creative and funny. All of them came up with good skits. One, for example, had a loving couple sailing down the river in a boat, watching the cherry blossoms fall - a very romantic mood, to be sure, and a little poetic. However...the couple was a little drunk, the man started talking about a beautiful geisha, and it angered the woman so much that she hit him with the boat paddles, shoved him out of the boat, and threw the paddles after him. They ended that sudden spat with the image of "water droplets, floating from airborne oars, like cherry blossoms falling". And then the boatman says that there was no geisha, the man was just so drunk he was hallucinating.
Well, it might not be as humorous in the re-telling - good acting makes a huge difference. But I liked it (so did the rest of the class). Surprisingly, the group with the Japanese girl and American guy did the worst out of all - they just read a couple sentences...which I suppose would be fine, but disappointing, if they hadn't been required to take up at least 5 minutes. So they panicked in front of the class, wasted some time coming up with something else, and then tossed out some things so dull I can't remember them at all.

I was pleased with the class. I'll only go every two weeks, since they spend those other two weeks doing Japanese (which I'm pretty shaky on - I've forgotten nearly everything). I even got paid at the end of my full workday, and, to celebrate, went with a certain someone for a celebratory dinner. We ate fancy - we ordered $3 meals!
(twice the price of my usual $1.50 fried rice dinner.)

So that's my accidental job. I have to say, for the incredibly tiny amount of effort I put into getting it, I'm pretty pleased with the result. I think I'll like this class.

And that covers...well, part of one recent afternoon. Wow, am I ever behind (at least, if I want to cover the more interesting things that happen to me.)
All for now! Thanks for reading, by the way.

Short Mountain Hike Part 2

2006-11-30T11:35:00.000-05:00

Once again we meet in words. Unfortunately, you get to know all about me, and I know nothing of you, but, that's writing, right?

I honestly haven't done much, but I'm so lazy that there's plenty to talk about anyway. Heheh.

I think I should finish telling about the little walk 家寧 and I took.

Alright, when I left off, we had just arrived in town. And I do mean town, as in a small settlement. It's on either side of a river, nestled down in some hills, and though it looks old, it's nice, in a run-down kind of way.

It was still drizzling rain, and we were both, for the best part, wet. And our legs were quivery from walking downhill so long; we both shook a bit when we stood still to rest (I have to say, though, 家寧 is a great walker - she'll walk just as far as I will - and she likes it! (or she's really good at faking...but she's the best actress on Earth, then)).
We needed to figure out where the bus stop was in relation to where we were: we'd come down far from our origin.

I was going to accompany 家寧 in looking around, but she saw a police station, and said they'd know where it was. I figured I wouldn't be much use, since I'm the equivalent of a really smart Chinese dog as far as language goes, so I decided to stay outside and take some pictures. The town, as I mentioned, sits on both sides of a little river, which flows over smooth-worn stones; the houses are built almost on top of the water, with steep concrete sides keeping everything in the proper order (river in its bed, houses out of the water). There's also a bridge I liked the look of. I'll post a few pictures at the bottom of this entry; you might like the place.

I was still taking pictures when my companion returned; I felt a little bad about not going with her. Sure, I'd be useless, but it would've been better. Eh, well. She did look a little angry, perhaps, that I was still staring at basically some concrete, while she'd gone and done something useful. Heheh.
We didn't have to go far; the bus stop was only maybe a half-mile away. The town was empty, but interesting; I hear it fills up on weekends, but when we were there, you'd think it was a town on its last legs (or perhaps pylons, given its geographical situation). 家寧 asked if I was hungry, and, being me, of course I answered yes. I'm always hungry. She said there was some interesting food there, and that we could stop and eat. I agreed, then I realized the time: 1:40. She had a meeting in 20 minutes. I told her, she said she'd just miss it at this point, we argued a bit, and finally we decided she could probably make it back before it ended, maybe an hour late. Besides that, I'm always hungry - I can always eat, but it's not like I have to.
So we waited a few minutes for the bus, it promptly showed up, and we had a couple seats all to ourselves. No standing!

The ride back felt good - we weren't being rained on, we weren't sliding, and when we did go downhill, it was the brakes protesting, not our legs. So we relaxed for the next ~45 minutes, and talked at our leisure.

Eventually it ended, of course, which was a shame - so we got on the subway, rode back to school, and started walking. I accompanied 家寧 most of the way to her meeting; after saying goodbye, I decided to look for food. It was about 3:10 or so.

Before I'd even gone ten feet, I took a more careful look at the restaurant I was passing by. I'd planned to go somewhere cheap and filling, and nice restaurants here usually aren't either of those things, but there was something different about this place. So I walked to the entrance - and discovered Sizzler is not dead. It just lives in Taiwan now (yes, I know there are supposedly some locations in the US, but I haven't seen one in years).
I thought I'd keep it in mind for later, since I really wasn't in the mood to spend so much - however, I was fairly hungry, and as I continued walking, I was reminded that they have a salad bar; it was well-stocked and fresh, like the super-walmart of salad bars. Man, did it look good. The thought went through my mind that it'd be exceedingly nice to get out of the rain and enjoy a huge meal in my filthy, wet, tired condition.

So I kept walking.

Heh.

Oh come on, you knew I was going to. Since when do I do sensible things?
So I kept walking. Several blocks drizzled by, and I didn't see much in the way of food. A lot of places close down between lunch and dinner here.
I came across a stand selling...something? It was fried, and smelled delicious, and I would tell you what it was, but there was a crowd of people there. Not that I'm terrified of crowds; no, they were huddled around the stand, and under the arcade, and they eyed me with great suspicion as I drew near. In fact, several were scowling when it looked like I'd gotten to close to the food-end of the line. I thought I might get jumped if I got close enough to actually see what it was. There must've been at least 20 people in line, at 3:30 in the afternoon, in the rain, so that must be some damn fine food. I didn't feel like waiting.

So I kept walking.

More blocks came and went, more restaurants were not open, or were, but were unappealing. I'd been thinking about Sizzler the entire time. I turned around when I came to some slightly inconvenient construction, and decided right there that I'd eat at one of the places I'd passed. I did not permit myself to think about eating at Sizzler - at actually eating there, not just considering it. I came back to the crowded stand; in the 15-20 minutes I'd been gone, perhaps 2 people had gone through the line, and several more were added to the end. There might've been 30 people then. I wanted to try it, but my hunger was getting a bit overwhelming, and I really felt like drying out a bit.
So I told myself if there was nothing else open before Sizzler, I'd eat there.
Sure enough, nothing was. Still, I stood in front for a good two or three minutes, debating whether I should enter or not. Eventually I convinced myself that, while it might be expensive, it was something I couldn't do back home, and I'd always sort of liked Sizzler. So I went in.

I was seated promptly, handed a menu, and told that there was a 'tea-time' special; this included the salad bar, for cheap. So, without even looking at the menu (I had wanted to see if they still had some of the old stuff, but, alas!) , I agreed to get the special. It was a choice of rosemary garlic chicken, or some other chicken; I of course picked rosemary, and didn't expect much. Then I got up for the salad bar.
It was as well-stocked as I thought. There was salad, of course, and it was good. There was spaghetti, which was surprisingly good; there was fruit, which was also good; an assortment of breads, most of which were good (and one that was good but strange, see the picture below), deserts, puddings, jellos, etc.

I'd finished off a few plates before my meal came. I have to say, I wasn't expecting much from the chicken, but something, some magical chemical, or a talented chef, or perhaps that old standby, greatest seasoning of all, hunger, made the chicken superb. I've been wanting to use that word for a while now - don't think I have in probably a year or two. Well, anyway, the chicken deserved that much-abused adjective; it was some of the best I've ever had. At a Sizzler! In Taiwan! Unlikely, right?

All told, I think I ate seven platefuls of food. And then there was the bowl of icecream. Man, now that's how you do gluttony. It was really, really good. And, it cost $330 or so NT - only $10 US! Expensive here, but good luck getting that sort of deal back home. It was worth it.

After all that, I was ready to go back to my room and relax. And then I remembered - I'd agreed to meet Morris and Chris for dinner! Which was only an hour and a half away. Ah.
Well, that went well, though I hardly ate anything (they were shocked to see me eat so little).
And so far as I can remember, that was my day.

I liked it a lot. It is a day worth memorializing. heh. And if a certain someone has a chance to go hiking again like that, you'd better believe I'll jump at the opportunity.

Houses, bridges, the road, and the river in 景美.

Looking the opposite way.

A bridge

The river

And now the rest!

Part of the salad bar at Sizzler

Yes, it is evil cake. I'm not exactly sure why, though - it tastes pretty good. I think the Chinese name is something like "ghost devil biscuit" - is that in reference to us light-skinned folks? eh?

Yes, that down-home favorite...

Outside Sizzler

All for now - and there's still much more to write!

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

For thanksgiving, I ate Vietnamese food. It's pretty close to turkey. As in, it is both tasty, and food.

The similarities end soon thereafter.
But I did like it. It wasn't too expensive, it was much better than being simply 'tasty', and, for reasons I think I might know, my food came with a small loaf of hot, fresh french bread (Vietnam was ruled by the French...?).

And you know what? I found a clever way to beat the crowds to the day-after shopping. Leave the country! Yes, that's right, all you have to do is leave the good old U.S. of A., and there are no lines at the malls! No mad rushes for toys! No crazy people, no unending, mercilessly maddening christmas carols! No problems parking (well, aside from the fact that Taiwan, like many other foreign countries, does not believe in parking lots - so parking is just as easy as it ever is)!
I'm going shopping tomorrow. I think a lot of you would enjoy the shirts they have here; unfortunately, though shirts are cheap (like $3-4), shipping them is not. So most of you will get...nothing. Heh. Well, being good is its own reward, right? Not that I really believe any of you have been staying out of trouble. Scoundrels. No visits from Santa this year. He lost visitation rights, because you've been bad (imagine saying that to a child of divorce. Heheh. Wow, that'd screw him up. Sometimes, do you think, it's best that I'm not a parent? Well, not like I'd intend to get divorced, anyway...but you never know who your own kids would bring back home, right?).
So, anyway, sorry, no presents. Maybe I can bring a few things back with me, and you can get some bizarre goodies then.

I think on some weekend soon (maybe this one), I'll get a chance to actually cook some food. I might even make something thanksgiving-y. Or a pie. Yeah, pie's good.
That reminds me: there are things you'd expect any ordinary country to have. You know, roads, water and sewage systems, a military, pie. Guess which one of these things Taiwan doesn't have! Well, you'd be half-right if you guessed any of them, but the answer was pie. There is none.
Or, if there is, I have never seen it, and I've checked just about every restaurant and dessert place within 2 miles of school (and plenty of upscale places, too). There are cakes, and lots of them (though, like bread, no Taiwanese person has ever been entirely successfully at making one).
According to stereotype, asians are skinny. That isn't true of every person, of course, but there are fewer fat people here than in America. However, it isn't because they're starving, anymore. It's because they don't know how to make decent desserts.
Here in Taiwan, you can only tell that you're eating dessert by some sort of scale that I haven't totally figured out - roughly, though, ordinary food is only 25-50% sugar, while desert is 50-100%. Unsurprisingly, Taiwan has the highest rate of incidence of diabetes in the world.

There's a killing to be made here by any half-decent pastry chef and/or baker. Also, I think Southern style food would be immensely popular here. If you could get anyone to try it. It's worth thinking about.

Well, unlike the rest of you, I don't have a holiday today, or tomorrow, so I've got to go now - enjoy stuffing yourselves. Try to eat a little extra for me.

Cultural note for today: Turkey is very rare in Taiwan. It is also literally called "Fire Chicken" (火雞).

Short mountain hike

2006-11-18T15:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was an exceedingly good day – though it might actually have been several days ago, by the time this gets posted.

I could talk for quite a while about it, but I've been meeting with this girl named 家寧 (Jia1ning2). Heh. Well, if you can't read that, I'm not going to translate it right this moment.
Anyway, Wednesday was a school holiday – it was the school's anniversary. Lots of speeches and things like that.
I, of course, don't care much for speeches, and even less when they're in a language I barely understand.

Anyway, since I had no class, and no compelling reason to stick around school, I'd asked 家寧 if she'd like to do something that day, maybe take a little bit of a hike into the hills around here. She did, and she said she knew of a good place to go.
Heheh. Well, I thought, for some reason, that we were going to this place I'd been to before, but that's because I wasn't paying attention.
We met at 8:00 AM in front of the school (unfortunately, I was slightly late - I'd decided to try breakfast in the basement, since there's a new girl working there, and she'd asked me the day before if I'd like to try something...she's almost overwhelmingly nice, and I think it's impossible not to like her, but, unfortunately, she doesn't cook real fast, and I was kind of cutting it close anyway - sorry 家寧!), rode the subway, then got on a bus. We were the only two on it for quite some time – oh, and of course, the bus's route number was 666.
After quite a while, the driver told us we had to get off and wait for another bus – he didn't want to drive so far for only two people. So we waited for the next bus.
It came, and it was crowded. Standing room only. But we only needed to go another ten minutes or so.

When we got off around 9:20 or so, I looked around, and made a remark like, “this looks different than I remember.” That's because I thought I was at 像山 (elephant mountain)...and not quite registering the fact that it took almost an hour to get there, while 像山 takes maybe 20 minutes. Well, fortunately, I think I was so confused that 家寧 might've assumed she just didn't understand what I was saying – which is extremely unlikely, since her English is better than most native speakers (she has little trouble reading Shakespeare, for example). Heh. Well, it temporarily saved me some embarrassment, anyway...though I'm sure she's going to end up reading this, or I'll remember to tell her. Yes, I really am that clueless sometimes.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think the place is called 文山 (wen2shan1 – I don't think it has any meaning). Or the mountain is. The town nearby might be called 景美 (jing3mei3), or something like that...but I'm not sure, because 景美 I think means “beautiful view.” It was, though. And we were headed to a place in the mountains called 皇帝殿. (Huang2di4dian4)...Emperor's Palace (though it's actually a temple).

All well and good, right?

The weather was almost perfect – almost – except that it was drizzling slightly. Other than that, it was very pleasant. And, being a weekday, there was nobody there but us. Very nice.
We walked for a ways to get to the trail. The road was steep, and then there were stairs. Lots of them. And I discovered my sandals – yes, sandals – were not especially well-suited to walking on slippery terrain. They were athletic sandals, mind you, but the grip leaves a little to be desired.

We walked up a fair number of stairs, enough to get tired of them, and then we came to the trail. It's a real trail, that's for sure - no pavement or any of that silly modern stuff. Heheh...just dirt and rocks, and tree roots. It was a nice change from the stairs, so I have to admit being a little excited to walk on it. So we walked a bit, the trail was fairly steep in places, the rain was only misting, and we were the only ones around.

After a while we came to a small, open-air temple. It was staffed by two dogs, an old man, and a radio blasting out some talk program. Probably politics - it sounded boisterous. The old man never acknowledged seeing us, but the dogs did. You know dogs - they're all optimists. They all think maybe they can beg something from you (well, except the mean ones). Across from the temple there was a short rise, a little hill, with some sort of incense-burning pit on it. So we scrambled up the rocky, slick, trail, and sat down on a small stone wall on the edge of the hill; the view was very nice. 家寧 had brought oranges in her bag, and she offered me one. I gladly accepted it: it goes without saying, but oranges are good, and I didn't have any food with me. One of the dogs had followed us, and was sniffing around for food...so I offered it the orange. I didn't expect it'd want any, but it took one sniff, then scrambled down the hill. Heh. I don't think I've ever seen a dog get that worked up over food. Well, the dog missed out on a mighty fine orange, that's for sure.

We enjoyed the view for a while, and then we moved on. We decided to go higher, towards another temple. The trail got steeper, and we were walking up rain-slick rocks and tree roots exclusively. The vegetation grew closer. And we climbed further and further.

At some point the trail got even steeper - it went up a slick rock slope. Someone had carved some shallow toe-holds, but they were very slippery with rain. Fortunately, someone had also put in some ropes, and chains. You literally pull yourself up the slope.

After walking some more, and coming to more of these steep slopes, we came to the top of the ridge. It looks fake - it's like walking on the edge of a giant stone knife. Someone some time ago hacked up the top layer of rock so that there's a flat path wide enough for one person, and that's what you walk on. To either side is a steep dropoff. It's so strange-looking I thought it was concrete at first.

I'll say this for Taiwan - safety isn't that big a deal here. heh. That might not sound entirely complimentary, but I mean it. In America, most places you go, someone's put up warning signs, and pavement, and guardrails, and stairs, and all sorts of other things, on the off chance that you might do something stupid and hurt yourself. Wouldn't want to get sued, after all.
Here, though, they put up whatever they feel like putting up, and you make the best of it. It feels a lot more free - it feels more like I'm choosing where to go and how to do it - in other places, you feel like someone's wound you up and set you on a nice little path, and you'll follow it like all the other little automatons, because heaven forbid anyone should deviate from the path.

Here's a picture I found of one of the slopes (I forgot to take pictures until we were about to leave, so this isn't my photo) -

In dry weather, it wouldn't be too difficult to climb up without that chain. In wet weather it is extremely difficult. But it's fun! And you get to do it often. There are metal chain ladders, too (they're more slippery than the rock, but they're found in areas where you couldn't safely climb up or down the stone face unless you were an experienced climber).
I had joked, before leaving, that we weren't really going for a hike, more like a short walk. I wasn't expecting much, you know.
I was extraordinarily wrong. But I'm glad to have been wrong - we got muddy, and wet, and had to climb a lot, and used our balance maybe a little, and halfway fell down several times. It was fun. It's much more rewarding to be challenged on your 'walk'.

Anyway, here are some more photos of the area:

That's the part of the path that does have railing - like I said, it's very narrow, and in most places there is no railing at all.

Just another view of part of the ridge. Also with barriers.

The rain slowed us down quite a bit. I didn't exactly know where I was going, and 家寧 didn't know which way to go, so we never actually reached that other temple. We passed above it, and saw its roof. It was a nice roof, for sure, but I hadn't planned on seeing that part. heh. Well, there was a lot more climbing up and down, and slick rocks, and trees roots, and ropes, and ladders, and etc. And finally, we arrived near an entrance. That path had smoothed out. I finally remembered to take pictures -

Doesn't look too steep, right? That's because this is almost at the exit.

That's a bit more like it! Now imagine climbing trails like that for several miles.

And I don't mean by 'climbing' the more general sense of "gaining (or descending) in altitude", either - I literally mean holding onto things and pulling yourself up, or lowering yourself, like she's doing right there.

Then we came across an unexpectedly welcome sight - stairs.

This's looking back up at them.

Most of the time, seeing stairs is slightly unpleasant - who can say they honestly really enjoy climbing the things, or that they look forward to every opportunity to do so? Once in a while, sure, it's nice exercise, and it's not so bad most of the time, but after clambering on the slick slope for four hours, those stairs were as comforting as a warm fire on a cold day.
Yes, four hours. We got a pretty good workout...and the stairs were not the end. We had to walk downhill for a mile or two (and that really worked the calves well, that's for sure - it was steep).

We'd been in a little bit of a rush because 家寧 had to get to a meeting that started at 2. When we got into the town at the base of the mountain (again, I think it's called 景美), it was already 1:30 or so.

What happens next? Will we get back in time? Will we decide, "eh, screw it, let's have fun"? Or - does the unexpected happen?

This post is already huge, though, and I've got a couple other things to do tonight, so that's all for now! Tune in later for the conclusion!

In the meanwhile, you can occupy your time with The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny If you grew up in America during the 80s and 90s, you'll probably like this a lot. Even if you didn't, it's still pretty good. Thank you, Brandon, for reminding me of it!

Time again

2006-11-14T09:34:00.000-05:00

Ah, yes, always time. That's what I say before I post, and thus, the post moves through time to some later time. It's quite amazing.

Seriously, though, it's about time I posted again. I won't write long; I have to get up early tomorrow morning.

A few posts ago, or maybe last post (I can't check right now), I mentioned that I found some...interesting hot dogs. If you somehow have not seen them, then now is your lucky moment:

Since I suppose I don't write much about how I'm actually doing, I should mention that I am doing just fine. Things here aren't too bad, and I often come across interesting things, or slightly odd things happen to me.

Like three nights ago - I was returning...
oh! From the bookstore! Yeah, I went to buy some things to supplement my literary studies...comic books. In Chinese. That way, they might be simple enough that I can read them. I've already tried, and it's not too terribly difficult - I know about 75% of what's being said. I just don't know the important parts. 加油!
heh. Anyway, I was heading back on the subway. I got to this transfer station, and, while I was walking from one terminal to another (is that the right word? It doesn't seem quite right), some old guy looked at me, saw I was going to walk right by him, and yelled for me to stop.

I had my doubts, but I wasn't in a hurry or anything.

So I stopped. I'll try to recreate our dazzling conversation:

OG (yeah, the original gangster...or old guy, whichever makes it more fun): "Sir, I will guess, I will guess today you wake up late. I can tell."

Me: "Yes, I did." (not exactly hard to guess - I was more awake looking than most other people around, at 11 PM, and besides that, I'm obviously young and dumb enough to sleep in on weekends).

OG: "You health, very important. I can tell, if I look at palm."

Me: "No, thanks."

OG: "liver, heart, organs - I can tell if healthy. Good health is important."

Me: "..."

OG: "You must take care - sleep early tonight. Stay up late bad for health. Must be asleep by 11." (Keep in mind that it's about 10:50 at this point).

Me: "Yes, I'll go to sleep early tonight."

OG: "Good health very important. Won't be sick if you take care. I look palm, tell you, you take medicine. Very cheap!"

Me: "No thank you."

OG: "Very cheap! 200NT!"

Me: "No."

OG: "Go to hospital, you...you...reg...uh...regular? uh, single word..."

Me: "register."

OG: "Yes! Go to hospital, register, already cost 200 NT. I can tell! Very cheap! Very fast! Have good health!"

Me: "I don't get sick."

OG: "Very important! Only opportunity! You are very lucky, I can tell! I look at you, think, he is very lucky person, so I talk to you!"

Me: "...yeah."

OG: "just let me see your palm!"

Me: "No thank you. I have to go."

I forget exactly what he said then, but he seemed shocked, even wounded that I would just walk away. Like I was his good friend, and had just told him that I actually hated him. But he stayed polite, and walked away with wounded dignity. I almost forgot about the whole thing until just a minute ago.

That's the first time I've been approached by a palm-reader, a chinese medicine guy, or much of anything else. Sure, there's homeless people here, and some of the handicapped and/or veterans will ask you to buy things on the street (usually gum or something like that), but they aren't nearly so insistant - they know when to move on. And more than that, they don't go for just one person - they go for everyone.
This guy specifically approached me, though - the station was full of people, even at that time of night, and he stopped, and wanted to talk to me.

Heh. Well, I suppose I did someone a favor by talking to the old guy - someone else didn't have to listen to his spiel.

Also, I had awesome dumplings today. I think they were called, 上海上壂(?)包子. I'm not real sure what that fourth character is, so it's probably wrong. And honestly, I don't remember if they were called 包子 or not, though they probably were. Well, whatever. They were good. Oh - and before I forget again, since most of you know even less Chinese than I do, that's something like "Shanghai style dumpling-thingies." Man they were good. They were a little expensive ($100 NT for 5 - so, like $3 US - keep in mind, though, you can get plain old potstickers for like 10 cents here), but they were definitely worth it.

Since I've got an early bedtime tonight, that's all for now - and besides, it's hard to read long posts, right?

I still haven't explained the pictures of squirrels. Or my trips. Or my teaching. heheh. Well, later.

For now there are pictures

2006-11-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

I'll start by saying I have no clear idea what I'm going to say.

Well, I was going to write some of my thoughts about Taiwan, but...I forgot what they were. Heheh.
I've uploaded a lot of photos, but I don't feel like writing down the details of my trips very much. heh. So lazy. But you can go look.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pointyflakes/

I finally got a somewhat easy to remember address! Awesome!

Oh! Well, I could write about some other trips I'd taken and forgotten about, since I just saw the pictures again (I transfered them from my camera to my computer) - but it's already 2 AM here, and I need to get up at a reasonable time so I can call my family (I haven't talked to you all in like 2 or three weeks!). Also so I can go play board games...at a coffeehouse. Weird combination, right?

Later, then. For now, there are pictures.

Bite-sized bits

2006-10-29T12:56:00.000-05:00

(Warning: I am about to get smarmy and, at times, ludicrously loquacious. I've been reading recently, and not writing much; this is the result.)

Today was mostly uneventful, as are most days....
I went to the 'bakery' down the street after dinner (in quotes because, while the things they sell are made from dough, I wouldn't say they consisted mostly of it - they consist equally of sugar and mayonnaise, and bacon, and corn, and...well, I'm not real sure, actually; I'd call it more of a bread medley. A breadley store...I like that. Perhaps they should serve there those fancy coffees with the fancy toppings, like whipped cream and sprinkles. Coiffured coffees. Yes, Coiffee. Coiffee and Breadley store. heheh. That pretty well describes the places here.), and found something amazing -

French bread.

Alright, not so amazing back home, rather ordinary, in fact. About as plain and ordinary as you can get. Everyday, even, if you're French.
However, this is not France, or Europe, or even America. Oh no. This is Taiwan.
I have been here four months, and this is the first perfectly ordinary bread I've seen. They do have sandwich bread...but that's not what I'm talking about. If you went into a stationery store (there are some that move, after all, so I had to be specific) and asked if they have pens, and were shown a collection of ink and sharp sticks, you'd be slightly disappointed. Oh, sure, they can be used for writing, but they aren't pens. Same with the bread.

I and the guy I was with (Kyle - who fancies himself good enough to serve the Army after he graduates) almost bought out the store. That's not hard when there are only three loaves to begin with.
I returned home, immediately started on the deliciously normal bread, then decided that, since I was making a mess on my floor (it's properly crusty, after all - the bread. I sweep my floor more often that that.), I should go make a mess in the hall.
So I went into the hall and restarted my bread. (Though thank goodness it hadn't crashed in the middle of my...downloading it. heh. I'd just brush it off, then.)

I created a minor stir (appropriate since those interned here are stewing..so of course they need stirring) by standing there, holding bread. I hadn't expected that. Several people approached, and were incredulous that ordinary bread could be found in Taiwan; a few had undisguised lust in their eyes. They said they'd have to have a talk with the baker, that perhaps an understanding could be reached.

In fact, it was so unusual I was going to take pictures...but the stomach sometimes moves faster than the eye. My traitor hands consorted with my mouth and gullet, instead of with my eyes and the camera. Bah. Well, some say there's a void in each of us that must be filled, but can never be (except, perhaps, by God) - for me, that's probably my belly. heh. In that case, maybe I'd need a lot of communion wafers, if it's only God who can fill it. Heheh.

Also: I found hotdogs with bones in them.

Mistaken ID

2006-10-21T10:31:00.000-04:00

It's been a little while since I've written about what I'm doing, right? I mean to right that, now. (oh, pun!)

Oh, but before I get into it, I think I'll write about today. There isn't much, I promise.

Last night I stayed up extraordinarily late, doing nothing. So today, I woke up and was shocked to see it was already almost 3:00 PM. I handled this situation by playing a game for several hours, followed by an e-mail check, and then finally a shower. By the time I was done with all that, it was ~7:15. I gave Erika a call, since I thought she might not have eaten yet - ah, but she had. Too bad. I was hungry though, and actually, I like looking for food alone, because I enjoy roaming around and seeing what there is to see. Some other people aren't quite so philosophically/exploratorily inclined...heheh. They want to find food quickly, and aren't nearly so willing to walk into strange parts of the city to get it.

I had a hunger that only pizza would satisfy. Yes, I was in need of some cheesegreasecrust. It's a food group that only piza belongs to. Hmm...and maybe breadsticks.
Anyway, it's hard to find pizza around here. Other places I've been to it hasn't been very difficult at all (not that I looked often). I've eaten at a Pizza Hut here, and it was good, just like home - but I can't remember now where it is. And I don't know how to look it up online, since Pizza Hut doesn't list it on their normal website, and I don't know how to find the Chinese one.

I went to the Taipei 101 area, since there are lots of restaurants and malls and things there. I didn't find any pizza. But, I was twice mistaken for a businessman, even though I am dressed like I usually am (except I've been wearing shorts here). One guy at a nice electronics store was trying to sell me a really nice notebook computer that you could write on, and another that's got leather everwhere. His English was very good, soI politely told him I'd just bought a laptop, and wasn't looking for another (especially since the leatherbound one was 68,800 NT - $2,070 dollars or so.)

8:45 was approaching, and most restaurants close around 9:30. I was getting less choosy, and so I ended up going to a Ruby Tuesday. Yes, they have those here, but not many; in fact, this may be the only one.

It was crammed with people, and they only had seats at the bar. Since the place was nonsmoking, I decided sitting there was better than waiting, so I did, and ordered a burger and things.

I didn't look very carefully when I entered the place...my eyes were drawn to the food, and empty seats, and my senses were mostly devoted to figuring out what smelled really good. If I had looked, though, I'd have noticed that the place was jamned full of foreigners. I did notice the menu was all in English, and that the entire staff seemed to speak that awesome language, but didn't quite make the connection. In my defense, I hadn't eaten all day, so people came as a lower priority than food.

So there was this guy at the bar. 55, maybe. Bald. What hair's left is white. Portly. Businessman.
I am waiting for my food to come, but instead, he does, asks where I'm from, if it's business that's brought me here, etc. I answer, and ask what he does. He says he has some offices here and in China. He doesn't proceed to tell me anything more about it, so I ask again, and then he says, "I'd tell you, but then -". You know how that sentence ends. I am tempted, every time I hear that phrase, to kill the speaker. It's in self-defense, you know. They might tell me against my wishes, then have to kill me. So, to prevent that, and to prevent having to hear that damn phrase again, I might just have to go pre-emptive. heh.

Anyway, he says right after that, "well, I saw you there, and prayed to God, and he told me that you're very lonely."
I was sitting by myself, mind you. At a bar. I said, wasn't it possible you just looked over here and saw me alone? He seemed a little flustered. But he continued.
"Well, I'm not going to say it's wrong to drink - I have a beer, myself, but I want you to know God is thinking about you."
It goes on like this for a little while. I then thank him for his time and concern, and he leaves.

Mind you, I don't mind people trying to help me. And I don't have anything against God. However, if God had truly informed this man, he would know that in fact I was not lonely, I was enjoying myself. Yesterday I was lonely. But today, though my friends are all busy, I was having fun looking around. It was a case of his assuming too much.
And then later, he said (I admit, I eavesdrop...pretty much all the time. Especially when it's in a language I know) to his friend that sometimes he says God tells him things, so that basically he won't personally have to take the blame if he's guessed wrong. I hadn't thought of it quite like that - I suppose that's sort of clever. Fake, and contemptible, but clever. My first feeling about the guy was right - he was a bit off. But now I'm curious what he was planning.

Well, look at that. I meant to just write a little short bit. You know by now that that's impossible, whereas I seem not to be fully aware of that, yet. More later.

Just a little poem for the two weddings I'm missing

2006-10-14T03:37:00.000-04:00

The Key, my friends,
to holy wedlock
cannot be found -

Like safecrackers, then,
you must have keen ears,
and in patience abound

Or for sixty years
my grandparents
have been merrily misinformed.

Go, then, take a crack at it!
See what marriage has in store!
The treasures of love are best held
in the ring-clad hands of lovers, after all.

Swimming

2006-10-05T07:02:00.000-04:00

Morris wanted to swim.

His grandmother, though, wanted him not to. A girl she'd known had drowned in the river next to her house, and so she forbade her family from swimming. She thought this would keep her family safe.

Morris thought this was unfair. He knew if he could just learn to swim, then he would never need to fear drowning. But he was not allowed to swim.

He often asked his grandmother why he could not swim. She told him it was better that way, but he didn't believe her. He often begged to try, and sometimes snuck out on his own. He never swam, though, because every time he looked at the water, he knew his grandmother would find out.

One day, near the river, he found his grandmother walking. Morris went to her and asked, "Grandmother, isn't it true that people who can swim won't drown?"
She replied, "Morris, you stupid boy. I am not going to say yes. Swimming is forbidden in this family."
"But...grandmother - you wouldn't have to worry about - "
"I SAID NO!," she shrieked. "NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO SWIM!"

"Grandmother,” he said quietly, “no one in our family is ever allowed to swim?”
"NOT EVER!”

So Morris threw her in the river.
"Help me!", she gurgled, splashing around.
"I can't, grandma – no one in our family is allowed to swim!"
"Stop with that nonsense boy!"
"It's true! We both would drown!"
She stopped thrashing, and calmly treaded water. She began swimming to shore.

"Grandmother! I thought you couldn't swim!"
"Of course I can, you worthless miscreant."
Morris watched her.
"You’re just a hypocrite! You know how to swim, but you won't let us learn!"

She got out of the water and tried to grab Morris, but he was much stronger and faster. He shoved her back into the water, hard, but this time she landed in the current.
"Well,” he said, smiling a little, “since no one in our family is ever allowed to swim, you must not be in my family. So I don't have to listen to you, anyway.”

And the river quickly dragged her away, kicking and screaming (the river, though, went along quite smoothly).

From that day, Morris learned to swim.

And some people say the fish in the sea, downstream from there, seemed to forget what they were born knowing. They kept turning up drowned. But no one saw the old woman again.

The skinny on a bare bear.

2006-09-28T04:03:00.000-04:00

There was a bear, and this bear, he had no hair. He swore, "I will get to the bottom of this, no matter how deep it goes!"

So he asked the parrot, but the parrot wouldn't talk. It was acting flighty, besides.
He ate the parrot.

He asked the earthworm, but it had no dirt. He ate it, and was left with a bad taste in his mouth.

He asked the giraffe, since it sticks its neck into everything - but it held its head high. The bear ate it, too, but was only hungry enough to shorten the legs.
"That'll bring him down to earth," said the bear.

He asked the elephant, since it sticks its nose into all sorts of thing, and has great ears besides. But things did not go well. Elephants are very sensitive to questions about hair.
The bear left before anything went down.

He asked the bee, since it's a busybody, but all its buzz was maddeningly inane. Bees are bad to eat. He did eat its house and honey, though.

The lurking spiders hadn't seen anything, nor caught anything in their secret webs; the birds wouldn't sing, the rats didn't squeak, and the owls only asked, "who?"

After all this grilling, the bear was now full - both of food and questions. He was also full of disappointment, and sighs.
So, when he met a pack of punk dogs, he did not ask for answers.
These punk dogs had perhaps once been hot, but they'd shaved off their hair. Now they were unleashed - they always did just as they pleased. The huge hairless bear was a big hit; before long he found himself with piercings and tattoos covering his bare skin, just like the pack he ran with. He felt happy, and free.

Then winter came. And it was cold - its' bite was especially bad through the new metal barbs in his skin.
The dogs said they would go to their homes; they would return to their masters, whom would not welcome a bear. But the bear was still bald, and could not sleep soundly through the long winter's night. Angry, he asked the dogs:
"What do you know of my barrenness?"
"Nothing till now. Ask the doctor, not us."
And he growled.
"Oh! Then, you're a baron, looking for his wife?"
He grumbled.
"No? Why worry? You, being barren, will match the empty land of ice - and like cannot hurt like; you will not freeze."
"I want my hair."

They barked with laughter, and told him he would be a traitor to rebellion if he should want such a thing. He thought of those dogs, hot by the fire, and decided he'd rather it be him full of hot dogs, than those homes.
Their piercings got stuck in his teeth, and he wandered the snowy cold, miserable, in need of floss, and alone (but for a pack of done hot dogs).

It was late and dark when a light dawned on him, and there, stood his fairy bearmother. "What is the matter, you naked mess? Were you born just now, fat, naked, full-grown, and alone?"
He was cold, and hungry, and his spirits were low, not like this flying one, and so he grumbled that he was bare, and that his bare back would be much better if he could get his bear hair back.
She growled, "your answer's as obvious as your birthday suit, and would suitably conceal that, too. Or is your head as empty as your coat?"
But he was a bear, and not terribly clever. Instantly he thought of eating her, and she said "I've been watching you, though not for the view. Think it again - you'll lose your skin, too." Fairy bears are big and hairy, flying, and very scary.
So he left.

He wandered the wintry wastes. He asked the wind for answers, but it only whispered. The wolves howled, the trees sighed, fishing was fruitless, and even the rivers froze up. No answers came.

Lumbering along, he again found the giraffe, though now, as it lay on the ground, they could see eye-to-eye. "Arrogant animal, see how I've grounded you!" laughed the bear, darkly, at his own cut-down. "But we two are too alike now - cold, but only you from the icy grip that even spring won't thaw; yet." Then he saw it would no longer need its coat, said,
"We shall come close for warmth," and took it for his own.

His investigations over, the bear was glad to find some sort of cover-up. "Finally! A solution to that hairy problem!" the bear exclaimed.
"Better yet, I didn't have to beg or borrow, and there's no ugly, bothersome to-pay!"
And somewhere, the fairy bearmother laughed.
Who knew a cover-up could be so heartwarming?

My cross-country trip

2006-09-17T02:41:00.000-04:00

Sounds impressive, right? Taiwan can be driven across in something like 7 hours though, so I suppose it's not saying much.

As you've noticed, (I know by your admonishments), I haven't written much lately. I'll start with my arrival at NTU - there are things I'd still like to say about my summer, but I should write a little about what I'm doing now.

Alright - time for a narrative.
It was a sunny Sunday morning when I meant to leave, three weeks ago now. I'd returned to Tainan from Jia Yi the previous evening, seen a few of the remaining teachers, and then stayed up late to say goodbye to the Canadians (they left at 3 AM, because, as godless Canadians, they have awful lives; I like them anyway, though).

That sunny Sunday morning I mentioned was nearly over by the time I got up. So I showered, went to eat, came back, and found that a big group was going to leave for lunch. I'd just eaten and needed to pack, so I figured they'd eat and come back soon enough, and I'd be done packing, and could say goodbye then.
I packed my stuff.
And I waited.

Something I might have mentioned before is that the students here seemed to like us. So, while I was waiting, there were two students just hanging out at the World Passport office - Emily and Vinnie, whom I'd never met before. There was nothing else to do, they were nice, and they seemed to like me, so we spent some time talking; they told me I could take the bus instead of the train, and that it was cheaper but just as fast. We checked it out online, and sure enough, the bus was a better deal. Also important: I brought enough stuff for a year, and I gained quite a bit more stuff while teaching - so I had two bags weighing about 50 lbs apiece - and that's very difficult to maneuver with, or even find a place for on the train. The bus has a place for luggage.

I kept waiting: around 3 or 3:30, most of the people who'd left came back. I have a volunteer at NTU who's supposed to show me around and help me out, and I'd emailed her saying I'd be getting in sometime Sunday afternoon - originally I'd planned on it being around 4 or 5, but, as time went on and my coworkers didn't return, I emailed her saying I'd be there around 7 or 8. Things would have been much easier with a phone, but I didn't have one at the time. I decided I'd say goodbye to the people who were there, and then leave, since I couldn't afford to wait any longer. So that's what I did.

The two girls I mentioned, Emily and Vinnie, offered to go with me to the train station. This was very kind, especially as the buses are kind of confusing (where they go is not clearly labeled most of the time, at least, not in English), and the station was a ways away. I also didn't know where it was. The one girl said she'd meet us there, and left on her bike. I wasn't sure why at the time. The other rode with me in the cab. When we were most of the way there, it occurred to me I didn't know how they were getting back. So I offered to pay their way back, but the one riding with me (Vinnie, I think - sorry, it's been several weeks, and we only met the one time) said the other (Emily) would give her a ride back on her bike. Here in Taiwan they've got these special gladiatorial-looking spikes sticking out from the back tires of their bikes that can be used as footrests for a second rider. I didn't think that sounded like a good option, but she refused to consider taking a cab back, and said the bike wouldn't fit anyway. There wasn't much I could do, so I let her do what she wanted.

We arrived at the bus station about 4:00 - right as the bus for Taipei pulled away. I thought there'd be another right away, but, like usual, I was wrong. We went up to the counter, the girls negotiated the purchase of a ticket, and they told me the next bus wouldn't be until 4:30 or so. I thought I'd wait that long - the bus was $300 NT cheaper than the train (like $10...I know, it doesn't sound like that much).

As we were waiting, an announcement was made - the bus would actually be later than scheduled. I considered for a few minutes whether I should just get a refund and ride the train (the train station is right by the bus station), but, while I was thinking, another bus pulled up - bound for Taipei! I really can't commend these girls enough for their kindness - they were willing to sit with me the entire time, until I got on the bus, even if it was late. However, I am certain they would rather not have sat around in the heat (like most things in Taiwan, the waiting area for the buses is outside), and they knew I'd like to get to Taipei at a reasonable time. Once everyone was on the bus, they asked if I could maybe ride that one instead - I think it was a nicer bus than what I paid for. There was a seat left, so the driver let me on. I really appreciate that - and I really want to thank Emily and Vinnie for all their help, though I don't know if they'll ever read this.

So I rode the bus.

It seems like there shouldn't be much to write about, and there isn't - except that I forgot something obvious.
Buses drive on roads.
On Sunday evenings, everyone drives back into the cities from whatever nicer places they've gone.
And that means gridlock.

I noticed we were not making very good time, and I was nervous - I hoped my volunteer was not waiting for me. I hadn't told her any time or place to meet at, but.... Anyway, I did have her phone number, but no phone, and no phone card. When we did make a rest stop (twice? Three times?) there was no announcement on how long we'd be there, and I doubt I'd have had enough time to buy a card and call - the buses here do not wait. So I was a little nervous. (Side note: the bus did have a bathroom, which was downstairs with the luggage - it was only about four feet high, though, and it had a squat toilet. If you are thinking, "you're a guy! What would you care?", then I will tell you why it matters. It matters because squat toilets do not have high sides - there is liquid sloshing around in them, contained by at best a 4 inch high barrier, and if there is a sudden stop, I imagine you'd get a little wet, no matter where you were standing. Anyway, it's not comfortable).

I didn't get into Taipei until about 10:30 PM.
I thought I'd find a convenience store and a payphone, so I could call Rae (that's my volunteer's name), but as soon as I stepped off the bus I was hailed by a taxi driver. Keep in mind that it's late and I'm tired, and don't especially want to lug around two 50 lb bags looking for a place to buy a phone card, and especially not through crowds of people.
So I take the cab.

And discover that I've lost the business card listing who to call at the school (not that it'd really matter, since it was almost 11 on a Sunday evening by then), and I remember I don't really know where to go. So I tell the driver I want to go to 台大 ("Taida" - the quick way of saying 國立台灣大學 "guoli taiwan daxue"). He gets me there in about 10 minutes - it's not far. Since I don't know where to go, I try telling him to just drop me off at the front gate, but he doesn't understand, or he wants to drive me all the way, or something. So we drive around aimlessly, trying to figure out where I'm supposed to be. I have no idea, of course - earlier in the day, I'd tried to open up the documents and emails I had explaining where to go, who to contact, and in what order, but they just wouldn't work (thank you very much, Adobe Acrobat reader - you work just as well as one would expect from an acrobat made of adobe. Why would I want something like that in charge of reading anything, anyway?)

He finally becomes convinced he's found the right place, so I agree that it must be right, and I get out of the car. I get my stuff, pay him, and then slowly walk toward the entrance of the building, because I know for a fact it is not the right place. I hope he'll leave so I can walk to the front gate. I've already walked off a little distance, and I'm out of his sight. I turn around: of course, he's still there - oblivious to me, he's pissing on a tree. That's the first time I've seen anyone do that in Taiwan. So I linger for a minute, he leaves, and I go to the front gate.

And there is a payphone!
So I rush to use it - and find it only takes calling cards.

Instead, I walk to the guard shack to try to get some help. The guard does not speak English, and I speak only enough Chinese to confuse him. He pulls out a map, I point at where I want to go (I don't know where I am, only the location of the building I want to go to), and he understands. He circles our location, then the destination (unfortunately on opposite sides of the campus), and traces a path that is so indirect I wonder if there's some mystical Chinese bullshit to be learned from it.
There is not.

Keep in mind that though it's past 11 at this point, it's still something like 85 degrees, with almost 100% humidity, and that I'm lugging two fifty-pound bags across the entire campus; that's not mentioning my backpack, which is also full, and good not only at holding things, but retaining heat as well.

Across campus, 30(?) minutes later, and about 10 pounds lighter (water loss!) -

I find the dorm. It is locked. I am despondent, and decide to go find a hotel...though I hadn't seen any nearby. Suddenly, a girl shows up and lets me in. I'm glad for her help, but there's no one at the desk to check me in, and I don't know where my room is. So, after a little looking, I decide I'm going to go find a convenience store to call Rae, or a hotel, whichever comes first.

Something I should mention about this campus - it seems extradimensional. Somehow, the path you take never quite takes you where you'd expect. I ended up at an exit, though, and, out of desperation, I asked the guard if he knew where I could find a phone. He offered that I could use his. Very gratefully, I did.
Rae seemed surprised and confounded to hear from me so late - but she got things straightened out. She called the guy in charge of the dorm, told him I'd be by, and gave me his number.

So I thanked her, and the guard, then walked back to the dorm.

The guy in charge was there, lounging on the porch, which made me insanely angry - sure, he's there late, just trying to help me, but I've just spent the last 45 minutes literally dragging 100 pounds around, with almost no water, in fairly unpleasant weather, and my clothes are all soaked with sweat. To see someone relaxed, lounging around, just waiting for me - well, I wanted to crush him under my bags.

And then there was paperwork.

I finally got into my dorm about 12:15 or so, met my new roommate for the first time by waking him up, smelled the horrors of the room, saw the bed, and decided I really didn't care. I was tired.

So I slept.

And so went my first day at NTU.

A little about my last host family (am I a cancer or parasite?)

2006-09-01T05:34:00.000-04:00

Like so often of late, I haven't had much time to write. And I've forgotten so much, too.

Before I forget again, I would like to direct your attention to a site (or your sight to a site?) - my fellow teacher Jordan not only is a professional photographer, he also has a nice camera. Oh, and nice pictures. I'm not in any of them, of course, because I'm not nearly interesting enough to look at, but they are nice photos - http://www.jordandiamond.com/index.php?category=5 . So that's what some things in Taiwan look like. I even know where some of those things are, and have seen them myself! I have to admit, though, the picture with the tractors in the cloudy moonlit forest is one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. It's moody - and then there are tractors!
Hmm. Maybe that's just me, though. Keep it forever, Jordan! I want a copy!

My last homestay family, which will remain nameless but awesome for now (mostly because I don't know how to write the characters for their name...well, I guess I could just spell it Guo, which I guess is right) took me to an amusement park two weekends ago now. I really enjoyed my time with them, and hopefully it goes vice-versa, too. I'm going to digress now, as I always do. This family, the Guos (that doesn't look quite right...), consists of a mother who works tirelessly to keep everyone happy (and me so well-fed that I couldn't move to leave them), a father who also works tirelessly doing research and development for a car-parts company (he does transmissions, thus, 'tirelessly' - oh yeah, bad pun!), a son whose age I've forgotten (12, right?), and a daughter named Melissa, whose age (sorry!)I also can't remember at the moment. 14? Oh, well, I guess the mother doesn't really work tirelessly, after all - she is always buzzing around on her scooter buying things and running errands, not to mention ferrying people back and forth in her car, so I suppose if she were working tirelessly she wouldn't get far.

So that last one was a bit stretched. I don't care, because I'm tired. And I'm writing. Get your own blog if you don't like it! Bah!

Before I interrupted myself, though, I was going to say there are two other members of the family - Melissa's two friends. The night I first came over, so did they. And they were both there every night and day after that. I never actually asked if they're always there that often, but I suspect not. They're a lot of fun to be around, though, so I didn't mind, and I guess the family must not either. Their names were Stella and Gina. Not that they only exist in the past or anything - it's just that those are no longer their names. After being there only a few days, they told me that they were unhappy with the names they had - they are sort of common ones here, and they didn't exactly get to pick them.

Oh! I should explain. Every Chinese person I know of picks an English name to go by. I guess they don't use their Chinese names because most of us just can't get the tones right and would end up mangling their names (imagine your name was Melony and people in one part of the world kept calling you "Morony" - you'd probably want to pick a different name to go by there). Many of them pick their names at a fairly young age: a mistake, I'd think - would you want to stick with anything you chose around the age of 12-16? I suspect if we did the same thing, we'd have a lot of guys named "Badass Awesome Death Killer!" With the exclamation mark. Probably more than one, actually. As another sidenote, many Chinese people pick English names that aren't actually English and aren't any easier to remember. Like Korean or Japanese names. Or they'll go the opposite way and pick names that are very memorable for all the wrong reasons. Like Baggy. Or Lamp.
Well, also they're given a very small list of names by their teacher to choose from, so there are a lot of Angelas, and Angels, and Stellas, and Ambers, and things like that.

Back to my original digression. They were unhappy with their noms de...Anglais? (Yes, you're right, I don't know French. But I do know how to use online dictionaries! Well, it's not like they're guerilla fighters, or famous writers, or anything like that, right?) So they asked for me to think of good names for them.
I am not good with names. Remembering them, or thinking of them. So, I turned to my comfort and guidance!
No, not the Internet, though some of you may have thought so. Unfortunately Biblical names for women are somewhat scarce, and either already very popular, or unpopular due to their strange sound.
So I turned to the Internet (you knew it would happen - in addition to the prohibition against turning to any other gods, perhaps it should read, "or the Internet". heh.). This site, specifically - http://www.behindthename.com/ . It's pretty good. I let them scroll through, and when they found ones they liked, I'd give them my opinion as a native speaker - in the end, they ended up choosing the names "Phoebe" and "Reina". Phoebe will tell you I gave her her name, but I only supervised. She did it herself.
Oh - one other funny thing - Phoebe is artistic. She'd seen one other teacher's signiture, and it included a little smiley face, or a penguin, or things like that on occasion. So she asked me if she could maybe draw a little cat with her signature. I told her it was her name and she could do whatever she wanted with it...which was typically thoughtless of me. So now whenever she writes her name, not just signs it, it includes a little cat face on the P of Phoebe. It's got little whiskers sticking out and everything.

That's it for now - I'll write more later.

Trippy!

2006-08-20T05:28:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much access recently, so I've forgotten some of what's happened. Too bad.

But I do remember that I was going to write about two things.

The first, I went to a nice restaurant with my boss, Eva, and all the teachers' assistants. Have you all heard of okinomiyaki? If you thought that sounded Japanese, you'd be right. It is. Another thing it is, is very good.
The way it works is like this: you order something. The waiter brings you a big bowl full of whatever you ordered. There's a grill in the middle of the table - you can cook the food yourself if you want, or the waiter can do it. Either way, whatever you ordered doesn't really matter - it ends up looking and tasting almost exactly the same, whatever it was. The only difference is in the toppings. oh! I'd better explain some more.
So you cook it, right? But you cook it up in a circle shape. And you flip it over. When it's done, you cut it up into slices, so that it looks very much like a pizza - thus its sometimes name, "japanese pizza". If you'd like some pictures, or a much better explanation, you can find both here: http://greggman.com/japan/okonomiyaki/okonomiyaki.htm .

It's really good. However, the presentation of ours suffered a bit. Eva is the take-charge sort, and she's...spirited, I guess you might say. What she is not, is cautious. Anyway, she decided she would cook ours. It turned out being food, fortunately, but not pretty. It was a massacred heap of cooked stuff. It was still delicious.

Also at this restaurant we ordered "monjayaki." Those of you who cook, you know how the edges of the food sometimes get just a little brown and crispy and delicious? Think of an entire meal like that. So good.
Here's how it works: there is a bowl of soupy stuff. The bowl is poured out on the grill, and you stir it around a little bit. Then you are given a ridiculously tiny spatula - big enough maybe to belong to a mouse - and with that spatula, you scrape the food off the grill. It's all just slightly brown and crispy, and it takes forever to eat it all, because you just have a tiny metal spatula. It's well worth it, though. Eat it sometime!

It's kind of hard to write right now. I'm not really in the mood. Just not feeling very creative. Ah, if only I could've written this morning! Oh well.

So, I continue.

The trip I wanted to talk about was to a place called "Alishan." Or Mt. Ali. Whatever. This place is supposed to have a beautiful sunrise, so people often take trips to see that.

Several other teachers, and myself, decided we'd like to go see the mountain. And the sunrise, while we're there.
Jana, one of the teachers here (and who I have to admit liking quite a bit, even though she is a filthy Canadian), is staying with a host family that owns a hotel (oh, if you've seen my pictures, she's in one or two of them). They're kind enough to let us in free of charge. Not to sleep, of course, but there's a big room on the top floor that they let us use for hanging out. We agreed to meet there Friday after school (on the 11th?) whenever it was conveneient - and then leave at 1 AM.
Why so early?
Because it's a few hours away on twisty mountain roads. Oh, that's not a good explanation, is it? Well, if you leave too early, you have to stay the night at the one hotel in the area, which you do not want to do if your funds are limited. If you leave much later than that, you won't see the sunrise. Simple. You also can't get to the top of the mountain unless you hike, which is not good in an unfamiliar, unlit mountainous area; or you take the train, which doesn't start running until maybe 3 AM.

I don't remember what I did that evening, but I didn't get to the hotel until maybe 9:30. Oh, wait - I took a short nap (being a teacher can be exhausting). So I met most of the other people there, and we all had fun sitting around being goofy, as only sleep deprivation and boredom can inspire. There was a Mac, and it had a built-in camera with all kinds of neat little options (mirroring the image in the middle, fishbowl effects, etc.) We couldn't let that sort of awesome power go to waste, so we made many, many silly pictures. And watched bad Chinese tv.

The last member of our group had us worried. Celia (that's her name, and boy does she have it rough - she's Jewish, and I'm almost certain it's impossible to avoid pork products (not to mention unclean seafood) in the food here) has rented a scooter for the duration of her stay, and she said she'd just drive over and meet us before we left.
At 12:40, we were starting to get a little concerned. She wasn't with us.
We called her, and she said she'd be there soon.
But soon came and went, and Celia did not.
We called again, and, as I'm sure you expected, the poor girl was lost.
Things weren't that dire, though - our hotel is right by the train station, and it's easy to find. So Celia was quickly directed in the right way, and we met her at maybe 1:10 AM.

We called the cabs, told them we wanted to go to Alishan, and then went downstairs. The cabs came in only maybe two or three minutes. We were ready to go, but several members of our group were still upstairs. We waited on them. After about ten minutes of waiting the cabbies were getting impatient, and they had to move their cars so they weren't blocking the street anymore (everyone just parks in the street here if they're going to be quick); like cabbies anywhere, they didn't like being kept waiting. Another ten minutes passed before the rest of our group came down. They apparently didn't know we were ready to go.

We were just about to get in our cars when the cabbies began speaking. That is never a good sign, if you're still outside the car.
Important note: this is right after several typhoons had passed by.
It turns out the cabbies couldn't take us to Alishan after all, because a bridge on the way up the mountain had been covered by a rockslide.
We sort of believed them, and they left.
One teacher and her homestay girl left, disappointed at the way things had turned out.
The rest of us began arguing amongst ourselves, and decided we were being fed a fairly lously lie. The cabbies hadn't been on the phone or anything, and, if they'd known before that the road was out, why didn't they say so in the first place? So we called the same company again, and asked if the road to Alishan was still out. They told us to wait while they checked. Not two minutes later, they called back and told us the rockslide had been cleared. Keep in mind this is almost 2 AM - I sort of doubt any construction crews were out clearing rocks in the mountains at that time of night.
The cabs arrived, and finally we were on our way.

Of course, that's not the end of the drama. It's never over till the fat lady sings, right? And we didn't have any fat ladies.

As I mentioned before, the road up to the mountains winds a lot. It also gains an incredible amount of altitude in a very short time - I think almost 2 miles' worth in something like 20 miles of straight-line distance. I did not think of carsickness, because I never get carsickness. Unfortunately, no one else thought of that either - and we had one girl in each car get very sick. We had to make frequent stops on our way up so our sick people could get some fresh air and experience normal movement.
I enjoyed doing it that way. Not that I was enjoying their suffering: no, it gave me a chance to enjoy the mountain air, and the clear night sky, and to see a little of the moonlit land. And we still made good time, too - remember, these are cabbies we're talking about. And there was no one else on the road. I must also admit I occasionally thought we might die, but it turned out well. And our driver was really friendly and good-natured - not at all like the other guys we'd had earlier.

We finally arrived about 4 AM. We waited in line for for about 20 minutes so we could buy tickets for the train to the top. And we arrived at the mountaintop about 5:15 aM - just as the sun was rising. We would've missed it, and I was certain we would, but I forgot something important about mountains - they are tall. And tall things block the sun. So the sunrise didn't happen for a little while longer.

I was glad for that. Happiness is always temporary, though. As soon as we made our way to the top - to the observation platform - we found ourselves in a horde of people. Only I was tall enough to see much of anything, and I wasn't enjoying the view much. It would've been nice but for the crowd, and the crazy man walking on the safety wall. Well, he wasn't just walking - that'd be easy to ignore. No, he had a megaphone, and enjoyed hearing himself scream. I think he was a tour guide/barker - he kept saying things about buying this and that. So that was the perfect way to ruin a beautiful sunrise, I thought.
I was a little pissed off. My group was disappointed. We'd gone through a lot of trouble and misery to get here, and now the whole thing was pointlessly ordinary.
Just at that moment, a girl appeared. Why? I don't know. But we started talking to her, and she told us to follow. So we did. She led us up the mountain further, and it turns out there's another viewing area, less crowded, and with a less annoying huckster. It was perfect (by local standards - heh), and we got lots of pictures. Or at least, those with cameras did. And I got pictures on other people's cameras which I hope to someday have access to.

After that we decided to walk down the mountain. It was beautiful - there were massive stumps overgrown with moss, and a forest grown up around them. It had all been cleared out during the Japanese occupation, and been restored since.

I'm running out of time.

The rest of my group (with the exception of myself and a teacher's assistant by the name of Connie) was exhausted, and I think I annoyed them the whole way down the mountain. I would point at something and say, "that'd make a really good photo". They would grunt. But I enjoyed myself anyway. I have to go back sometime with a camera and a few days to spare - it's going to take me a long time to take all the photos I want.
Alishan is also the first place in Taiwan where I've enjoyed the weather - it was probably around 50 degrees. Awesome. No one else thought so; they were complaining of the cold. But I thought it was awesome.

That's all the time I've got for the moment, so that's where I'll have to end. I'll revise this when I have a moment.
I hope I'll have more time to write soon - there's plenty to say.

Bye for now!

More Learning

2006-08-04T06:51:00.000-04:00

I wanted to start by saying - never learn English in a foreign country. Most people don't have much choice, though, which is very unfortunate.
After a while, you stop noticing the mangling of your native language. Signs that you might have laughed at before barely catch your interest. Only the exceptionally bad, or the unintentionally hilarious, will be noticable. I would give you an example, but I've been making a conscious effort not to remember the horrifically bad signs I've seen, for fear that it'll degrade my English even further than the destitute state it already is in. It's like being poor, but knowing that you could be living in India, scheming about chopping off your children's arms so they'll be better beggars.
Hmm. That was kind of ghastly. So....

This morning I was riding the bus to school, like every day. It traveled the same route, like every day. Today, though, I was sitting (a rarity) by the window. I just chanced to turn my head at a sign I hadn't noticed before - it read, "Just do eat." For the first split-second, I thought nothing of the artwork below, a piece of bread, and assumed it was just one more atrocity committed against my favorite (and admittedly only) language. Then I really noticed the shape of the bread. It was the Nike swoosh. On a bakery. "Just do eat", right? It's far too clever a use of English to fit in here, so I might have to stop by that shop and see how that happened. Maybe they could change it to "Just Dough Eat" - do you think so? That'd probably be too much. Even in America.

Anyway, as I ended my last post, I was worrying about God's having a sense of humor. I woke up the very next morning, thinking of ways to re-write my post (like usual, I was unhappy with it as it was (and as it is)), and dragged my way through my morning preparations. I was running late, and, what's worse, I needed to copy some music I'd downloaded the night before for a class on Western music. So I was rushing around. And let me say now, yes, God does possess an a keen sense of the comical. I'd said I'd like something differently painful to keep me humble.

Ask and ye shall receive.

It's not really important that you know this, unless you come here, but there are almost no dishwashers in Taiwan. Instead, people wash dishes by hand. Then they put them in this sissified wanna-be oven that hangs over the sink, where they drip dry (no one has ever used the heater feature, so far as I know). The important thing to note, however, is that there is a door that, when open, sticks straight out. And it's directly at eye-level. My eye level, anyway.
So here I was, rushing. I went to the kitchen to clean my dishes, quickly. And, as my foreshadowing has almost certainly clued you in, I had good reason to notice that open metal door - I slammed my face into the corner of it. As foreshadowing also revealed, it hit right at eye-level. Very hard.
For that first surprising instant, I thought I might have just blinded myself. It would fit my pattern of getting stupid, and somewhat embarassing, injuries, but actually it hit a whole third of an inch below eye level.

So I was not blinded! It did get my attention, though. And some of my skin. In return for my attention and some skin (I do have some instinct for business, after all), I got a bruise and an inch and a half long bloody line at a 45 degree angle from my eye. So, yet another thing to keep me humble - I am still clumsy and pathetically frail. Just as a side note, I am constantly surprised that we aren't all dead - by all rights, as easy as it is to die or be badly injured, we should be. Of course, being constantly surprised may also be a sign of idiocy, so the situation might not be as mysterious as I think it is.

I've been walking around with that injury since Wednesday, I think. The students and other teachers all tell me it looks kind of cool, though, so I guess it's not a total loss.

Of course my narrative doesn't end there. No. That would be too easy. And God has only had all of eternity to work on amusing situations (I asked if he would kindly stop burning me, which has actually happened...of course, I'm also taking some steps to avoid that). Now, lest you think he is unneccessarily malicious, remember that I did tell him I was getting kind of arrogant, and needed a little help.

As I mentioned at the terminal end of my last blog, though the sun had gone down, the curtain hadn't fallen on my evening - yet. After the ending that's written, I went to a mall to meet some of my students. They 'forced' me to go to an arcade, and even paid for me to play some games (thank you all, if you're reading this), so I retaliated by losing. A lot. Well, except at air hockey. No one could withstand my mighty airynes. heh. Well, I also played this punching game. You wear a boxing glove. A thing comes up, slowly, and then you punch it. Pretty easy to understand. If you read Chinese. I thought I was supposed to punch that sucker first chance I got, like you would in a real fight, but that's apparently not how it works. You're supposed to wait for it to get completely vertical, then punch it, which really is stupid. Ah, well. Anyway, after the first two quick jabs, my students told me I was supposed to wait. So I did, and clobbered that inanimate metal rod real good. I guess I won. I'm still not clear on if/whether you can win, since the game ended right after that.

I was enjoying myself, except for the sunburn, and except for being exhausted. After some time spent at the mall, we went next door, to the nightmarket. Like most nightmarkets, it was crowded, noisy, and chock-full of goods of questionable value and desirability. And food. There's always food.
My students kept paying for me to do all sorts of things (and I did try to pay for myself, or pay them back, but was only successful on one or two occasions when they weren't looking), most of which were fun. Of course, we also ate a whole lot of food. (And I learned that "yubyubyub", which sounds as hilarious as it looks, means (maybe) something like "sound you make for eating food with chopsticks when you're stabbing the food and you're really hungry.")
I guess they were concerned I wasn't having fun, but I really was. It's just that I was burned, tired, and couldn't hear anything they were saying (nightmarkets are noisy).

On Monday, when we met again (this is going somewhere), they told me they wanted to take me and some other teachers to dinner on Wednesday. I agreed, of course.
It was Korean, and it was good. In Taiwan, though, it is very difficult to get enough water, especially at restaurants. And I ate the food of several people who couldn't finish their own. So I didn't get enough to drink. I thought it'd be no problem. I'd just get some water at home. Then it was decided we'd go to get pictures at a photo booth.
If you've never seen one, think of it like this - there is an incredibly tacky, and loud, plastic and metal tent/box, which you go inside of. The inside has all sorts of flashing lights, pink frilly...things?, and at least one camera lens and touch-screen.
People here tend to be somewhat shy and reserved. If you were to somehow enter Taiwan through a magical photo booth, however, you would not believe me. Everyone is expected - no, required - to make a fool of themselves. Different poses are struck, and the more ridiculous the better. The photos are also taken at somewhat random intervals (you usually don't control it directly), and you have to last through at least 10 or so. At the end you go to a central terminal, review your photos, pick the best ones, then desecrate them with lots of bubbly/frilly/fancy pink/orange/pastel/girly colors, and hugely inappropriate phrases like "kind love". Then you print them out as stickers so small no one would ever know what's supposed to be happening in the picture.
Oh - I didn't mention that this all happens inside a vinyl tent thing, did I? With no ventilation? And lots of people crowded inside? In a building open to the air? You might have guessed - it gets warm. So I'm thinking, why pay for a sauna when you can use a photo booth instead? You even get pictures out of it.

So we were there an hour and a half or so. I still hadn't had enough to drink. It was only towards the end that I realized I was badly dehydrated. And by then it was too late, of course.

So all of yesterday I spent in misery - with burning throat, aching head, and the occasional overwhelming urge to empty my guts through the proper channels (or proper channel, I suppose) because I'd gotten dehydrated. I should also mention that bathrooms here come with neither toilet paper nor soap, so if you don't have quite enough of your own, things are...uncomfortable.
I still taught, of course.

I have to say it's hard to think very highly of yourself when you're afraid you'll crap your pants.

So, moral of the story: God sure does listen. Ask and ye shall receive.

Oh, and I've recovered now.
I'll write more later, how about that? For now, though -

Well, for now, I wish I had a clever ending line, a tagline that would make you say, "wow". But I don't.
Bye!

A little lesson

2006-07-31T08:29:00.000-04:00

One strange thing about Taiwan is that, as a foreigner, you have a status just slightly below that of a rockstar, and quite high above that of President (though that isn't terribly hard right now, as no one here appears to like President Chen). As I'm sure you can imagine, this begins to influence the way one thinks.

Just being foreign, for example, is enough to get even the prettiest girls interested in you. This is probably true most places; here, though, even having a lousy personality and no personal grooming ability isn't enough to scare them away. Seriously. (Those of you who have lousy personalities and no personal hygiene, please don't take that as an invitation. Not that anyone reading this fits that description. You're all lovely people, of course. I'm just typing this for posterity, in case anyone fitting that description should ever read this.)

Schoolchildren look up to you, too - simply because you are foreign. And adults are often glad to have foreigners show up in their shops or houses, and will offer you things free of charge.
And then there's the fact that I am so much bigger (and possibly stronger?) than a lot of the people here, and the fact that I will be attending NTU (their most presitigous university) ...so I usually am admired and complimented. Oh, and I guess saying some of your favorite things to do are "read and write" are hugely impressive to people here.

I realized several times that I needed some humbling, and, it turns out, "ask and you shall recieve" is more than a saying.

Last week, for example, I walked out of the World Passport Office, looking for food. This is a short digression, by the way, but it is going somewhere (and ending in Taiwan...heh). On my way, I saw the girl at the coffeeshop, Mimi, and decided to ask her what's good to eat. She couldn't decide what to tell me, so she passed the problem on to her boss. He doesn't speak English. Nonetheless, he decided he would personally walk me over to a shop with good food and order it for me. Keep in mind, this is during working hours. He was willing to just walk off and help someone he barely knew. Obviously I appreciated that.
Anyway, he was able to communicate to me that a couple things were good at this food stand, so I agreed to order them. One was a dish with lamb or goat, I'm not exactly sure, and the other was some sort of soup.
He then took me back to his coffeeshop (which is called Magic Coffee (I like the name)...oh, and he also owns the internet cafe next door, which is very large and prosperous - and he's a year older than me. Grr.), and offered me a seat. Then he brought me a free drink, which was as excellent as it was mystifying. It was icy-cold tea with some minty and citrus-y flavors.

So I was sitting there reflecting on how much like infants we all are here - we can't speak, or do anything for ourselves, and must rely totally on the kindness of strangers (who are admittedly very kind). I admit, my Chinese probably even sounds infantile. I ate some of my food, then decided I'd try my soup. Now, you need to know soup works differently here: it does not come in a soup bowl. Instead you are given soup in a plastic bag, and you then can pour it into the soup bowl you are also given, all at your convenience. It seems it would be more convenient just to have it in the bowl to start with, but, I am just a guest here.

Foreshadowing aside, I decided to introduce the soup into the bowl that it was so obviously destined to meet. I decided they wouldn't give me more soup than they would bowl, as that would be silly, and would be totally impossible, as the two were so obviously designed for each other.
I was wrong, of course. I was also a little hasty in pouring: I poured it all at once.

Fortunately, I managed to spare my shirt. Unfortunately, I did so at the expense of my shorts...and the legs they covered with their admirably thin fabric. That thin fabric is very nice for keeping me cool - usually. It actually doesn't keep me cool against boiling soup, however.
It burned.
So here I am, thinking what infants we are, and then I dump scalding soup all over myself. So there I sat, with my lunch spilled all over myself. (Unlike an infant, though, I didn't cry about it - I didn't even make a noise. I calmly, but with some haste, tried to get the remaining liquid on the table to spill away from me).

So, God, thank you for reminding me that you do listen. Thankfulness is a little hard to muster when you've been soup-burned. heh. But, I was quite painfully reminded that I'm only human, and a rather careless one at that. I did need it.

(oh, and as an aside, I decided I might as well stay and finish my soup. It, and the food, were both very good, and I felt as though the soup put up a fair fight, so I had some satisfaction from that.)

But, you know me. Well, probably everyone else who's ever lived, too. I need reminders.

This last weekend, I was invited to see a bit of Jia Yi (the city I'm in - though for whatever reason, they spell it Chiai, or Chia yi) by my assistant, Shakira (she named herself), and some of my students.
So Shakira took me by scooter to a college campus nearby, and showed me around. It's a beautiful campus, surrounded be trees and water, very large, and up on a hill looking down on the city. I wish I had pictures. Shakira did offer to let me use her camera, but I knew exactly what would happen if I did borrow it - I'd have to spend at least another hour there photographing everything. And it was really hot out. And it mostly would've been pictures of trees. I've noticed I have a thing for trees. I don't think other people exactly share my passion, so I decided in the interest of not boring my gracious guide, and in not being out in the hot sun, that I should avoid the camera.
Anyway - after that, we drove to her great-grandmothers' house for her 95th birthday. She likes lots of company, I'm told, so she enjoyed having me there. And I'm also told she has never seen a foreigner in person, so she enjoyed that, too. And her memory is very bad, so it was probably a constant pleasant surprise seeing me there. Heh. Ok, that's probably a little disrespectful.

This is about a half-hour drive from the college campus. The college campus is about 20 minutes from the school we met at. And I was walking around the campus for about 45 minutes.
As I mentioned, you start thinking of yourself as being invincible here. So, though it would at home, it never occured to me that I was getting an awful lot of sun.

I should mention again that I was riding a scooter. They do not have roofs.

I should mention also, people here admire lily-white skin, which I usually posses.
Usually. At the moment, though, I have horrible burns on my knees. And my neck. And my face got a little burned, too.
But the knees are the worst.

I think I must have provided some entertainment for Shakira's family - when I arrived at their great-grandmother's house, they asked me why some of my skin was red. I looked, and sure enough, it was. It was then I realized it might have been a good idea to use sunscreen.
So I spent a few hours applying ice and aloe, which did help, like trying to calm a raging fire by making it do yoga. I think my idiotic misery probably was a pretty entertaining gift for the great-grandmother, though I doubt anyone would ever tell me so. (Shakira was also burned, but only on her arms; it still looked fairly painful.)

To make things worse, I did bring aspirin with me. If you take it right after you get burned, your burns will not become as serious, and they'll heal faster. I think. I say it made things worse, though, because I brought it with me...to Tainan. It is still in my other bag, which is still in...Tainan. And people here seem not to believe in taking the stuff. And the place Shakira and her family live is quite a ways away from anything (well, from stores, anyway. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get more than 100 feet away from other people in this country).

So that was another humbling reminder of my humanity. heh. And quite painful.

The day didn't end there though, and neither did my misery (not to say my evening was unpleasant! It was enjoyable, except for the pain!). But, here this blog will end.

So, I am dedicating this particular entry to God: thank you. I know I've mostly done a fine job of hurting/humbling myself, but I can't help but feel you've influenced something, somewhere. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to kindly ask you to please stop burning me. I get it. Well, the more obvious parts. I'm sure there are deeper levels of meaning that could be found. I know, burning sinners and prideful people and all that. If it's not too much trouble, I'd prefer something differently painful next time - I know there will be a next time (but you better than me, naturally). Variety's the spice of life and all that. Of course, you have a sense of humor, too, so you'll probably humor me, which terrifies me. Ah, well. I suppose that keeps things interesting.

Finally!

2006-07-25T06:27:00.000-04:00

Another chance to write. I'd say blog, but I've never liked that word.

Let's see...I'm only a week behind in things I want to talk about.

Last week was my week off. Several schools cancelled on World Pasport, so there wasn't enough work for everyone. I taught the week before at a school, and then, though the program wasn't finished, I had to leave. Two other teachers, and me, had to trade places with three new teachers. And one of those teachers got my homestay family! But, that's alright. I like the teacher who took my place, and it was nice to be able to do my own thing a little. I definitely missed having my own room, though, and a nice family to talk to.

The last night I was with my last homestay family they took me and Diana, my replacement, to a nice restaurant. It was apparently supposed to be an American-style steak and seafood place. And they did have steak! So I got one. I think it was a t-bone...it had some sauce on it, and I probably could've cooked it a little better myself than the restaurant did, but it was still good. I hadn't thought I'd ever get a steak in Taiwan. This place also had salad, which is somewhat unusual.
What made me smile, though, is the bread section. Those of you who've known me a while know that I must have my tortured wheat (among other things, it is cut down, beaten, crushed, rolled, toasted, and baked...though not all for the same sorts of food). So I was happy to find a basket full of rolls and ordinary, almost sugarless, bread. There was a big toaster oven thing next to it (it looks like a popcorn popper), and pieces of warm wheatloaf in that (it's like meatloaf, only made with wheat...and yes, I did steal that one from the Internet). So, since I like toasted bread, and it was just sitting there, I took some. And it was good. So I went up for more: after I'd set it on my plate, a man approached me, and, with visible agitation and incomprehension, tried to tell me something in Chinese. My Chinese is terrible, as I've mentioned, so I quickly came to share his incomprehension. After a while, he lost interest in talking to me, since it was pretty obvious I had no idea what he was saying. It was only as he was leaving that I realized - like everything else in this country, you're expected to do this thing for yourself. You are supposed to pick your own spread for your rolls or bread, and then toast it yourself. So, I accidentally ate someone else's food. I wish they'd had something in English for that (the menu was in English, so it's not an unreasonable expectation). On the bright side, the bread was good. Thank you, mysterious butterer whose food I accidentally stole. Oh, and like I was going to say to start with - this is supposed to be a fairly nice restaurant. So I had to laugh to myself a little when I saw the choices of spreads for the bread: there was butter, which is totally expected; there was mustard, which was a little weird, but okay; and there was peanut butter. Now, unless things have changed drastically in the month I've been away, you just don't get peanut butter sandwiches at nice restaurants in America. heh. But you can here.

Anyway, the next day, I found myself back at the World Passport office...with only two other guys. Almost everyone else had left to explore the country. Well, there were two girls as well, but they were taking my place teaching, so they were gone most of the time. Oh - well, not everyone had left. There were still five or so people there besides those I mentioned.
Anyway, me, the two other guys, and one or two other people decided to go see a movie to relieve our boredom. We decided to see Superman at 4:00 PM, but things came up, and we didn't make it. Later on, me and the two other guys (Doug and Jordan, to make it easy...though I don't really like saying names) decided to go anyway. We got in the cab and asked the driver to take us to a theater. He didn't know where it was, or he didn't quite understand us, or something. So Doug and I both said, in unison, "Women yao kan dianying"...which is "We want to see a movie" (and no, it's not pronounced women - it's more like, "woah, man"). The cabie understood then, and took us to a different theater from what we wanted. But I didn't mind - the theater we ended up at was in a mall. I'd been wondering what those looked like here. And honestly, I still don't know, because this was no ordinary mall - it was a palace of commerce. It was shockingly white, and glossy, with huge pillars and tall ceilings - and it went up 9 floors. The movie theater takes up the top two or three.

So we bought tickets to Superman. The girls at the counter gave us what I've been calling the "Westerner's Discount." Now, in other countries, I might say that ironically, but you have to understand - there is no irony in Taiwan. At least, not very much. In other countries the locals would jack up the price for foreigners - but here, you will often get a small discount.
It probably also helped that we are all (ego warning) fairly attractive guys. Well, there was also no one at the theater, either, so that might've had something to do with it.

For those of you who haven't seen Superman, I should warn you, here is a spoiler: it sucks. A lot.
Oh - and in case you're wondering how I understood the movie - movies here are released in English, with Chinese subtitles. So that's nice.
Anyway, though the movie was really stupid, it was still something to do. And Jordan, though he agreed that it sucked, decided it was still pretty exciting because it was, after all, Superman. So he ran around the mall with his arms up, making "whooosh!" noises, and occasionally attempting to pick Doug or I up...and fly away with us. Fortunately, I am fairly heavy, and if I don't want to go somewhere, there's not a lot most people can do to make me. Doug was not so fortunate.
On our way out, Doug wanted to make a phone call to a girl he met, so he asked at the information desk for the nearest payphone. I should mention, Doug speaks Chinese fairly well (his parents are Chinese), but can't read. Anway, this precipitated a crisis of some sort, as the girl who was supposed to help us went running for assistance. Then followed a conference of three people for about fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, Jordan helped us by continuuing to run around making whoosh noises, still pretending to be Superman, and still attempting to pick Doug up. As you might imagine, it is hard for people to take you seriously if you're with someone who appears to be insane, or at best drunk.
Eventually the situation was sorted out - the girls at the counter decided that we could make a phone call across the street at a payphone. So we headed out, but then decided we didn't need the phone after all - it was almost 10:00, and the girl Doug wanted to meet was getting off work about then, so we decided we'd just meet her there.

I should mention now that Doug is an amorous, and, by the attention he gets, apparently very charming fellow.

We arrived at a little indoor shopping area after a brief cab ride. We went to the clothing store where this girl works (her English name is Gray - yes, like the color. It seems her Chinese name sounds exactly like the word for gray, so that's what everyone calls her in English), and, as we approached the counter, we thought there was another girl there. That illusion was dispelled, though, when Doug said 'he' would be coming along with us. We looked again, and sure enough, it was a guy.
We let them close the store, and then we had to wait a while for another cab to show up (taxis are very cheap here, by the way - at least, compared to America). We took one to a hot pot restaurant (in case you don't know, they bring you a bowl of soupy stuff with something like a camping stove under it, and you toss uncooked food into the boiling soup to cook it - it's fairly good), and ordered dinner. For whatever reason, this place also offered waffles. I hadn't seen any in Taiwan up to this point, and most people I asked about them hadn't heard of them. So, there were waffles.
We had a good dinner, and, as conversation revealed, Gray's companion didn't have an English name. We tried coming up with one, but most were bizarre, or a little insulting. We almost decided on Terrance, but then someone (maybe it was Doug?) said, "how about Merlin?" We all agreed this was a perfect name, and so we named him Merlin. If ever you meet a Chinese person with a really strange name, you now have insight into how that might happen.
Merlin really is a good name, though.

Anyway. As you might expect, Merlin was gay, but very nice. Dinner was going well. The meals at these hot pot places will often come with a raw egg, and so Jordan had to mention that if you put an egg in your hand and squeeze as hard as you can, it won't break. Jordan hadn't totally recovered from being Superman, though, so he decided to demonstrate. It turns out, as he demonstrated for us all, that it is in fact quite easy to smash an egg in your bare hand...you just have to flex your fingers a little. I already knew this, but it may have been a surprise to poor Gray - the egg's messy explosion surprised her, but the yolk's sloppy and discourteous landing on her shirt was probably a little more shocking. In fact, everyone had egg on them (yes, we all had egg on our face, I know you want to say it, but actually none of us did) except Jordan - well, with the exception of his hand, which the crushed egg was leaking out of - and you'd kind of expect egg to be there. So we all went to clean ourselves up, Jordan offered profuse and plentiful apologies, and Gray returned without her shirt.
Titillating!
heh. Or not. She was wearing another shirt under her shirt. Somehow, girls are able to get cold in this country. I envy them.
So she came back - and, though you might not believe it, she was willing to stay out with us a little longer. Good sign for Doug, right?

We paid for our meal (and our guests - we had to pay the outrageous sum of $400 NT apiece - which comes to about $12.50 per person. I know, that's an awesome deal by American standards, but by Taiwanese ones, it was pricey) walked to a bar, had a few drinks, and really didn't do much else that night. Fortunately, I said I would not pay for anything at the bar. Jordan and Doug insisted on buying me drinks, though, and they bought several for Gray and Merlin as well. The total bar tab? $2000 NT - a huge sum of money - but only a little over $60 USD. Not bad for a night of drinking for five people, right?

After that we all went home for the night.
I'd end this blog here, but I wanted to mention that Jordan never really recovered from his Superman stint. He wanted to get a "Superman haircut" the next day.

Oh - I was going to end it, but I guess our day didn't quite end there. When we three guys got back to the World Passport office at around 2 AM, we were informed that the remaining people (who weren't working) were leaving for Taipei - in two hours. We didn't feel like packing, and we don't make much money at this job - it's more of a volunteer thing, after all - so we didn't feel like we could really afford a week in Taipei after that night of spending. And you know how it is with packing - there's a psychological barrier there - you see the suitcase, and you know what should go in it, but you really don't want to put things in there. Especially not after a long day capped off by drinking. So, we went to sleep.

And that about wraps up one day. Last Monday. heh. Lucky thing I'm not going to write out all of the next days, right?

Even Further Adventures

2006-07-19T01:47:00.000-04:00

Since I am having them quite far from you all - most of you, anyway.

I hadn't planned on ending that last post where I did, but that's how I published it anyway. I also had planned to write this post yesterday, but, halfway through writing it, the computer I'm using decided to crash. It's running Windows ME. And it hasnt' been treated well, either...the fact that the keyboard is working today has me in a good mood.

Anyway, I was writing about my host family. Like I said, they're very friendly people, and went far out of their way to make me comfortable. I forgot what exactly I was going to say, except that before I left, they took me several places, of which I have some good pictures. Right now I don't remember how to upload pictures, but when I figure it out, I will post them.
They took me to several temples, all of which were mystifying and old; I asked Judy (their daughter) for help, but she's no expert on religious matters, and many things remain which I need to research for myself. But she did an admirable job trying to explain things she barely knew in Chinese, in English. I do have to say, though, I heard a phrase I had never anticipated hearing: "that statue has a beautiful beard". Most of you aren't from here, so you probably wouldn't know the way temples are set up. I don't feel like taking the time, but there's usually a section up at the front (think of it as the alter area) that's full of statues. Some are gods, some are saints (or something), and others are assorted people, or just plain old statues. Anyway, I forget who it was supposed to be, but there was a huge statue of some guy, and he had a big black beard. I never thought of beards being especially beautiful, and never really though to put actual hair on a statue. But, that's because I'm just a crazy foreigner, probably.

What was more interesting, however, were the old fortresses I saw. One is called the "Eternal Golden Castle", though it is not Golden, or a Castle. Also, I am fairly certain it is not Eternal, but I have only been here a couple weeks...I suppose I'd have to wait until the place crumbled into finality to say for certain that it wasn't eternal.
Anyway, what it is is an old fortress. It was contracted out to the French, so it's a fairly reasonable cannon-fort with high earthen/stone walls. It also has nice trees.
We went during the typhoon; as you might imagine, it was raining. Judy had the good sense to warn me to wear sandals so that my feet wouldn't be too soaked. So I wore shoes. You know, just in case.
And, as you might have imagined, they got soaked. I was also wearing my extra-absorbant socks. When we arrived, it was pouring down rain. But, you need a brief explanation of the layout before anything else. To get in, you must pass through a brick gateway/tunnel, and then - then you see the real defenses. The walls and cannons are all very nice, but the real defensive bonus the fortress gives is from the inside - if anyone ever got within the walls, they would immediately be bogged down in mud, water, and grass up to their ankles - on a good day. The problem is so bad that the groundskeepers have placed plastic mats in the places where people walk (with lots of holes through them so grass can grow through), and, even then, the water's fairly deep. I took pictures, but I think I didn't get any good ones of the water. It was still pretty, though, and I like old forts anyway, so I had a good time. And my host family's son had an even better time than I did - he was splashing in every puddle and under every waterspout he could find. I don't think he even knew there was a fort - the water was all that mattered.

The other place I was taken was once a Dutch fort, before it was conquered by the famous pirate Koxinga, before it was rebuilt as a fort/house for a Japanese governer, and before it was rebuilt by the Taiwanese. It was a neat place, with lots of old walls and trees...which I took lots of pictures of. In fact, looking back, that's about all I've taken pictures of. Oh - that reminds me - another kindness I was shown by my host family was that they loaned me one of their digital cameras while we were sightseeing. Anyway, I think the name of the place is Anping Fort; it used to be Fort Zeelandia. I don't know what to say about it, except that it was interesting, and had some nice old artifacts.

And I was also given a taste tour of the city - apparently, the way things work here is that there are famous foodstands and restaurants all over, and each will serve some distinctive food. Some are really good, and the rest I'm sure you can guess at.
One of the stranger specialties is something called "Coffin Bread". It's a very thick piece of bread which has been hollowed out, filled with soup-ish stuff, had a very thin section of bread placed on top as a lid - and then the whole mess is deep-fried. I want to know what line of thinking led to this particular delicacy. Seriously - is this something you'd think to do on a slow day? I probably wouldn't.
But, for all that, it is pretty good. I mean, come on, it's fried. How could it fail to taste good?

Another specialty I sampled was something like balls of shrimp fried on a stick. It was also tasty.

Oh, I should mention - I was given all these things at one sitting.
Now, in case you should think all the local specialties are good, I will ask you to keep reading. The last specialty I had at this one sitting was a little odd - it was fried eggs and mussels. Doesnt' sound too especially bad, right? Well, it wasn't. It just wasn't that good, either. The eggs had American-style brown gravy on one half, and a huge offering of ketchup on the other. The mussels were just sitting there, being...mussely. And around the whole place was a lining of...something. I haven't figured out what it is yet, and everyone I ask doesn't really know where it comes from or what it's made of. Not a good sign, right? Anyway, it's this gelatinous/snotty stuff that tastes vaguely of meat. It's not especially appealing.
So I'm thinking that for specialties here, as at home, all that's really required is that you mix together things that...well, that probably don't really belong together. I like eggs, and I've never had anything against ketchup or gravy, but combining the three is a little weird. I've never liked mussels much. And the snotty, rubbery meat gel...I haven't acquired a taste for that, and I'm thinking I probably won't. But I still ate most of the thing. It wasn't all bad.

Oh, one last specialty - we went out for desert after that. Obviously, I was feeling really full, but I can't really turn down free, untried food. It was something like cold custard cubes in a sugar sauce, with the topping of your choice - and our choice was red beans. Some of you are probably wondering how bad that was - but you shoudn't. The red beans they use here are really sweet. They're a little mealy, though, so they do have a bit of an odd texture; you get used to it pretty quick - these red beans get used in all sorts of things (but they can be a source of dissapointment, too - sometimes you'll see something that looks like chocolate, but is actually red bean paste. It's not that it tastes bad, it's just not what you thought you were getting). But altogether, the desert was good.

This post is getting pretty long, so I'll go ahead and publish it. I might write another today, as well. (Oh, and if any of you want me to start an RSS feed, I can do that. In case you don't know what that is, it's a thing that will notify you all whenever I update. Just send me some comments or email.)

Further Adventures

2006-07-14T09:38:00.000-04:00

I know, what a title. Like I mentioned last post, English is trying to evacuate my brain. (By the way, after I've posted a blog, could I refer to that time period as post-post?)

Let's see...what is there to say? Too much. I wish I had time each day to write, but I don't, and so I forget a lot of it.
The last day or two I've been enjoying the typhoon. Typhoon is just another word for "really big storm that destroys stuff and is pretty awesome overall." In America, we'd call them hurricanes, but here, for whatever reason, they are typhoons. It hasn't done much except rain, a lot, and there have occasionally been strong gusts of wind. So I've been inside quite a bit.

I should mention that I'm staying with a host family this week - I haven't mentioned them yet, have I?
Well. They're very nice people. I like them. What's funny is that most families with daughters won't allow American guys to stay at their homes, for fairly obvious reasons. When I heard that this family (they're the Wangs, by the way) had a daughter, and that she was the only one who really spoke English, and that she was going to be a student where I was teaching, I have to say, that had me a little worried. I was thinking they might be some crazy Chinese family that was going to try to force me to marry their daughter.
Fortunately, that seems not to be the case, especially as she's only 16. She is a nice girl, very intelligent, with very good English and a lot of patience, but that's a huge age gap (and yes, she probably will read this), and being 'encouraged' to marry someone doesn't sound very appealing. So that's a huge relief. Instead, they just want me to teach her English. Which is more than fine - it's easy. She's a good student.

This family really has been good to me, though. The very first night, without even knowing me, they took me to a really nice restaurant that serves American food (pizza, steak, etc - and it all seems pretty good, and even fairly close to the real thing), and told me to get whatever I wanted. Now, that's nice anywhere, but here in Taiwan, food is really cheap. A good meal rarely costs more than $4 or so (and can easily be had for much less). Many of the things on this menu cost close to $20, for a single, small portion. I wouldn't have felt right to get somethnig that expensive, so I told the parents I'd split a pizza with them. It was a very good pizza, Hawaiin-style (which, strangely enough, is the cheapest pizza you can buy in this country), and it was almost regular sized. I should mention again that it was very good, because it was.
Anyway, it was strange to see pizza being served in a fancy, white-tablecloth restaurant. You know, the kind with waiters wearing suits, or at least really nice white shirts?

Mr. Wang has driven me to several old temples, which I have to say were very interesting (though slightly mystifying and incomprehensible) - Judy (the girl) is a good translator, but she doesn't know everything that I want to know, so don't ask me for a lot of detail on the stuff I saw. I do have some pictures, which I will try to post later.
The mother, Janice (or Janus? I'm not sure, really - names can be different from what you'd expect - the first week I was teaching, there were kids named "Lamp" (though I think it was supposed to be "Lamb"), "Genius", and "Can", so I don't take anything for granted), has obviously spent a lot of effort trying to learn English very quickly. Now, she struggles to speak, and I struggle to understand, and usually we come to some sort of halfway-understanding. And sometimes not.
For example: yesterday, she pointed out the window and said, I think, "Typhoon is not a vegetable." I agreed quickly, since, obviously, a typhoon is not a vegetable, and went on my merry way. As soon as I had the chance, though, I asked Judy what on Earth her mother was talking about. It turns out she meant to say something like, "because there's a typhoon, I can't get vegetables for dinner", which was fine by me. We had lots of meat instead - an excellent outcome.
But I am really impressed by the effort she's putting into trying to speak - it goes far beyond what most people would do.
The family also has a young son, whose name I can't remember just now, but who is called "Xiaozu"...at least, I think that's how it's spelled. He's about 4, and very mischeivious. He loves to run, and tear things up, and generally make trouble for everyone. It's kind of fun to watch, actually. Two days ago, Mr. Wang drove me to a bakery on the way back from somewhere (so that he could buy me breakfast!), and we hadn't been driving for more than about 3 minutes when we noticed that the boy had managed to get into the kleenex box. Most kids would just tear a few out, and be happy with the result - but, Xiaozu (I hope I'm spelling that right) decided he'd better apply a layer of kleenex to the entire back seat of the car. It was kind of funny, and he's such a cute kid it's hard to be very angry with him.

My trip so far

2006-07-08T09:06:00.000-04:00

I am alive, after all. Surprising, right?
I have to say, though, it's not for lack of Taiwan trying to reverse my continuing run of good luck.

I have eaten, and survived, a dish called, literally, "stinky tofu". My English is deteriorating badly, by the way, so be warned. Anyway, as you might guess, this tofu is stinky. Not just a little inoffensive stink, either. It smells like cow shit. Cow shit left to ferment in the sun. Have you ever passed by a dairy farm, where they'll have a lot of the stuff piled up and, for reasons unclear to me, left under plastic tarps? Stinky tofu smells exactly like that. If you can get over the smell, the taste isn't bad - but it's not something I'd recommend you try, unless it was just to say you'd tried it.

But that's pretty tame. Apparently you're not supposed to drink the water here, because it can kill you. At least that's what people say - not even the Taiwanese drink the tap water.
Well, I drink the water anyway. Not all the time mind you, but when it's convenient. People think I'm crazy for it. It hasn't made me sick yet. I think it's probably one of those urban myths; if not, I'm pretty hardy, so I should be all right.

Food is stored by pretty relaxed standards - it's fairly normal to go to a restaurant and see a bowl of...something...sitting out. And let me tell you, it's hot here. So there'll be food just sitting around outside all day, and somehow, it doesn't quite go bad. I haven't gotten sick from that yet, either.

Buildings are constructed - and torn down - very quickly and seemingly without much regard for planning. The walls are thin, the buildings are tall and skinny, and stairways are very steep, with tiny stairs. If there are any decent earthquakes, I expect to see significant portions of the city collapse.

Most interestingly, the traffic here is regulated by a series of suggestions, not laws. Don't feel like waiting through that red light? Just honk your horn and go on through at 40 mph. Everyone else will be more or less understanding. There's no lane to drive in? That's fine. There's plenty of space on the shoulder, and on the moped lane, and in the turning lanes, and in intersections, and especially on the other side of the street. Plenty of unused space there. Don't signal for it, either, since someone else might decide to take it then.
I've only seen a total of 5 cops in my time here - I would call them relaxed fit cops. Heh. It's a pun. (Fit? As in, in shape? Oh yeah, still got those pun muscles to work out.) I think they're pretty happy so long as no one asks them to do anything. They really seem to be pretty cheerful, overall. Traffic is really not their thing.

And then there's the heat. Air conditioning, standard in most of the USA, is something more like a fancy nicety here. Each room will have a separate AC unit, which is terrifically inefficient; yet, electricity is supposedly very expensive here. The school I taught at last week, for example, did not have air conditioning. I don't know exactly how hot it was, but, according to my dad, it was something like 110, by the heat index. Humidity here is so bad you can not just almost see it - oh no, I'd say you could almost sculpt it. So shade is really no relief at all - it's just as hot, but with less brightness. Now imagine standing around in 110 degrees for 12 hours a day, teaching. Teaching a group of kids who are sitting in 110 weather. Now imagine being told that you have to teach them some American sports - and then being told that the gym doesn't have AC either, so you'll have to do it outside. Being forced to play basketball in that sort of heat is no one's idea of fun. I feel bad for those kids.

But, that's not to say that I'm not enjoying my time here. The kids I was teaching were all very good, and I wish I didn't have to move on. I was just getting used to them, and they were fun to be around.
The food here is also very good, plentiful, and cheap. Getting meals requires no planning, because there is always something to eat within 5 minute's walk. And it is almost all good. Now, there are some quirks - things that look familiar usually are not. Milk, for example. I was looking to get some milk the other day, and, since I don't read Chinese very well, I grabbed the most normal-looking container. It was milk, and it wasn't spoiled. However - I think it should have to carry some text saying, "inspired by milk". Think chocolate milk, but without the chocolate. Bread's the same way - it all has sugar added. Or, it's something slightly bizarre, like bacon bread. Or it has corn in it. Or ham and cheese baked into it.
So food's an adventure - I think the basic food groups here in Taiwan are sugar, grease, and vinegar. But it's all so cheap, and some of it is surprisingly good, so it's more fun than not.

That's all I'll write for now.

Result 3

2006-04-27T21:53:00.000-04:00

Gene contributed the first sentence. Of course, who else would've said it?

"What a funny looking elephant. Normally the hippies can at least draw, but it's obvious this granola-head can't." He gestured to the distant streaks of pinkish tint staining the pine forest below us.
"Is that what this is all about? You wanted a picture of an elephant?" I watched the plane banking. Looked like it was going to fly off, now that it was out of slurry. I wished it could come pick us off this mountain - it was a long hike up here.
"Well, yeah. It's your birthday! Surprise!" His stupid grin was almost as wide as his helmet. I wanted to smack him, but he was too far away. How would we explain this?
"You know he's not coming back with our plane, don't you?" My companion's brow furled, like a dirty flag sagging its way up at dawn. He looked at me like I was speaking some sort of Moon-language.
"I know. I sold him the plane. How else was I going to pay for that sort of artwork?" He waved his hands dismissively, then gestured at the pink mess. "But have you ever seen a bigger elephant?!"
"You..." I lost my words for a moment, and stared at him. Then I stared at the 'elephant' that was going to cost me my job. Neither made any damn sense at all. We were firefighters! Park Rangers! What business did we have selling a government plane? Or wasting firefighting supplies like that? And funny-looking was a terrible way to describe that post-modern mess of pink streaks. It looked as much like Chinese or Arabic as it did an elephant. At least, I couldn't have told the difference between the three. What the hell did we need an elephant picture for, anyway?
I turned back to my idiot friend. "This is not just the worst elephant I have ever seen. That damn hippy was probably high as a kite, and it's hard to draw with slurry anyway, but this is far worse. Do you know why?" I considered letting him answer, but decided I didn't want to waste my time. "Because this is my birthday, damnit. You can't sell a plane, just like that. And you had me hike all day to get here! Just to see this fricking streak of pepto-bismo diarrhea across our damn forest! The forest we're supposed to keep from burning! How the hell are we going to do our job without a plane?" I noticed my fists were clenched tight. I was shaking, too. And my ears were ringing - I guess I was yelling.
He just looked at me. Then he started laughing.
Next thing I knew, we were on the ground, and I was trying to force my fist through the side of his head. Fortunately for him, his head was winning. He somehow rolled out from under me, stumbled around for a second - and without warning, lunged straight at me. He managed to slam my back into an uncomfortable pile of rocks. While I was dazed, he pinned me down, and then, to my surprise, he resumed smiling.
"Man, that fuckin' hurt! You punch hard! But there ain't nothing to worry about. See, I worked it out." I tried speaking, but all that came out was a wheeze. The side of his face was an angry, swollen red, and I thought I could see it throbbing a little. That had to be painful.
"It's like this: we don't like hippies, right?" My lungs allowed me to mumble something close to a yes. Dumb bastards thought they could commune with nature, and as a result we usually had to rescue them from something or other.
His face lit up...at least, the part that wasn't already red. "Well, that hippy just stole our plane. A slurry bomber could be used for terrorist stuff. You know, spreading chemicals. He's got one. We just saw him flying over the forest, doing a practice run with some slurry. He's not supposed to be in that plane. So we call the police, or someone, and tell them a terrorist hijacked our plane. They'll arrest him, we'll get the plane back, and everything's good." He smiled even wider. I guess he was done.
"That's...the whole plan?" He let go of my arms, and stood up a little shakily.
"Yup."
I brushed myself off, then slowly, painfully rose to my own feet. "Do you really think anyone's going to believe that?"
"Oh, maybe. It helps, too, that I found him some very interesting mushrooms. He ain't gonna remember shit about today, and the cops'll be willing to believe a drugged-up hippy would try something like this." He shrugged and smiled.
"Well...." I had to admit, this might work. I still wanted to re-arrange his teeth. Just not as much. "Alright. I guess I'm sold. Not much choice now, right?"
"Yeah, there you go! Man, let's radio the cops, then head on back. I wanna catch this on the news." He started fiddling with the radio.
"Gonna be a long hike. Can you walk okay?" He still looked a little wobbly.
"Oh, mostly. Gotta say, you really hit hard. You alright?"
"I've had better birthdays."
He chuckled.
"Oh, by the way - why an elephant? Did you think I liked them?" He held the radio, ready to transmit our message.
"Nah." He shook his head, slowly. His smile seemed to stop at the boundary of his welt.
"Well, what the hell kind of birthday present is that?"
"Oh, I was watching Dumbo, and they were talking about pink elephants or some shit, and how they never forget - I don't remember exactly, I guess I was a little drunk - but I decided - this will be a birthday you'll never forget. Why not have a pink elephant?"

Result number Two!

2006-04-27T21:51:00.000-04:00

This one is thanks to something Kirin wrote - she inexplicably sent me this first paragraph (which I did some minor editing on), so I just as inexplicably wrote a story!

"I like ducks," he said with great earnestness. "But did you know ducks belong to the sub family Anatinae? Not only is this grouping the largest group of waterfowl, it is also the most diverse." His beady eyes shone brightly in the harsh light. "The characteristics generally held in common by ducks when compared to geese and swans are the small body size, shorter necks, narrower wings which are more pointed, and wing beats which are more rapid." He seemed to have reached some conclusion, but I couldn't figure out what.
I blinked. This was not what I had expected. I blinked a few more times so I'd remember what it was like. 'Sharky' was supposed to be a brutal killer, not - well, not this. Not some sort of nature freak. I looked at my watch. Bedtime was long gone. Hell, I don't even go home anymore, so there's not much point talking about it. I sleep at my desk, when I can, and make up for the rest with coffee. Well, and other things. Our evidence room fills up quickly, so I help clean it out once in a while.
I turned back to Sharky, who was eagerly smiling at me. That was a little strange, sure - most fellas don't smile when they're under police interrogation. And most don't file their teeth into sharp points, either. But I honestly couldn't find anything criminally wrong with him - he was odd, sure, but then, so are most folks.
"So, let's go over this again - you have no idea why another squirrel's paw was found in your car?"
His bushy tail twitched a little. That made me nervous - I thought he might be ready to jump at me. I was glad I'd tied him down. Sure, that was illegal, but he was crazy. I doubt he'd even noticed.
"Well, sir, did you know that ducks are also warm-blooded? It's true! Modern scientists agree that class Aves, of which all Anatidae are members, is most likely descended from dinosaurs! And ducks have gizzards! Truly incredible!"
There were better ways to spend my time. I imagined a lengthy examination of my eyelids, from the backside. Yeah. That sounded nice. I put a paw to my forehead. My hat felt a little crooked, so I pushed it into place. It never sat quite right over my ears.
"Alright," I started, "I like ducks as much as the next guy -"
"And what's even more incredible," he continued, "is the taste."
"Wait - what did you just say?" I wasn't sure I'd heard him right.
He actually looked at me - like he noticed I'd spoken. That was new. "Oh, yes! Their skin is so crispy and fatty and greasy and hot and drippy and...", he was starting to pant, "oh, it's so good."
My stomach started up, trying to squeeze itself dry. I held myself together. I'd seen worse. "You eat ducks? After all they've done for us?"
He seemed not to notice. "Oh, they have a special term just for roast duck in China. They aren't shy. They know just what they want. They call it kaoya - literally, flamed duck. I highly recommend it."
I decided not to bring my associates in just yet - they were dependable mallards, but there was only one of me, and they'd probably try to kill this guy. I might not be the best cop, but I don't kill anyone I don't have to. Or let it happen. Well, not yet.
"So," I started, cautiously, "why do you eat ducks? Is it just the flavor?"
"Oh, I suppose." He looked around like he was stumped. "That's really all there is to it." He licked his lips.
"Don't you - ." I wasn't sure how to say this. "Aren't they a lot like you and me? They fought on our side in the war, remember?" We wouldn't have won without them - together, we'd been able to banish the dogs to the coldest, most hellish parts of the world.
"How silly. Of course they're like you and me."
"Well, then...then, why are you eating them?" I realized I was almost happy about all this - I could bust this freak for something! I wondered if I should feel ashamed.
"I just said. They're a lot like you and me. Do they not have the same blood pumping through their veins? Are they not made of flesh, just as we are? Are they not delicious?"
That hand in his car took on a new meaning. "Are you saying," I grimaced, "that you eat squirrels, too?"
"Hey, winters get long, man. You don't know what it's like out there. Squirrel's got to look out for himself. You know that. you were in the war, just like me, right?"
"Damnit! I don't know about you, but me and my guys, we took care of each other. Like brothers! We weren't fucking cannibals!" He'd gotten to me. That bastard was really smiling now - those knife-edged teeth of his gleamed in the harsh light, and I wondered if that's what he used - it probably was. I guess he wasn't called 'Sharky' for nothing.
"Oh. Well, enough about you. Did you also - "
I cracked my fist into the side of his head. Little needles shot up my arm, and he reeled back like a punching bag. He careened right back to me like one, too, due to my fine ropework.
He started drooling, and his eyes got distant. "I saw God once, you know." He looked ecstatic, even though he was drooling a little blood. I just clobbered this guy - what the hell was wrong with him?
"He understands me. He said I was special. He showed me the way."
I was more bewildered now than angry. What was he getting at? Was he really going to tell me something useful, or was this just more babble? I had enough to charge him with something already.
"He told me something else special, too." He looked at me, like a child would look at its father - seeking approval, admiration in his bright eyes. "If you force them to eat, and eat, and eat - a miracle happens."
He was rubbing his paws together through the ropes, and his eyes wandered like lazy summer bees. I let him continue.
"After a while, they get sick. And then, you take out their liver, and - " my eyes must've widened, because his suddenly darted to me, "and it is so, so good."
I couldn't keep quiet. I had to know. "...What you're saying...let me get this straight. You force-feed ducks, and, when it starts to kill them, you pull out their liver? Just like that? How many times -"
"Oh, it's nothing. There's a special term for this, too - it's called pate. It's really easy!"
I kicked his chair over. He crashed to the floor, and I smiled, knowing I would crush his worthless skull. I had a sudden vision, of cleaning his evil, splattered brains - his evil thoughts - off my boots with a hose. Then the door burst open.
"Sir! Are -" They started, but then stopped when they saw me. Damnit. It was the mallards, too. They froze.
"Boys. This -" I pointed at the floor. I couldn't call that thing a squirrel. "This thing, here, has...shit, he's evil."
He seemed to have recovered himself - or at least, to have returned to whatever was normal for him - and he looked right at the ducks. His eyes lit up, he smiled, and even though he was on his side, strapped to a chair, he started chanting, "pate. pate. pate. pate. pate..."
The mallards looked at me nervously. "Sir? What is he -"
I hung my head. "Boys, you're not gonna like this. There's a reason you never hear that term. It's a special term for...well, for your liver. After it's diseased and fatty."
"But why -"
He kept chanting, quietly but insistently, filling the short moments of silence. "Some sick bastard must've decided to eat it a long time ago. I've heard about it. He must've liked it, too, because it was considered a delicacy."
Sgt. Plume, the older one, cocked his long neck back. Officer Scutt just looked dazed.
"Look, I'm done here. We need to lock this guy up, have a look around his place. I get the feeling he's done a few things we'd like to know about."
Smiling a little, Sgt. Plume said, "like, or need to know?"
"Yeah, you're right." I nodded. "Who wants to know this stuff?"
They moved in, and I walked out. My tail was spasming a little - time to go find a fix.
I had to wonder, and not for the first time, why I get so many of these nutcases. Yeah, those ducks like to say it's because I'm a squirrel, but I'm tired of it anyway. I'm tired of cracking them open. Well, this one isn't going anywhere yet. Maybe, for once, I can get some shut-eye. Yeah. They can handle things for a while. I'll just check up on the old place. Just a little nap. Not too long....

First result

2006-04-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

So you know what's going on, I posted a bulletin a few weeks ago, asking people to send me a sentence or two so that I could write something from it. My cousin Alex sent me the first line. Here is the resulting story.

"This is fantastic! ... but why is it shaped like Sonic?"
Zhang Li was excited, but stumped. That couldn't be what it was. It was far too large - at least the size of a small hill. The colors were right, though. He turned his head to look at his comrades - they were all looking back at him, with the exception of the cultural officer, who was busily but quietly speaking into a transmitter.
The captain, his face creased into his best likeness of unconcern, asked, "What is a Sonic?" Li almost shook his head with pity - he couldn't believe he was working with such country bumpkins. How did they ever make it out here? Country bumpkins belonged on the earth, with their farms, not up here among the stars.
"Sir, it is an American restaurant chain. You drive into the parking lot, and then they bring you food. The service is fast, and often they have serving girls wearing roller-skates. We have many in the cities."
Nodding sagely, the captain said, "Oh. I see." Li knew he didn't. He was a bumbling fool.
Turning to view the..well, the object, he would have to call it; he said, "So, Sir, why would this be here?" He waited for the foolish response his captain would surely make. Privately, he was burning with curiosity - the astrogeologist in him badly wanted to see what was in this...thing. Could it really be a Sonic? What was it made of? As large as it was, it could probably be mined, and it was surely full of valuable metals. He might be promoted for this discovery! He might even get the attention of senior Party leaders! But he had been on this ship for months now, forced to tolerate this man whom his comrades all looked up to. They were all so backwards. This man had grown up on a pig farm. He was not a stoic leader! He was nothing!
The deck was quiet. Zhang felt his skin crawl a little, and then little beads of sweat crept out under his arms. He wondered if he'd gone too far - the captain might have taken offense, and so it was with some hesitation and caution that he turned his head.
The captain smiled down beautifically from his chair. His fingers splayed out and came together, looking like the fangs of a particularly nasty predator. There they rested, on his desk, and Zhang noticed that they were in fact very muscular. The rumors he'd heard crept into his mind, like spiders from a black pit. Whispers filled his mind - of the captain killing a man bare-handed - that he had once shoved his fingers into a man's eyes, and then held the blinded fellow until his shrieking stopped. After that no one agreed what happened, except that the man had died. Zhang shuddered a little, and hoped it went unnoticed.
The captain finally spoke: "You are the the science officer. You tell me." His smile had gone unbroken. Zhang's heart jumped at each word, anticipating some sort of horror: he was relieved that it had not turned out badly, yet.
"Sir, I," he started, his voice shaking, "...that's not my specialty Sir!"
"Well," the captain said, "it isn't mine, either. If you can't do what you're here for, I fail to see why I should keep you."
"Sir! I...Sir! I'll look into it. Send me in, Sir!" Blackness was devouring Zhang's mind - things had been so good only seconds ago, and now he was facing possible dismissal, or maybe worse. Zhang decided the captain probably did deserve more respect.
"Very well, Zhang." Being addressed by name was never a good sign. "I want you to investigate this for me." That wasn't so bad; in fact, this was a pretty good turn of events. He could investigate the composition of the object! He could prove his usefulness! Zhang's vision became less black, and he noticed the cultural officer scowling, clenching his communicator. That bastard! Zhang hated those Party tools. They were always looking for people to rat out. Well, his luck hadn't run out, yet. He was born lucky. That little rat of a man would have to find someone else to report on for today.
"Even before you said it was an American restaurant, Zhang, I suspected this might have something to do with their accident. For that reason alone it is worthy of investigation." The captain's gaze was faraway, and Zhang wondered if he was remembering the exploratory mission in America. The captain had first gained fame there, after all.
"Sir, are you saying -"
"I've heard enough from you, Zhang. Gather your team and go." And though he hated being dressed down, hated being addressed by his family name, he decided this was best. He had other things to think about, now - like the idea of solving the American mystery. That was exciting. He would surely win fame today.
And then it occurred to him - his captain had ordered him into a Sonic. "What a ridiculous universe," Zhang thought, as he made his way to his quarters.

Random Writings

2006-04-01T00:50:00.000-05:00

Oh, it is poetry day! Why? Because. I promise it is not too pretentious or dramatic.

Everything I write
is crap.
Well, at least
I have lots of paper.

Oh, wow, that was really something, wasn't it? heheh.

I hope you weren't disappointed. I had some other stuff to write down, but I've forgotten it now.

Ah, but now it is story time!

The people of a certain land were very peaceful. In defending their peace they shunned outsiders, saying only that they brought war and strife, and all were turned away. These people had good land, with herds and crops both bounteous, and rain often caressed their earth, so that they did not know famine or thirst. They believed, with such good fortune, that surely the gods smiled upon them.

One day they awoke to see a dark wall of clouds, clouds so black and massive that the sky itself was fenced away, accompanied by thunder like a conquering army - it was as though the world itself had come to make war on them. While they were standing in awe, a man made his way along their road, and they did nothing, for they were greatly dumbfounded.

Without introduction, he approached the largest group of them, and called out, "I bear ill tidings from afar - I am almost too late. The storm you see before you is the worst there has ever been, and many lands have joined the sea; many more kingdoms will soon be washed away. There is no time to make boats, to set aside supplies, or to run, for this storm will not soon stop, and it will be known everywhere. Do not despair! For I met a messenger along the road who said he knew a way to save you, a way a few brave souls have followed. He said to me, 'if only their young women and men will give up their lives in sacrifice to the gods, rain shall not fall upon their heads. If they are very devout, as I hear they are, then the gods shall pity them.' That was all his message."

So the people debated for a time, and the man left, saying he must warn other lands. Soon some brave youths offered their lives to appease the gods, and the people were much saddened, but greatly proud of their children, and the debate came to an end. Many of their youths left with the priests, and those who stayed behind bowed their heads in shame. The priests swore, with tears and grim faces, that they would please the gods with the rituals they knew.

With hung heads, the priests returned, and said it was done. There was much weeping, and many openly wondered if the gods' favor would be won, and why they were so cruel. They waited, and the clouds did not lift. Their weeping threatened to drown the land before the storm; many set out to find the messenger, in order that they might kill him. But he was not found, and the people despaired, and the clouds rolled on.

But it did not rain, just as they had been told. They began rejoicing, and prayed, and some questioned whether the rain would have come at all. That night the people slept well, and were much relieved - even those who had lost children for they said to themselves, "it was a worthy sacrifice."

The next day they woke to find their river swollen, full with the drowned. They were not concerned, for these were not their own: they told themselves that these were sinful and ignorant people who had not bothered to save themselves. Still, they were not without pity, and they spent some time looking for the living. All they found was one ancient man, improbably alive, with skin as thin as paper - he was sodden and soggy, and could not possibly have lived, yet the floods had spared him.

He gasped out, quietly, feebly, sadly, "they say that the wisest men are the saddest, and I must be wisest of all. I gave my children over to death to save so many; a wandering traveler said we must, should we want to stop the rain. He spoke truly, for never did a drop fall on our heads, but the truth was much more, and much harder to bear. The waters came from our neighbor's lands and swept all away, though not a drop came to us from the sky. Now I see I am not alone in my foolishness...pity moves my heart, and I fear it is too much for me to bear."

And soon, just as he said, the waters rose, coming crashing down from the mountains, sweeping all away, and the land and all its people were drowned, and never heard from again.

A Strange Meeting

2006-03-04T19:40:00.000-05:00

It is a cavernous, dingy room, the edges of which recede into shadow. Perhaps it is a warehouse. It is muffled and quiet inside, like the inside of a closet full of coats.

Enter Two Strange Gentlemen, from opposite sides

Thin gentleman: "Hey! It's been a while.'"

Gentleman in white: "Oh, it's only been a few years. And, we've known each other for so long - it's like we never parted ways."

Thin gentleman: "So true. So what have you been up to?"

Gentleman in white: "Oh, well, you know. The usual, of course. I've got a few projects in the works. They're pretty exciting, really. Never seen anything like it, I guarantee you."

Thin gentleman: *laughs* "Is that right? And here I thought you'd been in a rut lately. I never hear about you anymore - at least, not like the old days. Don't tell me it has to do with the birds?"

Gentleman in white: "A real showman never tells - he shows. And it's not ready yet."

Thin gentleman: "Huh. So what're the dates looking like?"

Gentleman in white: "Well, I can't say."

Thin gentleman: "Well, I already know anyway. It seems like it has good potential - but I wonder if you can really execute - like in the old days. Remember how it was the other year? With that thing - SARS, was it? What happened there?"

Gentleman in white: "Come on. Everyone has their rough spots."

Thin gentleman: "Then you should invest in sandpaper."

Gentleman in white: *quickly* "How about you? What've you been up to? Still sticking to your little patch of home turf?"

Thin gentleman: "You know very well I have international operations. True, I've mostly been in Africa lately. But - life's just so easy there, you know? I hardly have to put any effort into anything. I have people to do it all for me, there. You really ought to give that a try sometime."

Gentleman in white: "I did. It wasn't nearly as rewarding as you promised."

Thin gentleman: "I can't help it if your help is helpless."

Gentleman in white: "They were not helpless! They did excellent work developing new products! Delivery methods, too - they just never delivered. You know that as well as I do."

Thin gentleman: "Like I'd bother to know every detail of your work. I've got important things of my own to do."

Gentleman in white: "Don't give me that. You're always hanging on my coattails. You always try to steal my glory!"

Thin gentleman: "Now you're one to talk."

*something crashes in the distance*

Gentleman in white: "I wonder if that's..."

Thin gentleman: "Of course. Who else would make such a racket?"

*A huge, burly figure marches up to the group*

Big man: *roaring with laughter* "Fighting like an old couple! You two never change!"

Thin gentleman: "Nor do you."

Gentleman in white: "What'd you break this time?"

Big man: *laughs again* "I have no idea! It doesn't matter, anyway. So how've you two been?"

Thin gent: "Oh, we were just talking about that. We've both got some things in the works, you know. Always busy. How about you?"

Big man: "I may be loud, but I heard you fighting. Riding each others' coattails, and all that. Hah! The pot calls the kettle black!"

Both gents: "Is that so."

Big man: "Sure thing. My coat's never fit quite right what with you two weighing it down." *laughs* "Well, I guess our thin friend doesn't weigh all that much. And I suppose you've got to get around somehow. You ticks, you!"

Gent in white: "Arrogant as ever, I see. Well, even ticks can bring a man down. One bite, that's all. Just one bite from one of those diseased little buggers. That's all it takes."

Big man: *laughs* "And what, exactly, has ever stopped me?"

*the two gents scowl*

Thin gent: "We don't stop, either. If we're ticks, then so long as you keep going - we do, too. Maybe a tick could even suck its host dry."

Big man: "You two always were funny. If you'd spend more time working - just imagine what you could do! Leave the fighting to me. That's my raison d'etre, you know."

Gent in white: "Sure, you get a lot done. But - you have no artistic vision! No class! No cares! Try working our way for once."

Big man: "Eh, I've done that. Lot of extra effort for nothing. I mean, really, who appreciates my work, anyway? Not you two. Nobody else, either. I just do things my way. Good enough for me."

Thin gent: "No one appreciates your work because it's just not that original. What is your vision? It seems to be the same as ours."

*a pale man suddenly leaks from the shadows, like an inkstain spreading on paper. His face is set to a perpetual grin*

Pale man: "Same as mine."

*the big man stiffens with respect, the other two simply stare*

*Silence*

Pale man: *smiling?* "Hmm. I killed the party, it seems."

Big man: *laughs awkwardly* "Oh, not yet. Not yet. We were just talking about work."

Pale man: "Yes, work. Ah, it never ends. But such a joy."

Gent in white: "We, uh, we didn't know if you would be here."

Pale man: "I'm always here."

Thin gent: "But I've seen you everywhere!"

Pale man: "I do get around, don't I?"

Gent in white: "That's...that's confusing."

Pale man: "Are we strangers?"

Gent in white: "What?"

Pale man: "I haven't changed. So - tell me what you're doing."

All three start talking: "Well, I -"

Pale man: "No, I'll see soon enough. Surprise me. I really must be going. I've work to do yet."

*fades back into the blackness*

Thin gent: "That guy is so damn creepy. Who made him boss?"

Gent in white: "We did. Remember? We can't get anything done without him. Not any of us. But, yeah. I never can tell what he's thinking."

Big man: "He's a good guy, I think. He's always treated me with respect."

Gent in white: "Me too - but, I've never seen him angry. Or even happy. I've only ever seen that unsettling smile. Like he's just gonna keep smiling until judgment day, come Hell and high water. Nothing ever bothers him. He never struggles. And he never stops. He makes us look...lazy."

Thin gent: "And we rely on him so much..."

Gent in white: "I always wondered where he came from. Do either of you know?"

Big man: *quick laugh* "He's as old as the hills. Ask them."

Gent in white: "I have a feeling I could disinter the hills and valleys both of all their secrets - and still find no answers."

Big man: "Probably not. Well, you've got to respect the guy."

Gent in white: "I suppose."

Big man: "Anyway, didn't you two have some important projects to attend to? My business is calling to me. I'll be seeing you."

*exits*

Thin gent: "I hate relying on those guys."

Gent in white: "Well, we can take some satisfaction from the fact that our big friend is just as reliant on the boss as we are."

Thin gent: "That doesn't change anything for us, though."

Gent in white: "I suppose not. Well, I'd better let you get back to your life of...well, whatever you've been doing recently."

Thin gent: "Same to you. Shall we meet again soon?"

Gent in white: "Of course. Maybe what we need to break out of our collective ruts is a little collaboration. What do you say?"

Thin gent: "Soon, but not yet. I'd like to try a few things out first - just a few little projects, a little housecleaning. Let's get that out of the way first, shall we? Then we can do something major."

Gent in white: "Fair enough. I'll see you soon, then."

Thin gent: "Adios, man."

Gent in white: *chuckles* "Yeah, Adios to you, too."

*exeunt*

Some British journal I found in the attic....

2006-02-15T02:10:00.000-05:00

Journal Entry
15th January, 7:30 AM
A thought occurs to me - "why can't butter spread itself?" A very good question, indeed. After some consideration, it occurs to me that there are, in fact, things that do spread themselves. Fire, for example, or disease.

9:00 AM
Spent the last hour and a half attempting various mixtures of butter and fire. Most were failures. However, science is not discouraged by failure, and I did eventually have some success. It seems that when the butter is not set on fire, but rather heated by it, it gains the attribute of spreadability - at least, in part. There does not seem to be more butter than before, as there is when fire spreads, but some degree of spreadability is transferable, as evidenced by the fact that my toast was buttered without my needing to use a knife. However, the toast cannot share this attribute. It merely burns.

12:00 PM
I expected success in my further experiments, but have so far had mostly abject failures and one result that only barely qualifies as otherwise. The failures I will not detail at this time, for success is what matters. Encouraged by my results in mixing butter with fire, I next turned to jelly. I tried as many combinations of jelly and fire as there can possibly be and was dismally disappointed. The best I attained was a result very similar to that of the butter - the jelly became runny, and managed to spread itself. However, warm, watery jelly is not in the least appetizing. I decide to repeat the admixture of fire and toast again. It still burns, but now smells of jelly.

5:00 PM
I have been negligent! Other substances do spread on their own, and I even detailed one in my earlier entry! Encouraged by this thought, I have mixed the remainder of the jelly with the influenza, obtained from one of my dying servants. So far nothing very much appears to be happening, but I have gambled all my jelly on this in desperation. I certainly wish I hadn't, for I simply cannot go without jellied toast to-morrow morning, and I refuse to manually spread anything now that I know it can be done for me. If there is no great payoff, I suppose I will have to ask a servant to perform this menial task for me.

9:00 PM
Still nothing. I suppose I shall have to call it a night. On the morn, after toast, perhaps I shall make more attempts.

- Sorry, guys, but this journal seems to end here. I am thinking his experiment sort of worked.

Helpful hints for ruling the world

2006-02-15T01:08:00.000-05:00

If you're planning to conquer the world, don't come looking to me for advice. That sort of thing is best left to professionals. However, if you do find yourself somehow in possession of a world, or actually manage to conquer one, (which I must add is considered a serious breech of etiquette in some circles), then I believe you should at least run it well.

Many will say that running the world is hard work; if you actually try it, you will find that to be absolutely correct. For every person on Earth, there are problems, and, as Emperor (or Empress, though I am certain the first will be a man), you are ultimately responsible for all of them. There are endless problems, but only one of you; one might ask what one is to do in such a situation. The answer is to outsource, of course. It works for business, and it will work for you. There are many qualified individuals who will jump at the chance to rule the world for very little pay - leaving you with far more leisure time. Some of them might decide to go their own way after getting some experience. Fortunately, there are many, many potential applicants for this position, and one who does not properly appreciate his job or loyalties to you can easily be replaced. It is a simple and ancient plan, but with a proven formula, after all: they do the work, you get the benefits. If they misstep or show a troubling lack of strict obedience, you need only berate their incompetence, and then have them removed & replaced. One hardly even need to pay attention, the system runs itself so well.

There is another matter I would like to bring to your attention. I think you'll agree with me when I say, there are a great many people who do very little to contribute to your glorious Empire. The solution that most immediately springs to mind is to imprison, execute, or press into military service those individuals. However, I have one convenient trick that not only will better employ these people, but make administration run brook-smooth throughout your holdings. Presumably you speak English. It would be wise for you to choose your own language as the language of law, governance, and trade. This might seem problematic, but here's the trick: all the people you will need to implement this already have been trained. Not only that, they have done it themselves, at their own cost. How could this be? Who are these strange individuals who seem to have foreseen a need for their skills? A bit of thought will reveal the answers. To teach English throughout your Empire, and to teach and practice law, what two groups will be needed? Simply, teachers and lawyers. Teachers being in short supply, though, you will settle for the next best thing: English majors, who are as plentiful as sunlight. It is not clearly understood just why so many have selected to receive this training, but that's really no concern of yours - all that matters is that they do exist, bounteously. There has also been a surplus of lawyers for years now, and it would be wise of you to use this surplus to your advantage. Neither group contributes much currently to your Empire's well-being, and the lawyers probably are detrimental to it. Sending these to all ends of the Earth can only help you so long as you assign them to perform their chosen professions, and they do so dutifully. They will teach your chosen language, and run your legal system, everywhere on Earth. It is a beautiful solution since, like all good solutions, it solves many problems at once.

You see? There are a great many things one can do in order to run an Empire smoothly and without much hassle, though I have only briefly detailed two here. If I feel it will be especially appreciated or useful, perhaps I will reveal more in future writings. But until then, it would most benefit you to study your tactics and strategy; that is, if you are serious in your aims of conquering the world. Until next time.

A proposal!

2006-02-08T22:17:00.000-05:00

I wrote about this on my MySpace blog, but I'll do it here, too.

You may have read this article, "Cyberspace is dead." Apparently the term is well past its expiration date; well, fine by me. I never really liked it anyway. I don't mind it now only because I'm so used to hearing it.

So all these eggheads are trying to come up with a new term for whatever we should call the electronic space we find ourselves in. As the article states, "Twenty years after William Gibson coined the term 'cyberspace' in his novel Neuromancer, we live in a world of smart objects, always-on devices, and perpetually open information channels. The Internet feels less like an alternate world that we 'go to' and more like just another layer of life."

They list several alternates, but unsurprisingly I don't like any of their suggestions. "Infosphere" is the least bad. Except there's nothing really spherical about it. And it's four damn syllables - way too long. "The World" is less awkward, except it's not really descriptive at all. So I have decided on my own term.

I call the stuff around us, the electronic interconnectedness of all things, the i-ther. It's the same concept as the ether, which a very few of you might remember as a somewhat archaic english word. Only now, it is the internet-ether. The I-ether. The ither.

I seriously do like this word - it's better than the alternates, at least. I think I'll start using it.

Something to think about

2006-02-08T21:21:00.000-05:00

Let's say there's a family. The two parents are miserably bad: they drink a lot, and they beat their children without mercy. As one would expect, their oldest son hates and resents them, and spends his time fantasizing about the day he will be big enough to take them down. Would it make sense, or be fair, for him to beat his younger siblings? Maybe they also hate their parents, maybe they do not. Either way, being beaten by their brother will not make them want to fight their parents. Even if they were adopted it would not. Neither would it be right for him to beat his friends and neighbors. Would they see the injustice he suffered, and help him to fight against his parents? Of course not. They would fight him.

Or, let's say you want to destroy a house. Would you start by shooting the furniture and shredding the wallpaper? Would you burn the carpet? Crush the drywall into powder? Blow up the water pipes? These things are all part of the house, but they are not supporting it. You could take all these things away, and still the house would stand. If one wanted to bring the house down, it would make sense only to remove the structural supports. If there was time, and if one were wise, other parts of the house could be removed and reused elsewhere, or in making a new house.

I put forth both these examples for a reason. In both, there is something big - a family, or a house - composed of many separate things. In the first, the son wants to free himself from his parents' tyranny. In the second, there is a house that needs to be demolished, either because it is decrepit or in order to make way for something better.

Governments are very similar. But, those who resort to terrorist tactics to fight them - killing civilians and causing mayhem wherever it is easiest - are doing foolish things. They are beating their siblings. They are blowing up the pipes. If they truly desired the destruction of their targets, they would get the support of their siblings and neighbors; they would attack only the support structure of the house*.

Resorting to terrorist tactics is never right, never justified, never admirable, and is never effective.

*(The support structure of the government is not the people, and it is not businesses, and it is not hospitals or hotels or restaurants or oil wells or anything else. The one thing that gives the government its power is its ability to use force. So, the support structure of the government is the military, and the police. Without those the government has no power to enforce its will, and a powerless government is not a government at all. So if one truly wishes to fight, those are the things to destroy. Leave the rest alone, except where it is directly used by the armed forces. Why would anyone support you against the government if you are brutal? If things are bad enough that revolution is necessary, the people will not sympathize with those who kill them, even if they hate the government. Oppression is oppression.)

Hell on Earth?

2006-02-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

Not that the world needs any help in generating suffering - in fact, one might suspect it was set up to do precisely that. To what end, I wouldn't know.

But I was thinking, and not for the first time. About this. I think often, you smarmy bastard.
Anyway. I was thinking: advertising is supposed to make people want stuff. No argument there. Does it really accomplish that? Maybe. Sometimes.
How many of you have watched old commercials, or seen old ads? Some? Usually they dissapear after a few weeks or months. But like great works of art, great advertisements should work for all time, for anyone who sees them. I'm not going to say I know of any, but there must be some.

So what you do is this: you simply submerse people in great old ads. Posters from the early 1900s. Newspaper spreads. Tv ads. Old newsreel bits. And especially focus on products that are no longer in existence. If the ads work, the people exposed should develop some desire for something that they cannot have.

Can you profit from this? Perhaps. Probably not directly. But is it fun? Yes. Oh, yes.

What? You can't possibly think it's undeserved? Christians and Buddhists both teach that one should be seperate from earthly desires, right? Presumably, longings for such earthly and transitory things are bad. So, this will have no effect on those people who have their priorities straight. Moral people, in other words. It is thus a perfect plan, for it punishes only the wicked. Heheheh.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee it'd work, and worse yet, people are very clever. Those old products would probably be recreated and sold again, until people quickly remembered why the product failed in the first place. Does that mean the people would stop wanting those products, even with great ads? Or does it mean people already experience longing for things that no longer exist? Perhaps this system is already somewhat in effect....
It's an interesting idea.

An interesting day

2006-02-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

I already posted this to Myspace a few days ago, but I figured it'd last longer here. And people seemed to enjoy reading it, so I'll preserve it.

First order of business: Are you familiar with memory sticks, or flash cards, or whatever you want to call them? I have a SanDisk cruzer micro, 256 megs. I rely on it to carry files around, and it's pretty good.
No, I haven't sold out, but am definitely interested in doing so. This particular product is one I would be glad to advertise: it is awesome. Sure, it holds files and all that, nice, nice, whatever. But the other night, I went to do laundry. I was very tired, and kind of hurrying. I emptied my pockets, and usually I sort of inventory what I've got to make sure it's all there - but not that time. So the next morning I'm putting stuff in a clean pair of pants, and notice my flash card is missing. This distresses me, because that thing cost me $30, and it's really convenient. I figure it must've fallen out of my pocket at school, because the seats in some classrooms are sort of awkward, especially if you're trying to get comfortable, and so I figured I'd never see the thing again. It wouldn't matter if it was a $2 pen I lost - I'd feel terrible about losing something I still could've used. Heh. I am cheap.
Later in the day..., well, you know what's coming. I went to get my laundry out of the basket. I saw metal. I dug through my clothing. Sure enough, it was my flash card. It went through both the washer and dryer, and looked actually better than it did before. It was shinier. So, after I touched it to make sure it didn't have any charge, I plugged it into the USB port - and the damn thing worked!
That's impressive.

In other news...
Usually, one would think being attractive was a good thing, and yesterday (Monday 30th Jan.) I must have been especially good-looking (or something?). People just kept looking at me, and when I was at the pool, the lifeguard just couldn't seem to get her eyes off me. Of course, maybe she just thought I was crazy. That happens too. Heh. Probably pretty often.
So, after I was done swimming, I of course went back to the locker room and showered off. Now, I don't especially care about being naked - it's not like I'm showing off anything new or unusual. I mean, hell, we're all naked under our clothes, right? So I usually don't get dressed until I'm all the way dry. I was standing there, toweling off, and I see this runty half-retarded looking little guy walking down the corridor towards me. Nothing unusual about people walking down corridors, but I hated him at first sight. He is just one of those people you instinctively want to hurt. Maybe you've never felt that, and if so, you're very lucky. He's apparently walking to the showers, and was naked as well. I began walking to the urinals, and as he passed me by, I noticed he was looking at my crotch.... Well, his gaze was a bit more specific than that.
A string of profanities ran through my mind, something along the lines of "what the fuck is your problem, you half-bit queer? You never seen a cock before? Your mother must've been a dumptruck, cause she sure dumped a load when she had you." And other things. You know how thoughts are in the moment - incomplete and only possessing a few words. The ideas are there, but it's only later that they get embellished with coherent speech. I considered how I might turn this sort of thing to my advantage - I could charge people money to look at me - but couldn't come up with anything both profitable and honorable. After I'd washed my hands and weighed myself (did you know that I somehow lose two pounds every time I swim? I really don't get it), I returned to my pile of stuff. That ugly little shit was sitting on a bench right outside the shower, toweling himself, and staring intently at me.
Then my mind replayed the scene, and I looked again. Sure enough, the towel was only covering his crotch. And it seems a certain body part was in need of excessive drying, because he just kept rubbing it. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt - but it was obvious by the towel's outline that he deserved none. And he was still staring. More than that - it was with rapt admiration.
Immediately, I, too, began fantasizing - though probably not in the way he would wish. It occured to me that I would love to know how much damage I could do to someone without actually killing them. It also occured to me that I didn't know how quickly I would be able to carry that out -and that was also worth knowing. An experiment was in order! The satisfaction of hearing his ribs crack, of feeling the obscenely beautiful thud of his head against the concrete wall, the excitement of the rushing chase and the madness of violence - but then, before I was fully aware of it, I had decided to be calm.
I am not sure why, but my line of thought was something like, "he is not an immediate threat. he is disgusting. do you really want to touch that filth? he might actually enjoy it. that makes me want to kill him even more. but he's no threat. they're queer-friendly here...they wouldn't listen to me...i'd likely be caught. since when has that stopped you? but he's so pathetic. he's so worthless it's not worth hurting him."
There it was, calmness. I won't deny I still felt a half-psychotic rage, but it was under control. I looked again; he was still beating off madly with his towel, and he was fully aware of my disgusted glare. I'm not sure if he didn't think I'd figure it out, or what, but there he still sat, pathetic deformed little creature that he was, fucking a towel. I dressed myself. I considered, once I had my shoes on, beating the living shit out of him anyway. "Shoes have better grip than bare feet on the floor, after all", I reasoned. Not that I would've needed it: I automatically look for any justification that'll let me act, that's all. He was so little, though, and so pathetically, laughably worthless...perhaps I thought it far more cruel to do nothing, to allow him to live that way. I really have mellowed with age.
I regret not acting now, in a way. I still wish to do horrifically painful things to him, and I've always wanted to know if I could drive my hand through the soft underside of someone's jaw. I've always been able to hold back enough not to do anything really stupid like that in the past, and I should be able to continue, but I really am pissed off. If I never see him again, that would probably be best.

Heh. I'm glad to have written this down - it's the sort of thing bizarre enough that you start questioning whether it ever really happened. It's also good stress-relief.
So anyway, my point is, being attractive is not always good (though I guess you ladies already knew that). And though I don't mind gay people existing, in some sort of detached, mental way - in reality, I hate fags. Good day.

Would anyone like to send a letter to Target?

2006-01-17T11:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Target:

I do not frequent your stores. I find myself in one once or twice a year, perhaps. They seem nice enough, and the merchandise appears to be of fair quality. I am a simple man - the sort that seems nearly extinct in our land. I do not buy frivolous things; in fact, I rarely buy anything at all. To put it simply, I have no reason to enter your stores, and am thus unfamiliar with your normal operations or business philosophy.
However, while driving yesterday, I noticed a sign. This sign concerns you -it was on your building. It seems to have been there an intermediate length of time: it is not worn heavily, neither is it shining new. I would guess, then, that you do have knowledge of it, but I bring it to your attention nonetheless.

This sign left me somewhat muddled.
It said, without explanation, "Target: Greatland." Fortunately my sister, one of your more frequent visitors, was riding with me and quickly provided me with lucidity.
She said it simply indicated that that particular store was a large one, with greater variety in merchandise. She likened it to a "Super Wal-Mart".

However, I would like to bring to your attention the following: "Super Wal-Mart" indicates exactly what the store is. "Wal-Mart" is short for Walton's Mart - Walton being the name of the founder, and "mart" being another word for market. "Super" indicates surpassing excellence or degree, so from "Super Wal-Mart", one would expect not only the normal services and goods your esteemed competitor provides, but also additional ones not regularly available. It is a Wal-Mart, only more so, or better.

The name of your store is a problem in itself, though I can understand why it was chosen. I would speculate it was meant to indicate that your store is a shopper's target - exactly what they should hit in their meandering path. Shoppers are rather like bees, in a way: without any clear sense of direction, but attracted to the wild gesturings of their peers and to bright colors or scents. You are aware of this, I am certain - one of your many ads did liken your symbol to a sunflower. This is all reasonable enough, though perhaps I should want to name the establishment something less martial - especially in these troubled times.
But the name of your business, combined with the supposed descriptor, "Greatland", is greatly confusing. Firstly, "Greatland" is reminiscent of Russian naming schemes. This, together with other recent developments such as the Homeland Security office, surely do not put the minds of our fellow citizens at ease. "Greatland" is not a genuine word of the language we commonly speak; I have never once heard a single utterance of it. Further, "Target: Greatland" sounds precisely like the title for a thriller, or for a spy novel.

But, if these issues do not concern you, at least consider this: the descriptor, "Greatland", does not actually describe what your business does. If one were to ask, "how does this Target differ from the others?," the only reasonable reply would be that it is situated in a great land. I have no argument that this land is exceedingly great; however, not all of your stores have this moniker. Am I to assume that only some of the land is great, while the rest is suboptimal? Is this an open display of discrimination towards unfavorable locations? Customers, I think, do not like to be told their neighborhood is less appealing than others. I only note that if one store in this country carries that particular moniker, it would be only fair and sensible for the others to be thusly named. The alternate would indicate a suboptimal situation, or, perhaps, that the stores without that appellation are situated in a different country. This is one nation, and if you are referring to our ancient and bloodily contested British ownership, or to our being only a part of the world, I am greatly offended.

All I desire, if I must make it known in such straightforward terms, is for your business to find a name that informs the potential customer, such as myself, as to what can be expected. "Target: Greatland", as I have spent some little effort demonstrating, does no such thing.
I write this petition in solicitation of your time and a suitable explanation, or, better yet, a change. I am anxious to hear your reply.

From "The Musings of a Cat"

2006-01-07T22:44:00.000-05:00

"Now, the vacuum is evil, but the humans do not see it. Practical as they are, they care only for results and will overlook imperfections . It is so crass and common of them, yet, it charms me all the same. It often allows them success in spite of themselves, success where others fail. I am almost proud of them.
To the issue at hand, though. Ah, that phrase! I have heard it too often, and now I use it! I suppose these things happen when one lives with humans.
As I was saying: the vacuum promises cleanliness, which we all agree is a great virtue. I have spoken with a few others, but none seem able to articulate exactly why they fear that monstrous aberration. I think I've finally caught it, though. The vacuum does deliver on its promise - it does clean. The noise is terrible, I admit, but reasonable beings do not fear loud noises if they signal no harm. The problem, as I shall reduce it, is thus: it provides cleanliness by taking away, rather than by imposing order. If I were to do the same, I would remove my fur rather than neatly grooming it. This is the worst, most careless way to solve problems - by destroying them."

- End of Excerpt

Locking the forum (not to keep us out, but to keep the windbags safely away)

2005-12-29T00:43:00.000-05:00

I was thinking earlier today - why are politicians so irresponsible and short-sighted? Probably part of it is that the least logical people make the best leaders. There's not a lot we can do about that. We could make logic tests necessary for holding office, but, by virtue of the irrational being the best leaders, they would still make trouble, elected to office or not.

However, while not exemplars of logic, or of knowledge, or perhaps even common sense, politicians are rational - they do what they perceive to be best for themselves. And it seems to me that for the most part, politicians pursue whatever sounds good, as pleasing the people will lead to re-election. Not what is good, or what they think is good, but what sounds good. Many have a knack for saying things that sound logical, moral, and insightful, but which are actually proven not to work.

Take, for example, the issue of corporate taxes. Many argue that corporations have more money, so they should pay more. That they have a debt to society, and must help to pay for the burden of governance. Currently, corporate taxes in this country are at nearly 40%. Most corporations find loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Many legislators are outraged by this, and say that better enforcement must be put in place, and loopholes closed. However, they forget that businesses can locate themselves wherever they wish - if taxes are high, they will leave. It does not matter how good enforcement is, if there are no businesses to collect from. These same people will argue that we cannot lower taxes because the government is running a deficit. They ignore that businesses, when allowed to keep the money they earn, are much better at investing than the government. They ignore the fact that a low tax rate allows for high growth and for a bigger economy - this brings in just as much, if not more, tax revenue, and has the added benefit of raising everyone's standard of living. And why should business be responsible for government's inability to restrain itself?

But politicians ignore this, because it is far easier to demonize big business for big problems, and to ignore the fact that government is usually to blame when acts of God are not. After all, if big business can cause big problems, what worse mischief could our government cause? It is, after all, larger than any company on earth.

So, what can be done?

Politicians say what sounds good. So, what will they say if no one can hear them? I would propose a system whereby politicians are given no media voice - the media can report their actions, but not their words. And politicians will not be allowed, under any circumstances, to appear on TV. The only possible exception being the President, who as commander in chief, must occasionally address the entire nation.
Just think how pleasant life would be if there were no more political commercials! We could spend election months watching the usual ads for beer, feminine hygiene, and food. They are insipid, mindless, and even disgusting enough to hold us over, I'm sure.
I expect politics would carry on as usual, for a time. Then politicians, attention-seekers by nature, would notice that no one was watching. Perhaps that means they would be more corrupt, but I fail to see how they could be. With no one watching their grandstanding, they would be forced to accomplish things for the papers to report - without accomplishments, people would wonder what exactly they were doing. Accomplishments would be the only way of seeking attention.

Perhaps denying them all outlets would be too harsh. I don't especially think so, as most people are rather reasonable when discussing issues other than politics. And since most are ignorant of issues until politicians raise them, I believe most people would be more reasonable if they were not so misled. However, as I said, some people may think it too harsh to deny these firebrands all communication.
Perhaps they could be permitted time in the slow media - newspapers and the like. Sound bites work well on TV, but are much harder to sell in written form. And since people often don't read, the discussions would be limited to politicians, those who understood the issues, and the insane. The first and third categories would be assumed by the second to be dangerously ill-informed, and rightly so. Once those two sides were excluded, only those with understanding would be left, and their recommendations could be easily examined. In practice, it might not be possible to separate the first and third groups. At any rate, written discussions take more effort and thought, and it is much harder to intimidate or yell over the other side. Of course, the extra effort and thought might go into making even more devious and misleading statements, but, since the supply of truly devious writers is rather limited, I am willing to risk that.

In summary: politicians will nearly always pursue their rational self-interest; that is, to get re-elected. The only way to be elected is for people to know of you, and to support what you do. In order to be known, you must get attention. The current system allows politicians to garner attention mostly by making nonsensical statements, or to say whatever is popular at the moment, both being usually the same thing. If these masters of publicity were restricted - if people could only know of them by their actions - they would be forced to act, rather than bloviate, in order to receive attention. No amount of "ethics training" and no set of qualifications will change the way politicians act: human nature never changes. So it is far better to change the system, in order to reward different behaviors.

The main problem with this proposal is that legislators make the rules, and rarely make rules restricting themselves. So I expect this idea will never be implemented. But I do want to see it happen, if only to discover why it is a bad idea.

Advice on writing

2005-12-29T00:39:00.000-05:00

Ach. I was going to write something earlier. I was excited, motivated, and knew precisely what I was going to say. And actually, I still know what I'm going to say, because it is directly related to my forgetting. But it won't be as good, and it will definitely be less organized.

I was going to say: here are my rules for writing.
It's not like I'm some wonderfully successful writer (I have won a little prize money, but nothing to brag about); however, these work for me.

The first, most important rule, and the one that I can't forget because forgetting reminds me of it, is this: never, never, never delay writing anything down. When it comes to mind, write it down. Don't wait until it's convenient. That'll be too late. Thoughts are ethereal - they leave once new ones come, and are gone without a trace. Sometimes you can summon them back by mulling over the same things that led to them, but that depends on you remembering those thoughts. Thoughts are like lives - they are ours, but they are not ours to keep. Use them while you have them.

The other important rule is very similar - write all the time. I say it is similar because most people will say to themselves, "someday I will write this or that," but someday is always another day away. There is only now.
As an excuse, people often say, "I don't know how to write very well," or, "I don't know what to write." That isn't important. The only way to improve is to practice. So, even though the first efforts will almost certainly be terrible, write them anyway. Go nuts. Finish them. Then, when time has removed you from the effort, go back and read it. You will be disappointed, and, if not, have someone else critique it. You will be disappointed. Write something new. Repeat. And if you say you have nothing to write about - well, having nothing to say has never stopped anyone from talking, has it? Write whatever comes to mind. If nothing comes to mind, you might be dead. Get that checked out. If you're not dead, something will come to mind. If you are, try writing anyway. Everyone wants to know what the dead can tell.

I suppose it would also be helpful to read good writing. Very helpful. Having friends, or even enemies, tear apart your writing can probably do an alright substitute job. But it is always easier to learn by following an example, than to learn through error what is not allowed. Writing only seems easy while you're reading it. When you know how difficult it is to write, you will learn much more from reading. Chances are, you will lose respect for some authors when you see how boring and mechanical their writing is. And of course you will gain respect for others.
A big part of writing is forcing people to see. We all forget the things that are always around us, due to familiarity. Often these things are important. So the writer's job is to find a new way of looking at the familiar, in a way that makes it strange and new again.

There are exceptions to these rules, and by no means are they inclusive. If you can concentrate on one thought, uninterrupted, you might not want to write it down immediately. Consider it, and let it develop and mature. See how it is embellished and changed. It may become more interesting than it originally was. Of course, it might also become dull, and then you will not want to write your original thought. Which is your loss, really - that thought may not have been bad, and it may be that it only occurred to you. Or, more likely, it has occurred to many, but none have written it. Be the first. There are other good rules on writing, but I am stubborn: I only know the ones I use, and ignore the advice of others.

I give this advice assuming you want to write, and that you are fool enough to trust me. I think nearly everyone wants to write, though. Most people like the idea of making their thoughts known, or at least making them permanent (as permanent as things get around here). Like I said, there is no way of knowing when, where, or whom 'your' thoughts will next strike - with such an uncertain future, it seems best to immortalize what we can while we still have time.

Probably the biggest misconception people have about writing is that it's easy. That is where nearly all the problems originate. People assume that, because it is easy, it requires no practice - the thoughts on paper will flow beautifully without effort. That writers do no 'real' work, but only relax and amuse themselves. Those are both totally wrong, of course. Writers are all crazy - the importance and difficulty of their work is out of all proportion to their pay. They control ideas, the most powerful tools we posses. And yet, most writers can only afford to write on the side, when they are not earning money at a 'real' job.

So, my message, especially for those of you in school: write. Now. Don't put it off.
(Oh - heh - and let me read it. We can help each other out.)

Prisoners

2005-12-22T02:11:00.000-05:00

I was thinking today, not for the first time, that we should do something with our prisoners. Sure, we could set them to work doing menial labor - but we already do that, and while we do get some use out of them, they don't benefit much from it. They are returned to the world beaten men, without skills or money. So of course they get arrested again. And while we could continue as we are - raising taxes and building ever more prisons - I'm not happy with that.
Who does it benefit to re-arrest these men, time and time again? Not me. I pay for them. And yet I get no benefit - there is a reduction in crime, but the lack of negative action is not the same as the presence of the positive. They do not benefit, either: in prison they make almost no money, no real friends, and no useful skills. Even if they do stay clean after their sentences, they have records that will haunt them - records that make employment difficult.
Our prisons are full. So full, in fact, that many have to parole prisoners early, just to free up space. There are nearly two million imprisoned at this moment, and so I say the time is right for something new.

We could provide job-training, forgive lesser criminals, and give money with which to start new lives. But no one wants to pay criminals, and chances are most of them wouldn't take it seriously.

My thoughts are not so original: we need to train these prisoners, at least the promising ones, and give them a new path in life. We also need more soldiers.

The military most likely does not want criminals in its ranks. And neither would I. Instead, I would create a new branch - the American Foreign Legion. It would accept anyone seeking a fresh start, offering a clean record and American citizenship to those able to fulfill their contract.
Criminals would be free to choose whether to serve time in prison, or in the Legion. The Legion would be under no obligation to accept them, and could thus weed out some of the worst from the start. Training would be brutal, of course, and discipline harsh. Those who made it through training would make it into the Legion; those who did not would return to prison.

These soldiers would be paid like any others, and would learn discipline, trust, and honor, as well as pride in themselves and in their country. They would be sent wherever they were needed, and would not require the large bases that ordinary units require: they would have no families.
Remember, they are new men, with no past.

At the end of their commitment they would be free, with new skills, money, and clean records. If they so desired, they could remain in the Legion. Or they could join one of the other armed services. But they would be under no obligation to do so - after all, they have met their obligation, and been forgiven.

This would decrease crowding at jails to some degree, though that would depend on a decent number graduating from training; it would teach prisoners valuable skills, as well as give them money and clean records for life after the sentence; and it would provide us with more manpower. It would probably cost more than current programs, but this money would be well-spent. After all, better a man should feed himself than we should feed him. A jailed man benefits no one, whereas a free man, working, benefits all. And most importantly, don't we in this country believe in forgiveness, and in new beginnings?

I see this as a system that can benefit everyone.

Part 5

2005-12-10T02:59:00.000-05:00

Something was definitely wrong.

The sunshine was gone. Worse, something had woken me. My confusion didn't last long: everyone was running from the restaurant. I got up, and followed the crowd to the door.

In the middle of the street was a mob of people - crowded around someone laying on the ground. Chuck was kneeling beside the person and, when he reached his hands back to wipe them on his pants, I could clearly see they were red.
I started to run, to see if I could help, but someone grabbed my sleeve.
It was an old woman, leaning on a cane, her eyes wide with concern. Holding my shirt both for balance and in plea, she asked, "what is it? What's going on?" I couldn't let her down.
"I don't know! I was going to find out! Whoever that is, they're bleeding pretty bad." I tried to see through the crowd, without much luck.
"Oh dear! I thought I heard a rifle. I hope it was just an accident." She was shivering, but just a little. She shook her head back and forth as if she could simply disagree the situation away. She didn't look at all like she thought it an accident.
"You think they got shot?"
"People don't just lay down in the street, bleeding. "
"You're right. Look, I've got to go see -"
"Are you a doctor?" I looked. Her eyes were stony. I wondered why.
"No."
"A nurse?"
"No!"
"Any medical training?"
"No, ma'am," I spat out, trying to stare her down "look, I -"
"Then don't get in the way. That boy looks like he knows what he's doing." Damnit. I couldn't just run from such a helpless (and demanding) old woman.

The crowd drifted a little. That seemed like a good sign. But, as it began to break apart, I saw him. That pale kid was right there in the crowd. He was smiling...at the wounded man?
It was a little creepy.

The crowd faded into darkness, as though something had covered the sun. No, my head...something...can't focus. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I shuddered uncontrollably. I saw the crowd staggering, even through my dull vision. What was going on?

Then I saw him moving - and heard a sudden, slick sound. I hoped I had misheard, but it replayed in my mind. The man he had been near slumped forward, and then met the ground. The sound repeated, another man curled up on himself, then fell.
I think it happened more, and the sound was very wet. That's all I know. A wet sound, obscene. I kept hearing it.
I don't know why no one moved. I couldn't see.

Someone was yelling. Someone angry. It was Chuck! With that thought, my vision came back. I was laying on the ground. Chuck had a big gash in his shirt, and there was blood everywhere. On him and on the ground. I hoped it wasn't his. He was still yelling when he lunged at the kid.
That pale freak's eyes widened, and he reeled back, arms out. I was glad to see him surprised. He tripped as he threw himself backwards, and suddenly I felt much better. Everything would be alright.

But, still falling, he smiled again, wider than ever. I wanted the moment to end, but time was slow. Chuck tackled him. They skidded slowly through the air. I worried - what was behind that lunatic, beatific smile? I felt like I could reach out and grab him, demand to know what he was doing, and still have time left before he hit the ground.
There was a sudden, hollow sound, a resounding heavy drum, and they were down. I wondered if his ribs were broken. Chuck pinned him. The kid did nothing but wheeze, and weakly struggle - I felt exultant. Then I noticed why he was able to struggle as much as he was - Chuck was getting very, very pale, and shaking like a sheet in the wind. He slouched forward, slowly. And then, like he was laying down to sleep, ever so slowly, with his arms resisting, he fell, and there was a heap of two bodies.

I was halfway there before I remembered the old woman. I turned my head quickly, and, unsurprisingly, she had collapsed without my support. I looked forward again, and I was already there. I rolled Chuck over, and looked at the kid: sure enough, he wasn't moving. So I turned my attention to Chuck, and to his wounds. Where his shirt was torn and bloody, there was an oozing hole, and blood coursed from it. I fumbled around, trying to apply pressure, but I'm not sure it did any good. A little less leaked out, but I think it leaked out inside, instead. Or maybe there wasn't much left. No! Damnit! He couldn't die!
He moaned. He was alive! I never thought I'd enjoy hearing moans of pain, but it meant he was alive!
"Chuck, buddy, you gotta help me out. Hang in there. Tell me what to do. You know what to do. You're bleeding. A...a stab wound. A puncture, I guess. I'm trying to stop the bleeding but I don't know how! Help me out!" He rolled his eyes to me, slowly.
He mumbled, "...shit. Praugh...probably too late. So cold. .... I need...a little water."
I really wanted to get him some water. I didn't think it'd do much good, but I really wanted to help. I got up - and the kid was gone. I panicked.

Up the street just a bit, I saw him. He seemed to have recovered. He saw me, and started running, hard. His knife swung in his hand, tearing the air. This couldn't be! He had been so weak only moments before! I ran.

I felt ashamed, running off to let Chuck die. And these people, too. I couldn't even think straight.
I collapsed again. Before I hit the ground, all I could think of was, "why?"

I was terrified, yet, I could not move. In a way, it was peaceful. Everything was out of my control now. There was nothing I could do; no reason to worry. I'd always known I was going to die, sooner or later. Now was not so -

There was a harsh grunt. That got through to me. It was followed by a sound - perhaps like the sound of a sack of flour, filled with sticks, cracking against the ground. From the tops of my eyes, I saw the kid slide down a wall, and Chuck's limbs drop to the ground. I couldn't understand.

My senses returned, at least a little. That perplexing sound...
Then I knew. That was the sound of bones breaking. Somehow, whether by luck, or blind rage, or divine intervention, the kid had run right overtop of my dying friend. The old man must have willed enough strength to pull off a throw - transferring all that forward momentum into a short flight to the wall. I felt sick from the sound.

Slowly, unsteadily, I rose to my feet. There were a lot of people on the ground, now that I had time to look. I moved to my friend as quickly as my legs and balance permitted.
There was just a flicker of life left in his eyes. He looked around, dully, and though I called his name, he did not look. He did not hear, and he could not see. He whispered, "it's only fear, only fear, that's all, that's how they do it, just...weak mind...just...." Almost imperceptibly, he was moving slower, and less, each instant. Each moment was a short age. I pleaded with him, and with God. Nothing happened. And, before I was ready, there was no movement at all.

I felt sticky.
I was covered with drying blood, and with tears. I do not know how long it was, but as the blood was not dry, and the body not cold, it could not have been long. Something had broken through my sorrow. It was...it was another noise. A slick noise. That same one as...what was it? That was so long ago. Another. Again. Oh, wait...my stomach knotted up. It was...it was....

Oh shit.
I looked up. There, as if reaping a crop, was the thing. Kneeling, cutting, rising, and then stumbling to the ground again. It was only a thing now. No human being could do that. Not so...gleefully. So mechanically. He limped, and sagged, and was misshapen. I could not understand how he still moved. He staggered from body to body. His head rolled to one side, and he saw me. Blood leaked into his eyes, and a crusty stream ran from his mouth. He straightened somewhat, and turned to me. He shambled towards me, smiling, but his jaw hung to one side, and there were new gaps in his grin. Before, his eyes had sparkled with evil delight. Now, they were vacant, dead, empty - they simply saw. But still he smiled, and shambled more.

Directly before him, a woman woke up. Before she could move, though, he stooped, and put his knife through her neck, just behind her windpipe. He pulled, and I saw it rise - oh, it rose! He never looked away from me.

I was running. I did not know it, and then, once I did, I did not know where I meant to go. Away. I only wanted away. But he would follow me! Like before! He followed me from the woods. It did not matter if I ran - I would tire, and he could not. He would walk until I collapsed, and then he'd have me, too.
I saw a van. A white van. The driver was slumped in the seat, leaning against the door. It was patiently trying to idle forward, but a...a something I would not look at was keeping it back (oh her eyes! They...stared!). I scrambled to it, and yanked the door open. I was not sure, but I thought the driver might be alive. Before I had decided anything, I tossed him from his seat and onto the pavement - the murderer was almost here.

I was driving away already. I thought, "I could not run him over - I would have to run over the people who might not be dead. I can't." But this was just an excuse - the van was turned around before this even occurred to me.

After that, I do not know what happened. I was at home. I did not want to sleep. There were times when I was not awake - black times - but they were not sleep. I could see the heaps of bodies, still, and I imagined that poor old woman I had let fall, murdered because of me. Chuck was breathing raggedly, leaking blood, staring at me with hateful accusation. That driver...he was in his rightful place, in his own vehicle, bloody from the wounds that killed him, and he watched my every move. They all watched me. All of them. I screamed, and I told them it wasn't my fault, but they did not care. They were dead. They had all the patience in the world. They would never stop.

I am not sure how long I was there. I had not changed clothing. I could not shower. It would be too noisy - I couldn't hear if I showered. And what if he came when I was changing clothes? I didn't eat. There was no way to eat.
Even though it was noisy, I turned on the television. I had to know.
"We bring you more on this evening's tragic news. Police responding to a nearly incoherent motorist found a grisly sight - an entire town, murdered. Police do not have any details, but they are recommending that people in the local area stay in their homes, and be on the lookout. And for those of us further away, they urge caution as well - they do not know where the killers went. Whoever did this, whatever group it was, is very dangerous, and presumably heavily-armed. Police have not yet said what they think killed these people, or how long it took, or why no one called for help. But they stressed that they do have some leads - some witnesses recall the last vehicle on the highway from that direction as being a white van." My mind went blank, and the room was suddenly cold. The TV said something about the model and license. "Preliminary reports are sketchy, but it appears that the vehicle was stolen from town - its owner was among the victims. The police ask that any and all possible sightings be reported - and that if you spot this van, do not go near it. I repeat, do not go near this van. It may very well be the murderer's getaway vehicle.
Even more troubling, it appears that most of these victims did not put up a struggle. Only one young man survived, and he appears to have put up a fierce fight - many of his bones are broken. He currently is in extremely serious condition. But he alone seems to have resisted. Could this have been a chemical or biological attack? Is this the work of terrorists? The governor and the President both are asking people around the nation to join in prayer for -"

I switched it off. They were coming for me. Coming for me. And they would not believe.... They would never believe anything I said! I felt like I deserved it. I abandoned those people. They all died. And here I was, alive. They all died so I could get away.
Damn them all! The cops had their killer. But they were coming for me! Why? Why had any of this happened?

Further non-work on that story

2005-12-10T01:59:00.000-05:00

But seriously, I'll finish it sometime. There are two reasons why I haven't so far:
1. It takes time, which I unfortunately have wasted on other things.
2. It takes the right mood, and honestly, I'm far too cheerful to finish this the way I intended. At least for the past few weeks.

I'm thinking of something to write in the future. It's about...space Mormons!
...
I wrote a description on it. The description was desperately boring. So, I deleted it. If I get around to fleshing it out (or perhaps flushing it out), maybe it will be funny. Or maybe it'll piss people off. Either way, I'll be entertained.
Well, it's more than space Mormons. But that probably doesn't matter to you right now.

When I'm tired, like I am now, I can't write for crap. It comes out boring and insipid, and kind of depressing (I have now gone through and rewritten every sentence - because they were all crap the first time, and some even the second or third. When I'm less tired I need less revising). So, why don't I go to sleep and write later? When I am well-rested, I want to do everything but write. That's why. Come to think of it, I'm most lazy when I feel good. When I'm tired, or overwhelmed with work - that is when I am usually most productive. I could speculate that's it's because when I feel good, it doesn't seem like I need to do anything further. So I don't. Hmmm....

Why did you read all that? It couldn't have been very interesting.

Sleep is sounding really good now.

Want a poem? No? Unfortunately, the Internet is not yet interactive through time. If you are protesting, you'll have to do it just a little louder and without regards to the usual chronological flow. If you do that, I'll definitely do as you ask, just for the novelty of it.
Of course, you could easily stop reading.

How about this one -

If ever I gain
enough acclaim,
perhaps I shall be renouned -
recalled by a different name.

(I am such a sucker for bad puns. My apologies to those of you who aren't - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=renown might help you figure things out.)

Unfortunately, it's still not finished (unless you don't want it finished, in which case you are in luck)

2005-12-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

Things have been a little busy. But just you watch - if they get busier, I'll retreat by writing. Then it'll be finished. And we can all be happy. Unless you're disgusted by such a worthless collection of words. Hey, at least I have started a small collection. Maybe it's not very exotic or well-arranged, but at least it's something.

Anyway. Here's a poem.

Raised and called,
raised and called
Good Christian nation
that we are, but
Lazarus's not involved.
The preacher's going
to drive me to drink
I wish instead
I could be seeing the shrink.
He wants me to give up
all my earthly possessions -
and he'll get them all
in these damn poker sessions.

Heh.

Could I write any slower? Yes.

2005-11-26T19:55:00.000-05:00

Lunch was delicious.

Instead of hurrying out, we decided to enjoy the atmosphere - there was nowhere to hurry to, anyway. I leaned all the way back in my bench, stretching my legs out. I sipped my sweet tea, languidly, as it was meant to be. Sure my car was still broke, but what a difference a decent meal and some relaxation could bring. Life was looking good.

Chuck started up: "I said some things back there - maybe they sound a little crazy now. Well, that's how it goes. You say crazy things when you don't know what's happening. When you get scared." He chuckled. "Even I wonder how real any of that was - what I was talking about. Maybe that kid was just really good. Maybe it didn't happen. I was probably delirious. Hah!," he half-shouted, "I bet we scared that poor kid today straight out of his right mind."

"I wonder if he was just lost? Do you think we should go back and see if he's all right?"

"You gonna walk?"

"Oh, right. Well, we could ask some of these people for help. Someone here must know him."

We waited until the waitress came back. "Excuse me, miss," Chuck said, "do you know if there's anybody lost in those woods? Tall, thin kid, real pale?"

"Let's see...there was...well, not recently, no. No, the Coopers got a little turned around last week, but they weren't lost for long. Oh, but Hon, but don't say that to Mr. Cooper. He's a little touchy about that. Why do you ask?"

"We were out last night," he pointed to the camo uniforms we still wore, "and I kept thinking I heard something. Then, this morning, we saw this kid - I'm pretty sure I'd been hearing him. He was hanging around our camp. I didn't get a real good look at him, but he was tall, and thin and pale like he hadn't seen much food or sun recently. He must've been out there a while. The beers were thinking for us, so we didn't get a good look at him, and we left before we could chat."

That's odd - he'd only had a few beers yesterday. Oh - he doesn't want to admit that he was scared.

"Sorry, can't say I know of anyone like that. Did you ask the police?"

"Well, not yet, no."

"They'd know best, but I'll ask around the kitchen."

She refilled our glasses, and we returned to lounging and drinking.

I watched the sunlight drifting in through the blinds, catching flying grains of dust. It was something I'd always enjoyed - light revealing what had always been there, and in such a pretty way. The grains, once part of the ground, no more than dust and dead things, were now flying about in the glorious, golden light. Truly beautiful.

"Tell me something." I turned my attention to Chuck. "Are you still scared of death?"

He cocked his head and stared at me a moment before replying. "Damn right I am. Me being here is proof of that." He looked away. "The ones who don't fear Death meet him quickest."

"So even though you've been in combat, and seen it up close -"

"I got even more right to be afraid, I think. The rest of you all think you're real brave and fearless, but I tell you what. You ain't. Thinking things through and living them are different - I think God was warning Adam and Eve away from the apple for that reason."

"What?"

He looked up at me, then down at the table. "You know what I mean. You plan all these things out, you think you're real clever: then shit happens. You lose it. All that thinking gone to waste. All the good and high-minded stuff goes right out the window, and you just do what you have to. So I think maybe God just didn't want to see them suffer. Or making fool's plans about things they didn't understand. Good intentions making good paving stones and all that. What good did thinking ever do us?"

"You really think that?" I smiled at my own cleverness.

"Shit!" His eyes came up briefly, then he choked out a little laugh. "Excuse my Latin. I don't know. I ain't got God's number or nothing. Lots of times I wish I did. Save me a lot of prayin'. What's all this talk for anyway?"

I was a little embarassed at my melodrama. "It's nothing. I just...I guess I didn't expect you to take off back there."

He turned ever so slightly red. "Don't get me wrong. I was mostly worried about you. That kid was creepy, but I could've taken him if he really meant trouble."

"Is that why you dropped your gun?"

"You're more trouble than you're worth, you know that?" He pointed his finger at me, and he was angry, but his eyes showed just a hint of amusement.

"Well, I'm not going to trouble you anymore. I feel great now. I'll take him myself, and then you, too! I'll show you a thing or too, old-timer."

"Bah! You couldn't wrestle mustard out of a jar." He laughed.

I decided to let it slide, and resumed enjoying my afternoon sun.

Part 3 (Sorry, it's a bit later than I said it'd be)

2005-11-17T09:58:00.000-05:00

After nearly two hours of tough negotiation between the car, the rutted dirt road, and Chuck, we made it to town. It wasn't far - only perhaps ten miles in a straight line - but, between the winding roads and my truck's recent dilapidation, it was not a short trip.
Chuck seemed to calm down the closer to town we got, and was downright cheerful once we passed the outlying buildings. I was glad to see him in such good spirits, but I hated him for being so cheerful about wrecking my vehicle. I had to admit, though, I was feeling much better myself, and it was a truly beautiful day, so I didn't say anything to spoil the mood.

Chuck scowled a little, then said, "we got to go to a shop and get this fixed. I ain't got a lot of money, and I had to haul your ass out of there, so I figure I'll pay for half the repairs. That fair?"

"Uh...yeah, I guess it is. That'll work fine, Chuck." I hadn't really expected him to make the offer, but was greatly relieved that he had. Even though I'd known him for a while, I didn't know him very well - I'd worried that asking him to pay would offend him, somehow. Thank God for small things, I guess.

"I haven't been 'round here much, but I think they've got just the one place. Should be up ahead a bit. Keep an eye to the right, would you?"

I did, and I enjoyed seeing their quaint main street stretch of shops. Savory smells wafted from a few. I hadn't had anything to eat since the night before.
"Hey, Chuck, I want to stop at one of these places later and get some lunch. I'm starving. Sound good?"
"Yeah. Yeah, that does sound good. How 'bout some barbeque?"
"Barbeque would be awesome. I was thinking that myself."
He chuckled. "Damn straight! I'd be glad to think it for you, if you weren't. Stuff's good."

The auto shop was only another mile down the road. I was glad - I would keel over dead from hunger if I had to walk any further than that for a decent meal. But I wasn't as glad to hear the prognosis: repairs were going to be expensive, and worse yet, they didn't have all the parts. So we would have to stay in town for a few days, unless we could finagle a ride from someone. None of my family lived near, I didn't think Chuck even had any left, and everyone else I knew wasn't going to drive all the way out here on such short notice. This town was so small it didn't have a place to rent cars, and the shop's only loaner sat in the corner, looking pitiful and forlorn.

So, we walked back to the barbeque place, and kept our eyes open for hotels.

Unfortunately, no update yet

2005-11-13T23:48:00.000-05:00

Well, except for this. Real life, with its usual smarmy attitude, is hogging all my time right now. Like somehow, my time belongs to the world and not me. So, tomorrow, I intend to finish writing what I began.

Ok, honestly I only spent some of the time doing necessary things. I did probably waste a few hours doing important...uh...'studying' of the words in newspapers. And maybe just a few on a game...but just to keep my reflexes sharp, you understand?

I was hoping I'd bring up something witty by now, to make up for the nothingness, but I can't even do that. I'm so harried I think I dropped the 'w' somewhere, so I've only got something...itty. Heh. Funny that you'll hear itty-bitty but not itty. Is it even a word? No one knows. Well, I do. It's not. But neither I nor anyone else has ever been too good to use made-up words. They're fun.
And 'itty' sounds funny alone.

Part 2 (The title had nothing to do with the story, except that it explained why I am writing)

2005-11-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

I opened my eyes, and saw the world was white. While I had slept, fog had crept in and covered the trees. It was like waking from one dream into another - for a moment I laid there, listening to the hushed damp sound of fog. But something was not right...I recalled the quiet of the previous night, and sat up, looking for Chuck. I felt heavy.

He had not moved. He was watching me with sunken eyes, still clutching his rifle. The skin of his face sagged as though it might slough off, too tired to hang on any longer. But, he was leaned forward - tense, and intense. His eyes stared into nothingness, looking for answers, watching.

"Hey, Chuck, man, why didn't you sleep?"

His voice geared up from a crackly, growling whisper: "somethin' ain't right. Didn't you feel it? There's eyes on us."

There was something strange going on. There still wasn't any noise. There still weren't any animals. And I had felt - no, heard - something when I woke up. Something quiet and whispery. And, worse yet, I think I must've come down with something: I felt a little wobbly, and more than a little weak.

But, that was no reason to stay up all night, or for his expression. "Chuck," I said, "there's fog all around. How can you even tell if something's watching us? You need some rest, and the sun's not up quite yet - how bout you get some rest?"

"No." He stared at me. At times I thought his stubbornness was entertaining: he was just another grumpy old man. But now, it was disquieting. What was wrong with him?
I felt a bead of sweat run down my forehead. I was suddenly shivering. And then I noticed my heart was pumping faster. I chalked it up to my sudden illness.

"Be reasonable. You aren't going to make your shots if you don't have any rest. The deer won't be coming out quite yet. Just sleep for a little bit, I'll wake you up. Don't worry." My eyes hurt now, too.

He looked at me. His expression was unreadable. "We have to leave. Now. Look at yourself. You're shaking." I noticed he was, too. "If you're sick, we -"

And then I heard it. A fern swished. The air seemed close. Then my heart jerked and skipped, and everything went black.

I woke again, this time in significantly more pain. I was heaped in my truck, and Chuck was trying to start the engine. He was panicking, and fumbling with the keys. He kept muttering "just a kid just a kid just a kid just a kid" over and over. I tried speaking, but my mouth was dry. Words wouldn't come. I was shaking pretty bad, and I noticed my legs were caked with dirt and leaves, as though I'd been dragged here. I didn't see Chuck's rifle.

The key fit suddenly, and the engine roared to life. He slammed the thing into gear, our tires spun - and I caught a glimpse of a young man, or a boy - something tall and thin, anyway, with long arms, and pale skin. Its face was stretched tight, bony, deathly looking. In the mirror it looked very much like a ghost - some apparition leaning out of the fog, leering at us. He stood in the mirror and shrunk as we tore over the ground, smiling obscenely, calmly, at our getaway.

The fog was billowing around the truck, and I watched the trees fade away behind us. A few minutes went by, and I was just starting to feel better - when the inevitable happened. Chuck swerved to avoid a stump. We hit a small boulder. The fog was only barely lighter colored, and had hidden the boulder well. There was a horrible crunching sound, I was tossed from my seat, and then my truck shut off. The pit of my stomach sank. This was going to be expensive.

Chuck hopped out, looked around, and then popped his head back in. He declared "It'll run. Just tripped the fuel shutoff thing." I knew it wasn't just that - I'd felt something scrape, hard, against the bottom. But I could hardly move to see for myself.

He flitted around for a few minutes, and then climbed in the cab. "Here we go," he said, and pushed in the key. And, it did start, just as he said.

We drove more slowly after that. Chuck had to pull the wheel hard to one side.
"I suppose we'd best go to town, and have this looked at," he said.
I nodded my assent. I didn't think we'd get all the way home like this.

I had just drifted back to sleep when Chuck spoke again. "That kid, back there. I wasn't scared for no reason. I saw something like that once. During the war."

Inexplicably, I was feeling much better now, and I asked, "what? What was that?"

"Well, let me tell it like this: We were pinned down. My squad, and one from another company. We'd been there a while. Things had gotten almost peaceful, when for some damn reason the fighting got hot again. I think the other guys got reinforcements. Anyway, we were shooting again, and after a minute the other squad was kind of quiet, so I looked, and here was this kid standing up. I was gonna yell at him, but then I saw he'd already been shot - He was leaking pretty bad - but he had this expression. I'll never forget it. I mean, I remember the faces of the guys I killed, and I see them in my dreams, sometimes, but this was different. His face was all contorted, all crazy looking. He was smiling this empty smile, like a demon. It scared the crap out of me. Just standing there, smiling, looking down with those wide-open eyes at his CO. He turned his rifle around, completely natural, and unloaded the whole magazine in the poor bastard's face. Before anyone could move, he dropped a grenade, then chucked another at us. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I blacked out then. I think it was fear." His knuckles were white, and I worried that he might pull the steering wheel off with that grip.

"So, what -"

"I ain't done. Now, clearly, I didn't die. Got lucky, I guess. But I can't say the same for most anyone else. When I woke up, there were only two other guys left, and we were honestly scared shitless that we were gonna get wiped out. They'd blacked out, too, so we were all looking around trying to figure things out. We didn't see that crazy bastard anywhere, even though he should've collapsed from his wounds, or got shot again, or something. But things were real quiet. Real quiet. I could see a couple guys sticking out of their hiding places, not moving, on the other side; these guys hadn't been dead a few minutes before. The other two guys were messed up a lot more than I was, so I crawled around to see what'd happened. It was like a morgue - those guys were all just laying there. None of 'em were moving. All of 'em dead, and I think it was all knife wounds. One had his head bashed in. It didn't look like they'd run away, or even fought back - it was like they'd just collapsed where they were, and been killed. I finally found that kid. He'd ripped the eyes out of this other guy, then collapsed on him. He was dead as shit, you know - all hard and pale, except for his new coating of blood. Blood loss caught up to him. But there wasn't anyone alive over there."

"So, what's this got to do..."

"I tell you what. What we saw back there, it reminded me of that time. That kid, he murdered probably 30 guys, by himself. It wasn't fighting: it was murder, and it was crazy as Hell. I still don't understand it. Now, it's not the same guy, 'cause I know he's dead. I made sure of that. But the way it felt - it felt the same. It's this tingly feeling, and your heart races, you know? And the way you blacked out - I think a couple guys did that, too, when that kid was standing there. I don't know what it is, but I'm old, and I don't really want to find out now. I'll just ask God what in all of Hell that thing was, whenever I do meet up with the big guy."

I wanted to ask something, to try to make sense of this, but what was there to say? Sure, the kid was creepy looking, and there's no denying that I blacked out - but...it couldn't have been anything like that. I decided the old guy's past must finally be catching up with him.

He didn't say anything more. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

I am thinking of ways not to work - for I shirk

2005-11-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

"Didn't you hear nothing?" Chuck's eyes popped comically out from under his thick brows, which in turn were protruding from under his tired, worn, and ancient camouflage hat. I couldn't decide if the hat was meant to match with his surroundings, or with his own grubby, dingy self.
"No, Chuck, I didn't hear anything." He's an old friend, and right now he's my hunting buddy. He might be nearly as old as my grandparents, but I've never asked. I imagine he's been around these parts the entire duration of his considerable long life, and he doesn't strike me as one who'd get out much. I'm not sure he'd even be recognizably human in the city - people might mistake him for - well, hell, I don't know. Maybe a really pungent ad of some sort. It's not going to be long before marketers add overwhelming odors to attract attention. Kind of like the way flowers do for the critters that pollinate 'em. But I guess they wouldn't want to use Chuck. Who in their right mind would want a decaying, backwoods, self-described "Southern gentleman" for much of anything?
Well, I would. He's a damn fine hunter. He's a little gruff, and more than a little cranky, plus he smells like old chewing tobacco, but he really is a damn fine hunter.

"Damnit all, you ain't even paying attention. Just now, your eyes wandered up into the back of your head." His leathery jowls were shaking a little, and honestly it reminded me of a bulldog.

"Oh, I was paying attention. I was thinking, that's all."

"Concentrate, boy! Hunting demands it." He laughed a grumbly, leathery laugh - "Well, I do anyway. I want to eat tonight!"

I had to admit that was fair enough. "Alright, old man. There'll be food tonight, don't worry."

"Hah! Spoken like a city boy. You gonna go out and pick us something up? Maybe ask a plump deer to cook itself? Or are we gonna drive around in your truck 'till we see something? We'll drive up, shoot it, pull it through the window and leave our casings as change. We could even cook it up real fancy with the cigarette lighter. You like that?"

He is old, so I humor him. "Yes, sir, that sounds like a plan."

"And a damn fine one, boy. I have half a mind to do it, too, but it just ain't sportin' to play that way. You gotta respect your prey. It's gonna die for you, the least you can do is show some respect. God put it there - if you just up and shoot it, you're tellin' Him 'hey, this stuff on Earth is mighty fine, but I ain't gonna spend the time to appreciate it.' Gotta respect the Lord Almighty, that's for sure. All this mess is his art." He waved his arms around expansively.

"Yeah, that's true - so that's why you were getting after me for not listening. Did you figure out what that noise was during all your talking?"

"Boy, are you sayin' that I should be payin' attention myself?"

"Yes sir."

He laughed. "Fair enough. Now let's be quiet, and appreciate things a bit."

We went without speech the rest of the day, and through the early part of the night. The forest stayed silent. We didn't catch anything - we didn't see any animals. Not even birds. Chuck complained about it, but we ate the packaged food I'd brought. I had to endure a tirade of his on how the food scent would attract all the wrong kinds of animals, and maybe even scare off our deer. He wasn't one to talk much so I figured he'd enjoy the silence, but he seemed to be nervous - like he was talking to keep the quiet at bay. His leathery hands kept moving, too, endlessly grasping each other. It was making me nervous. But, there wasn't much else to do, and we needed to get up early if we were to have another chance at our hunt. I asked Chuck if he was going to sleep, but he stared at me from across the fire and said "you go ahead. Old men don't much need it." I looked at him, about to ask what he was going to do instead, but he ignored me and took out his rifle. Before drifting off to sleep, the last thing I saw was that rifle cradled in his arms, and him taking great pains in its cleaning.

- More later (of course it's not finished. Nothing has happened yet.)

The alpha blog

2005-11-06T11:48:00.000-05:00

Is known to be dangerous - all blogs after it challenge its supremecy, and thus it must vie for position.
Unfortunately, it is locked in time, and thus unable to move. And since the writer gains experience with time, the first can only be poorer than the last. Ah, what a tragic life the first post posesses: to always be first, but to always be surpassed.

heh. Maybe I should start a nature show like "Wild Writing World". Heh. It'd even be WWW. Because I'm I-trendy like that.
Which reminds me. The name of my blog is...well, you know me. It's a pun. It's pretty clear to everyone that I do babble on, but the other may not be quite as obvious. As the tower of Babel rose, the event that unified all men in their efforts and glory; the end, the chaos, and the confusion drew ever nearer. And in time, Babel came to refer to the confusion of languages, and confusion in general. What better modern equivalent do we have than the Internet itself? It is the single greatest thing built in our time - and it is leading to an explosion in incoherence. Or so it seems.

So, to end, here is something I wrote the other day.

Through osmosis
the barren page
draws thoughts
through my pen.