ok, i lied: more pics

yeah. might as well get the rest out here.

bathrooms


english teacher office


erin's office


erin's room


erin's sweet ride


living quarters


oh-so-comfy bed


plate face


primary class


primary class


primary class


primary class


primary english posse


the primary mob


peter


south central china


wee one

phew again.

last batch of toast pics for the day

these are the last of the pics he's sent me. well, actually, there are some more, from a while back, but i dont think i'll get them up today.

these are sort of miscellaneous. maybe toast will comment and add more info.

erin


video game


people


back alley market


bike chap


dancing hordes
(this probably should have been with the reeb pics)


love skirt


marching


open air billiards


park 1


park 2


park 3


park 4


park 5


park 6


park 7

so yeah. i hope i didn't repeat any.

November 29th: hunger is the greatest alarm clock

Day 73

My stomach woke me at 6:30, so I got bean paste rolls and chive rolls. Hunger is the greatest alarm clock.

I blogged for a bit, passed out for a while watching BBC, then decided to get out in the sunshine, however smoke-obscured it was. I rode to Dongzhou Park, (no more phonetical spelling) and sat at the edge of the pond, read "Absalom, Absalom." I moved locations to try and get warmer, more sun, and wrote down some rhymes, cracked myself up. People didn't bug me this time. One guy yelled hello from across the pond but that was it. Maybe I'm becoming a fixture there. I'll be part of a tour: "on your left, giraffe statues, on your right, American with book, his face is hairy like dog."

Next, I pedaled around trying to find the middle school, perhaps do some inquiries on behalf of Rhys. I couldn't find it.

I rode to a few different accessories stores, keeping an eye out for winter hats and earmuffs for Erin, buttons for my people in Cinci. On the way back, I stopped by a sundries store at the "Haimen Normal School Aptached (sic) to Middle School." I woke the clerk who was having a siesta in her "narco-lounger" so I felt compelled to buy something. I picked up some "happy roll-esque" bisquits for Erin.

Ate dinner, played piano. That little kid tried to use the old "go, go" routine on me again, but I said to him, "Oh you are going? I stay. I play piano," and shut the door. Rose has my back, so now I'm brazen.

I tried in vain to log onto msn (it's having issues right now), watched a show called Kath and Kim on Asia Pacific, called it a night.

still more old pics from the toast

here are the acrobat pictures.

kung fu


more kung fu


contort


yes, more contortion


midget on nails


he's still on nails


yep, you guessed it.


acrobats


other midget

more old pics from the toast

trying to get through the backlog. here are the watermelo'lantern photos.

pumpkin lasses


melon carvin'


erin's jacko


watermelo'lantern


jacko's lit up

phew. there you go.

November 28th: hibernator milestone

Day 72

Woke at 1:30. Finally cracked that noon barrier, and how. Had coffee, blogged, ate a roll, showered, played piano, had dinner, played more piano.

Nigel came in at one point still casting ambivalence over the Christmas program, (so now it's 3 songs?) and I had to show him that you could indeed find lyrics to any song via the wonderful internet.

Blogged some more, uploaded pics, drank the rest of my wine, chatted with Rhys, a potential addition to the western contingent of Haimen teachers. He's applying at Dongzhou Middle School and may be here in a fortnight. (Apparently, by using search words like "haimen" and "teach" he stumbled upon my blog.) He asked assurance of his job's validity, and I explained that the Chinese conduct their affairs by a "seat-of-the-trousers" modus operandi and that "concrete assurances" were a luxury suffered by Anglo-Saxons. Somehow I put his mind at ease. I look forward to meeting him as I sense a "Withnail & I" camaraderie with this bloke.

Went to sleep after punishing a half dozen calcium biscuits.

November 27th: MC Barton Fink

Day 71

Even on days off, the ability to sleep beyond 12 escapes me. How do I teach myself to be a better hibernator?

Erin and I had more of the cake, blogged, then pedaled out to browse for winter hats and wine.

We stopped by the electronics chap to see if he had some sort of recording device for my songs. I explained to Erin that I felt musically constipated and had to get these songs out of me in some form. He had microphones and tape players, but no recording capabilities. I browsed and he gave me some steamed chestnuts. I love this store.

Erin was next door buying buttons and barettes. I bought four more buttons for Sara Jett. This store was made for her.

Next, we headed to the accessories store (the one where the girl drew a map to the other club for us) I found a brown beanie that would have been good had it not had a peace symbol and safety pins on it (China's attempt at a Hot topic item). I almost bought a pink scarf with a plush anthropomorphic hamburger on it, but it was a little stained and torn, like it had just escaped the thrift store.

After getting wine, we headed back, very hungry. I played piano for a bit to kill time, then gorged myself on the evening meal.

I finished the short story out of a concept that has been floating in my head the last couple months. I'm very pleased with it. Drank some wine to celebrate (like Barton Fink: "I'm a writer celebrating the completion of something beautiful!"), played piano some more, but was kicked out at 9:30 by two friendly ladies I'd not met before.

I decided to go to the club, since I told Alen last time I would be there Saturday. Erin waffled because of the cold and eventually stayed behind. I rode out and it was not as cold as the hallway advertised. The hallway is like a mausoleum, cold white tiles and exaggerates the cold.

I got to the club, removed my thermal shirt, got on the mic, and then the floorshow started. Alen took me to a table to the left of stage and I was introduced to Sean, Snow and Nancy (English names I gave them, based on the similarity of sound).

Nancy, Snow, and Sean


Alen and Nancy


Snow, Sean, and the Toast

We drank Carlsberg beer (I said never again Reeb and I mean to honor that) It was Nancy's 20th birthday and we toasted a lot to that. Her friend had a Mercedes symbol he was playing with and I tried to explain that he needed to floss it on a fat chain, but mostly he just smiled.

old skool

It's difficult to congratulate someone on their old skool sensibilities when they don't speak your language, let alone slang.

I was taken to another table and introduced to Alen's stylist. Alen chatted up my DJ and MC skills, the only part of the conversation I caught. When the music resumed, I was encouraged to be the MC again and I took my place on the big monitor on the front left of the dance floor, worked the crowd.

"Make some noise! C'mon! C'mon! Pump up the volume! Are we partyin', Haimen?" Stuff like that.

A girl from the floorshow who was scantily clad was instructed by Alen to come up and dance with me. No objections here. She made a motion for me to take my shirt off at one point. I wasn't sure about that. According to Linda, the owner didn't like me, here I was rubbing asses with the talent and shouting weird American slogans over his expensive sound system. Shedding my shirt might be one liberty too far. I didn't want to get "brackbarred from the crub."

There was no party afterwards and the girl I had been dancing with disappeared. I at least wanted to know her name, thank her. Oh well.

Slept a little too well.

beard progress

loads of reeb and related pics from aaron.

so, i'm way backlogged on these pics aaron keeps sending me, so here are a bunch. these re mix of his reeb nights and maybe some extra bar pics by accident.

alen and sisi

alen and the real mc pitman

andy n aaron

andy n erin

dude, alen, erin

erin bein' american

erin, sisi, alen

kelly and chris

kelly and chris

linda's friend, linda, toast

reeb make middle man get tattoo

...of mao!

reeb make strong happen

reeb make stupid happen

reeb makes stupid happen a lot

me n alen

me n linda, product placement

reeb1

reeb2

reeb3

ok more later.

November 26th: wine, cake and midnight hotel mischief

Day 70

Woke feeling burned out a little, but I made it through. Between showing coins, doing turkeys and going over WC items, the 40 minutes still seemed to drag. Today was an early Friday, which means the kids start at 1 instead of 1:40, so they can leave for the weekend.

I played piano for a long time, my voice in top form. I'm trying to practice to the extent where everything is second nature. I'm still having trouble with the bridge of Novelty Rush (Bail Out) (the ragtime operetta), that lefthanded part is some tricky stuff.

Started writing a short story, which, upon completion will be posted at myspace.com, the lino page.

Erin and I bundled up for dinner, for the dining hall was crazy cold, and they had two sets of doors open. I shut one set, since the junior 1 kids were gone, the lesser volume of eaters didn't warrant the unnecessary cold. The ladies laughed at me.

After din, I pedaled to the supermarket for cake, wine and other business. Once there, I pointed at the cake I wanted, but they didn't give it to me. I had to wait while they made another one the same size, but not necessarily the same style. I watched the dude work his icing magic, rotating the cake on a spinning disc, applying, scraping, sculpting, piping little flowerettes. All of it too elaborate for our purposes. I rode back with the cakebox vertical in my basket, hoping it was as secure as it felt.

I dispersed Erin's wares and revealed the cake, which had shifted and the "happy birthday" was smeared beyond legibility, which is fine since it's a T-giving occasion of sorts.

the cake

We drank wine, played cards, ate cake, laughed about stuff.

When midnight rolled around, we were both hungry, having gotten onto the subject of burritos. We rode to the hotel, Erin on the back of my bike, laughing about Mr. Show ("sports bra, electric sports bra..."). We ordered our usual, but Erin's came out as a fruit pizza instead of veggie, my meat sauce pizza had no meat and far too much onion (perhaps to compensate?) Mine took so long I didn't even really want it anymore, and it was cold. We made a mental note to not eat at the hotel after midnight anymore.

We rode back in the cold, bellies full of pizza and Tsingtao. We relished the thought of sleeping in as long as possible.

November 25th: of beds and madness

Day 69

My bed is dangerously cozy. I don't have an alarm clock and I've been relying on bed discomfort and sun to bring me to wakefulness. So far it's worked, but now that I've raised the quality of sleep, I'm worried about oversleeping and missing my first class. I shall have to pay a visit to the electronics chap this weekend.

I adjusted my classes to include the hand turkey thankfulness since today is Thanksgiving and my Thursday and Friday classes last week didn't happen. One of my classes thought toilet paper was the funniest thing in the universe. When I showed them the coins, they guessed the presidents were "Clinton" or "Bush." One group said "Mr. Willis" was on the penny.

Monkey ate lunch with me, and Pete, Jimmy and Clyde (named so because his horse sweater said it) sat with Erin and I for dinner. I played piano twice, but the second time, the weather had turned damp and they had started burning weeds, so my pipes suffered. The barometer change (and perhaps the holiday so far away from friends and family) pricked me with an amethyst shard of meloncholy. I spoke to Erin about it and she theorized perhaps I was being sympathy-mentsrual for her (she was supposed to start, and despite the pill, appetite, tiredness and tender breasts plagued her.)

Tomorrow we plan on getting an elaborate cake for ourselves, celebrate in some kind of fashion, this holiday in a strange land. Incidentally, this is the second year in a row I've been out of the country for Thanksgiving. Last year, I was in London visiting my friend Fiona and catching a Radiohead show.

At times I feel like Tom Hanks in "Castaway" here, except I've got Darby instead of a volleyball. Occasionally, he'll be in my lap while I type. Sometimes in the morning I will talk to myself as a fake Pakistani roommate who constantly harps on myself to be on time.

Him/Me: "Buddy, get to class buddy."
Me: "I'm leaving! I'm just making some coffee."
Him/Me: "Buddy..."
Me: "I'm going!"
Him/Me: "Ok, fuck you, my friend."

Don't start fitting me for a straightjacket, I'm just staying amused.
Blogged and succumbed to the sweet wiles of bedville.

November 24th: new joys of comfortable slumber

Day 68

Woke around 9am, savoring the delicious new comfort of my bedding. I adjusted my lesson to include more repetition, since Steven told me last week that his kids weren't remembering how to say words from the previous lesson.

After lunch, I took a nap by accident. I've turned the bed into a succubus.

After dinner, a knock at the door. Linda. She was mellow this time, and explained that she was leaving for Beijing in the morning. In order to say goodbye to her (ie, make sure she didn't try to come to the school again) I told her I would meet her at the club at 9:30. She left.

I played piano for about an hour, going through my whole set and briefly reviewing a few Christmas songs. Rose had given me a key, said I was able to play in room 3 on the second floor after lunch. Of course, that time was spent unconscious.

I pedaled to the club and sat with Linda on the balcony, drank Corona and lemon over ice while she played with her phone. At 10:30, I left and she trotted beside me to retrieve her dictionary. At the gate it took the guard forever to find the book which lay in plain sight. This was after prolonged frustrated pointing and shrugging.

I walked her down to the hotel to catch a cab and en route, had to make a WC pit stop behind a construction sign. She laughed at me from the road. I hugged her goodbye, waved, rode off as the cab sped away. Stretched, did Tai Chi, stood on my head a bit, then my bed's siren song called me to its dulcet shores.

Peelander-Z

Holy crap. Peelander-Z was incredible last night! More later, but i thought i'd mention it.

Crazy. Here's a pic from some other show that i stole from the web:

wow.

tired

I think that this whole having 2 jobs thing is starting to catch up with me. I'm so tired that I'm too tired to sleep. That's the worst. I finished creating art and then promply lost it imbetween school and the bus. I wish mum were playing within driving distance or something. And dehydrated potatoes would be good today, but not since it's raining outside. fin.

November 23rd: WC lesson

Day 67

Got Chinese breakfast, and I think I'm done with the sausage rolls. My stomach can't handle them first thing in the morning and there's always a hard unchewable bit that I gag on.

This week's lesson: WC and items contained therein. I have a bag of items from my own bathroom: toothbrush, cotton swab, tweezers, razor, etc. Visual aids help. Focused on pronunciation of R and TH and L.

The second class asked if I had brought money to show them, so half the class was spent showing them coins and pointing out the dazzling features of American currency. I decided to incorporate it into the week's lesson. The apathy crew and their equally bad prequel class angered me. There was one kid who I had to implore four times to put his book away. I yelled for them to stop spinning their book on their finger, to stop dropping coins and such.

When I went to play piano later, I found my voice had been stressed too much for proper rehearsal. Figured out a few Xmas songs, which interestingly use rock chords. (Silent Night: C, F,G) Any one of them can be turned into a crappy punk song.

Dinner was excellent, with 6 of my favorite dishes being offered, so I loaded up. There is a fear that the rest of the week will be subpar since they blew their wad on one dinner.

Chatted with Sophia (my friend from myspace.com who lives 10 hours away) for a while, stretched, did Tai Chi, deep breathing. I had the miraculous insight to fold my existing bedding in half longways, to double the cushioning. Why didn't I think of this a month ago? I am a slow engineer.

New and Impending Developments and Updates

We at the QEG have been very busy lately, and I (Montana) personally apologize for the lack of updates. Some things:

• Tonight is DJ Empirical's guest performance as Oxymoronatron's guest dj. He'll be scratching throughout their set opening for Peelander-Z.
• We at the QEG have gotten ahold of a cd of songs by Lino, an alter-ego of McDeviltoast. We'll be uploading those very soon, definitely by Monday.
• Other general website updates should be coming as well.

The most recent development: Montana Wildhack is no longer an official member of The Haywards. This will allow him to concentrate more on solo work, and help out other QEG members. He will remain the webmaster of the Haywards website.

November 22nd: anonymity cravings and stalker shakings

Day 66

Woke and discovered what Linda had thrown threw my window: a plastic bag with some sort of pasty white foodstuff, which had cracked and splattered a little, and a set of stickers she made at a photo booth which is all the rage here. One had her posing with Garfield equipped with goat horns.

Shortly after making toilet, I heard knocking. Fearing it was Linda, I hesitated. The knocks came again, I opened the door to Nigel. Relief.

"It's only me," he said. "Rose spoke to me..."

Dread as I thought he was going to tell me she said something about Linda...

"...seems you, I and Erin are responsible for making a Christmas skit on December 24th. "
Relief. I would have to learn Christmas songs on the piano again, something I haven't done since pre-piano lesson days. But, if I didn't get the chords exactly right, my audience wouldn't know.
I blogged for a bit, then felt like a caged animal. Being afraid to go out and having bars on the windows will do that. I wanted sunshine on my face, so ultimately I worked up the nerve to ride to Dong Jo park, finish my book. I tried to curl up inside myself, hide from the brutish realities of being an object of much attention. It's harder when you're by yourself. You're more approachable. Being alone could go either way: you may be alone by choice, or you could just happen to be alone, which opens the door for random people to come up and interact. When Erin and I are together, there's no guesswork, we are obviously there hanging out with each other, therefore less approachable. Having sunglasses on and your nose buried in a book is not enough of a hint.

The need to urinate forced my early evacuation from the park. I could neither find, nor had the desire to use, the park's WC (water closet, for those who don't know). I made use of my own facilities, and wandered over to the arts building following a huge wave of kids shouting hello at me. I went into the music office and asked if it was ok to play piano. One teacher and Feng Jao Li were smiling.The eldest was not. Feng Jao Li shook her head, said "Class now."

"Ok." I nodded to them respectfully, "Zai jian." The one lady still didn't smile. I sense she has a problem with me playing there.

I spoke with Erin and apparently last night Linda was knocking on her door and wondow too, which I had no idea was occuring. She had to teach 5 classes today and needed the sleep. I apologized.

After dinner, a knock came on my door. It was Linda. She made a big show of coming in and rubbing her hands together as if it was so cold outside. She kind of barged in, started making herself comfortable. I put on my coat, shook my head, "I have to work."

She pointed at the porch, started heading towards it. I showed her the stickers. "I already got it. Thank you." I put the dictionary in a plastic bag, handed it to her. "I'm sorry, I have to work."

I opened the door, led her out. She immediately started to mope and drag her feet, pull a long face. "Beijing," she said.

"Tomorrow, you go to Beijing?"

She nodded, pouted.

"I'm sorry. You have holiday. I no holiday. I have job. I must work."

I tried to interact with her on the long walk up to the gate, but she was silent. Once outside, I tried to hug her but she shrugged it off, walked off and made a show of dropping the bag with the dictionary in it. I didn't follow her. I grabbed the bag, handed it to the guard.

"This is hers. She (shook my arms in a "no" motion") no in school. She is (I made the crazy gesture)." God, am I thankful for that universal illustrator.

The guard nodded and I hoped he would be on the post all night. I went to play piano and got through two songs before a little boy came in urgently and pointed at the door, saying "Go, go."
I smiled, said "Ok," closed the piano, shut the light, went out. I heard someone in the office, probably the older music teacher. This is going to make learning the songs for Christmas skit difficult if this keeps up.

I watched BBC for a bit, stretched, did some Tai Chi, some deep breathing, stood on my head for a while. I feel like I've been out of touch with yogic matters since I've been here and want to get back into it on a nightly basis.

I slept well, though fears sprang that Linda would appear one last time. She didn't.

November 21st: Reeb fallout and trauma

Day 65

Woke feeling like I needed to be winded like a watch. The gears in my chest, stomach and head felt loose and disjointed. I needed a day of recovery, but first I needed to get Linda home.

I walked her to the gate hoping my students wouldn't see. If I was ultra-conspicuous before, it was multiplied tenfold by walking with a Chinese girl. I tried walking her to the hotel for a taxi, but she insisted on going up the road. Eventually we flagged one down and then I was made to get in, too haggard to decline, running on some kind of apathetic autopilot. Whatever was happening, fine. I just tried to get my head straight and my stomach unknotted.

We went to two banks, then to a book store where she bought a dictionary. I was a scuffing, shrugging mess. She tried to explain where we were going next, made a scissors over head pantomime. "Fine," I yawned.

We went into a salon and I had that head shampoo thing done, the back of my head and sides trimmed. I woozed in the chair, shut my eyes. Afterwards we went to Ming Tien, had company sandwich, french fries and coffee, of which I only finished the coffee. I played a few songs on the piano, left.

As we walked around the corner to the main drag again, a girl on a bike fell and slid under a car. The car kept going forward, experienced a little hesitation on the bike, moved forward again. The girl eyes were slits and she was screaming.The tire was pinching her arm, and it threatened to roll over her head next. I was a second from running over and yanking the guy out of the car when someone nearby did it for me (not the yanking, but stopped him) A large crowd swamped around the activity. I almost threw up. That girl was seconds away from having her life snuffed by a careless motorist.

This new disturbing habit of seeing accidents has made me jumpy on the cycling-around-town front. Before, I had the naive assumption that everyone's carelessness led to a harmonious tuned chaos where the partcipants evaded danger by going with the flow. Now I've seen twice the results of their lack of street rules. I've got that image of a girl under a car tire, poised to continue in my head for all time. Thanks, Haimen.

Linda shopped for different stuff, asked my opinion on things, but all I could do was try not to think of what I had just witnessed. When all that was done, we took a cab back to the school and she followed me in. I asked Erin how to shake her, as I only wanted time to myself now. Erin suggested I tell her I had to work. Briliant.That worked, and she asked about the club. I told her I was not DJing, but I don't know if she understood me.

Erin and I went to the hotel for dinner, had ham and egg sandwich and some Sprite for the old tummy.It helped. I read more Joyce, started to get back into my skin. My gears were wound again.

Back at my room, I blogged, then slept. Around midnight, to my dread, Linda was at the window saying "Dao wei?" over and over again. I could just picture every dorm light coming on, everyone a witness to my movie. I wasn't sure if she was drunk or if she had come back for the dictionary, or if I had inadvertently encouraged a stalker through international niceness. That's me, good intentions, horrible results, like when I hit the retarded girl in the head with the frisbee at the parade (I was just trying to throw it to her, and then my good deed earned me the title of "villain of the day.")

She knocked at my door, went back to the window, then something landed on my porch area and she left. I went back to sleep after ten minutes of nervousness. How the hell did she get past the gate? Sleep was marred by flashback of the girl and the car.

WELCOME TO REALHAMSTER

My favorite quote from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: "Modern technology, William."

Realhamster epitomizes that quote perfectly.

November 20th: Reeb redux against better judgment

Day 64

Woke, did laundry, blogged, ate lunch, blogged some more, made a grocery run (wine and bananas for E, coffee and tissues for A).

Night fell and we went to the club. Erin was instructed to keep me sober and not let me on the mic so my voice could recover. She failed both objectives. The girl from Beijing, English name Linda, was there again and gave me a bracelet, of bulky turquoise, red beads and tiny sand dollar donuts. I thanked her evn though it's probably not going to be worn by me again.

Alen and his crew had us sit at a table near the back when the floor show began. The two girls on rollerskates with the strap happened again, and I got video footage of it.

A beer was placed before me and another bottle clinked it in toast. I took a sip, it appeared to be Corona. I turned the bottle and the dreaded Reeb label was there, to my horror. It begins! I announced to Erin, "This night is over."

I took pics of the floorshow girls and a melee erupted to my right, two Chinese girls in a scratchy catfight. The crowd turned their attention to it, but I implored them to maintain their focus on the impressive trapeze stuff before them, even pointing at them and remarking, "Oh my god" to trick them into thinking they'd missed something incredible.

We moved to a balcony room and pitcher of Reeb were brought out. I had a glass, then was bade to go up and MC. Erin picked up my slack. Alen really wanted me to say a lot, so I ran through trite phrases like "Let's go" "Make some noise, Haimen," and "Hell yeah." The more the Reeb kicked in, the more random my phrases got:

"Punch it!.... In the face!...Make it bleed!....Like Holyfield!"

"I'm the guy who yells things while you're trying to dance!"

"Loud noises!"

"Get out of the WC, the party's out here!"

"Turn my headphones up! Turn them shits up! I'm serious, I can't hear nothing out of my left side!"

"Erin Rock is off the schedule for letting me get on the mic! She is fired, Haimen! You don't know what I am talking about!"

It got ridiculous.

Afterwards, it got more ridiculous. We went to restaurant so ghetto the WC was an alley. Alen and I pissed in one darkened corridor while Erin squatted in a another one. Erin was massively Reebed. She knocked four sets of chopsticks on the floor and tried to teach the people at the table the words to the "Fresh Prince of Bel-air" theme song. (Did I mention she was fired?)

One dude, the owner of the club, spat wads of phlegm over his shoulder. Linda wrote in my notebook that he didn't like me. What gives? Another woman from a different party came in to toast us (the Reeb kept coming) and sat next to me. Linda pointed at her, hissed in my ear, "Fuckyou" kinda like "she is fuckyou" if "fuckyou" were a synonym for bad. It made me laugh.

We ate cucumbers and peanuts. We were offered cigarettes, which I declined, but Erin ended up smoking four of them for reasons she's not entirely sure of. The food and MC'ing had sobered me up some and I drank some tea and two bowls of water. I threw on some hip hop for the restaurant's sound system, made frequent trips to the alley WC.

When the night closed, Linda helped Erin walk her bike back as I pedaled slowly ahead. Erin started a hiccuping fit a couple blocks from the school and nearly took a header into the bushes and the filthwater canal below it.

"Reeb is the devil, dude," I said, "You know how you play records backwards and it's suppposed to be satanic? Reeb is beer spelled backwards. It is Satan."

We got the bikes in and Linda went into my place, staggering and such. I tried to explain that it was a school dorm and that wouldn't be kosher. I tried to hold her up, but she slammed like a felled tree. I decided to give her a few moments rest, but then I, too succumbed to the whims of the sandman. She had fallen across the bed like a train track, so I too had to lay myself out crossways. We were kind of like a Lincoln Log sculpture: "Sleepers at Quarter After" or some such nonsense. Uncomfortable.

whoah

yikes! mcdeviltoast inundated me with video and pictures. i'll take care of them tomorrow, as i'm a bit busy right now with cleaning the apartment.

oh, and i am totally excited for this show:

yes. it will be good.

November 19th: nosebleeds and acrobats

Day 63

Woke with all my clothes on, TV on and feeling like a pig shat in my head. Damn you, Reeb!
I wandered over to get lunch, numbly ate rice. Blogged and drank water all day.

Erin and I ate dinner at the hotel, we both got the veggie pizza, to experiment and see if they would come out at the same time and with same ingredients. They did.

Showered, headed to the club. Erin drank wine and said she might meet me there. She didn't.
The floor show was acrobat stuff. One boy balanced himself on a 7 foot unicycle, kicked bowls with a free leg onto his head, stacking about eight of them up there, then a cup, then a spoon. Next, a different boy did a trapeze stunt. After, a whip routine, shearing newspaper into smaller and smaller halves, snuffing candles in a pricket,and ending with neatly clipping a lit cigarette in two from the lips of his cohort.
I gave them the thumbs-up, took their picture, bestowed American coins on them, which caused a row.

I got a small nosebleed from extensive nose blowing, but it subsided quickly. I wouldn't say I enjoy getting nosebleeds, but I savor the after-effects. There's a weird cleansed feeling, a calmness. Perhaps the chaotic energy in me unites in the task of clot-making and then a euphoric round of backslapping congrats is shared with all my cells upon completion. This "oneness" feeling is pleasurable, although I wish it could arrive by some other means, instead of always by nosebleed.

I drank green tea, rapped a bit when Alen finally put on the "Tricky" remix. I tried jumping in before that, but every time I went to begin, the vocals of whatever song would kick in. I rapped some Rhyme Swing Embassy from behind the DJ pulpit. When I first arrived, I had glow bracelets in a plastic bag, and I threw them out into the anxious crowd. I saw one girl up front take hers off with disgust at one point, throw it on the ground. Was it because I was American? Or was it a case of, she didn't want to stand out, like how a crowd of white people at a concert will fizzle out with unison clapping; each person feels uncomfortable as they feel the will of the group switch to "okay, it's done now" and the few that are still left clapping are subject to scornful looks and occasional snickering, even though the snickerers were doing that exact thing moments ago. Perhaps the will of the group decided the bracelets were "uncool."

After the club stopped, I was informed that there was no party. Rose's party would be tomorrow instead. I met a girl from Beijing and I spoke to her for a bit outside the club, though I couldn't figure out why she was there. Her taxi came before I got the answers.

I drank my tea for a bit and observed a crowd gathered around a traffic accident. A car had hit a motorcycle, or perhaps vice versa. One man had a white handkerchief pressed to his forehead, a policeman took pictures of the scene. You'd think it was a murder site the way they were documenting. I wouldn't be surprised if they drew a chalk outline around the motorcycle.
It was evidence that their crazy traffic carelessness can have consequences. I was beginning to feel like I was overreacting to their reckless automotive chicanery. Here was evidence that I was still avoice of reason.

I pedaled home slowly, savoring the night and enjoying sobriety, still buzzing off the post-nosebleed euphoria. Blogged a bit more then slept.

November 18th: the advent and terrible potency of Reeb

Day 62

Slept in, and Erin and I ate lunch at UBC. My company sandwich had some odd potato salad crap on it. Not my favorite.

We shopped for a bit, Erin tried on coats and skirts, I stood and grinned good-naturedly at the gawkers. When we were at the paper shop, an entire school of children went by en route to see something at the cinema. We had to endure ten minutes of neckerchiefed kids shouting hello.

I took Erin to the department store where I got the sweaters and I bought a pair of brown corduroys which they tailored for me on site at no extra charge (take notes, America). I paid for them and was urged to reach into a bucket and pull out a ticket. I did so, and ended up winning a package of three toothbrushes. This is what happens when you let Lazarus and Shoe Carnival mate. They have an illegitimate baby store who is sent to China for boarding school.

While Erin tried on yet more sweaters, I caught a girl talking about me. She distinctly said "May gua hren (something) ni hao" (the American said Ni hao). I looked at her and said "Yes, I did." She put on some purple lip liner and I teased her to Erin, "I totally busted her talking about me. Look, she put on lipstick for me." I need to learn more Chinese.

We got thermals for the winter and I debated for the longest time if they were big enough. Instead of something like M or XL, it said 180/70 or some such. I wanted the size, not the thing's blood pressure! We had drawn a crowd again. The May Gua Show this week: buying thermals.

Erin said, "Ask them."

"Five bucks says they just nod."

I held up the package, pointed at it, pointed at myself, showed how long my arms were, shrugged, raised my eyebrows. They nodded.

"Five bucks."

"I didn't bet," Erin replied.

At another place, Erin tried to haggle and the ladies pointed to a sign on the wall that must have said "none of that haggling business tolerated here you cheap son of a bitch" in Chinese. This is a practice I hope doesn't spread.

Dinner time rolled around and we pedaled around the corner to Ming Tien, saw Andy in there. He translated a veggie-only spaghetti dish for Erin and then asked if I was coming to the club. I told him I would, (although I'm starting to like the other club more.)

I got back, put on my new pants (one of the few I own where I don't have to roll up the cuffs) tried on the thermals to see if they fit, (a little snug at the wrists) drank some wine.

I pedaled out, saw that the hotel was having some grand opening for its bar/KTV. I'll have to check it out sometime. At the club, I started dancing, but lost my zeal. They keep playing the same songs EVERY time. I decided to go to the other one. Once there, I was welcomed behind the decks again. Alen took me up to the bar during the break and we got a pitcher of "Reeb." (Exactly like Duff beer and Fudd beer on the Simpsons) I'd never drunk a palindrome before.

The Chinese way of pitchers is they open two bottles and pour it in (mock draft), hand you two small glasses. You pour, toast to anything and everything, take a big sip or down it all, repeat. It only takes three swallows to drain the tiny glass. This makes you drink faster than you realize.
Two pitchers of Reeb later, I was feeling pretty good. The floor show was song and dance stuff, no kung fu, no midget. I asked about him, "Where's...little guy? (held hand out at his height, gave thumbs up) I like him. He is cool."

Alen started a thing with me where he would ask a genre, ("Club?") and I would try to pull out a track from my cd's that I thought he was asking about. He put the headphones on, would nod or shake his head. If he shook his head, he would play me one of his songs, point at it and say "club" then I would pull out a similar-sounding song from my batch and he would nod. I learned they call IDM "progressive" over here.

I was allowed to rock the mic for a bit and I stood out on the monitors, worked the crowd. Too much Reeb fudged my rapping skills but they don't understand what I say anyway. I forgot a verse of something and just did rhythmic Mike Patton gibberish until I found the words. To my delight, they had the same remix of "Tricky" and I did that up proper.

After the club closed, I took Alen up on his offer to get food. He said "Ming Tien", but kept pointing the other way. I got on the back of my bike and held his shoulders while he pedaled and I cackled in the night air, no idea what was going on.

We went to the "throw a bunch of shit in the hot water" restaurant and were joined by Alen's girl and the floor show folk. More beer was opened (Suntory this time), more toasts, I asked their English names: Sisi (Alen's girl), Jakey, Rose & Jack ("Titanic," they laughed) Ayi & Tiger Sister or May.

I was taken to another table and introduced there to a another Jakey and his sisters, more toasting. I learned he was a Chinese teacher at the middle school where Matt will be working. I tried to tell him this but all I could do was be amused at everything. Then the food arrived. There was a bowl of minnow-looking fish with bloody stumps where the heads should be. They were dumped into the water. One was put into my bowl and I tried to tell them I couldn't hang with bones, drew a cartoon bone with an X through it. A platter of meat was shown to me and it sounded like they said "Dog."

"Whoa. Dog? I'm not trying to eat any dog."

I drew a cartoon dog, very Darby-looking, showed it to them.They laughed, shook their head.

"No no no no. Dug. Dug."

Sisi took my notebook, drew a cartoon duck.

"Oh, duck! Ok. Duck, yes. I eat duck. No dog."

We ate, drank, and they invited me to Rose's party tomorrow night after the club. I pedaled home swerving, thankful I was only a few blocks away. Sleep came at me like a blow from a blackjack.

the last few days: skinny puppy and other stuff.

ugh. work is dumb. good thing they pay me or i'd be out of here.

too busy for lengthy, toast-style blog entries as of late, so i'll just
mention a couple things:

on monday night, i saw one of my top ten bands: skinny puppy. (strictly
speaking, skinny puppy musician cevin key is in the top ten, but SP was
his main outlet for many years, and is once again his main focus, so it's
close enough.) the show was fantastic, though bogart's (the venue) once
again had some trouble with feedback quite a few times. i was not
surprised that some of the digital vocal stuff on the new record wasn't
done live, as that's definitely a production element, not a performance
element.

overall, it was fantastic.

on tuesday night after work i finished videodrome, the dvd of which
i inherited from gabe, who purchased the new, super-fancy dvd edition
recently. i liked it, though i have to point out that Fudgie and Fufu are
assholes for penning their tune of the same name. i couldn't watch more
than a minute or so of the film without singing it in my head.

after videodrome: bowling with gabe and baby kitty. they didnt
tell me what we were doing until we were most of the way there, though, or
i might have refused. all in all, it wasn't so bad, and i actually won
the first game, even going so far as to break 100, which i don't do much
in bowling.

they booted us out at midnight, so i met up with gabe afterwards at his
place for some halo 2.

last night (wednesday), gabe didn't have his usual wednesday night band
practice, so he came over and we ordered pizza and watched some brass
eye, which diane and i had planned on watching last weekend. that
show is effing brilliant. oh, and gabe got pink eye from being in the
bowling alley the previous night. nice.

after ass eye we headed down to the esquire to catch a private
screening of national treasure, the new nicholas cage flick.

the verdict: woof.

apparently, the film had been a touchstone film until it was rated, and
then since it got a PG rating, it went from touchstone to disney. and
boy, was it disney: no one was killed or even shot, and there were no
four-letter words. the film was long (100 min), but flat: despite
near-constant action, there was no flow. the pacing was atrocious, too.

however, despite all those flaws.... it was still horrible. plot holes
and just a general implausibility make this film one of the worst i've
seen since alien vs. predator.

yes, worse than saw.

November 17th: vitamin ladies and water thief

Day 61

Sleep took precedence over Chinese breakfast. At my first class a fly landed in my coffee. First, what are flies doing alive in November, and second, what would compel a fly to enter what is conceptually, the beverage equivalent of a volcano? (tubular cavern with hot killing liquid at the bottom) Perhaps it was a sacrifice, a virgin fly offered to the twin flygods Buzzy and Facewasher, sitting atop their altar of dung in a great brown stinking fly paradise, floating turds instead of clouds, static buzz in lieu of harpmusic, tears of joy in every compound eye.

The next class, (Steven's class) donated a bean paste sesame bun to Mr. Willis's stomach cause and two students went on a coffee run for me. Steven stayed to observe the lesson and translate when applicable but I think mostly he just wanted to join in the good time.

At lunch both Nigel and Rose informed me that because of a sports meeting, there would be no class Thursday or Friday. I get a five day weekend. Huzzah! Erin and I made plans to visit Nantong.

After dinner I made a supermarket run and was endearingly mobbed by the ladies working the "health and vitamin" section. They would bring up boxes nodding, I'd ask what it was, they'd point at the English, I would read it, we'd all laugh. This went on for about 15 minutes.

We spoke as much English and Chinese as we both understood, pantomimed when necessary. A lot of the products boasted of containing turtle and I tried to tell them, "I'm not trying to ingest any turtle." Sure enough,the next box would have turtle, and three species of snake. I shook my head.

One box they brought to me said, "weak physique, feeble."

I said, "Hey, this is for old man.Old man."

I pantomimed walking creakily with a cane, which they all got a kick out of.

"I am young man."

I ran in place and held my arms up in a Hulk Hogan flex. We all laughed. People had started to gather around.

"Ni hao," I waved, "Ni hao! welcome to the maygua (America) show."

A couple of the ladies muttered "maygua show," but I don't think they understood the "show" part of it. I got some multi-vitamins "for young man" and they thrust a box at me with a woman's face on the front. I read the back and it was some skin-helping elixir. They gently patted their cheeks at me.

"Oh yeah? For skin? My skin is bad?" I teased. "This is for girl! I am man!"

They laughed, insisted I take it. They were so adorable, I couldn't decline. How could you say no to a roving gang of sweet Chinese surrogate aunts?

I rode back, gave the skin stuff to Erin, played piano for a good hour, worked on the newer song (which is kind of a 60's pop verse, with a very sad power chorus) No words have leapt to mind, but they'll come in time. I was out of water, so I became the night burgalr again and slipped in through one of the junior 3 offices and made off with a full jug.

After that I decided to go to the hotel for a pizza with meat sauce since neither lunch nor dinner satiated. Erin debated coming with me, but mostly just danced in the hallway, two glasses of wine to the wind. I rode out without her, sat and ordered, began to read my book, which is still heavily into its religious section. Erin appeared moments later, grinning and winded.

It was difficult to explain that now I would have two instead of the one I had indicated before and we did indeed need a menu. A tennis match of "sorrys" played out between Erin and our server.

My pizza didn't have the green olives this time, and Erin's pizza had different ingredients again.The menu must be an abstract guideline for the food you are ordering.

Erin and I discussed books, writing classes in college, Joyce Carol Oates, William Golding, the arrival of her boyfriend in a fortnight, etc, then rode home and crashed like the stock market.

weld not waste lots

Today, is the last day I will ever weld metal together. I'm thinking of having a party. I'm wishing that skinny puppy packed me up with their equipment and took me with them. I have also decided that we are changing july 4th to Fuckin Skinny Puppy Day. so YAY! McDeviltoast, I have not got your package yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

November 16th: Thanksgiving lesson

Day 60

Woke for Chinese breakfast and the lady loaded me up with too much as per usual. However, this time I didn't make myself sick. I told myself it was ok not to finish. Huzzah for self-control and no guilt.

The lesson this week is Thanksgiving. I gave a condensed overview of the history, then vocab of typical dinner fare, then I showed how to draw a turkey by tracing one's hand and entreated them to list four things they are thankful for, one for each finger feather. I put a ban on family, saying I knew they all were thankful for that and I didn't want 30 turkeys to all say "mother, father, sister, computer games." The one class I forgot to say this to, sure enough, had identical answers of the family list rundown.

Some of their thankful answers: KFC, dogs, cats, listen to the music, books, my bed, myself, hand, eyes, coffee, Mr. Willis.

I also brought Darby, since he is my family in China, explained I would be having a big meal with him on Thursday. I also showed photos of friends and got a little choked up doing so. I showed a couple from my birthday and they were amazed it was from this year. "It was summer. Hot. No beard."

The apathy crew was good today, although "Mary" and his cohort were in the WC (bathroom) for the first ten minutes of class.

The stooped-over clear-cutters are burning weeds again, and I'm starting to get congested and coughy. But at least I know the source of my discomfort. When similar symptoms occur in Cincinnati I have no idea what's causing it, only that it's (fill in the month), and I have to ride it out for (fill in time span.) So while I'm somewhat respiratorily oppressed at the moment, I take comfort in knowing when the weed burning stops, so will my bronchial troubles.

I blogged, ate dinner, passed out for a bit in the warm womb of my room. Woke, blogged some more, drank warm water and pretended it was tea, blew my nose ad nauseum, slept.

November 15th: deceptive sunshine and the other midget

Day 59

I woke, delighted to find my sunshine wish granted. After lunch I went on a quest to find deodorant and construction paper. I found the latter. The former does not appear to exist in Haimen. This spells trouble in the coming weeks. The stick I brought with me is getting to the "turning but it's not rising" stage, which will be followed by the "I turned it too much and it fell on the floor" stage. I bought some baby powder as emergency reserve. How can there be four aisles of shampoo (not an exaggeration) and no deodorant?

I found Erin's construction paper a few doors down from the electronic chap. (She's teaching her kids to make hand turkeys this week.) I shopped around for a webcam so I could add a little more humanity to chats. Before committing, I decided to se if my digital camera could be jury-rigged to do it. I researched a way with a certain cable, but for the price I may as well just get a webcam.

Having discharged my errand duties, I pedaled to Dong Jo park to read and bask in the sunshine. It was not as warm as advertised, but it still felt good on my face. I sat on a bench near the pond and attaempted to get lost in Joyce's words. Boats paddled slowly by me to rubberneck and a few passersby actually paused behind me for a minute to look over my shoulder. There's curiosity, then there's just rudeness. They couldn't read it anyway, why not just a casual glance at a safe distance? Why the need to stop their walk and stand behind me uncomfortably like some Chinese JohnWilkes Boothe?

One gent with a plastic bag passed by, sat some distance away, circled back, then brazenly came up on my right front side. He nodded to get my attention and I looked up. "Hello," he said, smiling.

"Hello."

I returned to my book, but my dude kept standing there. I looked up again and he nodded again, smiling. He made a gesture toward the book, then gave a "thumbs up."

"Yes. it's a good book."

I tried to get back to it but my concentration was shattered. I moved on, strolled past the cooing couples and a man taking pictures of two high school girls posed in front of a tree, then a rock pile, then a weeping willow grove.

I wandered aimlessly, exploring hidden pockets of the park. While circling back around a secret chess table, I ran into the smiling plastic bag dude again. "Hello," he said again, as if the veins of this word were packed with the lifeblood of truth and it, being the ultimate cosmic password, so full of answers and harmony was in danger of bursting and the only way to keep it from hemorrhaging a biblical arterial geyser was to say it as often as possible to a bearded American in sunglasses. I know he was just trying to be friendly, but the conversation went as far as it possibly could. What more did he want?

After dinner, I blogged for a bit, tried to play piano, but all the practice rooms were locked. I worked on my lesson plan (Thanksgiving this week) then got stir crazy. As per usual, the students en masse, after classes get out at 9, file into the dorm and collectively relieve their bowels. My bathroom is host to a main sewer pipe and if I forget to keep my bathroom fan on, the stench rolls out with a fury at 9pm. I need incense badly.

I lit a match, decided I could sit and suffocate in the fug, or go out to the club. I opted for the club, but when I started pedaling there, the cold influenced me to try the other club, the closer one.

Once inside, I was amazed at the throng of people packed on the dance floor. No room at all, just a huge bouncing mob spilling over at the exits. The DJs were spinning some house stuff, slower fare than Andy's club, better quality, more of what I spin.

One track was particularly good and at the break, I went up and asked if it was called "Night Train." Their English was limited, but I soon communicated I was a DJ from America, and soon I was behind the soundboard meeting everyone. The main guy was "DJ Alen." I had my CDs in my bag and he encouraged me to put some stuff on. I had no idea how to operate the decks, so I selected a CD, had him throw it on.

I flipped through my album, naming the genres as I pointed: "hip hop, trance, house..." I went into the "green room" and there was a midget warming up for a kung fu routine. I had my picture taken with him. It is my goal to have my pcture taken with every midget in Haimen, a goal I might have already completed. (How can a town this small have more than two?) The kung fu floor show involved a skinny long-haired guy burying one end of a steel pole into his throat, while the midget buried the other end in his gut and the two pushed against each other. Other feats included a bed of nails and the skinny dude stepped on the midget lying on it. Three burly (as burly as Chinese come) gents from the audience were invited to come step on the nail-mattressed midget collectively. All the while, Alen was playing my CDs for their routine and they synced up beautifully, crescendos were uncannily perfect.

Next a couple Matrix-looking gentlemen came out and did kung fu while singing awful pop songs. I got video footage of some of their stuff. Bizarre.

When the dancing started up again, Alen played from my set, calling out a genre, which I would then hand him, indicating the track listing with my hand. It sounded awesome and the crowd really dug it. He said some stuff into the mic about me to the audience, giving props, I suppose. I got some cheers, though they cheer everything at the club. I took a picture of the crowd and one stoic beefhead up front flipped me off, but I can't be sure if it was contempt or if he was trying to "be American" for the camera.

At the end of the night, I took off, despite Alen's invite to get something to eat. I planned on waking for Chinese breakfast, so I thanked himand pedaled off into the night. I was fired up. That was a proper set and someone else did all the beatmatching work. Ha! All I did was rock out and drink Heineken.

Slept smiling.

2004-11-14: things and stuff

bleah. not much yesterday. i made a flyer for dj empirical's upcoming gig with paperback.

click image for big-ass version, or here for widescreen edition

also, i saw the girl with the striking blue eyes at sitwell's again. i went later than usual, so maybe it was a shift change i've somehow always missed. of course, she was busy, and i was too shy, so other than smiles, there was no exchange. i suck.

oh i hung out with gabe last night, too. watched him play San Andreas for a little while. i like it.

Super Special Questions Blog

I found the Super Special Questions Blog in my old email address' box today.

I like Doughty.

November 14th: slogging through overcast loaginess

Day 58

Woke at ten to 12. The rain had stopped, but the grey overcast filth clotted the sky like a filmy canvas that a painter had considered decorating with brushstrokes, but became too depressed to begin. Flecks of moisture dotted at our cheeks as we pedaled to the hotel for sustenance. Miserable, lazy day. The only thing to do is grimace at one's surroundings and be aware of one's bones.
We got our usual fare, two Tsingtao, though there was nothing cheerful to toast. We clinked glasses dully, spoke of children, as in the possibility of having them one day. I laid out my feelings thusly: "I feel there's so many children already in the world who need a good home that to make one yourself is an act of vanity."

"So adopt."

I nodded. "Yes, but on the other hand, I watch the 'Concert for George' (Harrison) and see his son Dhani up there who's a spitting image of his father and I understand the appeal of continuing the family bloodline. But I'm the type of person who overintellectualizes everything. I'll weigh the pros and cons of all sides to death and then choose whatever has the most pros. But I will have mulled it over to the extent where my choice is purely from logic and I don't know how I really feel."

I read more James Joyce, Erin read the newspaper. We talked a bit about my failed engagement, women we knew who weren't willing to give up vices for 9 months of pregnancy and how mutually disgusting and irresponsible we find it, and what the proper time to have kids is, considering human eggs will start to "go bad" after age 30. Weird conversation.

We pedaled back, I ate dinner alone again. I went and played piano for a while. I have the new song memorized and the bridge part is nearly flawless. I also wrote a new song, which is just a chorus thus far, but I have a set of chords to work out for the verses. Sounds like a funeral dirge, sort of, with a major chord at the end.

I blogged, ate calcium cookies. Retired with the hope that tomorrow's weather will be an improvement.

2004-11-13: more halo 2

i awoke on gabe's couch a couple times in the morning before actually rising. i played halo 2 for a couple minutes, but really only to pass the time until gabe left for work. i left then as well, heading home for a quick shower, but on the way i stopped at kroger, as i wanted some cereal to eat. i experimented with honey graham life, but it's not great; it's like a cross between life and golden grahams.

i did a flyer for the black fives show here in town on 11/20, despite the no-QEG presence at it. i need to make a couple changes, but i think it turned out ok. i also uploaded a few of aaron's pics as well, and quite a few of my own from the experimental behavior showcase.

the beginning of the evening activities consisted of heading over to jane's house for a little pot-luck party, complete with a performance of her new band And How, consisting of her and kendall bruns. it's not bad, though i think i like her solo stuff better. then we were off to todd and laura's where they were throwing a small birthday party for laura.

then, of course, back to gabe's for an hour or so of halo 2, then home, blog, chat with mcdeviltoast, and bed.

2004-11-12: halo 2

[the official music of this blog entry is the free dj mix from the dmx crew's website.]

no music in the shower today, which always seems to throw me off. my bathroom cd player is one of the first mp3 cd players, so it's about 5 or 6 years old, and i've used it a lot. it's nearly dead, and sometimes likes to pretend you've not put a real cd in it.

work was ok. the application we use to pull data from the data warehouse, named Business Objects (or BO), was being incredibly finicky, and crashing a lot. we don't have the latest version, so that could be part of the problem....

i got home extremely tired, so after calling diane, with whom i had plans to hang out, i took a nap. i slept for about an hour, though i'd only intended half that. we'd originally planned on staying in at my apartment and watching brass eye, but she said that since she was on a break from school she wanted to take the opportunity to go out. where did we go? sitwell's. it was just as well; despite my nap, i was in need of caffeine.

i arrived at the agreed time, but of course diane was not yet there. the smoking section was full, which would not have been a problem but that diane smokes. like a chimney. while i was looking around for her to make sure she was not there, a girl behind me asked whether i needed a carryout order. i turned around to see no other than the girl with the striking blue eyes. a bit taken aback, i recovered quickly. no, i said, i'm meeting a friend. she smiled a smile that cut me in two, and promised to find me once my friend arrived.

i sat at a table in the smoking section which had only the one chair. i figured that when diane found me we'd figure out what to do about seating. it turned out not to be an issue, for within a minute of being seated a couple at the next table got up to pay and leave. i quickly took their seats. when the girl half of the couple came back to the table, i felt a bit sheepish for stealing her place, but she smiled; she was just leaving a tip.

the girl with the striking blue eyes found me after another minute or so. by this time i'd been waiting about ten minutes. as she collected her tip and bussed the table, she asked whether i'd liked the drink she recommended. i said i had (though i didnt mention the fact that i'd been unsure whether it was worth the extra seventy-five cents above my usual drink), and said i'd like another one this evening. she smiled, and i asked her what its name was. aparently it's a "pourpacino", like the word "pour" mixed with the word "capuccino". eager for another few seconds of her time, i asked her again for the ingredients. it's got espresso, vanilla, half-and-half, and some other things. half-and-half? no wonder it had been so thick.

she went off to put the order in and i continued to wait for diane. the drink arrived and i was mixing it up (the chocolate sauce settles to the bottom) when she arrived. we chatted for a couple hours; noting major, just chatting. it was quite pleasant, actually. she had a vodka tonic and a vodka cranberry, which was weird, because when we were dating she'd been a teetotaler. she was nervous because she had plans to go out to meet up with a boy after hanging out with me. the alcohol took care of her nerves, though, and things were soon fine. i quickly ascertained that she thankfully was not trying to hook up with me again, of which i'd had a nagging suspicion.

we left and i gave her a ride up to the comet, where she was meeting the boy. i then went directly over to gabe's house. gabe had already been playing halo 2 for hours at this point, so i waited for him to be finished with a level so that i could join in. gabe's friend kelly, who was in town for the weekend, sat next to him on the couch, and ross, gabe's roommate and actual owner of the house, was in the easy chair.

a pretty blonde came down the stairs. ross introduced her to me as elizabeth, ross' sister. i suddenly remembered meeting her at shirley's over a year and a half ago. she was as pretty as i'd remembered. she and ross left to go to crush to see a few bands play.

i created a character ("spivak", after my friend and fellow QEG member Donald Spivak) and began to play. i like it; the game play is similar, with a few updates. the graphics are better, and everything is of a much larger scale.

hours later, ross and elizabeth returned. kelly had already crashed downstairs, but gabe and i were still playing. at about 3am, john, gabe's other roommate, came downstairs. apparently he'd taken a nap at 8:30pm and inadvertently slept for hours. whoops.

ross & elizabeth crashed, and gabe and i finished the level we were on, and stopped playing. john put in grand theft auto san andreas, which he'd picked up ther other day with halo 2. i only made it another minute or so before i fell asleep on the couch.

November 13th: rainy cabin fever

Day 57

Woke to the sound of Rose knocking on the door and repeating in her sweet timbre, "David, David." I leapt from bed saying, "Just a minute," trying to locate pants, mentally force my a.m. erection to subside, etc. I opened the door and she handed me a banded stack of bills.

"You are still sleeping, mm."

"Yes, I was." I shook the bills. "Thank you."

She went to Erin's door to knock and I shut my door, married the new stack of bills with the old, looked at the time: 11:30. Missed lunch. It was cold in the hall and I noticed outside it was raining, with no hint of letting up anytime soon.

Erin and I walked our umbrella'd selves up to the main gate, where depending on one's outlook, either luck or fate bestowed us a taxi. I sat in front, Erin in the back. "Ming Tien Coffee."

My dude started the meter and started speaking to me in Chinese. I told him I only spoke a little, but this did not stay his tongue. he prattled on in between clearing the windshield of its fog. I answered in English as if I knew what the hell he was on about.

He: "(Chinese syllables)."
Me: "Constantly. All the time."
He: "(Chinese syllables)."
Me: "No argument here, buddy. You just tell 'em."

We stepped out at Ming Tien with pockets 7 yuen lighter. We sat up at the comfy orange couch section. I was famished, having expended quite an amount of energy the night before, so I ordered a steak dinner. The girl asked me something and I shrugged. She went away and moments later an official-looking woman marched over and thrust a cell phone at Erin. She took it curiously and said:

"Hello?... Hi... From America....No, in Haimen.....The experimental school....What?....Oh...(to me) How do you want your steak cooked?"

"Medium rare."

"Medium rare....Ok....Oh. (to me) What kind of sauce do you want?"

I shrugged. "Mushroom?"

"Mushroom sauce. (to me) Do you want spaghetti or french fries?"

"French fries."

"French fries.....Right...Ok..I don't know my number but my email address is (spelled her email address). Yes......Ok.....Bye."

She handed the phone back to the lady and the lady and our girl went away.

"Who the hell was that on the phone?"

Erin shrugged. "Some guy named Jack from Nantong. He wants to introduce us to some more Americans."

steak lunch at ming tien

The girl brought me a glass of red wine (complimentary with the steak dinner) in a martini glass. It had a piece of lemon in it. A bowl of soup and a hard roll arrived, as well as my fries. Erin had ordered a basket of fries and strawberry "toast" which is actually a big brick of cake. the icing on it spelled "Love."

erin's "toast" has "love" spelled in icing

For a culture all into maudlin sentiment, you'd think they would exhibit some courtesy to match it, but no, we get dudes trying to cut in line at the grocery with their bananas, cars cutting off everybody, shoving in makeshift queues, etc.

The steak arrived and it was not medium rare, it was seared. As Dennis Miller said in Bordello of Blood, "Hey, you wanna throw a Bic lighter under that steak there? For Christ's sake, it's still mooing." I sent it back and a minute later the cell phone was put in my face.

Me: "Hello."
Nantong Jack: "How did you want your steak cooked?"
Me: "Medium."
NJ: "Ah. Half-cooked?"
Me: "Uh, medium."
NJ: "Okay. Now I talk to the girl again."

I handed the phone back and my steak came minutes later, slightly more cooked than last time. I shrugged, ate it. It was tasty. I finished all my meal and the rest of Erin's fries. I was famished.
I went up to play the piano, the sustain pedal functioning this time, to my delight. To my disgust, they kept the house music on which means I had to concentrate on blocking out Whitney Houston and Richard Marx. Ugh. I played the new song, a few others, gave up when the music not only remained on, but switched to a dance pop station.

I returned to the table, read some James Joyce, reclined with my eyes closed for a but, but failed to achieve the desired meditative state. We paid, grabbed a cab back which was driven by a woman and I shared the backseat with her son, a sulllen 5 year old with tear-stained cheeks. I tried to engage him in conversation but he just stared and frowned.

Erin skipped dinner, so I went alone, sat with Dozen and another teacher. The dining hall was freezing.

"You should have more clothes on," Dozen remarked.

"Yeah. I don't like the cold."

"I like the cold," he said. "Because I have a lot of fat. When it's warm I do not like it."

"I need more fat."

"You can take some of mine" he joked.

He and the other teacher insisted I visit Yellow Mountain which is an hour flight but a ten hour bus ride. We talked about America, travel, China's bigness.

After dinner, the rain had gotten worse, but we were out of wine, so I braved the precipitation to the mom-n-pop place, got a bottle of red and a bottle of white. The casino machine was up front this time and I saw it had a ninja turtle graphic on the front. A few kids stared at my rain-soaked self and I smiled, said "Zai Jian" and pedaled off into the night.

Erin and I played cards and listened to hip hop. Erin's wine was bunk. It was cheap candywine like mine, but it smelled like graham crackers. She braved only a couple sips, then tossed it.
We laughed, made plans to do KTV tomorrow even if it was just us, came up with the term "worthworthy" and laughed ourselves silly, mutually retired. Our heaters are now on so it's nice and toasty.

November 12th: poi stopping block & "private ryan" trivia

Day 56

Forewent breakfast for sleep. I kept my stomach full of coffee until lunch, at which there were some mysterious looking vegetables. I asked Dozen about them and he repiled, "I do not know how to say in English. I do not recommend. They are not delicious." That was enough for me.

Classes went fine. The autistic kid even stood up to say his favorite song, and in English. The Pete/Jimmy/Simon class was full of flies, and I killed four of them during the eye exercise song, ripping my blue plastic folder in the process. This incited the class to follow suit, but I pleaded with them to be mellow. Pete, Simon and Jimmy imitated my hand motions and repeated "mellow" at the other students. They're like my little generals in there. The enforcers. They never let me leave when the bell rings, so I played a bit of "Baby You're a Rich Man" after class ended. Pete started grooving to it, a big wide grin on his face. I finally had to tear myself from their company.

I practiced the new song, nearly ironed out to prefection. The bridge is still throwing me off a bit. I have the lyrics mostly memorized. Erin decided a nap was more important than dinner, so I dined with Pete, Jimmy and Simon. Pete motioned to a new kid next to him, "Willis, this is my friend."

"Oh, hello."

The kid nodded. I shared my sesame oil with them.

After dinner I drank wine, watched the rest of "Saving Private Ryan." I practiced poi for a bit before realizing I needed new chains. The straps, with their wide tendency to fold instead of spin halted any progress to be made in mastering the "butterfly" or any of its variations. Grrrrrr.

I made a canteen run for Erin, procuring Happy Rolls and calcium cookies. I was mobbed by grinning workers and three female students. I got so sketched out, I forgot to get cookies for myself. Erin made me take a box of Happy Rolls and two of her calcium cookies. When the time came to go out to the club, Erin waffled. She was in her cups as was I, having killed that bottle of wine, but not so much as her.

The conversation went thusly:
"I'm leaving for the club in five minutes. Are you coming or not?"

"Well, wait. You have to understand."

"Ok."

She motioned to the computer. "I have to decide whether I keep my Canadian citizenship or become an American, and it's really... (big diatribe)."

"Yeah, but I'm going to the club in five minutes, are you coming?"

"But, no. You have to understand. (repeat diatribe)."And so on.

I left without her while she watched "Saving Private Ryan" on my computer. At the club, DJ Ajian (the short blond hair dude) spun again and his set was the best yet. I was coerced into dancing on the stage. It's crazy. I have never in my life been able to say that I was the best dancer at a club, but I am the best dancer in the club, and I had energy for days last night. My T-shirt was soaked through with sweat. I grabbed some complimentary glow bracelets and danced with those, passed them on once I got winded. Stuart made Ajian throw on "Tricky" and I rocked the mic, working the crowd from the stage.

At the end of the night, tired and spent, I rode home and Erin had left a note on my computer: "One word: blimps? Is that Vin Diesel? Please say no. And is that Ted Danson? (of Cheers fame?) Thank you. Please answer 'blimps' question. I may never sleep again." I emailed her that the "blimps" in question were barrage balloons, designed to throw off enemy bombers. Showered, slept.

2004-10-11: The Yes Men and Jobriath

now playing: Slick Idiot "Rhinoceros"

Woke this morning a bit earlier than usual (read: on time), which was good, because I was in dire need of gas when i got in the car. gas prices seem to have gone down, which makes sense, i guess, now that the election's over.

work was fine; i got some crap done that i've wanted to do for literally years. it's only been rcently that i've been able to convince people to change system things in order to be able to accomplish it. (note: the circumlocution comes about as a result of my assumption that no one cares about the details of my work. or maybe it's just me that doesn't care about it. ;)

Anyway, my boss is all over it, wanting upwards of 16 versions of this report that we couldn't even get in any form two months ago. i hope she remembers this crap come review time. i'll remind her.

jobriath came up on my shuffle at work, and for some reason i looked up his discography, knowing ful well he'd put out two records ('73 and '74) and died in '83. HOWEVER, it seems that i'd missed, by two days, the release of a jobriath retrospective cd on morrissey's new label. crazy. a quick call to shake it and a copy (the only one they had in stock) was on reserve for me.

after work, i had gotten a message from baby kitty asking for a ride home from work at 9pm, since it was raining and she, i, and gabe were going to catch the last showing of the yes men at the esquire at 10:10 pm. i called gabe to invite him to shake it, then went round to collect him.

at shake it (where i also picked up the new bill hicks dvd) i ran into greg mills, former member of the haywards (in which i've played for a year). i asked him why he was in town, as he'd moved to NYC last year. he said the band he'd joined earlier this year, dan melchior's broke revue, was playing at the northside tavern a bit later. i told him i'd try to go, but i didnt have much hope of making it in time.

gabe and i then hit the red pepper for some chinese food, since we had about an hour before we picked up baby kitty. it was good, though gabe's szechuan was not spicy in the slightest, and my general tso's tofu was more spicy than usual.

we collected baby kitty, then back to gabe's to get his roommate john. john drove, which meant i could listen to my new jobriath disc on the way. yay. (i'm the lamest.) sure, he's derivative of bowie (and, gabe told me, alice cooper), but i think he's tub ring to bowie's mr. bungle. or something.

the yes men was great! if you didn't catch it: sorry. find the dvd. or read about it somewhere; i'm too tired to review it here now.

after that: karaoke. baby kitty by this time had bailed out, but janet and a couple of her friends had joined is, as well as gabe's girlfriend sara (who'd caught the film with us too). i tried singing "head over heels" without much success, but i redeemed myself later with "take my breath away". sharon told me she was jealous i could hit that high-C and she couldn't. i just sort of shrugged; i just sang it from memory, you know? i wonder what my range is....

now i'm here, blogging. forthwith i shall retire.

final music of the night: jobriath, "i'maman".

November 11th: the art of stealth nap

Day 55

Woke, ate Chinese breakfast (no nausea this time) blogged and emailed, researched quinine and its potentcy for reducing leg pain, taught.

The one part of the game I thought all my students would get, none of them got straight off: "The opposite of day:" Common answers: "month," "tomorrow," "year," etc. My students are artistically-minded that's all. I suspect a a high percentage may be dyslexic. When I wrote "on", a lot of them told me the opposite was "yes." Hmmm.

When I went tomy third class, the door was locked and they weren't there. I found a rogue student and he told me,"village."

I furrowed my brow. "Village?"

He went and got a workbook, thum,bed through it and showed me a page with the word "sightseeing."

"Ah. When do they come back?"

He shrugged.

I waited ten minutes and then saw a mass of students filing past the tower. According to one teacher they had walked into town to see a bird show.

Dinner was a letdown, but I had brought my sesame oil so I ate all my rice. Erin and I pedaled out to the hotel for our usual fare and I was struck with "rice drowse." I succumbed to it and zen'd in my chair for a bit. Erin said I twitched. It reminded me of the days when I would work the graveyard shift at the hotel and would take "vietnam naps" in the back. I'd have my eyes closed, be totally relaxed, be resting, but also be absolutely aware of my surroundings. Imagine your soul or consciousness as a little ball inside you and it's tethered in place by tiny web-like fibers. Then, if you take hold of that ball, roll and twist it, shake those tethers loose, then it's still in the same place but now it's flaoting free. It feels like that. I was aware of my body, but my arms felt heavy, my skin like a loose bag. I was piloting the little ball, which involves mostly watching old movies the brain has made.
I don't know how long I was out, but it felt very peaceful. I haven't really meditated since I've been here and that "stealth nap" or "self-hypnosis" whatever, worked wonders.
After dinner I went to the arts building, which I have all the lyrics solidly for. I believe it's one of my best.

I watched another disc of "Saving Private Ryan" and it always gets me when Giovanni Ribisi's character (Wade the medic) dies. This time I cried. Maybe it's because I had the headphones on and it was more personal, or because I'm lonely, or because this stuff is actually happening in Iraq or because in my post-meditative state I'm more in touch with my emotions. Crying felt good too.

I watched BBC, witnessed the military helicopter carry Arafat's body to Cairo, then slept.

2004-11-10: more slacker, plus saw

woke up a bit late, as usual. bleah. i couldnt get to sleep until 4am, so i have an excuse.

as a result, i spent most of the day kind of catching up, always a bit too slow and tired. it wasn't until the early evening (when i got home from work) that i finally shook this faux jetlag.

when i got home, i ate a little while watching the rest of Linklater's commentary on Slacker. when i first saw the film, i didn't know what to make of it, as many people probably don't. i've really grown to love it, though.

gabe and his roommate john stopped by. i gave gabe my VHS copy of Slacker, as i no longer needed it. also, i informed him that there was a conflict on 11/20: he'd scheduled the Black Fives for a gig at habanero, while dj empirical was already scheduled to perform at the northside tavern, opening for infinite number of sounds. the quahogs entertainment group has a rule that no two of its performers play at the same time in two places (thus unfortunately promoting the Clark Kent/Superman myth we have, but what can you do?), so i let him know the black fives would be solo that night, since donald spivak (schädel, a QEG member) would not be there. he was fine with that, and still asked me to do a flyer for the show.

the three of us stopped by baby kitty's to collect her, then were off to the AMC in newport to catch a showing of saw. it's fired; don't bother seeing it. i'd go into it further, but it's not even worth the effort. if you really want to hear about it and see me in person, ask.

2004-11-09 belated

woke up a bit late again, so no head shave again! dammit.

work was ok; i spent some time going through old emails to make a list of thing for my boss to "remember" when my review comes up in a couple months. it sucks to have to do that, but i think it will be necessary this time around.

i got home and checked my email, then laid down for a quick nap. that quick nap turned in to two hours, and all of a sudden it's 9:30pm. dammit again.

i went to sitwell's for caffeine and the esquire for a visit with chance and sara. once i got home, i demolished my living room as a result of making the guest bedroom presentable. i guess tonight i'll try to recover the living room. ;)

i also made plans with diane, one of my ex-girlfriends, to watch Brass Eye on friday. don't worry; it'll be fine. i really just needed an excuse to watch them again.

gabe came over late, and we hung out for a bit. he confirmed the 11/20 date for the black fives at habanero, of all places. habanero is a chipotle-type non-chain restaurant on ludlow a block or so from the esquire. that'll be weird, but fun. we also went though a box of my so-called "second string cds", ones i didnt have enough room on the shelves for that i probably should get rid of. he borrowed quite a few, and i brought a lot to work today myself. i gues they weren't all bad.

November 10: sweater quest and jetlapse

Day 54

Woke the latest yet, ten 'til 12. I suspect I'm having jetlapse (a relapse of jetlag).

I pedaled out to UBC for some ham-n-egg sandwich and carrot juice. I read, fiddled with some lyrics, then set out on a sweater quest.

I perused the outdoor market near the camera shop and found mostly too smll sweaters. A lady in one shop insisted I try one on, and I did, showed her how long my arms were and how long the sweater wasn't. A guy at another shop had long enough gear, but the colors and patterns weren't garfing my funkel. I thanked him, moved on. I then pedaled to a department store near KFC, and on the second floor happened upon two sweaters that I liked.

Bought them both and got a complimentary pair of socks, in "old man cornflower."

free socks suck

I pedaled around a bit more, listlessly, trying to shake the greyness that hung thinly overhead. I accidentally happened upon the livestock, fish and crab part of the outdoor market. I couldn't get away from there fast enough.

I swung by the arts building on the way back, worked on the new song, tested new lyrics. It's a great song, and I'm learning how to sing over it and play complicated piano stuff at the same time. Since the move to China, my inner saloonsmith has flowered.

After dinner, Erin and I went to the supermarket for wine and a mop. A little girl passed us and said, "May guar hren. (American person)" I pointed at her and in the same tone said "Chun guar hren! (Chinese person)" Her jaw unhinged and she hid behind her mother. On the fourth floor I found a VCD of Saving Private Ryan with "original English version" emblazoned on the front. Aces.

When we were standing in line to pay, this old man totally set his bananas in front of my stuff and tried to nudge in. I defiantly put his bananas behind my gear and set my mop on the counter like a victory spear. "Hell no, motherfucker." He learned we were the wrong may guar hrens to try that stuff with, took his bananas and went to another line. What is wrong with people?

Erin and I discussed that we need to learn how to say, "No, I don't think so" in Chinese, since they aren't savvy to Brooklynese. Although, I surmised, I do know how to say, "Excuse me, cannot (due bu shi, bo hue.)" and that would have worked too. Blogged for a bit, watched a little Saving Private Ryan (which isn't widescreen, grrrrrrrrrr). Watched BBC, attempted to sleep early to conquer my jetlapse.

November 9th: teaching Beatles deux

Day 53

Woke and had some Chinese breakfast but it didn't sit well with my stomach. I kept burping and feeling uncomfortable. For a few minutes I entertained the idea of making myself throw up so my body wouldn't be tempted to do it during class. ("Hello class, today I BLARRGGGHCCHHHHH.") I thought twice. When it comes to vomiting, I despise it, rarely do it, and the last thing I would ever try to master is the ability to voluntarily "leggo my eggo." So, I took deep breaths, calmed the burping, drank water, and I was fine. Take that, body.

This week's lesson is a game of opposites to learn the Beatles' last names, followed by a rousing listen to "Hello Goodbye," which is rife with opposites.Two classes were great, The third class sucked. I didn't even say bye to them when I left. What kind of group of kids is going to act bored when all they have do is listen to the Beatles and play games? Anger.

The next class was the apathy crew and I warned them of my anger from the previous class and pleaded with them to be good. They were. They still screwed around a bit (like uniformly stomping to the eye exercise song) and some kids didn't write anything down, but at least they behaved.

Before dinner I rode out to get some wine. It looked like rain, so I pedaled to the mom-n-pop place around the corner from the hotel. Rain didn't happen luckily, but the barometer change was giving me the bends. It rained later on, which spoiled my plans to practice poi.

Blogged, passed out for a bit watching TV, then slept uncomfortably, repeatedly turning over as if I was on a rotisserie.

poo

Today I get to talk about poo and Mike Kelley in front of my sculpture class. They are going to be so grossed out . . . . . . I can't wait!

QEG Garage Sale

well, we've just learned about a bit of tragedy involving Tyrone Shoelaces, and to benefit him, we've set up a garage sale blog. Here's a bit of an explanation:

Unfortunately, Tyrone Shoelaces, a long-time member of the Quahogs Entertainment Group, has suffered an unfortunate accident involving tater-tots. We're not at liberty to describe what happened, but suffice it to say, he has a lot of medical bills as a result. We here at the QEG are donating some of our stuff (mostly music and other media) in order to help raise a few bucks for him.

It's still a bit empty, as we're still gathering items. Keep checking back, though, because as we run across items at QEG Headquarters, we'll be adding them to the list.

silent toast

hey, aaron's testing out his camera's video:

narration: "hello. this is my living space."

the video is a bit dark -- i lightened the screenshot.

oh yeah -- i forgot Maja!

thanks to dj/rupture, i just found out about Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje. short story shorter: if you like the new bjork record and think she's breaking ground, check out Maja.

plus, maja's hot and Norwegian. it's not Icelandic, but it'll do. ;)

2004-11-08: another monday

not much interesting today. ran a few minutes behind this morning, as usual, so i didnt get to shave the head. i know things are busy when i'm getting long-ish stubble up there.

work was uneventful but productive. one of the systems that was down thursday and friday was up finally today, so after i did my usual monday morning reports (and made sure the new adjustments i made on them friday worked) i knocked out some things that were leftover from last week. the boss was surprised, i think. *shrug*

i got home a bit late-ish, so i ate some cereal while watching the first half hour or so of Slacker with the director commentary on. then, off to sitwell's for more caffeine. (i think the girl with the striking blue eyes must only work friday nights, or when i'm not around....)

i visited both gabe and sara at the esquire. gabe and i discussed my (or rather, dj empirical's) possible scratching on one of the new black fives tracks.

then back here, where i received a call from Zach, a former coworker at Buzz who now is doing the grad school/employment thing in Boston. he called because he saw an ad for an upcoming talk by Negativland member Mark Hosler, and he wondered whether it would be worth his while to attend. i gave him an emphatic yes.

now blogging, and soon off to the golden lions to hear gabe spin some stuff.

have some good times.

November 8th: poi practice

Day 52

Woke late, blogged, did laundry. At dinner, Steven said I didn't have class Wednesday because of testing, so there's some forethought in action. I learned he joined the school around the same time we did.

After dark I pedaled to Dong Jo park for some glow bracelets. I passed a couple and the woman said, "David?"

"Yes? (Assuming it's another teacher) Ah, what was your name again?"

"Grace."

"Right."

She then explained that she had tried to borrow the dvd player from the computer chaps, only to learn I still had it. She wanted to show her students "Forrest Gump."

"I tried retuning it before, but they weren't in."

Quizzical look.

"What are their hours?"

Quizzical look.

"When will they....be in office?"

Quizzical look.

"I'll return tomorrow."

"Ok, on Sunday they have holiday? Maybe you could return before Sunday?"

"I'll return it tomorrow."

They went off. I bought, by accident, 5 yuen worth of glowness. I picked four, activated them, then stashed the rest in my bag gingerly. I warmed up, got the flow going and tried to iron out the reverse weave. It took some getting used to, but I think I finally have it even. I worked on transitioning from forward to backward, but backward to forward, I clobbered myself. I'm getting better. Occasional onlookers paused, kept their distance.

Once my arms started burning, I took a walk around the park, taking in the ambience of the Vegasy neon adorning the pagodas and walkway posts. I circled around to a wide area of concrete ringed with water where about 80 people were waltzing in the night air. I stopped and watched for a bit, but when the song switched to an awful cowboy tune, I set out again. I bought a green tea from the glow booth chap, pedaled out to the "armswinger park," but it was too well lit for my purposes.

I arrived back, knocked on Erin's door and asked her to watch my reverse weave, see how it looked. She confirmed it was indeed a bit rough. I tried to even it out, doing it faster and trying to make it automatic and succeeded. When I went in, I gave the bracelets to a couple students going by, retired for the night.

2004-11-07: much watching

a quick recap of the day, as i've a small headache that i think will abate with sleep.

i woke up at about 12:30 pm, giving me more sleep than i generally get during the week, but not as much as my usual weekend nights. after a quick shower (no shaving at all this time) and a couple bowls of cereal (during which i finished Drop Dead Fred), i trekked out to sitwell's for some caffeine. no blue eyes there (alas), but chicken and chance were both working at the esquire. i said hello and chatted for a moment, then decided i should stop by shake it and pick something up. i left with volume five of the satanik mashups series (on vinyl), the album by 10cc with the song "dreadlock holiday" (also vinyl), and the fancy edition of Slacker on dvd. That means my vhs copy is now deprecated, so perhaps i'll resurrect the webpage idea i had that would basically be an online garage sale.

i realized i left the cd of the new Black Fives tracks over at Gabe's house, so i called and then stopped by. Coyote Ugly was on the tv, and, much as i expected, it was fabulously horrible. what's the target demographic for that film?

once back here, sara stopped by to print out homework (she has no internet connection at her apartment) and left, promising to call when she was finished. i ate again (ramen and p.b.j. sandwiches) while watching the documentary on the Sledge Hammer! season one dvds. for the most part, they all look the same, and anne-marie martin (Sledge's partner Doreau) is actually still quite attractive, even nearly twenty years later.

a call from sara and i went to her house. from there we would walk to the esquire to see The Motorcycle Diaries, but not quite yet. As we still had some time, i threw on the vhs of Slaughterhouse-Five gabe gave me last night. he has the dvd, and knows that since i finished the audio book i've wanted to see the film.

From there to The Motorcycle Diaries. I liked it; it created a human side to Che Guevara that i never thought about. all too often one views historical figures, however recently in history they figured, as... well... stencils, mere cut-out shapes of the people they were. i don't necessarily agree with his politics, but he's an interesting guy.

and now back here. blog, then sleep.

November 7th: glow poi and budding lyrics

Day 51

Erin and I woke late, decided to get lunch at the hotel. I had a grilled ham-n-cheese, she had the usual veggie pizza. She got a Tsiangtao, I declared I was detoxing and got a carrot juice. I reminisced about getting sushi and Naked juice at IGA, soy caramel lattes at Sitwells. Bittersweet pangs of nostalgia.

After lunch, I pedaled out to Dong Jo park, Erin bailed to clean and work on her lesson plan.
I found a spot (after inadvertently disrupting a row of cooing couples) and sat, tried to dredge up some lyrics for the new song. First I needed subject matter. A few teens were standing on the bank eating seeds and elbowing each other to come and talk to me. When it got to the point where two of them were playing "rock scissors paper" I called out, "I can't believe you're daring each other to come talk to me."

They walked over sheepishly, asked my name, where I lived, what my job was, the standard questions. When I flipped open my notebook to draw where I lived in America, a swell of people crushed in to peek, then dispersed again when I looked up. They would stare from a distance until I said "Ni hao", then they would resume their course, as if the five minutes of staring were merely a heartbeat.

Two boys sitting right next to me were whispering to each other about me and I looked at them, said "Due bu shi? (excuse me)" That shut 'em up...for a second. I dug in my bag and gave them two balloons from one of my classrooms, stenciled with oddly enough, "Feliz Cumpleanos." I played hackeysack with the teens for a bit and they declared they were tired. I said zai jian and moved on, found another secluded place and practiced poi, nailed the reverse weave. Yes! It's still a little rough (circles a little crazy), but it came as second nature just like the front way.

I rode home, ate dinner, had some calcium cookies, blogged. I decided to go to the club to test my poi skills with the glow bracelets, see how they would go over.

MC (who is now Stuart because he requested I give him an English name) and the dyed blond guy were there again. When I got there, it was crowded and a girl was in the center of the dance floor doing sloppy kung fu stuff and being encouraged to pull down her pants and show her panties. Then the set cut to mellow R&B shit for the raffle and I got out my chains, affixed four bracelets, and got up on the vacant dance floor. It went smooth, I didn't hit myself in the head or anything, but the reverse stuff was rough. Stuart liked it. "Oh, very beautiful," he said.
I danced some more, blond guy had some fiercer stuff this evening, I think I even detected some Crystal Method among the Chinese stuff.

I left early, gave the bracelets to some girls on their way home, rode back all glistening and beaming, and came up with three crucial lines for the new song.
I slammed like a felled tree into my pillow.

disturbing

mcdeviltoast asked me to flex my newly discovered photoshop muscles and make a hybrid image of the one to the right.

oh, did i. check it:

neat, huh?

November 6th: leg pain as memory passkey

Day 50

Woke at 11:30, a new record for sleeping in. I knocked on Erin's door, ready to bear the brunt of her ridicule, but she had been asleep, too. She had woken up at 10, and foresaw no reason to maintain consciousness, fell back asleep.

Since we missed lunch, we rode to Ming Tien. I was eager to get on their piano because my new song won't get out of my head. I asked permission, and they nodded, removed the cover and all, but I soon discovered the sustain pedal was broken. Every note was sustained, and one bar into anything I played sounded like a train wreck. D'oh!

We ate, tried to read, but Celine Dion was on the hifi and someone was hammering in the bowels of the restaurant. We then pedaled to that outdoor market/bazaar. As we passed the pool hall, I didn't see my opponent from before, but I did spy a dude in a blue suit, bluer than maharaja pajamas. I pray he has the billiard chops to live up to his clothing hubris.

The marketfolk were pushy. If you looked at an item longer than a casual glance, one would swoop down chattering in Chinese, tracing the price on their palm with a finger. You'd try to explain you were just looking and they'd trace a lower price, chatter some more. The best exit strategy is to shake your head, thank them, and say goodbye ("xie xie, zai jian!")

Erin was particularly susceptible, trying on things and such. She tried to find these white boots with black racing stripes up the side. When at last she found them, the toe was so pointy and long, it increased her foot length by 75%. Also, her American calves would not be zipped over in the back. She left the market bootless. I swung by the electronic chap's place on the way back for some rechargeable batteries and a charger.

Dinner was subpar. Immediately after we went to the canteen for snacks. I bought and punished a pack of the chocloate calcium cookies. I blogged and such to kill time before going to the club. When 10pm rolled around, I knocked on Erin's door and she opened it slowly wearing a denim boy scout cap. She had slitted eyes and a stifled grin.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah," she sang and shrugged, "I just....had some wine."

She was shopping for dresses online and listening to Outkast. She slid into her sink area and did an odd slow-slidey dance with a bigger grin.

"Are you sure you can ride a bike?"

"Yeah," she said, "I'm just... wearing a hat. That's all. I'm allowed to wear a hat aren't I? Give me a couple minutes."

We pedaled off into the night and Erin was swerving. She suddenly pointed and said, "There's an animal! Like a kitten or a puupy or something. A squirrel! I haven't seen any squirrels here yet. Ran across the road."

"Are you sure you're ok to ride a bicycle?"

"Yes! I saw an animal, that's all. You saw it, too."

"I'm talking about the swerving."

I noticed she only had one hand on the handlebars, the other seemed to be digging into a pocket.

"Erin, put your other hand on the handlebars."

"My hand is cold."

"Erin Rock, stop the bike!"


We stopped and I gave her my gloves.


"We can catch a cab at the hotel if you're not okay to ride a bike."

"It was an animal!"And so on....


We arrived at the club after a stressful ride of watching her turn her head to say something to me, and seeing her hands turn with her head, then overcorrect and almost hit the rail. It's a miracle she didn't eat shit. She wanted to go into Ming Tien for some french fries, promising she'll be up soon, that if she didn't eat something, she would throw up.

I went up, and MC told me I could spin in ten minutes. Some other guy was there with short died blond hair, spinning that horrid Chinese R&B crap. I went up front and chatted Andy up while the weird raffle commenced. I saw some kids on the upper deck with glow bracelets.

"Where did they get those? Here?"

Andy nodded, motioned behind the bar.

"How much?"

Andy waved it off, handed them to me, one red, one blue. Hot. He even helped put them on me. I went back to the dance floor, was given the cue to begin and launched into some high energy stuff. Since no one really responds to hip hop, I thought I would put in some trance, hard house stuff so the transition into their set would be easier. Asian Dub Foundation "Ta Deem", that "Yeke Yeke" song from the Beach soundtrack, then I had Underworld "Cups" cued up and some guy in a sweater came up and grabbed my headphones, nodded and switched channels, prematurely starting the next cut. I thought perhaps he was a DJ for tonight, but then he just went out to the dancefloor. Touching another DJ's decks is grounds for getting one's ass beat, is it not? He did some male stripper dance on the railing, an ass dance one could only call the "paintshaker."

After some Faithless and a Killing Joke remix, the blond guy returned to the stage, slipped in a CD. I felt like I had suffieciently set him up with a fast tempo to go off of, and I had people on the dance floor. He lowered the levels on my track and raised the levels on his track which was......that Chinese R&B shit again! Arrggghhhh! DJ Balldropper. DJ Hard-on Killer. I left the stage in disgust. The kineticity was snuffed. He eventually played a proper dance set, but he didn't edit out the intros to some songs, so dancers were left to wait for 30 second intervals until the beat began.

I danced around with the bracelets in short bursts, trying to be kind to my leg. During one session of breath-catching, a string of three girls holding hands left the dance floor and headed towards me. Two disappeared immediately as the first one came over and shouted, "Where are you from?"

I leaned in over the loudness and barked "America."

"What's your name?"

"David. What's your name?"

"(Chinese garble)."

"Do you have an English name?"

"(Chinese garble)."

"Do you live in Haimen?"

She nodded and went back to the dance floor. Encouraging. Perhaps if I'm enough of a fixture at one place, my novelty will dim to the point where I'm approachable. I even tried to give my bracelets to a couple girls and they accepted them. Progress!

Erin came later, full of french fries. We danced, left about ten minutes early, pedaled on home discussing dumplings.

My legs were hurting a lot. I took a couple Motrin and emailed to try and take my mind off the pain. I tried to put more weight on the other leg while dancing, but that just made both of them hurt. It reminded me of when I was a kid. I used to have inner leg pain that my mom called cramps, but I know now that's not what they were. This pain was very similar, if not an adult version of it. Warm milk used to be administered in those days, but I know that's mostly a placebo. It was more to get me unconscious with the tryptophan. If it's that same leg pain, why is it back now? It was soccer then, is it dancing now? Is it some kind of childhood memory peeking out from the time porridge, as a way to map my lifeline? A red flag for this leg pain here, and another here, draw a line between the two, etc. Nutty. These thoughts set me adrift as sleep's gossamer fog descended.

November 6th: lazy saturday

so, i woke up at like 12:30 or so, and lazily sat around for a few minutes before showering. i was a bit hungry, but had no food in the house, or more accurately, i had no food i was interested in eating. that lack of food was what spurned me to get showered. i shaved my face, but not my head. i had the time, but not the inclination. i hate when my head shaving and my face shaving get out of sync, though....

after the shower, i went down to ludlow to get some caffeine (which i hadn't had since the night before) at sitwell's and visit gabe at the esquire theater. i hoped the pretty girl with the striking blue eyes was working at sitwell's, but alas, no.

[she was the one who took my order last night, and who, upon hearing my order for a mocha java, looked disappointed and recommended a different drink, her favorite, but one with a name that sounded disturbingly like something starbuck's would serve. i tried it and, to my surprise, it was nice. it was similar to an iced mocha java (hence the recommendation), but different, almost... spicier. i'll have to ask her to remind me of the name the next time i see her. at least, that should give me a way to strike up a conversation with her.]

i ordered an iced mocha java from the blonde girl who is seemingly always there, and walked next door to the esquire. not only was gabe working, but chicken was as well. i chatted for a moment, during which they revealed (or rather, reminded me of) their plans for hanging out later in the evening and invited me along. i promised that if baby kitty turned out to be too tired to hang out very late, i would definitely come over. they had a cigarette break outside, and i joined them in the alley, though i dont smoke.

after a scatalogical chat, i made my goodbyes in order to make a much-needed trip to kroger (that's why i left the house, remember?). i gathered cereal & milk, instant oatmeal (for work), spare packs of gum (i chew a lot of it), and some bread & cheese (also for work). just before entering the checkout line, i remembered i'd lost my kroger card a month earlier. i sidestepped that line for the one at the service desk. after waiting for a university of cincinnati student to cash his tuition check, i registered a kroger card to one Glenn Danzig at 15 Credibility Street. newly carded, i made my purchase, and drove home.

during the drive, i got another couple minutes of the audio book version of John Irving's Widow for One Year, which is my standard car listening right now. at twenty-four hours in total length, though, this thing is taking forever.

once home, i needed a dvd to watch while i consumed my cereal. a quick glance at the floor next to the couch (which is really a spare bed) revealed the dvd of Drop Dead Fred, which i had gotten free with a papa john's pizza a few weeks earlier. i made it about an hour into it (i say "about", but i noticed that when i hit stop, the counter read exactly 1:00:00) before i got kind of bored. i love rik mayall, but the film wasn't all that great. i put in a load of laundry to wash, and also cleared the empty boxes from my kitchen. i still haven't properly moved in, and i've been here since april.

at 5:30, i picked up baby kitty from her work (the CAC), and we went to her house. we ordered a pizza and put on alien, which i'd started at her house earlier in the week when looking for something to pass a few minutes. after only twenty minutes of a promised forty-five-minutes-to-an-hour, the pizza arrived, delivered by my friend grover. thus my pizza/cereal requirements were fulfilled for the day.

mcdeviltoast, i knew, had been catching erin up on the alien movies in china, so when i'd noticed the first of the films in baby kitty's selection a couple days before, i'd thrown it on. when i saw it originally, some dozen years ago, perhaps, i'd only known one of the very small cast: sigourney weaver, the gatekeeper from ghostbusters. now, however, i had a much more complete arsenal of knowledge than that adolescent version of me. in addition to the gatekeeper, i now recognized ian holm, from, amongst other things, brazil and garden state, both of which i've seen for the first time this year. also, i now knew harry dean stanton, of fire walk with me's "that's just more shit i gotta do" fame. and john hurt, of many many films, including the fired and recorded over new blood. rounding out the familiar faces was a young tom skerritt, whom i only know from his role as the father in the other sister. so now, i recognized a full 62.5% of the cast, including the alien but not the cat. not bad. oh, and the giger art, now that i'm familiar with his work, fucking floored me. [incidentally, i should mention that i love the film. if i like the rest, i think i'll pick them up some time.]

baby kitty, as i surmised, didnt make it too long past the movie. after all, she'd just worked, and even gotten up early to go to a meeting at the esquire (her second job). i called gabe and went over, afterstopping by my place again to tell the drier to finish drying (which it doesnt do well). chicken, chance, nick, and gabe (i love the oxford comma) all had chemical refreshment of the DXM kind, while i stayed sober. we played video games and conversed, and later, we scattered.

i blogged for a bit, and chatted with aaron in china, who was much surprised that i was still up. he sent me a link to the end of the world. it's sweet. in return i turned him onto joel veitch.

now i think i'll have a bowl of cereal and then crash.

November 5th: the stonewaller & the absence of forethought

Day 49

Woke and had Chinese breakfast. It's official: the sausage rolls are the new favorite, although they could stand to be hotter.

Classes went smoothly, save one. A boy in the back was refusing to tell me what his parents' jobs were. He stood silently, not looking at me, not saying anything.

A boy up front said, "He can't speak English."

"Can't or won't?"

Another girl said, "He can, but he does not like to speak English."

"He has to speak English, this is English class. My job (the lesson, after all, was jobs) is to teach you English, the students' job is to speak English. If he does not do his job, I will have to send him to the teacher's office."

This was met with gasps. I pleaded with him, still he stood silent. I could not let this go, otherwise more students would assume they could get out of participating in class by stonewalling. I went to the next person, telling him: "We'll come back to you. You're not off the hook, buddy."

I don't think he understood the words, but he reamined standing, so it seemed like he did. After all the others had gone, I returned to him, begged him to tell me what his parents' jobs were. He wouldn't look at me. Other students around him said things in Chinese to him and he looked at them, still said nothing.

"He doesn't want to speak English," the girl said again.

I counted to five, which the students joined in on, making the situation that much more dramatic. Still he said nothing. I stood by the door, gestured.

"Go to the teacher's office."

He still stood there, stonefaced and silent.

"Hello? Go to the teacher's office. I want you to go to the teacher's office."

He wouldn't budge. I sent a girl in the front row to go get another teacher. She left and the girl from before said again, "He does not like to speak English. He is..." and made a circle next to her temple with an index finger, the universal sign for "crazy."

Suddenly I was wearing a huge cloak of relief, with a lining made from the finest blend of embarrasment and shame. Here I was unintentionally tormenting this retarded or autistic boy the entire class period, big bad American. I motioned for him to sit.

"It's ok," I said, then I began to laugh. Like the Ultraman situation, why didn't they just tell me he was mental to begin with, damn it? When he stood, his chair had tipped over, and when he sat, he sat on it without picking it up as if that was the most natural thing in the world. He maintained the same stony visage the entire time. He evoked "Benjy" from "The Sound and the Fury", albeit a taciturn version.

The girl returned with the teachers and I took them into the hall, explained."It's ok. They told me he was (crazy gesture.) Everything's fine. I'm sorry. Everything's ok." They left and class went back to normal.

I stopped by the arts building and saw Feng Jao Li, asked her about going to the club later. She said she had plans with her parents. Her phone rang and I sat there for a few minutes while she prattled on. I heard a male voice on the other end and when she hung up I asked,

"Boyfriend?"She nodded and grinned. A-ha. The ambiguity is over and I'm glad I didn't use the "do you like me as boyfriend" phrase that Johnny's girlfriend gave me.

There is a tendency for most males to misinterpret niceness as "being hit on" and likewise interpret "being hit on" as niceness. I believe this is because when a female is being "nice" she is unguarded, she has no agendas, so she is being natural, which is immensely attractive, and she is unaware of her conversation nor smiles.

However, when she's in "hit on" mode, I think the interaction is guarded, it's the niceness again, but watered down, subconsciously she's playing it down because she doesn't want to be blatant. But this guarded "hit on" ploy is perceived by the male as mere niceness. An ironic quandary, yes?

Erin and I treated ourselves to dinner at the hotel. I had a shot of Glenfiddich,and we spilt two Tsingtao, ate some pizza. I had the "meat sauce" pizza again and this time there were chunks of onion and haphazard green olives on it. I also found three rogue pieces of corn hiding under the crust; a reconnaisaance corn squad intent on establishing a beach head on my plate.

see if you can spot the rogue corn.

Erin had no classes to teach today, but her teacher comrades neglected to tell her so, and she ended up wasting her day sitting in the office, then leaving in disgust.

There's a lack of synaptic connection here in China, that seems to be citywide, if not countrywide. There is no forethought. My students didn't have the forethought that if they had told me at the beginning of the situation about his being mental, the matter would have been instantly solved. Erin's teaching comrades didn't have the forethought to tell her when the testing would be over, merely told her testing was happening AFTER Erin went up to each successive class. My other students didn't have the forethought to just say "Ultraman" (an ENGLISH word) to bring clarity to what they were trying to explain. People on the street don't have the forethought that maybe if they step into the road, traffic might be coming or to look ahead a half block to anticipate where they need to pilot their bikes. This forethought stuff seems like common sense, but it's actually a by-product of an impatient society obsessed with efficiency.

After dinner we went to the supermarket so Erin could get a mop and I could get a bottle of wine. I blogged a bit, drank the wine, rode out to the club alone, since Erin was eager to use her new cleaning supplies. She's a bit of a nutter about cleanliness. One time when we were out, she saw a rat and had to go home and shower, just from having laid eyes on it.

I went to the other club first and people were piling out. A floor show had started: two girls on roller skates in teal leotards (one a teenager, one 7 years old) doing crazy acrobatics to bad music. I sipped my Heineken and watched as the bigger girl produced a looped strap, and placing one end of the strap around her own head, and the other around her partner's head, spun in a circle, while the little girl hung by her head, doing a kind of mid-air windmill. I laughed in an "I'm frightened" kind of way. And me without my camera. I downed my Heineken before any more disturbing shit could eke its way into my cranium, left.

I pedaled to Andy's club and the MC was DJing. Johnny passed me the mic and I got on the stage, rallied the people, rapped "Tricky" once MC put it on. It didn't matter if I was drunkenly messing up the words. They didn't know what I was saying, I was just a hairy American jumping around and being energetic, rhythmically shouting stuff at them. I danced, worked up a good sweat. A little boy had an armful of glow bracelets and I asked if I could have a couple by pointing at them, holding up two fingers, and then pointing at my chest. Eventually, he gave them to me and I danced around with them for a while, got winded, took a break and left the bracelets on the dance floor. No one touched them. Maybe they thought touching them would give them "hairy face and big shoes" disease.

I pedaled home, damp and spent, demanding passersby for dumplings and cursing them when they didn't have any.

O, how I slept.

play

I think that they want to keep you in the piano room forever!

McDeviltoast goes Klinger

someone should tell Aaron: it ain't korea, it's china.

November 4th: perils of piano playing

Day 48

Classes went smoothly.

My one class has nicknamed me Ultraman from the Halloween lesson last week: When we were discussing costumes they kept saying something in Chinese and holding their arms in what looked like Robin Williams' "Applause 'o meter." I couldn't understand and they kept saying the Chinese and I kept saying I don't understand and this went on for five minutes and finally someone brought up a picture and pointed.

"Ultraman?" I asked.

The class nodded, smiled. "Ultraman," they replied.

"Why didn't you just say Ultraman?! I KNOW Ultraman!! I don't know (hand signals) or (chinese gobbledygook). Just SAY ULTRAMAN!!"

We all laughed like a bastard. So now I'm Ultraman in that class.

English names are becoming rampant in the Mike and Charlie class. Now there's Jay and Tom and there's one kid who's kind of dumpy and always wears a track suit that I want to christen "Pauly Walnuts."

After lunch I went to play piano but all the doors were locked. This was very frustrating. I'm trying to work on the new song, which I've added a new section to. It's blossoming into another operetta, like "Good Morning, Goodbye," but it's got a ragtime roots America stomp to it. I'm becoming obsessed with figuring it out. As far as writing songs goes, it's often more like figuring out a mathematic proof.

I went to the canteen to get Erin some bubbles. I had to pantomime the ritual of blowing bubbles, but the clerks still didn't know what I wanted. I happened upon the last three bottles by blind luck. In Chinese, bubbles are "sou poh la."

The computer guys were not in all day, so I couldn't get the remote, but that also meant I could justifiably retain the dvd player. How could I return it if they weren't there?I cleaned the Alien 3 dvd as best I could, then let it play while I blogged. When it got to the point where it froze last time, I called Erin over and we watched a couple more minutes, but then it froze again.

Frustration. I had to describe the ending to properly set Erin up for Alien: Resurrection, which played with no difficulty.

I then went to play piano, to hammer away at that song some more. One door was unlocked and I set to it, lost in my music. I looked down at my watch after my hands ached and saw it was 10:30. I wondered why the lady with the keys hadn't come to kick me out yet.

I went to leave and found I had been locked in. I tried the other door, but it was always locked. Panic was on me like lice.

I tried the piano room doors, but they were locked. I tried each one in succession, hoping the one I had just come from hadn't locked behind me. I began to get shortness of breath when I found my door again (it's a round pagoda and difficult to tell where you just came from, everything looks the same, and it was dark) I went to use the back door to get out onto the patio rim that lines the building. THAT door was locked. This was ridiculous.

I unlatched a window, slid it over and wriggled out, glad to taste night air and equally glad I didn't have to break anything to escape. I can't help but think my being locked in wasn't an accident. The light was on in my practice room, on the first floor, visible to whomever was supposed to check the building. Accident or act of malice, I have pledged not to play after dark anymore. I'll take a hint, even if it's from the universe as a whole.

Blogged and slept.

Bible thumping morons

I start the esquire today. Yay. I hate welding in sculpture. I think that I'm going to leave class right after I get done typing this because everyone is one every stupid thing that I need to use so I'm going to have to come in after class. I'm being a real sour puss today. Sorry. It must be all of the orange shit I have all over my hands from that shitty metal like the kinda of music that is all trendy now. Yeah, fuck those people too.

Okay, Aaron your surprise needs fluff and tweeking and then it's airborn. Sorry about being so angry, but I just , I donno, it's just one of those days.

photoshop tricks

Gabe showed me some fancy Photoshop tricks last night. Here's something we did:

(click for larger size)

neat, huh? We made a QEG logo, too.

November 3rd: transcontinental malaise

Day 47

Woke and turned on the BBC as election results streamed in. It was like watching a protracted horse race, a gutwrenching endurance test. I think we Americans went from holding our golden ticket of certainty to slowly dawning that our horse may be barely edged out, centimeters really, and that we had bet the country on it. The gold flaked off, it became sweaty and creased in our nervous, wringing hands, and most of us had crumpled it up in disgust by the last lap.

The malaise had returned. All the new voters who were energized by their "power" to vote slipped back into their bitter, hopeless skins. It seems our generation has been given another proxy excuse for apathy. I suspect a sharp drop-off in voting numbers next time, fueled by an "I voted last time and it didn't do any good" ethos.

Well, this guy refuses to be crushed. With Bush still in office, he now has to rise to the challenges of all his promises, and we can only impeach him if he's still president. Like Elbow and the cast of thousands at Glastonbury sang, "We still believe in love, so fuck you."

Classes went well. I left the burden of the lesson on them, trying to get them to interact more, practice their speech. I've worked in a new speech tool, the "L." When they said "soldier" it sounded like "sohjuh." I drew a diagram and told them that when they say "L", their tongue should touch the roof of their mouth, and we practiced with a Middle Eastern battle cry: "Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalal!" They loved that.

One class had drawn on the board for me: "Welcome to our class! You are cool today!" Cute.

Erin and I watched "Alien 3" but the dvd froze about 20 minutes from the end. With no remote, I couldn't eject it and get it back to where it was. The player only has 'play/pause', 'stop', and 'open/close.' I wanted to get the remote from the computer guys, if one exists, but I also didn't want to have to give back the player. I told them I would give it back "tomorrow" and that was three days ago.

I ate a couple Drumsticks (the ice cream cone jobs) as comfort food. Double chocolate, rubbery cone. I had ridden out to the supermarket earlier, seething and dangerously close to losing my temper. A car turned in front of me, inches from my front tire. I yelled and shook my fist. Another lady almost hit me head-on with her bicycle. I took deep breaths. "You are upset with America, not the Chinese. The Chinese did not re-elect a dangerous criminal liar numbskull shitbag, they had nothing to do with it. Your quarrel is not with the Chinese. Settle down." I calmed.

Sleep was uneasy.

Woof.

Not a single person i voted for won. Not one. It sure reminds me that I'm in a Republican state.

Also solidified is my constant assertion that rednecks like Bush. Take a look at CNN's results map: red = rural/rednecks. Especially check out their map of Ohio results. Counties with cities: Democrat or only weakly Republican. Rural counties: Republican.

And don't even get me started on the 3,242,160 "yes" votes on the gay marriage amendment. Apparently most Ohioans are bigots.

Assholes.

November 2nd: the job lesson

Day 46

Chinese breakfast was a little underwhelming today. Drank twice my usual amount of coffee but it contributed to a vigorous first two classes, full of energy and fun. I had the kids name what their father did for a job, and then went from my own list, trying to nail those tricky hard English "R's."

Lunch was pretty tasty and then my last two classes were a steaming bowl of suck. I think all the kids just decided to say "office worker" and then when I challenged their authenticity, half the class would say they were lying and half said it was truth. Who do I believe? And why did they think it was cute to wreck my lesson? At one point I stood outside to take a deep breath. It was mostly to illustrate that I was "being serious." When I went back inside they were quieter and more agreeable, for a few minutes. I didn't have to send anyone to the office, but I think a couple of the bad kids from the "apathy crew" are playing a bathroom game now. Last week, one kid asked permission to use the bathroom, this week it was "Mary." Next week, I shall have to refuse. There is after all, a ten minute break between classes and I'm not sure if teachers extend the courtesy and leniance I've already shown.

Dinner had actual egg rolls! Filled with something like spanikopita. Delicious.

On my way to play piano, I passed Feng Jao Li, whom I haven't seen in weeks, but she waved me off. She was crying about something. I shrugged and went on, played for 45 minutes.

I debated going to the supermarket for wine, but the weed burning had resumed and I held jacket-over-mouth for the brisk walk back to the dorm.

I wrote a bio/press release for Paperback and emailed it to Jenn for the big CD release hullabaloo. Wish I could be there for it.

Erin and I watched Aliens, then election coverage on BBC. My stomach was twisting from the suspense. Blogged to take my mind off it.

Turned in, hoping the news in the morning would be good.

I Voted Today

Yes. I did. Is that one of the signs of the forthcoming apocalypse? No, I'm just trying to prevent one.

I've never gotten one of these before:

That's the actual sticker that I now am wearing. The last time I voted was in 1992, and I had done that one by absentee ballot, so i didn't get a sticker.

Oh, and I got to meet John Cameron Mitchell this weekend, too:

in case you don't know who he is, here's a hint:

He was out trying to get out the vote. He's one of my heroes, so I was well pleased to meet him.

More details on the past weekend later.

November 1st: breaking Alien hymen

Day 45

Woke, had lunch, did laundry, played piano, had dinner.

Afterwards, I visited the computer chaps in hopes of borrowing a VCD to watch. They had none, said, "No VCD, only DVD."

"Can I borrow one of those then?"

Assuming they would put a stack of Stuart Little and Shrek titles in my hand, they actually disconnected a DVD player and handed that to me. Hot! I rode out to the old DVD/CD store and stood for 45 minutes deliberating what to get. I didn't want to get something that was only in Chinese, or French, and I debated getting something I haven't seen versus something with a lot of good old Hollywood overblown special effects. I split the difference with the Alien quadrilogy. (I thought I was only getting two, but each case had two, so it was all four.)

I pedaled back, hooked up the machine and knocked on Erin's door.

"Can I borrow your wine key?"

"Sure."

"Do you want to watch Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection?"

"I haven't seen any of them."

"Well, we'll start with the first one, then."

What a treat, to be the first to expose someone to these films. And how lucky for her first viewing to be a clean transfer, not having suffered through the first one as a blurry pan-and-scan home video for years. I warned her of the bastard piece of excrement Alien vs. Predator, instructed her to avoid it like Carrot Top. I gave her the rundown on all the directors and gushed in geek trivia utopia.

She loved it, yet laughed at the chest-bursting scene (thanks to Mel Brooks' "Spaceballs") and assured me she would likely have nightmares.

I finished my wine, decided on a job lesson for this week, asking them what their parents do, and a game of job-based charades to wind up the class. Blogged, went to bed.