I didn't notice it for some time, because I gave myself heatstroke and didn't skate for a week, but my ollie elbow has a long, wide gash. I didn't notice it because without sweating, the gash never stung. I skate tonight. It stung, so I noticed this mysterious gash, all night. One reasonable explanation is alien abduction, but in Taipei, it's unlikely that no asshole on a really loud scooter would notice the spaceship, no matter what time of day. So I'm forced to consider a less likely option: ghost attack.
It wasn't there when I had my first session back, which was primarily a slappy session on a fair to middling hot ass night in Taipei. I did bullshit tricks by myself for hours, and was willing to go home extremely happy, then I hit a pebble trying one last bullshit trick, and ate into a deposit of guano so large that it would have been merited and an invasion of taiwan by foreigners, in the 1870s.
I went home. Both, back to my apartment, and back home to the south, to see the family. As always, the food was the best in my life. I hope my fiance's mother never reads any of this, I would be mortified. If she did, she wouldn't get this far into. But if she did, I just want to let her know that words cannot describe how much I love going to visit, just on the food alone. It doesn't hurt that we set up a pool table in the basement either. Maybe I could eventually move away from Taipei.
We took the bullet train down in the day, and I was shocked by how clear Taipei was of pm2.5. The mountains were crystal clear. Then we went through a tunnel, and into Taoyuan, and it was like Rachel Carson had painted it all. Visibility was about 1 mile, everything was grey, except the fields our food is grown on, which were up close. More than a few hundred meters away, everything fades into a blur of grey poison. Taoyuan must be the worst place in Taiwan, and maybe one of the worst places in the world. I keep hearing anecdotes about how horrible Chinese pollution is, but I can't believe it's much worse than Taoyuan (ok, I think Indian pollution is worse, and I can personally verify that African pollution is definitely worse). Anyway, civilized countries don't have pollution that blots out of the sun.
I wish I had eaten more food.
When we got back, it was almost ideal skating time. I went out just before midnight. I played a game called 'random skateboarding walk through taipei.' Here's how you play it: drink 3L of water. Buy another L. When you get to an intersection, do the biggest {redacted} you possibly can spin, but don't try to land it, just let it fly. The nose points where your skateboard wants to go. It's a perfect game for any city that is flat and compact, like Taipei. My skateboard quickly took me to a spot in my neighborhood where I had to try something at the limit of my ability before I had properly warmed up. I never made it. I did however, shave the hairs off my leg with the new grip tape. I finished the water, and went for a piss and a beer. I skated the streets, and sidewalks and the cracks and the tiles and the worse tiles, and the loose tiles, and the marble, and the granite and cruised almost perfectly randomly around the 1 km circle whose center is my house.
The game brought me to a granite curb under the bridge and over the sewer drainage river. I got some TB's and skated it as hard as a curb can be skated in the smoke of smoulding city (when I got home, I spit a dozen grey loogies into the sink. I can't remember if I washed them out or not. Lzyk is going to be pissed off in about 3 hours if I forgot). I landed whatever nerdy shit I could think of, and bombed the little run back to the stoop. TB's and a light breeze were the reward. Traffic was heavy until I gave up and went home.
I almost bought a video game. It wouldn't load, so I got a refund. I'm glad. This was better. I could have just wasted my time tonight.
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