It's been raining water and work. A couple of nights ago, when I should have been able to squeeze a session in, I stumbled while wearing flipflops and scraped my toes on the nasty nasty road and got an infected scrape on my ollie foot. This is why no one likes hippies. Their toes are always infected. TC and a friend invited me out to skate street, but my filthy disgusting toe betrayed me. It's the same piece of shit that always drags on the ground when I try to skate flatground.
Their session got rained out, so I invited them to beer up on my roof. Then a few more homies arrived, and then more, and suddenly, I had a sunday night Young Bldz party on my roof. Etoh opened up our conversation (their English is still better than my mandarin) and we ended up climbing onto the roof of my roof's roof. I took some precarious pictures of them, and they dabbed and sang their favorite songs to the rooftops below. I'm glad I could watch them share this rainy cold windy night of liquor and happiness. I hope they come back. I wish, as their elder, I had some advice for their life, but I don't. I gave them some unsolicited advice anyway. Hopefully, they were too drunk to listen.
Lzyk left Taipei today.
One of these days, I'm gonna get back on that rollerboard.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Monday, March 18, 2019
Jeez Louize
My penthouse paradise now includes a deck and garden. The PH, who is the reason I was able to rent the place to start with, just got to town for a few months. He's improved his mandarin a lot, but I escorted him to get a sim card have a chat. Then I marched to carrefour, bought a shitton of meat and charcoal, and grilled in the drizzle. The PH had a growler of top notch beer, and a bottle of Lagavulin, most of which we finished off. Don't drink with Canadians on work nights. I woke up feeling like a broken man. I soldiered through the day and now I'm on supper break, before I go back in. I don't have much appetite though.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
I may not have gone where I wanted to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be
We ended up, RMJ and I, walking in the rain, through our favorite city, four hours after midnight, talking. It's hard to put it in order of anykind, but before we did that, we were talking and walking in the not rain, from minquan. And then before that, we were talking with a Canadian on a trip, at the old stoop, and previously, a well dressed Taiwanese gentleman, and his Thai friend, who was sober, and his Afrikaaner friend, who was Afrikaner drunk. She wanted to try skating, but the surface was already wet and she was also already more than a few drinks in. She tried to knee me in the balls and hugged everyone around. I told her, "dit is a plaisur, om yo te unt mut', but I have no idea how to spell that. Thanks Eddie. I saw tehm at the corner, dacning, so I tap danced on the ground, and they came over, but lord knows why. Before that, IS left in a taxi. It was already really, really late when he left. I took a photo of the smiley face sticker I put in the beer aisle of the fami four years ago. I couldn't belive it's still there. before that, IS and RMJ and I stooped up on the old stoop. In the preceeding moments, we talked and drank our way across Taipei, skateboards under arm, because of the sprinkling rain. The session had been very very good. we had been kicked out of several spots, including a long pink marble curbed ledge, and a tall balck stone one. Miraculously , we didn't get kicked out of the low black stone long curb/ledge at the place we always get kicked out of in 5 seconds. we also skated the pink dolpin bumps. Before that, we were at the bronze steps, and skated the shit out of them. I had no plan. Time isn't really going forwards or backwards. None of this means much, except for the time we've spent together.
Edit:
The hiccups were back, and I was in agony, for a long time. It made me very ornery.
Edit:
The hiccups were back, and I was in agony, for a long time. It made me very ornery.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
manic depressions are touching my soul I know what I want but I just dont know
I woke up with the opposite of a hangover, whatever that is. I think it's a manic depressive thing that happened to coincide with the morning. I never, ever feel good, until early afternoon, and that's including the mornings without hangovers, of which there have been many lately, because there is no time for skating or drinking or happiness or satisfaction or fulfilment, when there is money to be made in Taipei. Having lived without money for most of my adult life, I've learned to grab the opportunity by the throat and drink the well until it's dry. Then it'll be time for more skating.
It's been raining for weeks, and the last few days have been clear. This morning was extra clear and the golden sun through the window was like a drug experience. I dreamt of lzyk, who I have met up with a few times, siren that she is. I did my pushups and threw on clothes and walked halfway across the city, coffee and 7/11 microwaved meat and melty cheese sandwhich consumed en route, and had class with the d. I've spent more time with him than almost anyone else in my life; we've been working together for almost four years now, one on one. You tend to learn a lot about a person in that kind of setting, and miss them when they're living the good life, snowboarding in japan. I had a few minutes for a lunch break and marched home back across this sunny, windy, lovely city, through throngs of people who aren't really my people and consider me an outsider, but who I now identify with more than americans. I dropped by a goop soup stall for a $1usd lunch, read my new book while I waited (Bill Bryson, 1927) and went upstairs to change clothes.
The only complaining I'll do here, other than capitalism and all its alternatives suck, is that the worksmanship in Taiwan is fucking embarrassing. My rooftop has been slowly painted, over the last month or two, and by that, I mean someone bought watery paint and slapped it all over everything. I came home to find the end of the project. There is a mural, on one wall, which is actually pretty rad, but the back wall is just yellow jizzsplatter, much of which ended up on the floor. The artist tried to not get it on my new wooden grilling deck, but many many many dribbles are on the floor. This paragraph makes me miss the early internet.
I think I forgot this part: on the way back from the d, I went by the electronics plaza, and bought a new battery for my beloved phone. I'm an antimaterialist, if I'm feeling douchy, or I'm not the sort of guy who buys a lot of electronics, if I'm just feeling like a loser. My electric brain is from 2013, and I spent at least an hour at Guanwa looking for a new battery. The manic stage of the day began when I finally found a hovel on the four or fifth floor, with at least 1,000 species of battery, who gave me a very decent and good price for it, so I also bought an external charger that is solar powered. I have no idea anymore if that is a thing in the west or not. I have never seen it before. The motherfucker can charger from my overhead lights. Seems too good to be true. Impulse buy: $1500. At least I barely made profit on the day.
I did so because I went to teach teens in the evening. This is usually the worst job in Taipei, after toilet cleaning and anything to do with customer service. My coworker was furiously arguing with his ct about why he couldn't hold a bad student 5 min after class. He wanted to help the student improve, she wanted to please the parents. This is why Taiwan is fucked, in the long run. Anyway, I taught some kids about asceles and anopheles, and albopictus, who is just a flying asshole, and then I marched home across the city and found that I had two bottles of jinro in the fridge, so although I am grossly over budget for the day, I can nurture a buzz and then type these moronic thoughts out.
No shit, I have a student named Adolph, which is maybe the first name I've ever posted here, but it's out of the need to tell people not to use the name Adolph, when picking an English name for their kid (which is weirdly pretentious and imultaneously pathetically insecure, but almost universal in Taiwan. I mean, I even have a Taiwanese name on my ID card. Why do we have to make up new names? I hope if I ever meet extraterrestrials, they won't asked me to give them a trendy new name to give to their genetic descendents).
I taught mosquito class well, but no one was really into it, because pneumonia is a more trendy topic (#3) and they (all of society, not the class) have instantly forgotten what used to kill 60-80% of people here (ATM disease, and mosquitos).
I marched home and got into said jinro. tomorrow is gonna come early.
Any drug that would make me wake up feeling like I did 19 hours ago; I would take that, without hesitation, every night. You don't get to start off ahead of the game very often.
It's been raining for weeks, and the last few days have been clear. This morning was extra clear and the golden sun through the window was like a drug experience. I dreamt of lzyk, who I have met up with a few times, siren that she is. I did my pushups and threw on clothes and walked halfway across the city, coffee and 7/11 microwaved meat and melty cheese sandwhich consumed en route, and had class with the d. I've spent more time with him than almost anyone else in my life; we've been working together for almost four years now, one on one. You tend to learn a lot about a person in that kind of setting, and miss them when they're living the good life, snowboarding in japan. I had a few minutes for a lunch break and marched home back across this sunny, windy, lovely city, through throngs of people who aren't really my people and consider me an outsider, but who I now identify with more than americans. I dropped by a goop soup stall for a $1usd lunch, read my new book while I waited (Bill Bryson, 1927) and went upstairs to change clothes.
The only complaining I'll do here, other than capitalism and all its alternatives suck, is that the worksmanship in Taiwan is fucking embarrassing. My rooftop has been slowly painted, over the last month or two, and by that, I mean someone bought watery paint and slapped it all over everything. I came home to find the end of the project. There is a mural, on one wall, which is actually pretty rad, but the back wall is just yellow jizzsplatter, much of which ended up on the floor. The artist tried to not get it on my new wooden grilling deck, but many many many dribbles are on the floor. This paragraph makes me miss the early internet.
I think I forgot this part: on the way back from the d, I went by the electronics plaza, and bought a new battery for my beloved phone. I'm an antimaterialist, if I'm feeling douchy, or I'm not the sort of guy who buys a lot of electronics, if I'm just feeling like a loser. My electric brain is from 2013, and I spent at least an hour at Guanwa looking for a new battery. The manic stage of the day began when I finally found a hovel on the four or fifth floor, with at least 1,000 species of battery, who gave me a very decent and good price for it, so I also bought an external charger that is solar powered. I have no idea anymore if that is a thing in the west or not. I have never seen it before. The motherfucker can charger from my overhead lights. Seems too good to be true. Impulse buy: $1500. At least I barely made profit on the day.
I did so because I went to teach teens in the evening. This is usually the worst job in Taipei, after toilet cleaning and anything to do with customer service. My coworker was furiously arguing with his ct about why he couldn't hold a bad student 5 min after class. He wanted to help the student improve, she wanted to please the parents. This is why Taiwan is fucked, in the long run. Anyway, I taught some kids about asceles and anopheles, and albopictus, who is just a flying asshole, and then I marched home across the city and found that I had two bottles of jinro in the fridge, so although I am grossly over budget for the day, I can nurture a buzz and then type these moronic thoughts out.
No shit, I have a student named Adolph, which is maybe the first name I've ever posted here, but it's out of the need to tell people not to use the name Adolph, when picking an English name for their kid (which is weirdly pretentious and imultaneously pathetically insecure, but almost universal in Taiwan. I mean, I even have a Taiwanese name on my ID card. Why do we have to make up new names? I hope if I ever meet extraterrestrials, they won't asked me to give them a trendy new name to give to their genetic descendents).
I taught mosquito class well, but no one was really into it, because pneumonia is a more trendy topic (#3) and they (all of society, not the class) have instantly forgotten what used to kill 60-80% of people here (ATM disease, and mosquitos).
I marched home and got into said jinro. tomorrow is gonna come early.
Any drug that would make me wake up feeling like I did 19 hours ago; I would take that, without hesitation, every night. You don't get to start off ahead of the game very often.
Friday, March 1, 2019
Campage Rampage
Trigger Warning: There will no mention of skating in this post.
One mystifying aspect of Taipei culture is that sort of like New Yorkers, they view anything outside the city limits as impossibly distant places. Hualian is two hours away by train. It's a tropical paradise with white and black sand beaches, crystal clear rivers, baby blue ocean, towering green jungle mountains with deep gorges and billowing rain clouds. This time of year, it's not particularly hot or cold. But no one goes there. The total cost was about $600, but we didn't even use the cheapest travel option. I'm glad that the millions of people who live next door in Taipei don't seem interested in Taiwan's beaches. We were the only people on the beach for miles and miles and miles.
We rode out on puyuma in the atrium, because they weren't selling seats anymore. It was drizzly when we got there, and we ended up marching with too much liquid for about an hour up the road (4.2L of water, 8 tall boys, and a bottle of soju). We got to the river bridge, where I planned to cut down to the river bed and walk out to the beach. To my dismay, there was thick jungle and a 10m drop to the path below. We milled around for a bit, like a pair of ants who have lost the scent trail, but decided on a hail mary and crossed the busy five lane hwy and were immediately rewarded with a hidden path entrance down to the river. As we trundled through the undergrowth, RMJ lept to one side and spooked, I looked up to see what was the cause. It was a water buffalo the size of a dinosaur. Triceratops didn't have such big, thick horns. This meat mountain had polished bronze bridles, with well-oiled leather. I wish he hadn't been so scary, it would have been cool to pet him. The snakes in the undergrowth were scary too, but we only passed close to them, never seeing them.
It wasn't apparent that we could stomp through the chest high snake grass to get down to the river until the very last moment when we found a thin stretch to cut through. From there, we were greeted with the surreal sight of a literal mountain of rocks and pebbles, blocking the route to the ocean. The river apparently flows under it into the salt water. We climbed up and over it to two toned blue ocean, either end of the massive beach obscured in the drizzle. We set up camp on the exposed beach near some kind of weather radar station, with a stiff northerly breeze nearly taking my tent with it several times. Because we were the first people to ever visit this desolate beauty, drift wood was everywhere, and within twenty mnutes, we had stacked up about six hours worth of firewood. It was about 14:30.
By 15:30, we were relocating up into the transitional biome between jungle and beach. This was because RMJ realized that the stunted pines offered shelter from the drizzle, and more importantly, the wind. It also had a certain je ne sais quoi, an instinctive feeling that we were safer and cozier there. And we were. From everything but terrible, terrible insect bites, of which I am still suffering severely. More of my arms and legs are covered with thick, itchy welts than isn't. I didn't notice any mosquitos, so maybe it's come culicoides. Ignorant of the horrible itching that would arrive in my future, we grilled kebabs and steak and drank beer and talked. Four hours turned into six, then eight, then I passed out.
I woke up at dawn, talked around, tried to make a fire out of boredom, gave up. I went to sit on the steep rocky beach and watch the waves. The surf is so fierce here that it flings stones up into the air as the wave rushes in, and then sucks the fist sized rocks back towards the depths on the way out, with an uncanny roar that I had never heard before. I wandered back to my tent and read Dune until I feel asleep. Then I was rudely awoken by the scream and gut rumbling roar of our war planes as they ripped across the sky and banked up into the clouds to intercept the feints of the enemy. Or maybe they were just practicing. It looked fun as fuck, to be honest. This went on for about 20 planes.
I ate some sardines (camping breakfast staple) and poked around the sawtoothed cactuses and pine straw and massive amount of humanity's detritus. The whole fucking beach was covered in garbage. I'm not a fan of China by any means, but it's infuriating to hear Taiwanese people bleating about how all the trash washes over from China. None of this trash had labels in simplified mandarin. Taiwan is like a weirdo in an adult diaper shitting all over himself and insisting that it's someone else's fault. Stop throwing your trash everywhere, you trashy trash-throwers. Have some pride in your country. On the walk back, we passed a few farms, one of which was buried under heaps of plastic garbage bags, or at least the other side of the road was. Who could bear to live like that? I never thought I would say this, but I'm a little proud of my redneck childhood, because at least we burned our garbage and never just dumped it literally twenty steps away from our front door on the other side of the fucking street. The train back easy and pleasant. We hung around the apparently abandoned platform for a while, the station once had a ticket counter and waiting area, but it was gutted. The train stopped though. We got on and I scratched my arms and legs all the way back to Taipei. Skate tonight?
One mystifying aspect of Taipei culture is that sort of like New Yorkers, they view anything outside the city limits as impossibly distant places. Hualian is two hours away by train. It's a tropical paradise with white and black sand beaches, crystal clear rivers, baby blue ocean, towering green jungle mountains with deep gorges and billowing rain clouds. This time of year, it's not particularly hot or cold. But no one goes there. The total cost was about $600, but we didn't even use the cheapest travel option. I'm glad that the millions of people who live next door in Taipei don't seem interested in Taiwan's beaches. We were the only people on the beach for miles and miles and miles.
We rode out on puyuma in the atrium, because they weren't selling seats anymore. It was drizzly when we got there, and we ended up marching with too much liquid for about an hour up the road (4.2L of water, 8 tall boys, and a bottle of soju). We got to the river bridge, where I planned to cut down to the river bed and walk out to the beach. To my dismay, there was thick jungle and a 10m drop to the path below. We milled around for a bit, like a pair of ants who have lost the scent trail, but decided on a hail mary and crossed the busy five lane hwy and were immediately rewarded with a hidden path entrance down to the river. As we trundled through the undergrowth, RMJ lept to one side and spooked, I looked up to see what was the cause. It was a water buffalo the size of a dinosaur. Triceratops didn't have such big, thick horns. This meat mountain had polished bronze bridles, with well-oiled leather. I wish he hadn't been so scary, it would have been cool to pet him. The snakes in the undergrowth were scary too, but we only passed close to them, never seeing them.
It wasn't apparent that we could stomp through the chest high snake grass to get down to the river until the very last moment when we found a thin stretch to cut through. From there, we were greeted with the surreal sight of a literal mountain of rocks and pebbles, blocking the route to the ocean. The river apparently flows under it into the salt water. We climbed up and over it to two toned blue ocean, either end of the massive beach obscured in the drizzle. We set up camp on the exposed beach near some kind of weather radar station, with a stiff northerly breeze nearly taking my tent with it several times. Because we were the first people to ever visit this desolate beauty, drift wood was everywhere, and within twenty mnutes, we had stacked up about six hours worth of firewood. It was about 14:30.
By 15:30, we were relocating up into the transitional biome between jungle and beach. This was because RMJ realized that the stunted pines offered shelter from the drizzle, and more importantly, the wind. It also had a certain je ne sais quoi, an instinctive feeling that we were safer and cozier there. And we were. From everything but terrible, terrible insect bites, of which I am still suffering severely. More of my arms and legs are covered with thick, itchy welts than isn't. I didn't notice any mosquitos, so maybe it's come culicoides. Ignorant of the horrible itching that would arrive in my future, we grilled kebabs and steak and drank beer and talked. Four hours turned into six, then eight, then I passed out.
I woke up at dawn, talked around, tried to make a fire out of boredom, gave up. I went to sit on the steep rocky beach and watch the waves. The surf is so fierce here that it flings stones up into the air as the wave rushes in, and then sucks the fist sized rocks back towards the depths on the way out, with an uncanny roar that I had never heard before. I wandered back to my tent and read Dune until I feel asleep. Then I was rudely awoken by the scream and gut rumbling roar of our war planes as they ripped across the sky and banked up into the clouds to intercept the feints of the enemy. Or maybe they were just practicing. It looked fun as fuck, to be honest. This went on for about 20 planes.
I ate some sardines (camping breakfast staple) and poked around the sawtoothed cactuses and pine straw and massive amount of humanity's detritus. The whole fucking beach was covered in garbage. I'm not a fan of China by any means, but it's infuriating to hear Taiwanese people bleating about how all the trash washes over from China. None of this trash had labels in simplified mandarin. Taiwan is like a weirdo in an adult diaper shitting all over himself and insisting that it's someone else's fault. Stop throwing your trash everywhere, you trashy trash-throwers. Have some pride in your country. On the walk back, we passed a few farms, one of which was buried under heaps of plastic garbage bags, or at least the other side of the road was. Who could bear to live like that? I never thought I would say this, but I'm a little proud of my redneck childhood, because at least we burned our garbage and never just dumped it literally twenty steps away from our front door on the other side of the fucking street. The train back easy and pleasant. We hung around the apparently abandoned platform for a while, the station once had a ticket counter and waiting area, but it was gutted. The train stopped though. We got on and I scratched my arms and legs all the way back to Taipei. Skate tonight?
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