Public Service Announcement

 As there has been a serious dearth of skate material for an extended period on the blog, I am outsourcing this duty to two authors. I will allow them to introduce themselves as they so desire, and suggest they publish whatever content they deem relevant. If I find the time, I will do my continue the whining section.

How Will You Spent Your Time, Reborn?

 Hey, I got a project, can you help?

If a man asks for help, you help him. I still had a bamboo deck that my sister had given me in detroit, and I fitted some old trucks and hardware and wheels with custom rusted bearings already in place, and gripped her up and took the red line south. 

To put it all out there, I can't ollie anymore. I spent some time trying, and got video evidence that technically, I can, but I feel wobbly like a baby gazelle trying to get to milk before the carnivores get there. We lit up the spot for the homie's video project, and talked about the ethics of skating historic spots and 3c showed up with a couple of friends; one of whom is a painter who likes Schiele, and another guy who I was too awkward to find out about but with whom I expect to hang out in the future. We set up the lights, did the interviews ( I filmed a bit of it. Filming interviews is a bit of a bore, but I'll do anything for IS). 

It felt unbalanced being sober, in unscuffed shoes, unable to skate, on a mostly new set up. I understand why my back is so fucked up now; too much street pushing for too many years, on the same side. Don't forget to push switch kids. Gonna go back to massage torture therapy Monday morning. 

Epilogue

 Skate?

Sorry man, I don't have a board anymore. But I'll walk around with you. 

It was spitting rain. The roads alternated wet and dryish. The temperature was perfect though. We met at my old house and went north. IS battled some marble microspots and took some slams. 

Even in the rain, longs sections of Taipei are smooth and dry because of the overhangs. At one such overhang, he handed me his deck and I threw it down and ollied a few times, finishing with a powerslide. It felt good. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi33-cITS0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DXqXPYj3-Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zPIod2wjYE

It rained more so we went up to the green stairs (which are covered) and he went full bore for a ** **** on the top stair. There is no shame in not making it, provided you've left nothing on the table. IS walked away with his head held high. I can't say the same - I've left a lot on the table. 

Taipei is still a good place to be (maybe the best place in the world to be). Taiwan is still my favorite country in the world. Business is good. I have least a few hours of work everyday; the relentless schedule is getting tiring, but at least I don't have much time for reflection. It's all a bit like eating what you know to be a delicious meal after you've lost your sense of taste. 

Time to go

I woke up to the building shaking as in an earthquake. Only, the shaking didn't stop. The shaking was accompanied by a roar and grind and smash and waterfall of masonry. It went on for some time before I got curious and opened my door. The smell of black mold and diesel exhaust battered my face, and the sounds were instantly louder. My door trembled with my fingers still on the handle. A dinosaurian yellow machine with a long neck and a pair of pincers where its head ought to have been was gobbling up my building. Each bite brought another tremor. The strongest ones rattled my molars. I've grown accustomed to earthquakes, but this was something else entirely. That noone had forewarned me was a situation that should have made me furious, but instead I felt an overwhelming melancholy.
I had lived in this little place for more than a year since the breakup. It was a symbol to me of perseverance, of inner fortitude, of finding a meaning where there was none, and of realizing, with bloody hunks of meat hacked away from my life, what aspects of my life are actually mine and what had grown twisted and deformed, attempting like the climbing fig to make its way around someone else's scaffolding.
I had prepared a ditch-bag long ago, in case of soil liquification during a massive earthquake in Taipei Basin, or a typhoon that knocked out power for weeks, or a Chinese attack (my plan was to literally head for the hills and hope for the best). But the situations in which I ditched were not such that I could make use of my bag. Told in a fit of rage to move out of our house, I moved to this new one - iodine tablets and fire starters weren't any use that night.
Now, with a yellow monster gnawing on my building, my compass and signal mirror and camping food and wetwipes weren't of any use either.
I did my best to prioritize. First, I packed up my laptop, wallet, keys, ID lanyard, cellphone and charger, and notebook. Afterall, these survival tools are how I pay for my life. Time and again, they have proven their worth.
Next I packed appropriate clothing - a couple of suit jackets, dress pants, lobster socks, my best ties, and two pairs of work shoes. Without the appropriate clothing, a man can die in a survival situation. The windows were rattling the whole time. My jugs of homebrewed fruit wine sloshed back and forth in tandem. I would have to leave them to hungry machine.
I carried my essential gear downstairs, and left it at the gate so that I could climb the shaking, shivering stairs again to retrieve more possessions. Dust shook off the ceiling and walls of the stairwell as I climbed. The machine had already devoured sections of the building. Crumbled concrete with twists of haggard rebar grumbled and groaned under the treads of the angry machine. I could see into my neighbor's former houses: humble kitchens with the stainless steel sinks so common in Taiwan, a nursery with padded interlocked tiles on the floor and a brightly colored jungle mural, a bed room with shelves disgorging their charges onto the rubble, a white tiled bathroom with happy tropical fish stickers on the tiles and a moldy white shower curtain, a studio with no windows, a recently remodeled apartment with either wood or fake wood on floor and ceiling, and I sobbed, because this wasn't mine, but it was where I had been and now it was going.
Reluctantly, despite the constant tremors and shakes and terrific grinding, I made a few more trips, emptied the fridge, washed out the bathroom, and wrote some letters to the people I hadn't had time to say goodbye to.
After a while, I reached a point where the things left in my house weren't going to be of any use anymore. I had lots of clothes that I hadn't worn in years, if at all. I had bottles of alcohol, mostly empty. I had all kinds of rubbish and junk and jetsam that hadn't been useful even before the machine's arrival. There was a book of small paintings my sister had painted for me. I took it. There was a roll of posters of my mother's photography that had been intended for my exwife's family. I left them. They were too heavy.
It was time to go.

No Children

I rode the night train to the east coast cause I was miserable. The whole country was asleep, at home in their warm beds. The train was almost empty. The rain made the also almost empty streets glisten. It sparkled and streaked on the windows. I felt sad. I couldn’t see much, but I didn’t want to. I read “JM Roberts History of the World”. I got in the wrong train and got delayed for an hour at an empty station. I got in the next train and rode all the way to the beach. I showed my woefully underpaid and incorrect ticket to the stationmaster (who was wearing gangster shorts and flip flops) and he stared at me for six seconds and said “welcome come to taiwan” and he waved me through because doing the paperwork to make me pay for my fare in the middle of the night wasn’t worth it. Then I hiked to the spot. Now I’m looking at very many stars. East coast has very many stars.

White Men Can't Eat

AG, my Moroccan neighbor, is moving out. Our landlord took us to eat with her friends and their families at an glamorous upscale restaurant. The foreigners were gently mocked for only being able to eat such tiny portions. The food was top quality, and I was shoveling it into my mouth the entire time (3 hours), because my mandarin is weak and after my apparently impressive personal introduction, I didn't want anyone to know how bad my language abilities actually are.

Aziz and I had a round of beers on the roof last night and I asked him about his impressions of Taiwan.

"It's nothing but eating, all the time," he said, "Only eating. It's very safe from crime, and the people are lovely, but the traffic is like Morocco, especially in the south. But most of all, it's just so much food."

They are all partying downstairs at my landlord's house, eating round two. I'm not going to be able to have anything for at least 12 more hours.

Also, as we chatted last night, I was chopping chili's for a fermented pepper sauce I'm making. I scooped the diced bits into the big honey jar with my left hand, and my hand is still on fire, 12 hours later. It feels like I dipped my hand in fluorosulfuric acid. Actually, I heard that you don't feel that cause it dissolves the nerves or something. Maybe the Gom Jabbar is a better analogy - my hand isn't red or swollen or otherwise visibly affected, but I can feel the skin curling black on that agonized hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remain. But I won't withdraw my hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18scg5TBIok

El amor en los tiempos del coronavirus

Unwilling to go outside until driven there by hunger, I wished for a mask to hide behind. I went to Shida's nightmarket and had soup and stared with hollow eyes at the passing crowds. There is a fruit crepe place there with a friendly owner who made a smiley face on the crepe and wanted me to be happy but I couldn't pull my face up. So I went back home.

What is Well-Planted Will Not Be Uprooted

It was the Lantern Festival. She bowed three times in quick succession, in front of a waist high metal bowl. In the bowl was quiver of long thin wooden sticks, with numbers carved into the bottoms. She asked a silent question, and then withdrew one of the sticks. She noted the number, and retreated to the back wall, were little cubbies were numbered to correspond with the sticks. She took out the paper, and was visibly shaken by what she read. She needed some space. Tears welled up in her eyes and she laughed a nervous, resigned laugh. Noone spoke. The temple wasn't very busy, because of the virus. A few hot tears made their way down her cheek. She looked utterly defeated. Sometimes it's better not to ask, she told me. We walked back out of the temple in silence.

I want to know my fate if I keep up this way

I got a new neighbor. He was a brit, but he's been in Morrocco for a bit. I coached an interview that went well. Too bad I didn't make any money. A few hours til morning. I'll proably skate again one day

Tradition, and heritage, it's dead people's baggage, quit carrying it.

went to redpoint with scaryt. drank a lot of beers. overcast sky. not cold but not hot. people are masking up cuase of the virus. met a texican who is working in hk. discussed things. came home. ollied some stuff. counts as a trick if you drink enough

Every Good Man is a Compatriot

Once before, when I felt like giving up in Taiwan, because I had been fired from my first job here, I was walking across Taipei bridge and a rainbow appeared in front of me, an omen. On this train trip, I had the same feeling, especially coming back to Taipei. I walked the same (freezing) streets as usual, but when I arrived at the food street, every table greeted me with toasts and happy new years. A man coughed some food into my beer and I drank it anyway and his brother told me he had just come from Wuhan, but maybe he was kidding. A Swedish (?) Danish (?) euro pair drank there too, so I got their beers on my tab even though I didn't say a word to them, since Taiwanese people did so much for me on this trip. The barkeep wanted to know why, but wasn't too surprised when I tried to explain that I love Taiwan and I want them to also love Taiwan. I probably didn't say it right, but he seemed to get my drift. 

Now we wait on the plague. I'm guessing a week to two weeks. Get your shit together China. Fucking Gross.

I heard that lonesome whistle blow

I woke up with the lust for wandering. Time to get out of town.

clubbed to death/idioteque

"you look like you regret this," said RTF. I paused for just the wrong amount of moments before changing my expression and issuing my denial. 

"I'm sorry. I just want you to know I'm so happy to spend this time with you."

Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up.

We looked out and up at 101. The music thumped behind us. Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. 

We tried a korean bbq first, and it was closed, so we tried another by my house, and it was closed too. Then we went to the food street where I knew we could get liver, smoked chicken, pork knuckle, and dumplings. We decided C*********'s was a good place to spend the rest of the evening, but neither of us had cash so we went to the ATM and spent the next hour trying to find out why neither of could get cash from any ATM. Eventually, we got cash. We went into C********s. It was a row of oscar meyers so we spun on our heels and debated for half an hour about the next landing spot. It was as critical as when armstrong landed on the moon. 

We reubered and ended up at a very popular club with no people in it called w****. Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. Actually, the cover was half what we expected, and it included all you can drink, which is of dubious value for me on early friday morning  with work to be handed in in a few hours. Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. I'm not good at dancing or socializing or watching other people do those things, and poor RTF felt compelled to escort me through the evening/morning instead of having fun. The club was actually not filled with young rich taiwanese, but instead with Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up singaporeans and Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up indonesians and Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up a variety of Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up other nationalities who Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up seemed to enjoy screaming Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up in my ear Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up, Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. 

I had some transcendental moments on the dancefloor, before I got drunk enough to actually dance. The lazers and the beats and the people were just so forgettable, so utterly bland that I felt awful for not being impressed with the experience. The MC was bleating over the not unlistenably bad music, but he was just jiggling his gold chains and babbling the english phrases that he knows: Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up, and, shots shots shots shots shots shots shots, and Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up, and yeeeeeeeeeeeah, and awwwwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh and Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. I had fun looking at the equipment, especially the Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up.upstairs duo coordinating the lights and confetti show. Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. A group of dudes wanted to dance with us, and then more. I dont Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up.think it was a gay thing, I think they just liked dancing. Either way, I didn't like it. I just don't like dancing. I like getting drunk. They had Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. all you can drink free drinks with admission. I ran through a half dozen gin and tonics, without and gin, and switched to beer, because Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up they can't water down the budweiser, it's already Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up water. RTF stepped on some local toes and some local hoes Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up danced with us Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. Eventually, I decided it was time Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up to try and get out of there, and RTF showed me the kind of indefatigable enthuThrow your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands upsiasm that only hte young and french can feel about the world. I'm sorry if he reads this, truly sorry. I know he wanted me to have the best possible Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up time. I had a good time, but I don't think I'll be clubbing anytime soon Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up. It's just not something Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up that fits my lifestyle. 

The Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up elevators were completley full so I ended up taking the stairs down to ground level after a final shot of Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up absinthe. People above me in the infinite Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up stairwell were singing and tapping things on the metal stair rails, and it was like being chased down an emergency stairwell by zombies. I filmed part of it. We kicked an emergency exit open adn sounded alarms throughout the building, Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up and the security rushed in to escort us out. We laughed it off, the zombies and i, and it turns out they were Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up from bangkok, and still singing Throw your hands up, throw your motherfucking hands up because it was bouncing off the buildings outside. 

Year of the Skate Rat

everything's beautiful
cause we're delusional
yeah I think I figured it out

a day of rest
cant get the knots unknotted
another day
on the roof as the rain comes
Peggy gave me some dried fish eggs
thanks
I chopped some vegetables and put them in brine
I washed some meat and gave it a vinegar bath
drying out


at the bridge, it was like old times, but green
we stacked the stuff and slappied the curb with a little bank up to it
IS and RMJ skated the things
and a local homey who wanted the swag, but the easter bunny had taken it

tehn we went ot macdo's and the streets, but it was spitting rain
the city was five hours ahead, like 10:00 to 03:00
security at the bridge yelled at us for not putting away our toys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f11OAA0_dx0

Fun's fun, but who needs it?

RtheF showed up from Tainan without a place  to stay so I said it was fine to crash at my place for a night. We went on a pub/food crawl through the area and ended up at linsen bei park (a haunted Japanese war memorial) telling ghost stories. On the way back, we wandered around the hood looking for a bar that was sketchy enough to be fun, but not so sketchy I would actually to have to practice self defense. We didn't find one. In the end, he camped out on my porch in a tent and claimed he was grateful for it. It having been a work night, we turned in early. I blew my budget for month, but it's ok because I won teacher of the year, which is sort of like SOTY, but for grammar. It came with a fat bonus, so in a way, I was just spending money I didn't know I had.

Pizza Night

In my existential crisis, I decided to have a pizza. Blame the birthday pizza party. I almost never eat the stuff, but I was fiending. On arrival, a mom and son from nyc sat down at my table and we discussed the prospects of him moving here.

Más sabe el diablo por viejo, que por diablo

This weekend was a two day weekend, because of the election. WPN and I went to a waterfall and threw rocks at stuff. I should have brought my slingshot. Then I helped TS move to a new house, and wrenched my neck a bit in the process. We had lunch and discussed our somewhat parrallel life problems, and then we went shopping at Ikea because she needs sheets and I need a towel that doesn't mildew after each shower and The Pillow of My Dreams. I spend $3000 but since it was on household shit, I don't feel so irresponsible. Even with the Pillow, I still can't bend my neck. 

Next up, I went to a dinner party in Dingxi with MW and his crew. They were awesome, especially RS, who runs the restaurant. The restaurant was 10/10, and the the best thing they had was a cold garlic chicken. We convinced the boss to join us at local seven for a pint, which we drank huddled in a circle inside, because it is arctic cold now. Today I woke up and went back to work, which is always brutal after such a long vacation. The kids kept telling me I look dapper, which they indicate here by making an L with their forefinger and thumb, and then hold it up to their faces. The upside of cold weather is I can actually wear the tainan scarf. Another upside is skating, but my neck doesn't bend, so even though I'm already done for the day (Mondays usually go til midnight) I can't skate. I don't know what to do with all this free time. I'm going to lose it. 

Laotian Dish Station

Somedays, the absurdity of the human condition is like a pellet of pigeon shit that splats onto my suit jacket. On a day like this, the depressing blue sky is enough to tamp down any motivation to do anything at all, especially skate. I tried as hard as I could to only show up to work, where the kids wanted to talked about "mosaics" nonstop, and if sandwich girl makes mosaic movies, and so on. They are pretty funny, but nothing really made it better. They're entering a shitty time, but it's a time when I found skateboarding in my own life.

I found skateboarding in my life tonight when IS answered the call and we went out to one of the true gems of Taipei street skating. It's been called our Love Park, but it lacks the elevation change. It doesn't lack the ledges. The whole place is paved in the smoothest possible slate, and surrouned on everyside with pink marble ledges. It's the size of a hefty skatepark in it's own right, and is arguably the slickest, fastest, butteriest ledges on Earth. Pedestrian traffic is just heavy enough to keep it interesting. Security was not a factor.

As I rolled up (the plaza is just outside of the MRT station), a tall homie was skating the ledges while his girlfriends watched. I'll call him lilpimp cause he brings girls to street spots. Actually, they tried to push around some, so I think they count as part of the session too. He was getting ** **** and *** ** ** and ** ** on the ledges, which is respectable, cause they require pop to access. Turns out, he's from Shulin, but next generation, so we didn't know the same crew there. He was friendly and talked to us and we played the SkAtE. I spent most of the session trying to **** the steps, but IS got one on the tall ledge, with a ** ***** out. It was a nearly full moon, and the mosquitos were doing that thing they do when it gets hot during the winter, which is swarm the fuck out of us. scaryterry showed up to reclaim his motorcycle helmet and eventually IS and I went into the station and shared a moment on the platform. It's good to have people to share life with. 

I got off at dachiaotou station for nostalgia/selftorture sake and cruised home. Some of the old details had changed, repairs here and new holes there. Back up in my trailer park in the sky, I ate some pickles. 

I finished writing a yellow sticky for each station in the MRT system. I stuck them on my wardrobe.

I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe

The Impossible Decision, as it stands, is a four leaf clover. Despite its presumably very short life, a tiny cockroach might help me pick which cardinal clover leaf is best. I woke up with nothing to do (untrue, I woke up with nothing that I was actually going to do) until the afternoon, so I went by the coffeeshop bookstore in my best taike flipflops and shorts and bought a bento to take back to the rooftop. For the uninitiated, the bento box is a working class Japanese meal, consisting of a paper box that separates the white rice from the three vegetable sides that you've picked. You also get to pick a protein to put on the rice, then they wrap it with a rubber band, toss it in a plastic bag, and shove a plastic spoon and chopsticks in your hand and off you go. The bento is an institution here, and while quality and variety vary from place to place, you can usually be confident of a very filling meal for $2 USD, +/- $0.10. I never really get bored of them, because even if you rotate three new vegetables everyday, you can go about two weeks without any repeats, and then you have four or five different fish, three or so different chickens, ubiquitous fatty pork, pork chops, and usually some other odds and ends that I'm forgetting about and/or skipping over.

Back in my rooftop Garden of Eaten, the love birds were back, eating the grain I've been giving them. They aren't tamed yet, but they tolerate me. I watered all the plants, and dug into my bento. This time, I had bamboo, white cabbage, and curry potato, with a fried chicken leg. I got down to the last few bites of rice and noticed a millimeter long infant cockroach had been cooked into my food.

I'm not normally squeamish but this particular cockroach was off-putting. Maybe it was the contrast of his tiny black legs on the pure white rice. Maybe it was the thought of how others I've inadvertently consumed like this in Taiwan (before RMJ and IS and the others start in on food safety, I have to say I've never actually gotten ill from any cockroaches here). Maybe it was the thought that if I accept the job in Hai Phong, I'll probably be eating a lot more baby cockroaches. Maybe it was the thought that I've never once seen a cockroach in Japan. Whatever the trigger, I suddenly find that the Japanese clover leaf is suddenly my favorite one. Time to send off some resume's.

If I can do better then I'll be better

The school's year end party was this weekend. While it was cheerful to run into old friends from old branches, there was a bit of a bittersweet feeling about it all, what with our former captain having jumped ship and several others getting ready to follow suit. It was a tearful table, but then tb took us and his gf and her father out to ximen for drinks, and then tb and I walked back across the city to my house, where rmj showed up with a skateboard. One of the party is a HKer and talked to me at length about the nuances of the situation there. They're thinking about moving, but "Hong Kong is my home," he said, with a mournfulness that I don't often hear. Our bus bumbled on, and I thought about my own home. My jug of jailhouse mead is on its third day, and I put another jug of vegetables on for pickling. Botulism didn't get me the first time, so here goes another one. It's pretty colorful; carrots, ginger, cucumbers, asparagus, and hot peppers. I should go to the gym in the morning, but I'll be working til midnight and I feel like I might need every bit of extra energy to get through the day. I haven't been so unmotivated in a long time.

Middle Mountain Center of Small Country Learning Station

I woke up in shock, as though during an airstrike. I haven't been through an airstrike yet, but I think it would be unpleasant, like when you wake up with your clothes on and you don't know what time it is or where you are. Then, reality smashes back into the cave that is your brain like a thermobaric round behind a Hadhrahmaut blast door. I was late for skating. I called IS and he cruised to zshan. We skated the new bank and got booted almost immediately. We pushed north into the early night, and I was glad I brought a second shirt. It was too hot for a hoody, but too chilly for a tshirt. I wore the shirt that I knocked myself out in in Neihu a while back, and had bad premonitions the whole time. The skategods made me pay rent, but nothing more than I should have expected. We cruised up to minchan road and went to work on the low grey marble there. The ledges are about 5m long, with chest high marble stoppers in-between. Someone, somewhere, can probably ollie up onto them, but that's in another video. We skated the lower part a lot more than I expected, which was actually none, since I can't remember ever having skated them previously. That's the thing about Taipei, there are so many marble skatespots that even the ones in front of your house get skipped. You just can't catch every fish in the ocean.
I tried to catch a ******** beside the roaring traffic and paid rent with my wrists. IS got an ***** to *** off on the ledge, which was my favorite trick of the night, because he did it with authority. Second favorite was when I sort of landed a few ugly ********s. It's been a while. Least favorite was when I hit Satan's Tile and tore my abs from top to groin. It was a long, sleek, black rectangle, and I got my wheels tangled in it before I saw it.
I fell a few more times and we went over to the minchan banks and I rolled out of it and nearly ate shit, about as sketchy as you can get. Somehow, those banks are way steeper than they look.
We "bombed" the "hill" at the Middle Mountain Center of Small Country Learning and Excellence in Educational Attainment For Everyone Station then I cruised home with an Asahi or two. I think I'm gonna miss the gymnasium in the morning, owning to my wrists and shoulder.

While we wait for life, life passes.

WNY was spent at the Yonghe compound. It's a charming residential street, six floors in the sky. The lanes are narrow, so while the gurgling brook and tooting scooter might be 30m below, the neighbors and their lives are just a few meters away. It feels like Venice mixed with Bladerunner mixed with Nicaragua. All the buildings are capped with rickety, rusty sheet metal illegal throwup apartments, but the windows glow with friendliness and good cheer. We made cocktails, one of which exploded all over wpn. The company was charming and the fireworks at 101 lit the clouds in an array of greens, whites, and reds. We all sang ween loudly and had a group hug. StoicD had the best sweater. wpn and sd jammed on guitars for a while and I tried to keep time bongo style with beer caps and a wooden stool. I woke up aware that I was in a strange room before I even opened my eyes. It was already mid-afternoon. Then I went hope and listened to Leviathan Awakes and piddled around the house until 04:30. Since clients are out of town, I didn't have to work much until now, other than busy, unpaid paperwork. Obviously, I'm taking that assignment very seriously.