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.