brainylady

Turning Taiwanese

For the first six months or so that I was here in Taipei, I found it hilarious that every time I asked a Taiwanese person what they had done on the weekend, what they were planning for the next weekend, or how they planned to spend a holiday, the answer was the same: "Sleep." Well, I'm not sure exactly how or when it happened, but I've become a local. I've never been so consistently tired in my life, and I can't explain it. I have a full-time job -- that's it. No kids, no other commitments. Just general sleep deprivation and a partner who feels the same way. Is it the polluted air? The effort of having to compete with a million pedestrians (half of them driving scooters) for sidewalk space? Fatigue from understanding only about 3 percent of what is going on around me at any given time? What? What the hell is it? In the past, when I've worked full time, I would do things in the evenings and on weekends and get enough sleep. I really don't get it, but I'm just too tired to figure it out.

My plans for tonight are about as action-packed as it gets these days: check e-mail, knit, watch CSI: Miami,* and take out the garbage. And I can't wait. When did I become a senior citizen? (Actually, that doesn't even make sense, because all the senior citizens I know have lives that are about eight hundred times more active than mine. I am an affront to senior citizens everywhere.) And then I'm going to stay up too late reading, and at about midnight either Bill or I will utter some sad-assed cliché like "There just aren't enough hours in the day."

* I've complained before about having only movies and CNN to watch on TV. One channel started playing CSI a couple of months ago and then switched to the Miami version, which, despite David Caruso being unreasonably sexy, is nowhere near as good as the original Vegas version.