Should I stay (up) or should I go (to bed) now?

It's not even midnight, and I'm seriously doubting the wisdom of my stay-up-all-night plan. If I'm too lazy to make a pot of coffee, it doesn't bode well for my chances of staying up past three, does it? Hmm.

I just bound off the first toe-up mini-ringel sock (colour 5343), so I guess I'll start the second one. The pair was to be my holiday knitting, but even though I'll be gone for seventeen days, I think one sock will be enough to see me through. I imagine I'll be too hot to be knitting much of the time, plus I want to get some reading done. Anyway, if I finish it early, I don't care. There's always napping.

What a busy day! I went to a pet store to buy a travelling case for Beatrix. I got her a collar, too, so she can wear an ID tag on the trip. She wasn't too happy about it for the first few minutes, but she seems to be over it. (My cat Mooky will not wear a collar. We've bought several for him; he goes outside and comes back later sans collar. He's a tricky one.) I also took Bea to the vet for a rabies shot.

(Does anyone else find it a little unsettling that the importation of cats into Canada is handled by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency?)

I finally handed off all my leave-behind yarn to a beginning knitter who wanted it all. (Lucky her! There was a ton, plus most of my straight needles.) I took out all the garbage and two bags of paper to the little toothless man who rides around with his bike piled to the sky with recyclables. Did laundry. Washed dishes. Packed. Deleted a bunch of e-mails.

OK, I'm going to go and see what's on TV. Besides CNN, Discovery, and Animal Planet, all the English channels are movie channels. Why are they showing such bad movies on a Saturday night? I tried to find something to watch at nine o'clock, and my best option was The Blue Lagoon (yes, the one with Brooke Shields). Yikes. I think it's time to go to Emergency Viewing Plan B: my VCD of Bring It On. Oh, yeah. This isn't a democracy -- it's a cheerocracy!

I'll be back in Taipei on August 18, but I'll try to blog while I'm away. (One of the places we're going only has electricity for part of the day, so I'm not counting on Internet access.) I'll miss you! See you in a few weeks, if not before. xo

Packing, tidying, hobbling

I am unemployed -- three cheers for that! Today I'm doing lots of last-minute things before heading to Malaysia tomorrow. I've been packing my suitcase for Canada. I think Bea is getting used to the idea of moving -- what do you think?



Or, if you would prefer, the Francis Bacon-style shot:



I'll write again tonight. My flight to KL leaves tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of 7:00 a.m. As I'm supposed to be at the airport at 5:00 a.m., I'll have to leave my apartment at around 3:30 a.m. No sense going to sleep tonight, is there? I'll make some strong coffee and just stay up. And just in case I doze off, my mother is going to give me a wakeup call at 3:00 a.m. (noon on Saturday for her). Yay, moms!

Last! Day! Last! Day!

It's my last day in the office. Words cannot express my joy.

Thanks for your sympathy for my ankle scrape! I'd like to take this opportunity to address a few of your comments and questions.

1. Dude! Is that your first "scooter blood"?! Yes, Terri, it is. I've never even had a parking ticket here, let alone an accident. The fact that it's my last week here, and that this little accident involved only me and a wall, makes it all the more painful.

2. Is your brilliant use of a maxipad a stinging indictment of society's taboos concerning menstruation, or just a makeshift bandage? Thank you for noticing, Mindy. It was indeed a stinging indictment (heavy on the stinging part).

3. Thank you, Mia, for your professional opinion and for diagnosing my ankle as a priority 3 patient. I'm sure you're remarkably good at your job, but clearly this is a priority 1 emergency. Here I am thirty-six hours post-scrape, and my ankle looks like a cross-section of raw sausage. I am considering a skin graft.

4. Goodness! Will you wear the Pad to your last day at work? My mother will be relieved to know that I bought proper gauze last night. I did, however, wear a pantyliner to work yesterday. It was no match for my, uh, heavy flow, and I had one disgusting sock by the end of the day. (Kim, your capitalization of Pad is a nice touch, elevating an ordinary object to the status of a proper noun -- like that gardening tool advertised on TV: the Claw.)

5. How'd you get it to stay on? Well, Ms. Strizz, I simply applied the Pad to the Wounded Area, peeled off the paper backing to expose its adhesive strip, and carefully pulled a sock up over the whole thing. Stuck to the inside of my sock, the Pad stayed in place perfectly.

6. What the heck were you doing scraping against a wall on a scooter, anyway? Are you kind of spastic? Mariko, you have to learn to just come out and say what you mean. Anyway, I was hoping to avoid the question of how this happened, but here goes: In Taipei, you usually park your scooter on the sidewalk (forcing pedestrians to walk in the street). I was leaving the place where I had parked, and I had to drive a block on the sidewalk, in the narrow space between the row of parked scooters and the concrete wall, to get to an opening where I could get onto the street. And I got a leetle too close to the wall at one point. Basically, it was a foot sandwich, between a slice of concrete and a slice of scooter.

OK, much to everyone's relief, I'm sure, I'm going to change the subject. Many months ago (maybe a year?), I promised photos of a Taipei subway station. I had written about how nice and clean they are, and how they have flashing lights on the floor that indicate a train is approaching, as well as arrows on the floor that show where the doors will be. I even went and took some photos. For some reason, I never posted them.

But ~Jo~ didn't forget! She wants to see those arrows and flashing lights! Here's a shot especially for Jo, of a train arriving at the station:



And here's another shot, especially for my fellow Grammar Avengers:



Did I mention today is my last day in my windowless office? The office to which I have to bring my own toilet paper? The office at which I lose an hour's pay if I'm a minute late? It's! My! Last! DAY!

Hold me?

I left some skin from my ankle on a concrete wall last night when I was on the scooter. Owwwww! I decided not to put a photo up right here, in case some people are sensitive to (a) yucky bloody things and/or (b) damage to expensive shoes, but you can click here for the gory details. (Actually, it's not very gory at all, thanks to the flash blowing out the details. The photo I took without flash is truly nasty, but I think it's best to leave some things to the imagination.) So yeah, when I said earlier that I need saving from myself? This isn't what I meant! (But you should see the wall -- heh heh.)

I stopped in at my neighborhood grocery store on my way home post-scrape to check out their First Aid supplies, since I don't have any gauze at home. There wasn't really anything, except a box of Povidone-Iodine Prep Pads, which I wasn't sure about, but luckily there was "English" on the package: "Temperament be long to mild, non-excite to skin-beep. Make in U.S.A." Uhh.

I didn't buy them.

Before going to bed, then, I had to figure out a way to cover the scrape with something that wouldn't stick to it. Yes! Finally it came to me: a maxi pad! I'm resourceful that way.

Spare a little sympathy for a lady with an injury?

Didgeridoo? Didgeri-don't!

The choir we saw last night (in the concert hall pictured below) was quite good. It's impressive, really, what can be done with twenty-five human voices. (I think my dad would've liked the whistly birdcalls.) But there's something that should never be done with a human voice. You know what it is, don't you?

I figured I'd be safe from the dreaded didge last night, as the concert was, after all, part of a choral festival. Indeed, no supplementary instruments were used. But some of the male singers had a diabolical ability to make sounds exactly like a bloody didgeridoo! Not just a little bit, but enough to make people in the audience look around and start whispering what was no doubt "What the hell is that noise?" in Chinese. (I've just looked on the choir's FAQ page. If it truly represented the Questions that are Asked most Frequently, I'm pretty sure that "What the hell was that noise?" would be at the top of the list.)

Well, what a conundrum! I didn't know what to think! Is it the sound of the didge that is unacceptable, whencesoever it comes? Or is it the ridiculous tube itself that I find objectionable? In short, did this count as "the first sign of a didgeridoo" (which, you'll recall, was the point at which I vowed to be "out of there")? I was totally perplexed.

And then I realized that I'd had a similar feeling before. At a restaurant a couple of months ago, someone was ordering frogs, and do I eat frogs? As a vegetarian who eats fish and seafood but no other kinds of meat, I honestly didn't know the answer. I'd never had them before. Do I eat frogs? I had no idea what to think about eating frogs.

Can you see the connection? Can you? It was crystal clear to me after I'd had a beer when I got home, let me tell you. But I promise you this: you can try to drown the drone of the didge in booze, my friend, but it won't work. Well, it might work eventually, but I only had one can of Kirin in my fridge.

Yes, it's my third-last day at work, and I seem to be leaning toward both delirium and hyperbole. Somebody save me from myself!

National Concert Hall, Taipei: July 27 at 7:00 p.m.

Hey, party people. The Rock-Along Gallery has been updated with some awesome knits.

Rock Alert! I have a photo on file of a black skull toque (uh, that's a hat) that I saved under the name Lin, but I must've deleted the corresponding e-mail. Lin, if you're out there, please contact me!

Only four more days at work!

Bill is at the airport right now, about to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur. He had to go today because of visa issues, so I'm home alone until I fly down to meet him on Sunday. It's OK; I'm much more productive in the house when I'm alone. I'll clean everything and finish up the last of my to-do list. I have a date tonight with another deserted person: Danny's boyfriend Tom. (Danny is loving being back in Australia, by the way. He keeps sending me e-mails about "fresh air," "cool breezes," "delicious sandwiches," and other similarly exotic things.) Tom and I are going to see an Australian choir perform at the National Concert Hall. The choir should be good, but I'm out of there at the first sign of a didgeridoo.

I haven't really been knitting. The next sock for the Six Sox Knitalong is a cabled pattern, so I'd like to use a plain, light colour to best show off the texture. Unfortunately, I don't have any of that on hand, and local yarn shops just don't sell sock yarn, so I can't start on those socks until I'm back in the motherland (in twenty-three days!). I know, I know, Polka Purl Dots. Each row takes twenty minutes! Plus it's black, so it's not thrilling to look at. Do you read this blog just for the knitting content? Thank you, and please come back in September.

I'm feeling curiously calm today. No panic at all. Denial, perhaps? In any case, following Kerrie's advice (and her daughter Brooke's example), I hereby pledge to shout "Only X more days at work!" every morning this week. (It's when I start shouting it at work that I'll know I'm in trouble.)

Manic Monday

Welcome to my last week at work. Over the next five days, witness as I either (a) become steadily happier, perhaps deliriously so; or (b) think of more and more little things that need to be done and become a solid ball of stress. Stay tuned!

(Here is one of the reasons I want to go to Sarawak. Here is another reason -- thanks for the tip, Kat.)

Paper chase

You may remember that when Beatrix first came to live with us last Christmas, we often caught her playing with the toilet paper rolls and thought it was funny and cute. Well, seven months later, here's what I came home to yesterday:



I felt like I was on CSI taking photos of this disturbing scene. (By the way, why aren't more toilets blue?) And then who should appear but the prime suspect?!



Rather than showing any remorse, the suspect dove right into the evidence itself, behaving like a whirling dervish, as you can see. Not a shred of guilt among the shreds of paper, despite stern words about toilet paper not growing on trees. Eventually, exhausted by her reverie and drunk on her own guilt, the suspect collapsed atop the evidence.



She was issued a verbal warning. In response, she bit the hand that feeds her.

Real-life guerrilla knitting

Check it out: Knitters for Kerry. Wow. (Link found on Steph's blog.)

Ooh, plus there's an inspiring knit- and thrift-related article in today's Guardian: "Fashion on a shoe string." Number 2 on the list of 10 Chic Commandments?

Learn how to sew and knit. Without these skills and the know-how they give, you remain a passive lummock in an exploitative market place.

Of course, we knew that already. And some wise words (which could certainly be applied to yarn as well as finished garments):

You are the mistress of what you wear, not the other way around. It may have cost almost nothing, but make up your mind that once in your hands it may as well be couture and treat it accordingly.

Have an excellent Friday.

Last call

As you know, I live in Taipei. I think I've made it abundantly clear that I am leaving soon. (Today is my second-last Friday at work!) As some of you know, I can get my hands on some very fun Japanese and Taiwanese magazines and booklets (knitting and other), not to mention cavity-inducing hair accessories and a plethora of cute items from the stationery store. I'm also a sharing type of gal who loves a good swap.

I'm not going to send out a ton of tiny packages, but if you are really and truly interested in this stuff and are willing to ply me with sock yarn (or something), let me know ASAP. You can also get in touch if you want more specific info about the cute-character stuff that's available. (I can get Sanri0 stuff, but it's overpriced and not as cute and funny as Taiwanese stuff. My favourites at the moment are the Japanese-food characters: smiling steamed buns, etc.)

I have a feeling that I might be insane to make this offer. But there it is. Get in touch soon, since I only have one week left to shop and mail! It's your last chance for romance. [cue Stairway to Heaven...]

Update: The bar is now closed.

A latte kind of day

Every morning I pick up a medium-sized coffee of the day on my way to work. (I just have to walk into the coffee shop, say good morning, and hand over my travel mug; it's a beautiful thing.) Today, I got a large latte. It just felt like that kind of a day.

Something very awesome is happening: it looks like some friends will meet me at the airport in KL! Oh, that doesn't sound Very Awesome to you? Well, these are friends from Winnipeg. My lifelong friend Jenn and her husband have spent the last two years in Sri Lanka, where Jenn has been working as a nurse through a volunteer organization. Now they're on their way home (they've been through India and are in Thailand right now), and it just so happens that we are going to cross paths on August 1 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We have plans to meet and spend a few hours at the Bitter Expat Cry-Inyer-Beer Lounge on the third floor. I really hope this works out. We've been away from Canada for about the same period of time, but most of the reason I'm still sane is that I've been making -- and spending -- money (particularly on holidays). Jenn has been volunteering for two years, people. She's had a way harder go of it. I really want to see her (in ten days!). I want to buy that woman a drink.

A comment to my last post warned me not to get my hopes up about knitting all the way back to Vancouver, because of overzealous airline security. But here's the thing: I started knitting in November 2002. Since that time I've flown with a knitting project in my carry-on between Taipei and Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, and Vancouver, and from Vancouver to Hamilton, Ontario. No problems. I repeat: no problems. (There was that one jealous lady on the cross-Canada flight: "Well, I would've brought my knitting, too, but I thought they'd take it away! So... what are you working on, dear?") I've flown with bamboo dpns, aluminum dpns, and metal circular needles. I did lose a pair of scissors to Hong Kong airport security, but I had stupidly packed them in my carry-on without thinking. Maybe I've been lucky. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the no-knitting rule is limited to flights that originate or land in the States or the UK. My advice to you if you're going on a long flight is to take your knitting -- on plastic or bamboo needles, if possible. If it is not allowed through security, the airline should be able to put your project in an envelope and check it for you. But if they let it through, wouldn't you feel like a chump if you hadn't tried?

La la la, I can't hear you

Today is my eighth-last day in the office. Mentally, I'm already finished, so while time flies in my spare time when I should be packing and making moving arrangements, it has slowed to an excruciating crawl while I'm at work. I can't wait for this holiday in Malaysia. (If you've been there, especially to the Perhentian Islands or Sarawak, I'd love to hear from you.) I'm going to take plain stockinette socks with me to knit.

Then I'll take Polka Purl Dots with me on my flight to Vancouver and try to make some decent progress. Those rows are lo-o-ong, but they are getting shorter now. Most of the pattern calls for two sets of shaping going on at the same time, plus the polka-dot stitch pattern, of course, so it will be perfect for a long flight. Since the day I started PPD, I haven't had time to do more than four rows in one sitting. Right now I'm about thirty rows into the polka-dot pattern (four inches?).

Last night Bill and I and our friend Bruno went out to eat at a pub that is popular with foreigners. Given the chance to eavesdrop on English-speaking people, I was reminded that people's conversations in public generally aren't that interesting. And it's much more difficult to block out the surrounding conversations when you can understand them. When you don't understand what the people around you are saying, you can just listen to the sounds without doing any of the work of comprehension. You enter the Foreigner Zone of Oblivion. I spend most of my time there.

Hmm. Let's see... only seven days and six hours left at my job. Only eleven days until I fly to Malaysia for sixteen days. Only thirty days until I fly back to Canada. Only fifty days until I begin my master's degree and begin a whole new cycle of stress! Only eighty-five days until I turn thirty-two! Only twenty years until I'm middle-aged!! Screeeech! Ahem. I'm OK. Heh heh. Ack.

Oh yes, there's still fun to be had

I want to join a girl group and run away to Japan! The 5,6,7,8's are my new favourite band.

There was a very exciting event here yesterday, which I only found out about on Saturday -- thank goodness, because it was exactly what this bitter expat needed: an outdoor music festival on a beach! Very exciting for several reasons, particularly because foreign bands rarely play here. Also because it was held on Fulong Beach, which is a fantastic spot: click for a pop-up photo. Also because it was free. And, oh yeah! Because the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion played, as did my new favourite band, the 5,6,7,8's. Woot!

I took the train to Fulong in the early afternoon and got to the beach around three-ish, iced latte in hand. It was packed, but there didn't seem to be the hoards of foreigners I'd been expecting: click for a pop-up. It was my first time to Fulong (stupid! stupid! it's gorgeous and you should've been coming here every weekend!). I walked around and explored a bit: click for the pop-up. Eventually I bought a cold can of beer from a scantily clad young lady and planted myself a ways back from the stage, next to the shore: click -- it's funny. And you know what I did next, don't you? That's right: I started knitting a sock. Jeez, you'd think Taiwanese people had never seen anyone knitting at an indie rock concert before...

A Japanese-Australian band called Mach Pelican was a very pleasant surprise, in a Green Day kind of way. And then the 5,6,7,8's came on! (Yes, you do know them if you saw Kill Bill, Vol. 1.) They were adorable playing their surf-punk music in their little sequined dresses and bouffants: click. Sadly, their set was way too short -- maybe eight songs.

Meanwhile, it was windy, and that soft, powdery sand gets everywhere. I still had it in my ears this morning. (Too windy to swim, apparently; the shore was promptly roped off as the wind picked up around 4:30.) Dark clouds started to gather, but it didn't rain. People were having a good time, and it was a really positive atmosphere. I noticed that Taiwanese twenty-somethings really enjoy burying one another in the sand. They do it a lot. Since the show was right on the beach, and it's a super-popular beach anyway, there were lots of families and older people around, too, which was cool. It is both hilarious and heartwarming to see four-year-olds dancing like crazy to live punk music. There was plenty of cheap beer available, but I didn't see anyone who was noticeably drunk. (Seriously, imagine a similar show back home with free admission and beer priced at just over one Canadian dollar a can. It would be really fun for, like, an hour, and then people would be yelling, and then there would be fights and sexual harassment and some dude throwing his shoes at the stage or something. What's up with that?) People danced. People ate a wide variety of barbecued meat on sticks. Once it got dark, people ran around with sparklers and laughed and took pictures of themselves.

There was also a smaller stage in the area above the beach, where local bands were playing. As I was walking by, there was a very noisy girl band playing. I have no idea who they were, but they were so cute: click!

The Dirty Three were another good surprise: instrumental, around a violin. Some of their music reminded me of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and it totally suited being on a beach in the dark. After that, I walked around some more, and by about 8:30 I was feeling like I'd had enough -- but then I found the lone fry stand that offered French fries alongside all the meat chunks. Fortified by frozen fries cooked in what I can only guess was pork fat, I got another beer and headed back to the stage to wait for Jon Spencer. I'm not a huge fan, but I wanted to see them play for a bit. When they finally appeared, I was glad to see Jon Spencer was in full rockstar mode with black leather pants, a big glittery JSBX belt buckle, and an eagerness to drop to his knees or jump in the air every thirty seconds: click. I wanted to leave a little earlier than the million other people, so I let Mr. Spencer serenade me as I walked back toward the train. When I got to the platform, it was already pretty crowded; suddenly, fireworks started going off down at the beach (a good fifteen-minute walk away), and everyone waiting for the train went ooh! and ahh! and applauded! I thought that was sweet. (Maybe they were all drunk, but if so, a happier bunch of drunks I've never seen.)

The train was jammed, of course -- I actually couldn't squeeze onto the first one and had to wait for the next, and then it was standing room only. The ride back to Taipei was about an hour, and what do you know, I can knit while standing! Jeez, you'd think Taiwanese people had never seen anyone knitting on a train after an indie rock concert before...

I got home a little after midnight, where poor Billy had been all day with a bad tummy. Or, he said his tummy hurt, but really I think he wanted to stay home and watch the British Open. I stayed up with him until almost two watching the golf (yes, I watch golf), but I had to call it a night when the leaders went into a playoff. So I was a bit tired at work today, but it was my second-last Monday in the office, and I survived. And I have a new favourite band! Did I mention the 5,6,7,8's? (I'm not too happy about that apostrophe, though.)

1. Decade

Unmarried couples celebrate arbitrary anniversaries. Instead of a wedding, an anniversary may mark the first date, the first kiss, the first you-know-what, or the first joint purchase at Ikea (or all of the above, if it was a really good day). So why do Bill and I celebrate our anniversary on July 16? Well, that's none of your business! Ha. In any case, yesterday was our tenth. (I know, it's hard to believe -- I was just a baby when we got together.) We went out last night to one of our favourite places to sit outside and have pizza and beer, and then we watched Manhattan on DVD (one of our favourite movies ever).

2. Cloverleaf Sox

You don't think these make my feet look big, do you?



These socks are the first of six for the year-long Six Sox Knitalong. I used Cascade Fixation for the first time, and I'm not sure that I'd use it again. I like that it's sproingy and stretchy when it's knit up, but I think I prefer using regular (non-stretchy) sock yarn. Anyway, they fit really well. They're awfully green, as you can see. I had a visitor during my photo shoot this morning:



3. Lemonade and cherries

Did you notice over on my sidebar there that I've been missing lemonade and fresh cherries lately? Well, Greta noticed. And look what she sent me:



(Don't worry, Greta -- I take full responsibility for any pixels damaged when I licked the screen.) Have a great summer weekend!

Celebrity crush

I suddenly have a crush on the utterly charming Alfred Molina:

There is a lovely warmth and ease to Molina. When he was in his 20s he looked old for his age; now he looks young. His hair is thick and wavy and black, his eyes (so often cold and menacing on screen) are a soft, dopey brown. He's an unlikely mix -- oafish, sexy and a little maternal....

Throughout his life, Molina has defied expectations in a gentle, unassuming way. He prefers clothes shopping to football and has set up a girly-man group with fellow actor Gary Oldman for fellow heterosexual girly-men. He married the actor and author Jill Gascoigne, who is 16 years his senior....

Do read this interview in the Guardian. Charming.

Who's your celebrity crush of the moment?

Loving the knitters

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my last post. I needed that support, and it's really interesting to hear that my experience is not unique to Taiwan or even Asia. (I wasn't even considering stopping the blog, but thanks for encouragement there, too.)

So I'm feeling the knitblogging love today. It feels warm and soft, and just a little scratchy -- ooh, is that Kureyon?

For now, I'll leave actual knitting content to others. You know, others who are actually knitting. Yes, people do knit through the summer, and I've noticed an extraordinary number of impressive finished objects recently: Anna's Onde tank, Aven's summery poncho, Becky's Audrey sweater, Brenda's pink Opal socks, Clara's Carla sweater, the supercute outfit at Froggy's, the Harlot's newest socks, Kat's red Stripes Go Round top, Kerstin's Frolic top, Melanie's complete Fiesta tea set (and the other adorable tea sets in the works), Mindy's groovy ChicKami, Rock Chick's Maggie G. halter, and Stephanie's Danielle tank. There are others, of course. (Non-knitters, would you be shocked to know that there are more than 460 knitting blogs on the Web?)

Plus, other knitters are making progress on awesome projects: Nicole is knitting a Noro Retro Prep sweater, and Nipper is working on a wavy-line sweater.

Stefanie has just put a free pattern up on her blog: check out the mini sweater (a.k.a. the boobholder)!

And Cari, Em, and Rachael are just awesome in general, so I'm linking to those ladies for no particular reason.

Have a look at Kerrie's fabulous belly and make your guesses about the baby.

Then go to the Knitattoo gallery, scroll to the bottom, gasp, and covet.

Not surprisingly, this quiz tells me that my job sucks. (Quiz link via Marielle, whose job also sucks.) I scored 46:

Your job is mind-bendingly bad. So incredibly bad. So shooting-spree inducing bad. Why are you in it? Is it deeply rewarding work? Are there a few kindred co-workers whose positive spin make the whole mess bearable? Are you shlepping through two more years of this hell so you can escape into a well-respected, well-salaried position? You had better hope at least one of the above is true, or otherwise your life is on a one-way train to Stinksville.

Good news: Bill and I are going to spend a little over three two weeks in Malaysia (including Borneo) starting August 1 -- the tickets are booked. It'll be all about diving, snorkeling, jungle trekking, taking photos, seeing orangutans and zany birds, drinking cold beers and eating great food, and just all-around chillin' like Bob Dylan. Yee-haw! I'm getting out of Stinksville, my friends.

My so-called blog

I'm feeling blah about blogging. It was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? I don't have much knitting time these days. I don't have the energy to come up with great posts. Blah. I think it's partly due to the big changes that are a-comin'. You know how it is when you know you'll soon be moving/changing jobs/travelling, and you just want to get on with it. I'm so ready to leave Taiwan. Not only that, but I'm so ready to get settled back in Canada and restart things there. I can't wait.

Warning: I'm riding a bummer*

Bill and I were out Friday evening and ran into someone we'd lost touch with a year or so ago. She said, "Oh my god, you're still here! You never left!" Arrgh.

Ah, the expat cycle of love and hate. When a person first arrives, she's idealistic. Within a few weeks, reality sets in, and she's depressed. Common thoughts include "What have I done?" and "How can anyone eat this shitty food?" The first six months are brutal, and many people give up and go home. It's hard to live so tightly packed in an ugly, polluted city where you don't speak much of the language. (Um, duh.) The people who stay either throw themselves wholeheartedly into things (hooking up with a local boyfriend/girlfriend and having a great time, but spending most of their salaries on drinking and partying) or they resign themselves to get through it for the money. (Another duh: Doing it just for the money can kill a person's spirit.) The next year is a blur. Then, either you're married or in a serious relationship with a local person and have decided to stay indefinitely, or you're reworking your finances at least once a week to figure out when the soonest point is that you can leave. As the leaving date approaches, you may become openly bitter and unable to stop yourself from complaining about absolutely everything. You fantasize about what you're going to eat when you're back home and how ridiculously easy everything will be. You don't care if this is really true, and by necessity you block out the fact that you've become used to a lifestyle that you will not be able to afford back home.

It was funny, then, to run into A. on Friday evening. When she arrived in Taipei, Bill and I had already been here for a year. She is a friend of a dear friend, so I met her at the airport and she stayed with us for a few days. On the bus from the airport into the city, she said everything was much nicer than she'd expected. I thought, "Is she high? This place is a dump." (To be fair, she had previously been living in Angola.) I admit that her optimism was hard for me to take, and we soon lost touch with each other. Now she's been here for eighteen months, and she has joined the ranks of the bitter expats. She's leaving in two weeks, and she can't wait.

It's hard to explain to people what this life is like -- and of course not everyone here has had the same experience as me. I don't claim to be an expert on this. I only know that of the Westerners I've met here who have since left, all have become a little bit nasty by the time they leave. It's just too easy to find people who support your complaints. It really puzzled me at first, how a group of foreigners (even the ones who have been here twenty years) could complain endlessly about all things Taiwan, but when you asked them when they were planning to leave, they'd say, "Leave? Why would I leave?"

Up until just a few weeks before Bill and I first came here, we'd been planning to go to Korea instead. A friend of another dear friend had spent a year or two working in Korea, so we met with her to talk and ask questions. I remember exactly what she told us: "I'm really glad that I did it, and I never want to go back." I think that's what I would say about Taiwan. (She did go back, though. She might even be there now.)

I guess I'm just in a down place right now. It's OK: only three weeks left at work, then a two-week holiday, and then I fly back. It's not all rosy, since I'm moving back without Billy (he's staying here till the spring to earn more money). This is stressful for both of us, of course. Mostly I just want to get on with it, to skip July. I want Bill and I to go on our fabulous holiday and then I want Beatrix and I to be teleported to my parents' house; a week later, I want Bea and I to be teleported to Ontario, where I'll find a great apartment within five minutes, and then I want to unpack all the stuff that's been in storage since 2001, and then I want to feel like I'm at home.

* Don't you just love Lynda Barry? (This one's especially for you, xine.)

Architectural Yao Ming

By definition, the tallest buildings in the world tower over their surroundings; think of the CN Tower in the Toronto skyline. When Taipei decided to build what is now the world's tallest occupied-on-every-floor building, they stuck it in an area where most of the buildings are less than fifteen stories. No attempt to reconcile this enormous structure (which looks like a stack of glass Chinese takeout boxes) with its surrounding environment. So look closely, and see if you can find the world's tallest building:



Subtle, isn't it?

(I took this photo last weekend, when Billy and I had afternoon tea on the thirty-eighth floor of the Far Eastern Hotel. This was the view to the east, away from the downtown area.)

Optional Beatrix shot to inspire a restful weekend.

Feeling listless, but making lists

This week -- and probably the next three -- is a weird combination of busy + lazy that leads to near paralysis. I have so much to do, but time is flying at a pretty alarming rate, and I worry about getting everything done. My response? Procrastinate!

Brilliant, isn't it? Hey, I've only known forever that I was going back to Canada in August. What's that? No, I won't ever learn, but thank you for asking.

So I'm taking a cue from the Divine Ms. Em, who is posting bits and pieces of her dissertation: if I make a list on the blog, I'll have to actually do the stuff, right? If I don't, I'll feel like a loser. (OK, more of a loser.) Let's start with the short list of things that are already done, shall we?

Done
·Extended work permit so I don't get thrown out of Taiwan early
·Booked plane ticket to Vancouver (Aug. 19!)
·Mailed box of books to my mom that she might like to read
·Packed up yarn to give away

Excellent start! And I have done other things in preparation, like clearing out that drawer I was telling you about. Now, what's left?

To Do
·Mail 3 big boxes to in-laws
·Hand off the giveaway yarn
·Give away unwanted books and clothes
·Finish cloverleaf socks for 6 Sox Knitalong (by July 31)
·Book plane ticket from B.C. to Ontario (Aug. 26ish)
·Rent storage space in Ontario
·Have contents of B.C. storage moved to Ontario storage
·Plan 2-week holiday (Borneo? Aug. 3-17) & book tickets
·Talk to vet about flying to Canada with Beatrix (kitty sedatives?)

That's not so bad, right? OK, I'm kidding myself a bit by listing "Plan 2-week holiday in Borneo" as one to-do item. (This could be part of my problem. No wonder I feel overwhelmed.) Basically I have three weeks to do this stuff. And I will do it -- I'll just probably do it all on July 28.

Ow. My head hurts now. But it's Friday! And it's not raining today, and I'm wearing a new pink T-shirt. It's all going to be ohhhhhhh-kaaaaaay.

Checking in

I haven't exactly been AWOL -- I've been AWH: absent with hangover. I went out on Tuesday night for my pal Danny's send-off. (After living for the past seven years in Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand, he's going home to Australia.) And I've got two words for you, the combination of which should be avoided at all times: Chilean champagne. We had lots of fun, but oof, the next day.

I stayed home from work and did some packing. That packing that needs to be done after you've boxed the obvious things, but there is that one drawer that you've been stuffing "important things" into for a couple of years. The drawer that takes hours to clear out because you pause to reread each letter, put on those sunglasses you'd forgotten about, wonder why you clipped out that article, and so on. It was the perfect task for a lazy hangover day.

Extra credit: "The new diarists." (Jewish blogs: "Are they a challenge to the establishment or the rantings of eccentrics?")

Gallimaufry

(Mindy inspired me to take the time to choose a good word rather than having "Various stuff connected by no particular thread at all" as a title there.)

The rain last night! I first noticed the lightning around eight o'clock: I was in the living room and noticed flashes in the dark sky outside. (I've mentioned that I can't actually see out of my windows, right? They're made of pebbly bathroom glass. Don't get me started.) I must admit that my first thought was something like "Americans! Even in somebody else's country they have to have all kinds of fireworks on the fourth of July!" Eventually I realized it was lightning (oops, my bad), which was still going strong when I went to bed at twelve-thirty. The rain was so loud that I gave up watching TV -- I couldn't hear. (By the way, I didn't just jinx the typhoon -- much of Taiwan got the exact opposite of what I'd hoped for: a destructive Severe Tropical Storm.)

I finished one cloverleaf sock on the weekend, cast on for the next, and worked five rows on PPD. What was even better, though, was packing up a huge bin of yarn to give away, After posting a message on a local forum, I got an e-mail from a beginning knitter who wants it all, and I'm so pleased. I filled a forty-liter storage tub (because I can't take that home, either) and a big bag with balls of yarn (wool, cotton, acrylic, blends, unknowns) and threw in nearly all my straight needles for good measure. And it made me feel so good! Like a Good Knitting Witch.

"Japan's Kobayashi wins eating contest again, setting record with 53½ hotdogs: See this photo? This is going to be me when I get back to Canada and get my hands on some tofu dogs.

Another thing I'm going to do is rent classic Marlon Brando movies.

"Beckham exhibition photo defaced": Vandals who can't spell are funny. Somebody wrote "you loosers" in red felt pen on a huge photo of David Beckham at a British show. According to the article, "The misspelling of 'losers' may have been a reference to Rebecca Loos, whose claims of an affair with Beckham made headlines earlier this year." Oh, it was not. It was a spelling mistake and we all know it. (This reminds me of some local graffiti from my high school days, when somebody spray-painted a pentagram and I LOVE SATIN on the wooden pier at Rotary Beach. Spelling mistake or fashion confession?)

I encounter zany Chinglish every day at work. I don't often laugh out loud, as chances are that it was written by someone else in my office. Today I laughed out loud, at this excellent example of how important it is to put clauses in the correct order in a sentence:

Harriet beckoned me to sit beside her at the dinner table with her head.
(All I could do was write "Why would I want to sit at the dinner table with Harriet's head?")

False alarm

It's my fault: I jinxed the typhoon. Sometime overnight it was downgraded to a Severe Tropical Storm, and today it's just raining hard. I took the day off anyway, and here's the view from my roof a few minutes ago:



See? It's just raining and gray and dark outside. This is not spectacular. Me and a typhoon -- we're just not meant to be together.

I've been knitting away on my Cloverleaf Fixation Sock of Ultimate Greenness. I did a short-row heel, and clearly my knit rows look different from my purl rows in Fixation (but Bea thinks it smells OK):



If you'd like to see what happened about six seconds after that photo was taken, click here. And now I'm going to head out to my favourite café (in a taxi, of course) for a bit more sock knitting. I'd like to finish these before returning to PPD.

Oh, and all the advice about my leg cramp? Thank you! I had no idea it was about potassium. Knitters are so smart.

Owww!

I woke up at precisely 6:00 a.m. with a wicked cramp in my right calf. There was a period when I was a kid when I would get cramps in my legs at night, and I'm quite sure that my mother's treatment involved walking on a cold floor, and something to do with milk. But here's the thing: I have absolutely no idea whether her advice was "Drink a glass of milk!" or "Whatever you do, don't drink milk!" Does this happen to you? Same thing with nosebleeds: I know I'm supposed to do something with my head, but is it tilt it back, or put it between my knees? Sometimes I feel entirely useless at being an adult.

All eyes on the typhoon! It's a-comin'... (I'm going to regret this eagerness, aren't I?)