Ooooh. Here I am at the office. I didn’t sleep last night. I got online after last night’s entry and chatted until 7:30. I have no idea why. Probably because it was someone I don’t usually see online, but DAMN! I feel exhausted. It was a fun weekend, I have to admit, but today at work I only feel half-way here. It’s a good thing that nobody noticed I was late this morning and also that my workload is pretty light, so far, that it. Still, somehow, I feel like I’m back in Taiwan, after a long absence. I can’t explain it; maybe it has something to do with the arrival of summer, maybe the degree to which I am associating with my Taiwanese friends as opposed to hanging out with foreigners a lot, maybe something happened in my subconscious that I don’t realize; but, for the past few days I have just felt really happy, and life has seemed fresher and more like it used to be than normal. Weather, however, does tend to have a large influence on my attitude, so that is probably the biggest factor. It could, I suppose, be the upcoming tenth anniversary of my graduation from college. I am not going to the reunion, as it is too far, but the timing might have something to do with it as well…

There’s a guy I used to know who just started working in our office today. I knew him because I saw the newcomer notice with his information and picture on the company email. He didn’t recognize me, though. It has been something like 7 years since I saw him last, and then we only saw each other a couple of times. I guess I’ve changed, as has he, and the fact that I went to the beach yesterday and got about 3 shades darker didn’t help jog his memory. It’s okay, though.

It started out as a nice day, but now it looks like the traditional summer afternoon storm clouds are rolling in, possibly preventing my return home on my motorcycle this afternoon. I just want to get home, take a shower and go to sleep, that’s all.

Is anyone reading this at all? There are so many of these out there, no doubt many or most more interesting than mine, but sometimes I still wonder. I read other people’s stuff: Mindcrime, Ratbastard, Moose, even Ben Brown occasionally.

My friend Clar should get one of these. And Joan, too. Lots of people should get one of these, but not everyone. Only people I am interested in knowing more about. Ah, I’m a selfish bastard, I know. But I’m a happy, tired selfish bastard, today anyway.

Today was interesting. I got up in the morning and it was summer outside. I really like Taiwan a lot more in the summer…it reminds me of summers past and all of the things I have done in the summer….just a nice, fresh spring-ish feeling. Summer reminds me how I came to feel the way I do about Taiwan, for just as Taipei really only comes into its own at night, Taiwan is really only its quintessential self in the summer months.

I called my friend Harry and we arranged to meet outside the Tamshui MRT station and then he would take me on his scooter to Shalun Beach. As I was riding the smooth, fast and convenient transit train out, I recalled my first trip out to Shalun beach, around 12 years ago. My friends from college and I took an ancient, shaking bus from downtown Taipei out. It seemed to take forever, and then we rented bicycles to ride from Tamshui to Shalun. That also took forever, but it was great fun, and there was a whole welcome center and lots of people and little food stands out there.

Things have sure changed out there. They are building a road around the old forest area, which was being swallowed by the dunes anyway, and the beach center has long since been closed down. It’s like a completely different place now than it was. We ended up just walking around, gawking at the remaining landmarks, old army bunkers that used to be deep in the forest, now at the edge of the beach and buried in sand, old buildings, etc. It’s almost as if a way of life was dissapearing. Who knows what will happen when the road is open.

We forced open a gate at one of the old abandoned buildings and went up to the roof to sunbath. There were a couple of other guys up there, and we chatted a bit. Then we went down to the beach to swim. It felt so good, a true harbinger of Summer, to be floating in the ocean again, even though I have to say the beach at Fulong is much nicer, golden sand, cleaner air and water, etc. I hear that the beach at Daxi is even nicer; I will have to try that one out someday.

I had to leave at 4pm, though, to make to a former co-worker’s farewell party in Tienmou. That was a lot of fun as well…for me, the perfect kind of get-together, just a small group of good friends, good music, barbeque, drinks, a nice balcony with a view north of Yangmingshan and south of Taipei, and pleasantly warm twilight weather. Unfortunately, our host inadvertantly put his knee through a plate-glass door, so we ended up taking him to the Veteran’s Hospital for stitches. I got in about 1:30am this morning, and now it is almost 4am. Ack, I have to get up and go to work in the morning! Tomorrow will probably seem so normal compared to today, for today has been a really interesting day. I should have more days like today.

Summer seems to have arrived. It is bright and hot outside. So much for my weather predicting skills. No matter, though, as I am in a good mood because of it. I don’t mind hot weather, particularly in Spring and Summer. And it is Saturday, so I am going to the Taipei Mosque with some friends later. Tomorrow I might even go to the beach, who knows? If there is anything left at Shalun, which has been slowly eroding for the past decade. Probably only dunes left by now. I remember when there was a forest full of paths and old army bunkers, but the shoreline has receded, smothering most of it.

It turns out that my Taichi class runs until May 17th, so I can stay that long without having to pay, anyway. So much the better, I can also delay my doubtlessly embarrassing exit. Sword class last night went very well, despite the fact that I have missed practice for the last couple of weeks. They have finished the form, and we are now just trying to get it right. I am slowly coming around, even though half the time I am trying to follow the teacher. I might start going to the Sunday morning classes, although I can’t this week because of a performance.

Summer in Taiwan is so much better than Winter in Taiwan. Most of the foreigners complain about the heat, which is oppressive, but you really just have to get used to it. Be glad there is such a thing as air conditioning. I lived for years here without A/C, and did ok. But Summer also means being able to wear shorts, a tank top and sandals everywhere you go(except the office, of course, where they keep it quite Winter-like so that the executives can wear their black wool suites, driving as they do from their air-conditioned homes in their air-conditioned cars to the air-conditioned office and then back again. But on the Outside, in the real Taiwan, not the office Taiwan, people are more natural, and I could just sit on any given street and watch people, the families crowded onto one scooter, the shirtless workers driving ubiquitous blue mini trucks, postmen on their green motorcycles, foodstands and old ladies on even older bicycles that only have one gear so that they have to push it up to a certain speed and then jump on…

Last night was strange. A former co-worker from the News is leaving Taiwan, and I went out to his place in Mucha for a get-together. Saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a long time, but it was strange because it was a lot more complicated a social situation than I am used to dealing with. Some of my best friends in the world were there, but people got drunk and said things they probably wouldn’t have said sober, things that make me wonder…I’m sorry I cannot be more specific…I can only say, at the end of the evening, when I got out of the cab to go pick up my motorcycle near the MRT station, I was in a rather confused state of mind. I came home feeling extraordinarily lonely, for some reason. Probably because there was someone at the party, someone, if I’d had my druthers, I would have taken home, gotten naked and snuggled into bed with…but there was no chance of that happening…making me both excited and miserable at the same time. And then, just as I was in the depths of this state of mind, another friend of mine reveals that that is exactly how she feels about me. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around all of this last night, and as a result I guess I just felt very, very alone.
That’s about all I can say.

Anyway! Besides my hangover from last night, it is a beautiful day, and whatever happened last night should not be allowed to ruin today, right? I suppose it will all work out somehow, anyway….things always do.

The downside to working in an office where music is allowed is that there are 37 different types of music within earshot at any given time. At this to the constant unanswered mobile phones going off at unattended desks(these people deserve to have their phones stolen) and the cacophonic mixture of Philip Glass, old Chinese pop music and some random boy band is rather unnerving. Sometimes I bring in my CD walkman, but it is on the fritz, and the Rio Volt doesn’t seem to be coming to Taiwan any time soon that I know of, so when the people in the cubicle next to me start dropping bad English words into their conversation for no reason other than to impress each other, I just have to use the FM stereo function of my cell phone(which I keep with me when it’s on, unlike most of these morons).

It’s a nice enough day today. The ride into work went smoothly. I find I regularly hit 120 kph on the bridge over Civil Blvd. just to make the light at the next intersection.

Tonight, though, I have Tai-chi, the class that is held on the 11th floor of my building, the class I was led to believe was free and sponsorerd by our company, but isn’t, the class I can’t afford to take any more. It’s really embarrassing but I have to tell the teacher I can’t take his class any more tonight, I guess, since today is the last day of the class before we have to pay again. He is a nice old guy, has written several books on Taichi and is rather famous, even gave me a uniform free. I don’t know if I should return that or not. Who would want a used uniform? I guess I’ll keep it, then. The class is really getting out of hand, too, space-wise. Just too many people in that one little room.

So, after tonight, I will only have the Taichi Sword class on Fridays and Sundays. I need more exercise, especially after this virus I’ve had since April Fool’s Day. I am going to be so behind tomorrow night, but then again, I’m always behind. I’m just doing it because I like doing it.

Wrote a letter to the Taipei Times, again. I have little hope that they will publish it. They never publish my letters; I guess they know me too well by now. Anyway, this one was about the fact that all three English-language newspapers put the Bush/Taiwan story on the top of their papers today, but all three also purposely omitted a certain portion of the story, which was only available in the wire-service stories, like Reuters:

“Bush said Taiwan and China must resolve their differences peacefully, adding the United States would oppose any move by Taiwan to declare its independence voluntarily, which China would see as a cause for war.
‘We would certainly hope Taiwan would not do that. We would hope that Taiwan and China would resolve their differences
under the one-China policy. The long-standing one-China policy is a policy that
this administration supports,’ he said.”

I get so tired of the English-language papers here. God help me if I ever need to apply for a job at the Times, though.

My friend Mindcrime has created a forum for me on his site. “Forum” implies an audience, and as yet I have no evidence in support of the theory that I might have an audience. But there it is, waiting, just in case I ever get one.

It is called “Poagao’s Punditry”. Hmmmm… going to have to think about changing that name….never saw myself as a pundit, really…

Last night, as I made my way towards the MRT station near Chungshan Middle, -er, Junior Hight school, I heard someone yelling, “Excuse me! Outa the way!” I caught a glimpse of a couple pushing a couple of those stands one hangs clothes on, both stuffed with hanging children’s clothes, just before they ran right into me and knocked me down. Immediately the man pulled me to my feet so the two could proceed with their getaway from the pursuing police. Only there were no pursuing police. Apparently it was a false alarm.

I admit that I could have dodged the stand easily enough had I wanted to, and that my real objective was to knock the stands down. I did manage to scatter quite a few ‘precious’ little outfits on the wet sidewalk, but I didn’t actually bring the whole thing down.

I will try to do better next time.

Sometimes I lean out the window in the bathroom, the only window in the office that opens, and just smell the outside air. Theoretically, the office air is cleaner, being air conditioned and all, but I just love the smell of outside air, even if it is outside air in Taipei.

The guy at the China Post said they don’t take any articles over 1,000 words, and they don’t split articles up into segments. So I slashed my story down from 3,400 words to 1,054 words and sent it in. Don’t worry, though, I will definitely put the whole, unabridged version on my site here. Then you can learn all about Penghu!

One of these days I am going to lose it and start throwing unattended ‘mobile’ phones out the window. What is the point of a mobile phone if people don’t carry it with them? If I am describing you, then watch out, because I am on antibiotic medication today and not legally responsible for my actions.

Trying to get this website running is taking a lot more time than I thought it would. And, no, you didn’t tell me so. Ah, I give up on all of this archive business. I should concentrate on writing enough to archive first, then worry about the archiving. Sheesh. I never say “sheesh” in real life, by the way, just in case you were wondering…

It’s a bit odd, writing things here I would normally only write in my personal journal, for my eyes only. I guess I’ll have to be careful, but I seriously doubt there are that many people reading this, if any at all, so I will return to my ordinary, rambling description of the mundanity of my life and my self-inflicted rage at it.

I made an appointment with the features editor at the China Post tomorrow for him to look over my latest travel piece. It is 3,400 words long and I took three roles of pictures. If they take it, they’ll have to break it up into at least two sections, which is ok by me. I have no idea what is going on at the News these days, and I doubt the Times would bother with someone like me, so the Post it is. I will post it here on my writing page as soon as it comes out in the paper, sooner if it is totally rejected.

It seems like I have had a cold since April Fool’s Day. I went to the doctor again tonight, and he put me on ‘stage 2’ antibiotics, which means I shouldn’t ride my motorcycle under the influence, so I guess I will have to take the MRT tomorrow. Gonna be hell getting up in the morning, though. I remember when I was in the army, I was so used to getting up at 5:30 am, that when I was on leave I couldn’t sleep past 8 to save my life. But that was years ago.

My tenth reunion at W&L is coming up, in the first few days of May. I kind of doubt I will go, since I don’t possess the means to go right now, and I would rather see the old campus on a normal day rather than with a bunch of alumni running around it. Or like it was when I first saw it, during the summer, almost completely deserted, wonderfully so, in fact. Lexington at its best, in my opinion.

I emailed several of my friends to tell them about this website. So far only the one now known as “Moose” has bothered to reply. Thanks, Moose.
It looks like summer is arriving like a hesitant, unwilling blind date this year. We won’t see real heat until late May, I’ll bet, or even June.

Can you see Chinese in this thing, I wonder? Kandedao zhongwen ma? Guess not. Ok, I’ll keep it in English.

Ok, here I am, at 1:43 in the morning, trying to figure this out. Work tomorrow, of course. Bear with me, all of you out there just hanging on my every word…let’s see, what does this button do?