…and the saga continues. Anika, apparently, wasn’t interested in whatever the mystery salary was, so, barring any other possibilites, I’m probably going to have to postphone my trip until November. This is acceptable, even though I’ll get a few less days than I would in October, but it’s better than nothing. Minja , whom I’ve told I would name a character in one of my movies after, hinted that Aussie food is far too oily, but hopefully I’ll survive. I also hear they have doughnuts! Wouldn’t it be cruel, though, to bite into what you think is a chocolate-filled doughnut and find that it is in fact full of vegamite? Gah!

That would happen to me, of course. Once, when I was five, I got out a big jug of apple cider, poured myself a drink, took a big gulp and realized that it was actually vinegar. You’d think the smell would have alerted me, but I was young and foolish then. Another time I took a swig from a big glass of milk and found that it was that milk you cook with but don’t drink unless Janet Reno is pointing an Uzi at your head.

The weather today is wonderful, sunny and just the right temperature, with a slight, cool breeze. The air actually smells fresh, even though it is so hazy the normally visible mountains surrounding the city are hidden from view. By contract, the conditioned office air smells stale and almost rank.

I went to the eye doctor last night, and, after determining that my ID number on my National Health Insurance card is wrong, he proceeded to extract a particle of some unknown origin from my right eye. He gave me some drops, but I found that I couldn’t sleep last night, because sleep involves closing one’s eyes, and if I close my eye it hurts and wakes me up. So I spent the night dosing off and then being jerked back awake by a sharp pain in my right eye.

At about 7 a.m. I gave up and went to the Adventist hospital to get in the long line of very old people to see the eye doctor there. As I gained access to the eye doctor’s inner sanctum, she was admonishing an old women in Taiwanese.

“Have you been using the drops?” the doctor asked.

“No,” the old woman replied curtly.

“Well, that’s why you can’t see!”

“I’m not used to putting drops in my eyes. I’m too set in my ways!”

The doctor gave me yet another bottle of eye drops after determining that there were no other particles of unknown origin in my eye. Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to actually sleep. If not, I’ll just make up some more A-lister conversations.

Oops. It turns out that Anika is not only a real person, but she is the very individual my friend Vidal said wanted to talk to me about filmmaking when he called me a couple of months ago. She even (gasp!) reads this website.

Ok, so paranoia didn’t work out so well for me this time. It still has an impressive track record.

Anyway, it turns out that Anika could fill in for me at least part of the time, which might be enough. I don’t know how much they pay here for part-time work, though. There’s another guy interested who might be able to come in the mornings when Anika can’t come in, but again, I don’t know if he would be interested in the salary, since I don’t actually know what the salary is. Argh! I haven’t been able to wring a definite answer from the bean-counters, which means that, basically, I still don’t know what’s going to happen with my leave. Lorenzo managed to generate a fake confirmation number for my ticket to Perth, which should hold it for a while, but hopefully I’ll know what’s going on by Wednesday.

My boss said she would call Anika and discuss the pay rate. I asked what the pay rate would be, so I could tell the other guy, but my boss wouldn’t tell me. “I’ll discuss that with them myself,” she told me. Huh? Is it classified or something?

Gee, I wish I had the time and resouces to go to Frey Day, where I could get the chance to feel alienated and be ignored by real-life A-listers! I can picture it now: me, wearing a little sticker with “Hi! I’m _____” written on it, wandering around listening to web designers talk over my head about CSS and javascript, snagging some wine and mixing it with whatever soft drink/laundry detergent was available and drinking it until I was comfortable with the conversation I was making with myself. I mean, what would I talk about with most of these people?

Me: So…(thinks)…how often do you all update your archives?

Ev: I dunno. I have a intern do that for me.

Jason: I wrote a program that would do it for me. Its IQ is higher than yours.

Meg: I network through a… -wait a minute, who are you again?

Me: Does the name “Poagao” ring a bell?

*blank stares*

Me: Ah. Ok….anyone up for stinky beancurd?

*strained silence*

Me: No? Just me then?

When I got in to work this morning, my boss called. “I think I may have found someone to take over for you when you’re on your leave,” she said. I picked my jaw up from the floor and asked who. “Her name is Anika, and here’s her number. See if you can call her in and talk with her, to see if she can do the job.”

This is a 180-degree switch from her previous stance. I can only attribute it to either hormones or a devious plan to get me to unwittingly find my own successor. I’ve been calling the number all morning, but no one has been answering. I am beginning to wonder if this ‘Anika’ even a real person. Is that even a real name? It sounds suspiciously made up. This new development has foiled my ability to make a decision on whether I can go ahead and buy tickets for October or wait and go in November.

Don’t worry, I’ve had plenty of successful experiences with paranoia.

In the meantime, I was left wishing that my CD/MP3 player had a faster loading time after I was subjected to almost 20 seconds of Whiny Woman discussing the quality of someone’s stool over the phone before the music kicked in.

Whiny Woman: “Was it thin? Thin. You know, watery? Yeah? How thin? What could you see in it? Were there, like, chunks of -” (The Wallflowers at peak volume rescue me from having to listen any further)

And now my eye hurts. It has felt like there’s something in it since yesterday, but I can’t find anything, and drops aren’t helping. I probably scratched it again. So, in addition to all of the other shit I have to deal with, I have to do see an eye doctor as well.

Oh, my head hurts. I spent all day writing again, and I think I’ve finished the first, very rough draft of my book! It’s almost 65,000 words long in its present form, or about 220 pages in a paperback. Needless to say, it need a huge amount of editing as well as the addition of background and explanations, but it feels good just to have reached this stage, in any case. All in all I wrote over 10,000 words this weekend, which is certainly something. Now I just need to make what I’ve written at least make sense and be interesting.

I am also definitely not looking forward to going to work tomorrow and staring at a computer screen all day. Except for when I went out for lunch and dinner, I’ve spent all day today in my room typing and typing while I stared at this damn monitor. Well, enough is enough! I’m going to bed.

I’ll leave you with a picture I took of a sign near Jake’s Urban Den or whatever it’s called (at which, I regret to report, I will no longer be dining. The food just isn’t that good any more) :

Polar Guy. Just what is that steaming hunk of meat he’s holding?

Ha! it’s still Saturday and I’ve already surpassed my goal of 60,000 words, which is over 200 pages in a normal paperback pocket book. If I can keep this pace up tomorrow, I might just get close to the end of this phase of writing my book. I can’t believe I wrote over 6,000 words today. Damn. And somehow I still have some left over to write in here.

It occurred to me that the chances of finding someone to fill in for me in October are slim to none, so I am considering altering my travel plans and waiting until November to make my trip, since Henrik will be free to sub for me then. Australia’s not so bad in November, is it? I have no idea, actually.

Now if I can only sell my boss on this idea. Theoretically, it sounds good, since I am delaying my annual leave so that someone can fill in for me, and I am also giving them well over a month’s notice, so it’s not like I’m waiting until the last minute. The way I see it, since my position demands that, not only do I need a replacement, but I am also responsible for finding a suitable candidate, they should cut me some slack about exactly when I take my leave.

Theoretically, that is. In reality my boss is a bundle of raging, pregnancy-induced hormones, so who knows what the hell will happen. All I do know is that I really, really hate dealing with people. I’d make a terrible diplomat. I bet I’d be a kick-ass emporer, though!

In the meantime, it would appear that posting a couple of photo links to Metafilter was too much for that illustrious site, thus resulting in its (at least temporary) demise. Who knew it was so fragile? Or that my links were so strong? I really should do my laundry.

Oops, it’s back up again. I can call off the lawyers now.

It’s Saturday and, of course, beautiful outside. I’ve wasted enough time surfing around and changing my turtles’ water, watching them scramble about in the gargantuan weekly waterfall issuing from the faucet. Although I’d much rather be at the beach on a gorgeous day like today, I need to stay in and write. I want to get to reach at least 60,000 words this weekend, the equivalent of around 200 pages in a paperback. But mainly I just want to finish getting the main story down, so that I can begin editing and polishing it.

Hopefully, someone will call today and say “Yes, I can fill in for you for a few hours a day through October!” If not, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably tell my company to find their own damn replacement. And, of course, they’ll probably tell me not to bother coming back. Go insane from working without vacation for years on end, or be fired. Nice set of choices.

As I walked in the entrance to my building the other night, an Asian guy and a Chinese woman were talking in the lobby. She was speaking English to him and seemed to be very proud of it, while he stared at her uncomprehendingly. I got into the elevator, and the guy followed me in. After we got out of the elevator we both walked up to the same apartment door. It seems that he is a student from Japan, here to study Chinese, which he can already speak better, apparently, than English. Why the woman downstairs was speaking English with him I have no idea. Well, yes I do. Most Chinese people think that English is spoken everywhere, and they will try to show off their English skills, even if those skills are extremely basic, at the drop of a hat. My landlord’s daughter has left, and the guy who’s come here to study Chinese is living in her room now. He seemed excited to find that we have onsen (hot springs) up in Beitou, which used to be a real Japanese enclave.

I’ve added a few new photos to the photo page, updated the links page (thanks to Doyce for mentioning me on his page), and sprinkled a few more graphics throughout the site. Have fun.

Today, in a word, sucked. It wasn’t the weather. The weather was perfect, a sunny, warm late summer day with just a hint of approaching autumn in the form of a refreshingly coolish breeze. I had planned to get official permission to take my annual leave, purchase my tickets, and be set to go to Australia next month. As I worked my way through the same old documents, correcting the same old mistakes and watching my computer crash over and over again, I took refuge in the thought that in a few weeks’ time, I would be rambling around down under.

I went to my boss and asked if I could take my annual leave. “I’ve even found a replacement,” I told her, and I had. Henrik had agreed to come back for a month to help me out.

But she took offense. “I feel like you’re forcing me to let you do this,” she told me. “I could say no, you know. Did you ever think of that? How dare you just come up here and ask me this, acting as if I’m required to say yes! As a matter of fact, I think I will say no!”

I was flabbergasted. This came completely out of the blue, as there’s simply no reason for her not to let me take the annual leave due to me, and technically, I shouldn’t have to find a replacement every time I want to take time off. That’s their responsibility. Did I mention that my boss is visibly pregnant? Do you think that might have something to do with her reaction? I don’t know, but one of the main reasons I decided to stay with this job was because of the benefits entailed, and if I don’t even get to enjoy those, then WHY THE LIVING FUCK should I stay there?

I was sitting in my cubicle a bit later, pondering this unexpected development when my boss called. “It’s Henrik. He can’t fill in for you,” she said shortly. Sure enough, Henrik called and, sounding quite apologetic, explained that he indeed couldn’t fill in for me, since he got a better offer somewhere else. All I can say is, it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t bring my steel sword to practice today, but it sure would have felt better if I’d been able to lop off a few heads. Can’t do that with retractable plastic.

So now, not only is my boss pissed off that I want to take my annual leave, but I need to find someone to fill in for me for a month. But you know what? I don’t care. I’m taking this vacation, because I’ll go insane without it. The company can either pay me for my vacation time, or it can fuck me over. But you know what else? Every bit of English-language content that goes out of that company to all of our clients and other offices comes through my desk. You want to fuck with me? Heh. Allow me to show you how this game is played.

Some snapshots of interesting things I’ve come across lately:

Not far from where I live is a restaurant whose name sounds like a euphemism for a certain affliction I won’t mention here. It’s called the “See You Again Crab” restaurant. I’ve never gone there because, to be perfectly honest, I’m not all that sure I want to see the crab again, particularly after I’ve eaten it. It’s quite popular though, almost as popular as the “Really Good” restaurant near my building. I can see the “See You Again Crab”‘s neon lights from my window, flashing all the way across the park.

Ok, the goal of a gym is to exercise, right? They have running machines, weight machines, step machines, etc. So why would a gym need an escalator? What kind of gym is this? One of those relaxing, effortless gyms?

At a corner near my office is a woman who’s got a great set-up. She runs a betelnut business in the back of her little blue truck. The truck has become a permanent part of the road. She pays no rent or taxes on property. She has electricity and cable TV lines hooked up from across the street so she can watch HBO while she prepares her betelnuts. The cab of the truck is full of ghost money and she plays buddhist chants on a stereo. Her business is called “Great Kaohsiung Betelnut”. Sweet. I used to chew betelnut when I was in the army, but my dentist told me to cut it out or he would sick the attendent with the really bad breath on me.

I went back to the travel agent this evening, and it turns out that Lorenzo found me round-trip tickets on Singapore Airlines to Perth, Australia for a little over NT$30,000, which is less than I had expected to have to pay. I’d have to spend over 6 hours during stopover in Singapore, but maybe I could spend a little time in the city before taking off again. I quite liked Singapore when I was there last time.

Now all I have to do is get official approval for taking all of my annual leave all at once. I was told that it wouldn’t be a problem, but one never knows. I’d better not be too late to work tomorrow morning, just in case.

It would seem that I alienated most of my readers with the last post. I guess I can understand why, what with not only containing references to homosexuality, retirees getting struck by lightning in Florida, and my underwear, but also sprinkled liberally with nasty words that you won’t hear the nice people on TV say any time soon. Well, good riddance, I say. If they would prefer to watch “Silver Spoons” re-runs, then I don’t want their kind in here. This blog ain’t big enough for the both of us.

I’ve spent an enjoyable day at the office watching my computer crash repeatedly in new and interesting ways, editing godawful pieces of what can only be loosely described as ‘text’,(one woman described herself in her CV as ‘sentient’. Congratulations, you’re sentient. Now go watch TV) and listening to Whiny Woman sing along to old songs by the Police. I’ve been trying to deal with my mounting frustration with time-worn techniques such as “Flattening Plastic Water Bottles Loudly with My Hands before Jumping Up and Down on the Resulting Pile o’ Plastic” and the good old “Striding Purposefully Around in Tight Circles”, but to honest I’d rather just be somewhere else.

The air outside smells good for a change today. This is no doubt the result of several days of heavy rains and frequent lightning. Storms are the bringers of fresher air, which this city certainly needs. I know I do.

The thunderstorms are back with a vengence. There were multiple strikes lighting up the sky throughout this evening, more than I’ve seen here in a long time. Most of them were pretty far away (Wow-class), some were uncomfortably close (Damn!-class) and a few seemed like they were right overhead (Fuck me!-class). We used to get a lot of Fuck me! lightning in Florida, also known to tourists as the Lightning Capital of the World (“for all of your lightning needs”), which probably has something to do with that state’s abundance of both golf courses and retirees.

I went to the travel agency, where a friend of mine named Lorenzo from the Dominican Republic assured me that I could get a round-trip ticket to Perth, Australia, from Taipei for a reasonable price. I’m hoping for less than NT40,000, even if I have to fly at odd hours and stopover in Singapore. The train from Perth to Sydney is, the guide book says, A$888, or over NT$15,000. Yeah, this trip’s gonna bankfuck me, but I figure that’s why God made credit cards.

The rain was really coming down after I got out of the travel agency, so I left my motorcycle on the sidewalk and took the MRT back up to near the 70’s Airport Love Palace where Dean lives. On the subway I saw a really good-looking guy. He was dressed in a grey button-down shirt that looked as if it had fit before he started working out, but was too tight now. His hair was too long, but his features were stunning. Well, stunning to me, anyway. I walked behind him as we got off the train and went downstairs to the street level exit, where he met another guy, who was handing him a small red paper bag as I walked past and out of the station.

I need to get out more.

One of the best things about blogging is that you don’t have to dress for it. This is a good thing, considering I really need to either do some laundry or buy new underwear. Thankfully, there’s lots of places that sell underwear. In case you’re wondering, I prefer baggy grey briefs.

Dean is going out for the role of Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which is going to be performed here early next year. I can already hear the bad southern accents. I wouldn’t mind doing another play as well, but I really need to get this book done, and after that I think I would rather work on my next film. Get used to reading that, by the way. I’m trying to make myself feel guilty enough about not getting off my ass to actually get off my ass. So to speak.