I learned recently that Typing Girl is actually an intern. She is getting university credit to sit around here and type massive emails. I suppose I can’t really complain, since I’m actually paid to sit around here and write in my blog. I wish they’d at least get her a quieter keyboard.

I’m not usually one to take stupid online tests, but the questions on the Which Farscape Character are You? one are actually pretty funny. Turns out I’m Aeryn Sung. Another reason I shouldn’t be bitching about Typing Girl. I get paid to take silly online tests!

I emailed my parents, brother and sister about the real estate ad I found yesterday, and my brother emailed me back with a warning that my parents have discovered a letter I wrote 15 years ago in which I criticize them in what they obviously feel an unfair fashion. Lessee, that would be when I was in high school, so it’s probably my old journal. Imagine, a teenager complaining about his parents in his journal! Unheard of!

Last night after work I went over to the Chungking Mansions Taipei to meet with the landlord, or at least some representative thereof, but the guy didn’t show up. The girl who lives in the apartment now called him up, and he said he was sick. So we’re going to try it again today. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a commitment this time, since I need to inform my current landlord that I am leaving.

Later on I went over to check out Mindcrime’s new digs. A couple of dirty workmen were installing a couple of equally dirty air conditioners. The only furniture in the place was a bed and some shelves, but it’s a nice, large apartment for an incredibly cheap price in a good location. They’re lucky to have gotten it. I still give Mindcrime about 3-5 minutes before he starts bitching about it.

Dean, Graham, Mindcrime and I are going to meet up tonight at My Other Place after I am finished with the landlord thing. I also have to open a new bank account for my new job. I met with one of the people who hired me this afternoon after lunch, and she told me that there is no Chinese New Year bonus for part-time workers. I guess that makes sense in a way, but it’s still a bit of a disappointment.

Another disappointment is this fucking mobile phone I bought. I thought that, since it is a Nokia, it would be at least decent, but the reception and broadcast quality are crap. I don’t have the money to spend on another new phone, and my old phone gave up the ghost, so I’m just going to have to make due with this one for now.

As if it wasn’t nostalgic enough finding an old mall I vaguely remembered from my childhood wasn’t enough, I was googling the Clear Lake City area where I spent the years 1975-1981 (second through sixth grades) when I stumbled upon this ad. This, of course, is the house we lived in at the time, and it happens to be for sale.

This opens up an ocean of memories. This is the house where I would come home after school and realize I’d forgotten my keys as I stood locked outside listening to the phone ring inside. The window on the upper left was my room after my sister went to college. Before that I shared the room on the upper right with my brother. My own room was small, with blue walls and there was a tunnel from the hallway into the large space above the garage. The house itself was a dark brown with an orange door when we bought it, and we promptly painted it mustard yellow. Don’t ask me why. If you look at the interior, though, you’ll see that whoever is living there now has even less taste than we did. You’ll also see the bay window in the family room where I learned to play chess, and a huge, wood-encased TV almost exactly like the one we had. I spent many a Saturday morning lying in front of that thing watching everything from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show to the Superfriends. The bookshelves to the right of it were piled with hundreds of old National Geographics. This was the room where my dad was sitting one morning when I came down for breakfast, surprising me as he was usually at work by that time, and realized that our house was surrounded by water after a hurricane. It’s also where I broke the news to my mom, as she was in the midst of a massive cleaning project, that I had flunked Mrs. Vanartsdalen’s 5th-grade English class.

The carpet in the living room looks to be the same awful green stuff we put in, but the kitchen has been repainted. The counter on the lower right is where we kept the cookie jar. That’s also where my mother, telling me I had to grasp the beaker holder more firmly, dashed some noxious mixture from my chemical set on the faux-brick linoleum floor. We kept the silverware in those drawers; it was easier for setting the table, to the left of the picture, for dinner. We saved the real dining room for special occasions.

The ad says the neighbors are great. All the assholes who lived in the area back then must have either mellowed out in their old age or moved away, in that case. Of course, they probably think the same thing about us. The deck in the back is new; we had a concrete patio there. My old fort in the backyard is gone, too, of course, but the pear tree whose fruit I sold door-to-door in the neighborhood is still there.

This is so amazing. I can’t believe I found this.

It seems that my childhood sometimes-friend/sometimes-enemy Chris Davis’ house is up for sale as well. Damn.

The cab driver who was taking me to the interview seemed to like taking the scenic route, but I managed to get to the Technology Building in time to meet the people I was supposed to meet. They seemed eager about the arrangement, and although the terms and compensation weren’t as good as I had been told, they were still good enough, so when I was offered the job I took it. The office is still being worked on, and since I have to give my present company some time before I leave, I will be starting on the 12th of August. It looks promising. I just hope it works out so that I don’t regret taking the leap.

By a strange coincidence, the 12th is also the day I can move into the Chungking Mansions Taipei room, since the woman who is presently living there has informed her landlord of her plans and has not received any objections. She has arranged for us all to meet there tomorrow after work. Hopefully that will go smoothly as well. The 12th is going to be an interesting day, methinks.

In other news, I went over to Locus and inked my book contract with them today, after which I delivered the finished manuscript for them to start work on. Well, I should say we, since I am going to have to work with them on the translation into Chinese, but still, it’s good to have that weight off my shoulders. Afterwards Peter and I went out to a nearby Italian restaurant, located in the alley behind Dan Ryan’s, for dinner. The food was actually quite good, and the only thing missing was good music. All they played was sickly sweet piano music. It’s alright, but Italian food needs something a bit more Sinatrazzy. After dinner I bade Peter farewell and walked down to the newly opened underground mall that runs along Zhongxiao E. Road from the Zhongxiao-Fuxing Station over to under the Mingyao Dept. Store. It’s quite large, and hosts many interesting shops. Mindcrime, who is officially becoming a Taipei Person (Taipeier? Taipeiese? Taipeian?) tomorrow when he moves up here along with HG Janice, seems to like those underground malls, just because it’s so hot up top these days. We’ll see how long he lasts before he starts bitching about this city. I give him about three minutes.

I saw this site on deadmalls.com the other day, and it looked eerily familiar. I asked my sister about it and it turns out that Cinderalla City was one of our family’s favorite places to go when we lived in Colorado from 1969-1973 or 4. I was so young I don’t remember much more than climbing out of my mother’s station wagon and into my dad’s 1965 Corvair Monza convertible one night in the parking lot of this mall. But when I saw the fountain, I remembered that, too. We all thought it was the biggest mall in the world, and certainly it seemed that way to a 3-year-old Poagao, but now it’s gone.

Anyway, upward and onward! New digs, new gigs…things sure be a-changing round these parts.

A curious buzzing noise was coming from the direction of the elevators, just across the hall from my desk, just now. Since the elevator doesn’t stop on our floor, we all just ignored it. It came again, and again. And then, suddenly, who else but the Big Boss came tumbling out of the elevator.

She strode over to my cubicle-neighbor Wee and demanded his phone. I don’t know who she called, but I felt a bit sorry for them. “I was in the elevator and it just stopped and started shaking,” she told the person on the other end of the line. “I pressed the emergency button but nobody answered, so I forced the door open, on a floor it’s not even supposed to stop at!”

It was a bit of an awkward moment, and everyone appeared to be working on something, but you knew everyone was listening quite closely. The Big Boss hung up and then rushed out of the room, no doubt to raise Big Boss Hell somewhere.

Mindcrime came up on Saturday and went shopping for a bed with HG Janice. Janice is an accompliced bargainer, and she spent pretty much the entire afternoon haggling with a shopowner on Wenchang St., aka Furniture Street. Eventually she got one, while Mindcrime and I waited in a nearby Macdonald’s. I hadn’t eaten that day and decided to forget my series of vows to never eat anything from MacD’s again. I got a spicey chicken burger, but when I bit into it, yellowish grease poured out. There was no sign of any actual chicken. I should have checked the name -it was probably “Chiken” or something and under to legal obligation to contain anything my stomach might be able to process. I was so hungry I finished it anyway (I know, a stupid thing to do, and I added yet another vow to never eat anything in Macdonald’s again), and we went to Daichi to look at air conditioners. The reason Mindcrime’s new digs don’t have A/C is that it is Buddhist-owned, and they deemed that particular luxury somewhat less than necessary.

Later, after my friends had decided they’d had enough of haggling over furniture in Taipei and returned to Hsinchu, I took the MRT out to Zhonghe. I know what you’re thinking: Why do out to that cesspool? Well, the reason is that I had heard from some friends who had moved out there that rent was quite reasonable, and also that the area had improved a lot in the couple of years since I’d been there.

Not. My friends were either wrong or living in some other dimension. Post-MRT Zhonghe is just as chaotic yet drab as it ever was, and after walking around the streets for a while I knew that any reduction in rent would be a poor substitute for having to live there. As I was finishing my drink in the MRT station before going to take a train back to Taipei, I confirmed something I’d long suspected.

You see, in Taiwan it is almost inevitable that, when you visit the men’s restrooms in any public place, some old cleaning woman will be in there fussing around. I used to think it was coincidence, but it happened too many times for that. Now, as I sat on a ledge just outside the lobby of the station, I saw a line of cleaning women standing against the wall not far from the restrooms, which were empty. Then a trainload of people started to come up the escalators, and a portion of them made for the restrooms. The cleaning women, seeing this, made a beeline for the men’s room. Ah HA! I should have photographed the whole thing. I’m sure Next Magazine would be interested in such a scandal.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, I told myself I needed to get out of Dodge. It was a beautiful, strong, hot day. I ran through the list of usual suspects in my head: Danshui, Beitou, Hsintien, etc., but I wanted to go somewhere I’d never been before. So I called up Maoman, who has recently moved up to a gated community of apartments in Xizhi. We arranged to meet up at United Mix, where we had brunch. Maoman knew literally everyone in the restaurant, and introduced me around. Then I followed him on my motorcycle up to the Nanjing/Jilong loop and out of the city. We passed through Neihu and the Public TV station out there, driving down some really nice curving streets lined with impossibly nice homes. I had no idea that area had developed so much. The last time I’d been out there was just after they had contructed the tunnel, and there hadn’t been any buildings around at all. Now there’s nice apartment buildings all over the place.

We continued up the mountain until we reached a checkpoint where a security officer checked Maoman’s ID. Then we rode a little bit more up to the actual complex, where another ID check awaited. I thought we had arrived, but we hadn’t, not yet. Instead we descended into a labrynthian network of underground parking lots and access roads that went on and on. We passed through a couple more checkpoints, descending another two or three levels before finally reaching Maoman’s alloted motorcycle parking space. I was thoroughly and completely lost, and I don’t get lost easily.

We took a series of elevators up to Maoman’s apartment, where his girlfriend Vanessa and her little brother Mark were waiting. The apartment is huge, brand new, and features fantastic views of the surrounding mountains. More people came by, other friends and neighbors with dogs. We went down to the green lawn in the center of the complex, which actually resembles a giant pinball machine, and tossed a dog-saliva-coated football around. Then we took a walk down by the lake. It was quite nice, yet a little disconcerting. I couldn’t get my mind around actually living like that. My friends are obviously in a much higher tax bracket, and some of the foreigners are the kind that want to keep their level of awareness that they are in Taiwan as low as possible. “I don’t like Chinese food,” one told me. “Well, to be fair, I’ve never actually had it.”

We changed into swimsuits and went swimming in the large, irregularly shaped pool. It was full of parents and kids that day, but it was still possible to swim a few strokes. The place also has a weightroom and sauna. As we soaked in the hot tub listening to executives talk about business deals as they played with their kids, I felt like I was on a cruise ship. It felt good, but I still couldn’t imagine actually living like that in a day-to-day fashion. And the commute! Just getting in and out of the complex required a compass and supplies, not to mention the large white ball bouncing around and asphyxiating random people who try to leave.

That night we rode down to a noisy Chinese restaurant and ate various dishes while being stared at by every single patron in the place. Perhaps they are used to foreigners in small doses only and feared that we could constitute a threat in larger numbers. The food was good, though. Then we rode back up to the Complex and watched TV while sipping oreo shakes Maoman made. They were good, too, but I think my stomach has grown unused to milk products, and I began to feel a bit queasy. We went for another swim before Maoman had to take Mark home to his parents in Sanchung, but I couldn’t really enjoy it despite the fact that I haven’t been swimming at night for many years. I suppose I should avoid drinking that much milk.

In other news, my high-school friend Shawn has scored a great job at PDI/Deamworks as a character technical director. Excellent work. Hopefully we will all be moving to bigger and better things soon. In a few minutes I myself will be having an interview for the part-time editing position. They seem fairly eager about me, so as long as I don’t do anything stupid, it should go well. I’m dressed for the part, or at least as far as I’m able to. I could be one of the vampires today, with black suit pants and dress-ish shoes, gray button-down and a tie in case I need one. The woman called me this morning and told me to speak as much English as possible with el Guapo. I think I can manage that.

Last night I took a cab over to the Tongqing Chinese Clinic opposite the Xingtian Temple on Songjiang Rd. Since the best the best western doctor at Adventist Hospital could tell me was “stop looking down”, I thought I would go to the other end of the spectrum. I went to Tongqing ten years ago after I busted up my knee practicing Wushu. I thought that, since Chinese medicine tends to be more about nerves than Western medicine, I’d give it a shot. It’s been a while since I have walked around that area of town; it reminded me that I need to visit other parts of the city and even get out of the city more often.

The doctor, who turned out to be the head of the clinic, examined me, telling me to grab his hands and squeeze. I took it easy the first time, and he told me to try harder. I did and he grimaced, shaking his hands to get the feeling back. He said I probably had a nerve infection from my last cold. He prescribed some powdered medicine in little packets, and then stuck a bunch of needles in my hand and face. Then he stuck a roll of something on some of the needles and lit them with a lighter, and then told me to wait outside for a bit.

Outside I amused myself by reading through the latest issue of “S&M Baby” and taking pictures of my acupunctured self in the mirror. The needles seemed to help, although I didn’t feel completely better. Still, I’ve got 5 and a half more days of powdered medicine to choke my way through. We’ll see. It doesn’t seem to be getting worse, in any case, so I suppose I should stop worrying about it. A visit to a reputable dentist might not go amiss, though. Something tells me that my reputed tendency towards Bruxism is one of the main causes behind this apparent temporomandibular disorder. But what do I know?

I met Mindcrime for lunch today at Chili’s. He and H.G. Janice have found a nice, large apartment near Rongxing Park on Longjiang Rd for a mere pittance, and they are going to start moving up to Taipei next week. By happy coincidence, they will be living just a short way from the 70’s Airport Love Palace, so we will be able to go there for barbeque, reptile feeding and plane spotting should Graham and his flatmates host any such activities in the future.

Tonight is the Oriented Nominally Happy Hour, to be held at Saints & Sinners, near the Far Eastern Hotel. Dean, Alien and Anthony might be there, so I’ll stop by, but I doubt I will stay too long. I’m more looking forward to a nice, quiet evening at home tonight.

I watched Wonder Boys on DVD last night. It was excellent. A great cast, great acting, and a solid story. Quite impressive, especially if you’re into writing or are thinking about it.

Afterwards, as I was discovering that, not only had my bathroom light burnt out and that there was no hot water, I heard siren after siren wailing outside. I looked out my window to find that one of the buildings across the park from me was on fire, and several firetrucks lined Heping E. Road with their cranes aloft. I didn’t see any actual flames, mind you, but there was enough smoke to make me reasonably sure something was burning.

For some reason the lightbulbs in our bathroom at work are also prone to exploding, showering the area with grenade-like shards of blackened glass. I’ve pointed this out to some members of upper management, so you’d think they’d be interested in solving this problem, but I saw the aftermath of yet another such explosion on the shelf above the urinals today. Perhaps they’re just waiting for someone to witness one first hand. Someone reliable, that is. I don’t count, obviously. Seems I’m far too emotional about these things to properly describe the sensation of having a light bulb explode right above one’s head.

I’ve been thinking about getting a Powerbook instead of one laptop computer for writing away from home and one Mac just for editing. There’s no way I could afford both. There’s probably no way I could afford a Powerbook, but it’s a more realistic goal at least. I should be careful not to let the lack of these fancy toys become excuses not to work on projects I should be working on, however.

I was at an ATM the other day behind a primly dressed woman who was making a long series of complicated transactions. She was all set up for her banking day. Several stacks of documents were arranged on the shelf of the machine, each with its own card, and she had even bought a bottle of water, which she placed on the ledge next to the machine. Periodically she would take a sip, and then return to what seemed like the financial management of a major money-laundering organization for several triads spread throughout the Asia-pacific region.

Having nothing better to do and reluctant to miss the show, I found a table nearby and watched as she plowed through piles of documents, inputting scores of long serial numbers. If I had a notepad I could have caught them all and written them down. It took her about half an hour to finish. I’ve noticed that women seem to do a lot more of this kind of complicated ATM-based financial management, whereas men seem to just take out some cash. My management of finances is restricted to stuffing receipts into my pocket so that I can play the receipt lottery held here every two months.

And now, for no particular reason, here is a picture of gendoyun with its new coat of paint.

I went to the hospital last night to see about my achy jaw. I had thought it was perhaps a result of my nightly teeth-grinding habit, but the doctor told me I was just looking down too much. Did I say “Oh, yeah, I am depressed most of the time and thus look down” or “Yeah, the sidewalks here need my special attention”? No, I said, “Well, everyone here is so short, you know.” I winced as soon as I said it.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, with no change of expression. I suppose this kind of joke should ideally be told by someone who is at least 6 feet tall, and even more ideally told to someone who cares. He prescribed some muscle relaxants and sent me on my way.

The whole Chinese publishing decision thing was getting to me. Everyone told me to “go with my gut”, but my gut was sitting solidly on the fence on this one. I knew and liked the people from Asian Culture, but Locus probably has greater resources. Finally, on the advice of Mindcrime, I went to a bookstore and looked at the two publishers’ products side by side. On the basis of that simple test, I decided to go with Locus. They just seem to have a product more suited what I want.

Telling the guy from Asian Culture was hard, though. He sounded crushed over the phone, and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. They’ve bent over backwards for me on this, and this is how I reward them. If this were a movie I’d be the bad guy. Still, I know myself well enough to realize that I almost always spend a certain amount of time wondering if any given decision I’ve made is the right one, so I went on ahead and called Locus to tell them I would like to sign with them. Hopefully they will prove this decision the correct one.

I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou the other night, and Black Knight as well. The former was a beautiful film with excellent acting but questionable story. Not my favorite Cohen Brothers films by a long stretch. Black Knight was just silly. I like Martin Lawrence and all, but that was just plain stupid.

Mindcrime and Janice came up yesterday to have a look at some bookstores and shop, respectively. After having so-so noodles at a shop Mindcrime kept insisting was closed for some reason, I took him to the Silex Bookstore on Jinhua St. Silex has possibly the most impressive selection of Science Fiction/Fantasy books on the island, yet I never see any foreigners there. They need to get the word out. I suppose part of the reason is that the first floor is occupied purely by children’s books, while all the good stuff is upstairs. Mindcrime was impressed because they even had shelf or two of D&D books, the kind he writes. They didn’t happen to have any of his books, but he managed to order one downstairs. Then we walked down to Grandma Nitti’s for some Oreo Shakes, which I had never had before. When they arrived I regarded the grayish concoction with no little amount of suspicion, but when I tasted a spoonful I was hooked. That stuff is great. Both of our shakes were gone within a couple of minutes.

Our next target was the Breeze Chick Mall, so we took the MRT up to the Zhongxiao-fuxing Station and walked up Fuxing to a Hong Kong mango place called Xu-liu Shan. The mango drinks were fixed in some sort of jelly, but they were still good. They’re mango, after all, so it pretty much has to be good. I’ve been told that mangos in the Philippines are the most delicious. Someday I hope to find out for myself. When I lived in Qingdao, my Chinese friends there called my Mango Juice, since I didn’t drink beer, and mango juice was the only other thing they had down at the beachfront stores where I would hang out, across from the hotel I was living in at the time.

At Breeze we went down to the supermarket to try as many samples as we could, including a few cups of an Australian beverage called “Two Dogs”. Then we went to the food court so that Janice could purchase a horrendous fake corndog, fake ice cream and a bag of paper-like crepe that tasted, apparently from Mindcrime’s expression when he bit into it, exactly like biting into cardboard. As I watched the two consume their inedible treats, I felt a tap at my shoulder. It was Sandy, aka Sandman, and his wife, who happened to be sitting at the next table. Sandy had a clever disguise in the form of a new facial hairstyle, you see, so I didn’t recognize him right off. Anyway, small island, as I say.

Later we went to see “Lilo and Stitch” at the movie theater upstairs. I had never been to the theater at Breeze before; it was quite nice, with good sound and a minimum of commercial interruption. The movie was pretty funny, our humor already raised by the “Two Dog” drinks we had consumed earlier. Then I led Mindcrime and Janice on a short walk up to Amigo, where we had dinner. Janice ruined a mint tea for Mindcrime by telling him that it tasted just like mouthwash (“It’s minty, not mediciny!”) before I bade them farewell and walked back to the MRT station. I had a good time, but for some reason I felt a bit melancholy walking home alone. I should have called Little P, but he said he had a cold and might not want me to disturb him. I settled for music from my walkman instead.

When I got home I saw an email from Locus. They have agreed to some, but not all of my requests, and one aspect in particular was not mentioned at all. I emailed back asking about it, but I probably won’t know until Monday what’s going on there.

I woke up before 6 this morning. I don’t know why; I just can’t sleep any more, so I thought I’d post an update here, for lack of anything better to do.

I was adding the latest bits of this journal to the document where I save it when, out of curiosity, I did a word count: Over 220,000 words in this thing so far. That’s like three small books, or two largish ones, in the space of a year and a half. Speaking of statistics, I also got my 20,000th unique visitor and my 50,000th hit yesterday. Here’s another one: I’m rated somewhere in the 1.8 millions according to the Alexa web search.

I’m still waiting for Locus’ answer to my questions from the last meeting we had. They said their boss was in a bad way, and so they might not be able to get back to me right away. Hopefully I’ll have their answer by Monday, anyway. If I do end up bailing from Asian Culture, I want to at least let them know within a reasonable amount of time. I feel bad dragging things out like this. Nature of the beast, I suppose.

I set up an interview for the job I was told about a few days ago. It’s the Monday after next, the 29th. I’ve only been in touch with them via phone so far, and every person I talk to seems to want reassurance that I am, in fact, not Chinese, at least not as they know it. They seem eager to meet me, though, which seems promising. It would be a nice part-time position with enough money to live on, especially if I move into the Chungking Mansions Taipei, where I can live for cheaper and develop nice meaty thighs from all the stair climbing. I am going to need to know what’s going on soon, though, so I can give the related parties enough time to get ready. I would need a couple of weeks, not only for my present job notice, but for my landlord as well.

I awoke this morning to the shuddering cacaphony of drills upstairs. It would seem someone has taken an active dislike to a fair bit of their walls. Negotiations have broken down. The walls won’t budge. So they bring in men with jackhammers to take them down. At 7 a.m. sharp. I was contemplating taking another day off from work, but once the drilling started up, I knew I’d get a lot more peace at the office than I would at home. They’ll probably work through the weekend, too. Joy.

Little P is in town but I’m too tired to go out tonight. Needs me rest, I does.

Since Shirzi’s leaving Taiwan, again, on Friday, Dean, Max, Mark, Richard, Kay, Brian, and I met up at Q Bar for a farewell dinner/drinking binge. I’d had a sore throat all day, so I stuck with red wine after my meal. Mark informed me of a position he’d been offered and had to turn down, and he wanted to know if I wanted it. It’s a part-time gig and pays ‘only’ what I’m making now, and Brian, overhearing our conversation, instantly began to slag the company in question. But I’m going to go for it. I need a change, and it seems to be just about what I am looking for.

We departed Q Bar in high spirits. Shirzi lured me over to Peter’s place by saying there were Pop-tarts (There were not. I should know better than to believe that Pop-tarts can stay in a house for any period longer than two hours). We took the MRT to the Taipower Bldg station, walked down Xinhai Rd to the Tri-service hospital where, several years ago, a doctor examined my knee when I was in the army, and down along an alley to a group of ancient public housing units along the Riverside Expressway. I would be hard pressed to say whether the complex was older than the Chungking Mansions Taipei, where I hope to be moving soon, but Peter was paying even less that I would be, for two rooms, a bathroom and a balcony, on the fourth floor with no elevator.

The place was a mess, full of foreigners, shoes, clothes, books, and other anonymous detrius, but it felt homey enough, especially with the bright colors Peter had painted the walls. My room is almost always a mess as well, so I am in no position to judge that point. Unfortunately, I was feeling rather tired, as if I were coming down with something, so I excused myself after only a few minutes.

I awoke this morning with a horribly sore throat and a general malaise, so I called in sick and went to see Dr. Li at the ENT clinic on Heping E. Road, next to the church. He said I had an infection. I took out one of my remaining bottles of Liquid Brown Mixture to show to him, but he just wrinkled his nose. “That stuff’s full of opium,” he said. I told him I had noticed.

“It sure makes me feel good, though,” I said. Actually I didn’t say that, but it’s what I was thinking. I got a sandwich and went home to rest. I slept a lot, which felt goooooood, and then I went and posted snarky comments on oriented, which I would have done anyway, and I wrote up a new edition of the News from the Renegade Province. I was also notified that two more of my pictures are up at the Mirror Project, photos I took when I was out and about having adventures with Little P in the West Gate District last weekend.

I’m feeling a lot better, although that might just be the medicine. I might go in to the office tomorrow. I can always sleep at work, I suppose. I don’t think anyone would notice. I think they’re just happy if I refrain from doing annoying things like stomping on plastic water bottles or disassembling other people’s mobile phones.