So Dean calls me yesterday and wants to meet up. Where? At Hooters, of all places. I winced when he said it, but as I’ve been a real ass about going out with friends lately, I figured it would be a penance of sorts. They just wanted to see me squirm.

There was certainly a lot of squirming going on. By the time I walked in the front door and navigated my way through the irritating happy happy stick figures in tight white-and-orange outfits, Dean and Mindcrime had already nearly finished the first pitcher of a two-pitchers-of-beer/basket-of-chicken-wings deal. A sports channel was playing on the TV, 70’s hits providing the soundtrack. At one point the happy happy stick figures got together in a huddle to figure out what the Most Annoying Thing Ever would be, and they then came up with the idea to do a Conga Line. So they went around the restaurant and tried to pull customers off their chairs. Two of them tried to get me. I suppose I looked like a difficult case, especially since my companions were pulling that “Oh, you’re no fun” line I’ve been hearing ever since I was 11 and the concept of peer pressure entered my social consciousness. I glared at the first one and managed, with very little difficulty, to emit actual rays of curmudgeonliness and said “Leave. Now.” She left then, but the second one wasn’t so easily dismayed. She pulled with surprising strength for a stick figure, not responding to my plaintive cries to leave me the hell alone, so I had to jerk my arm away quickly, resulting in a comic domino effect on the Conga Line. The stick figures then switched to a “Musical Chairs” strategy to torment their captors and also, I believe, to show the rest of the customers how lucky they were not to be up there with the hapless victims.

Eventually the firlgriends arrived to stare about morosely and smile weakly as Mindcrime and Dean entertained each other with drunken antics that were, at least to them, progressively more brilliant. In the end I had to drink some wine in concession to their insobriety. Well, it worked when I was 11.

Googlism for: Poagao

Poagao is going to trust his vision to some stranger operating a machine in the hopes that he can avoid wearing contacts or glasses any more.

Poagao is a vote for creative yet surprisingly lazy leadership in the finest philosophical Taoist tradition of just leaving things the hell alone.

Poagao is his nickname, it means happy monkey.

My sister is undergoing weight-loss surgery today in Oklahoma. Everyone send some good thoughts her way, ok?

The weather’s still brilliant and cool, although more clouds are moving in. I need to tidy up the last of my boxes and get rid of excess stuff at the new place. Mindcrime is back in Taiwan after a trip to Singapore for visa purposes. He and Dean and I are planning to get together later to drink and hear the tale. I should probably say I’ll be drinking water, though, lest Berta feel the need to comment on how unwise it would be for someone just recovering from Typhoid to be drinking liquor.

I’m just about ensconced in my new abode, and it feels great. The Curse of the Stairs, etc. has been lifted, I can walk to work, and I like my view very much. It’s a bit noiser than the old place, smaller and more expensive, but I like it. It feels good, and that’s what living somewhere really comes down to after all. I used to live in this neighborhood back around 1994-5, when I was working for TVBS. I lived on “Jewel Street” after I got out of the army up until I came back from film school in 2000, so it feels familiar. I can see the mountains and a large expanse of sky from my window, as well as the little park downstairs. I’m right on top of the Chunghsiao-Fuhsing MRT interchange as well. Oh Happy Day, Poagao has finally found a place he won’t be bitching about all the time. I’m sure you’re very relieved to hear that. Now I’ll just find something else to bitch about.

The conference was touch-and-go for a while. It’s hard to keep up with what everyone is saying and doing, and I was seated at the head of the table, right next to the chairman, with an unfamiliar laptop computer and an order to record the meeting. Of course, I had plenty of practice doing this at meetings of the Russian Club in high school, having been the Recording Secretary for one year, but doing it for APEC is just a tad more difficult. I did enjoy it when the delegates went at each other, especially when figures were in dispute and face was in danger of being lost. The food at the Grand Hotel wasn’t bad, and free after all. I would do it again, as I could use the overtime.

Tomorrow I have to put in more overtime to make up for my time in the hospital, but that should be the end of it. The room’s still a mess, but it’s becoming pretty livable as I figure out where to put things. I might sell off old books and things. I also need to scout out potential eateries around here, besides the ones I remember that are still around. The combination of cool weather and sunshine the past few days has been quite refreshing. It’s just cold enough for a light jacket at night; the air smells different when it’s cold, fresher and less spoiled by the scents of vendors and scooters. On days like this cooking stands out above all smells, yummy front-of-the-shop cooking smells that is, not exhaust fumes, although you know they’re there. Cookie smells, seasonal smells. November should be known as The Month When You Notice the Smell of Cooking in the Fresh Newly Cool Air instead of National Native American Awareness/Diabetes Month. Funny how Native American Month is the same month as Diabetes Month, enit?