Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Jan 01 2005

It seems like just a few weeks ago, maybe a month …

It seems like just a few weeks ago, maybe a month or two, I was limping back home after an embarrassing fall down at Bitan on New Year’s Eve. But it’s actually been a whole year. At that time, I wrote, 2004 seemed like a ‘big, irrelevant void’ that I couldn’t envision, but though I don’t quite have the sense of a year’s passing, time-wise, quite a few things, both good and bad, have happened in the last 12 months.

On the bad side: Things I’ve done of which I’m not terribly proud. Long-time friendships gone sour. The whole DPP/commercial thing. Mrs. Underfoot’s passing, of course. A few other things I can’t really discuss here.

On the good side: Starting production of the Lady X feature, though the months before we started were pretty rough and could be included in the bad side. Joining the Muddy Basin Ramblers and discovering the wonders of the washtub bass. Getting to stay in my awesome pad. Getting out of debt. Good advice from Jane, Paul’s wife, and a revised outlook as well. My new job in the Tan Tile Tower.

I suppose all in all it’s been a good year for me. As for 2005, I have no idea. I’d like to see the finished, final DVD of the movie, and be started on another one by the end of the year, and I wouldn’t mind a vacation in between too much, either. Other than that I don’t really know what to expect.

It’s been a cold new year. Yesterday it got down to 7 degrees. That may not seem cold to you, but I was born and raised in places that never see snow, and besides, Taiwan’s humidity more than makes up for the lack of sub-zero temperatures. I’ve been spending most of my time holed up in my computer room with the space heater on, or wrapped up in a heavy jacket on the sofa watching the extended version of Return of the King. A cat meowing in the stairway reminded me of the day I found Mrs. Underfoot there a little over a year ago.

I decided to back up my archives into a Word document this afternoon, and found that I’ve written about 400,000 words here since April of 2001. Most of it’s hopeless drivel, I found as I looked over some of my older entries. Hardly worth making a book out of, as many bloggers seem to be doing these days.

Taipei 101 is officially open to the public as of yesterday. I saw the fireworks on the news; quite impressive. I was feeling a bit under the weather due to too much hotpot the other night, so I just stayed home. I poked my head out the window to see some of the fireworks at Bitan at midnight, but other than that I just stayed in and had some hot chocolate which will probably give me more bizarre dreams like last night, when I dreamt I walked in to my old high school and saw my old English teacher, Mrs. Gwinn. I was wondering if she would remember me when she turned around and said, without any trace of recognition, “Are you an Indian student?” But most dreams are strange like that, aren’t they? Who has dreams where everything is just as it is in waking life?

A strange, rectangular year, 2005 has begun in a cold small way.

posted by Poagao at 9:01 am  

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