Summer seems to have arrived. It is bright and hot…
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.
