Tropical

Florida can be gorgeous- sailboats docked in the sunset, pelicans, brazilian tunes, open air restaurants, little clothing necessary.

Spent the afternoon, after horrid chores and assignments, at the beach soaking up the last rays of the day.  The salty gulf calm and cool, clear - dolphins played off shore as birds swooped by - there must be a dozen different types of gulls here.

Big fat white families, skinny naked German kids, dark wrinkled Italians playing bocce on the sand, curvy teen girls and firm teen boys pose and point akwardly for each other on the fine white sand.

There is plenty to hate here too; unscrupulous alligator vendors that prey on the elderly, strip malls, mold, toothless dangerous backwoods types in their dusty pick up trucks and the leagues of under paid Mexicans polluting the air with the noise and fumes of the backpack blowers,  wild cats spotted and proud find themselves rotting in the sun after an ignomious death at the fender of a caddy.

Yet some strange confluence of energy occurs here.  Estuaries reconverge in wild color swamps with mangrove pillars and rosy color vaulted sunset skies.  Aged yuppies host second and third generation progeny at tennis and golf clubs, sail the gulf and give a taste of what life can be after corporate slavery or self employed drugery.   The sunsets over the gulf indulge themselves entirely in pinks too outrageous even for the English, purple too deep for prose, golden glows like Hollywood wished it could create.

It is tropical, and American and it has, after a decade of two week stints done twice a year, become strangely like home.
 

Japanese Toilet, note: control panel

This is the coolest. I have seen toilets all over the world, but this one my travelers is the best. Lift the lid and a subdued light glows from the back allowing you to guide yourself properly in the night. Flip the switch and the seat is warmed; it is best to do this in anticipation of that late night visit. One button cleans the bum, the other button cleans the entire underside, a dial allows this cleaning to be performed at different levels of water pressure intensity. The red button is "stop." Yes. I spent some time with this toilet. Fabulous.

PRC - Still a closed place: careful travelers!

Fucking communists! I can't believe I was completely unable to access any blog or reach my own via Shanghai internet, p;rivate, public or otherwise.

Just a note, it may be full of big slick buildings, they may be making a lot of money, but this is still your grandfather's China, baby.

Pictures, impressions, thinking and loving to come!

MaeRenWu
"Beautiful people fish"
The Mermaid ~~

Taiwan

A playful dragon rolls over in the sea and so Formosa is born. A big fertile, steamy island and then the Manchurians come, with their rescued treasures of jade and ink, bronze and pottery; their ideas of freedom, their gods and their ancestors.

I arrive midweek on the last day of the Chinese New Year, the full moon, a lunar eclipse no less, the beginning of the year of the rat.

After meetings and negotiations, introductions and and presentations, we make our way back into the street for our dinner with the office staff, so excited, eager to entertain the forgien guest, the parent company management.

Right outside the building a crowd lights incense, chants a cheer for the new year while a middle aged man holds a dragon costume loosly in his hands. Firecrackers go off and suddenly the dragon comes alive, the chubby man below ducking and twirling, possessed by the spirit of prosperity and good fortune.

We stop for a moment before our taxis come, watching the festivities, grown women wear rat ears and smile at me, as the dragon approaches I walk closer, smiling, excited I touch him, as the others have done, for good luck. They laugh and nod and welcome my participation, the taxis come and we are off to the center of Taipei.


101 is one of the tallest buildings in the world. We gorge ourselves on course after course of Thai cuisine, soups, salads, rices, meats, curries, more flavors than a tongue can keep track of. An Irishman (who is married to a Hong Kong born woman) tells me "you have to just stop eating and push back or they keep brining food.". I taste only a bit of each dish, still, I am so full and my mouth is so full of wonderous flavors that when the whole catfish is brought out I am convinced he is laughing at me. The final course will go uneaten..... But no! There is dessert, custards and sherberts and fruit, sweet, glorious, exotic fruit.

Sated, stretched, filled with smiles and laughter we make our way to the fastest elevator on earth. Hundreds of meters per second we rise up on the smooth aero dynamic lift, gaze at the constellation of stars designed into the ceiling and in just moments find ourselves in a hall, darkened inthe evening marked with maps that explain the amazingly lit city below.

Buildings compete in shape and color to be recognized from far above. It is a carnival of lights, a field of neon that stretches for miles, it is a teeming, blinking, shining game board of life on the eve of the festival of lanterns. If there is a light to shine tonight she is lit.

Such luck I have already, such fortune, such blessings are mine to be here on this day, to witness this evening, to see the tiny lanterns buoyed by warm flames, lift into the night, carrying happy prayers.

The moon shines above, the highest happiest of lights on this night- my world has shifted, I am physically high, spiritually open and learning thinking this other way, I am lit from without I am lit from with in, I am turned around and upside down, on the other side of the earth, I am so delighted, so awed, after so many miles, after so many cities after so many moons, after so many years to be as a child again, to be as new as the year waiting in the open anticipation of life.

Shenshie-

Xmas Part-ay

25 years is a long time to run a business. He did it.  He founded it, he took it through IPO, and now he is going global.   Very impressive.  And he thanks us, he thanks the peeps. Very nice. A class act, this our boss.

The dance floor is heaving.  French interns everywhere.  Sexy boys.  Professional dancers try to keep the party going but they are fluff. We rock.  I am propositioned by a woman half my age. I fall off my shoes for the first time in 23 years.  A french intern saves me.  I dance more unabashed.  I'd like to bed him; note to self; His name is the same as famous restaurant. 

I'm alone again.  This time not just alone here on the dance floor, I'm alone when I come home.  Its ok.  Next year I will be with a man who can dance. Really dance.  I deserve it. I made the pros sweat, I made them wonder, I made them look like aerobics teachers.  I aint doin' routines.  This aint a gig for me. 

I can dance.  And when I dance, it looks like fun.

 

Snowman

The midwest storm blew through and the white stuff is everywhere.  This morning the triangle park is graced with a snowman complete with carrot nose and twig arms. 

I wonder who built it and am surprised to find out - the young family two doors down from me.  He is a recovering drug addict/dealer who hasn't married the mother of his children yet.  She was 16 when the big one was born three years ago. His brother is 18 months old.

But they built the snowman. And he is  perfect in his imperfection.  I  want to give him a hat.

There is hope.

Snow storm

Walked a mile into Chelsea to eat Basque cheese, truffle cheese, and drink three different wines with the wild entrepeneur D, accompanied by a Fabulous friend.  She puts up with fits of adventurous trekking, not only in remarkable weather, but remarkably in adventurous weather.

The boy locked himself out, shoveled the walks and wrote LOG in script in the snow.

The Dog leapt like a deer, the lights shine so bright surrounded by the white and the sparkle and the quiet.

I realize my voice has been muted. Time to write.

I like vistors in my aloneness, lovers, friends, supporting cast but the essence needs be alone. The quiet of a city after a storm. The muted tones of chaos at rest for a moment, the waiting white. Potential.

Alone I can be visited, consoled, pinged, approached, consulted, seduced, invited.

 Potential is precious.