Suburbia You Have Not Killed Me Yet

I've been going through an inner upheaval for the last month and a half and I'm facing a crossroads.

A friend at dinner last night asked me a great question:
What are the signs on the two roads?

FREEDOM and SECURITY

Security
It is fear that holds me back. I've grown so cautious and fearful, timid, un-ambitious, lazy in the last two years.

I've lived the life that says: a house, a mortgage, a steady job, a sameness to your days, this is what security is. Extra bedrooms will make you happy. The quiet life is what you need. Be like everyone else. It's normal.

Be normal. Fit in.

Freedom
I've tried and it's clear: suburban life kills me.

I'm cut off from everything; friends, performing communities, writer's groups, classes, healthy food, the ocean, people who aren't fat.

I haven't played the piano or composed music in 2 years. All my friends have moved to NY. I'm not writing or revising anymore.

I'm terrified that part of me is dead inside, but my friends have been assuring me that there is still life in me yet. One says, "If you were dead, you wouldn't be complaining. It means you're still in there." He then told me I'd lost weight. :)

Another says, "I want you to find that spark again." He gave me a replacement adapter to my beloved Casio that I've waited 2 years for.

People believe in me still and with their faith, I am reaching for the small, protected bundle in me that they say is still there. I need to break the crust off it and bring it back out. I need to find the fight again. And when I do, I must fight for me to emerge again.

Jet Lag Jubilee

I'm having the worst jet lag ever.

I've been back just over a week now. I didn't get more than 4 hours of sleep a night last week.

I ended up having to leave my car at work 2 days in a row because I was too sleepy to drive back. (I got rides to work.) The one night I did drive back, I kept drifting into other lanes.

But I knew things had changed yesterday morning because...

I chloroxed the kitchen!

I'm kind of a freak about chlorox wipes. (This is unendorsed, but I would appreciate some free wipes...) The fact that I had the energy to disinfect the counters and sink yesterday morning meant I was finally sleeping past the dawn.

Today I even slept past 8 a.m.! (Although I did get up once at 2 in the morning to have the dinner that I missed from conking out last night.)

In fact, I'm even frazzled because I'm not used to getting up this late. :P

Considering that this is the girl who used to go to bed at 8 a.m., it's definitely a strange experience. I don't really get morning people - what do you do all morning?

Taipei Part Two: Housing Score!

After our, um...interesting night in the love motel, my aunt's Buddhist friend was awesome enough to let us stay in his just vacated rental apartment - with its own rooftop garden!

Taipei Love Motel

TAIPEI PART ONE

LAX --> TPE
just shy of 14 hours

On our personal entertainment systems...
watched: How To Tame Your Dragon and Valentine's Day
listened to: Timbaland and Lady Gaga

I left the lodging up to my mother, who found on the internet a "clean" hotel with "free wifi" close to my aunt's work at the stock market in Yonghe, just over the river from Taipei City. (This would be the Queens of Taipei.)

Outside our room we heard our neighbors engaged in boisterous adult activity.

Inside we found:

Yup. Cheap, stained, red satin sheets and requisite tissue box.

Ma inadvertently booked us a love motel.

You have to keep the key card in the slot or the lights go off.

I would show you the photo of the gratis adult material on the TV but I have family advertisers on this blog.

I guess it's to be expected from a room named:


Will Jifo and 52 survive the week in a Taipei love motel? Will they be able to sleep without slipping off the satin sheets onto the ground? And what exactly IS an escape swing?!?

Stay tuned for the answers and more...

The Medusa Perm

Alright people; it's time. The world premiere of the never-before-seen (why do they always use that redundant phrase?) behind-the-scenes reveal of...

How 52 Faces always has hot hair.

Answer: I am willing to sit on a 14-hour flight (each way) so that I can spend 2 hours plugged into this contraption:

Ah, I just got a free massage with my perm.

I Want to Move Here/Can't Wait to Come Back

Stay

Wonder of wonders - I only hate children because American kids are brats! Put an adorable Taiwanese kid who's quiet as a lamb in front of me and I'm suddenly kid-friendly.

Cost of food, clothing, everything...

The safe city, the warm people, politeness, clean subways

Return

Bed = owie

The Mothership landed two days ago. All energy sucked. Nerves fried around her Lethal Rays of Criticism. Been told nonstop I'm fat and how to stop being so fat. Want to kill self.

Can no longer write in complete sentences.

Conclusion:
I must return to as far from the Mother as possible the States.

p.s. At least I finally bought some cute shoes.

I'm in Taipei

I wanted badly to blog photos from my trip but didn't pack a USB for it.


Given that we didn't even know what our ride from the airport looked like, or the English name of our hotel (it doesn't have one), the fact that we're alive in Taipei and well-fed is already an accomplishment.


So unfortunately I can't show how we began at a shady budget hotel and ended up here, in some retired teacher's apartment with his daughter playing a giant marimba upstairs. Yes, this apartment has an upstairs and we live in one half of it.


You'll just have to trust that the story and photos will come eventually.


For now I'll direct you to this guy's blog post about the Yonghe World Soybean Magnate, where my aunt took me, Jifo and the marimba-playing high schooler tonight: