i'm special

i just finished reading the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, written from an autistic boy's perspective, and i kept noticing little things that i think the author messed up. like the boy hates brown and yellow, but he'll eat chocolate bars (he refuses to eat anything else brown or yellow). also, there was once when the boy only says the last name of an author of a book, whereas i'm of the firm opinion that in real life, he would've said both the first and last name. i felt pretty smug about noticing these things while i was reading the book, but now i think it only proves i'm more autistic than mark haddon (the author).

i tend to do this thing where if i read first-person books, my internal dialogue starts to mimic the style of the writing...like right after i read catcher in the rye, i started thinking with lots of italics for added emphasis. anyways, i started thinking like the autistic boy talks, and then i thought, maybe i'm autistic (just a little bit), but then i realized i'm not smart enough to be autistic, which probably just leaves me with retarded, and then i was sad because i'm retarded :-(.

in other news i had a very eventful christmas in the land of the non-christians. at least there's no pretense about the meaning of christmas here. on christmas day, i passed by a convention where hordes of people were shopping. on christmas eve, shops were open all night (not that i'm complaining).

anyways, i spent christmas eve in an arcade with crispy and alicia. we played a bongo game where there are 3 bongos so we cheated and each took a bongo and only hit it when our beat came up. we still managed to lose a lot. oh, and earlier that day i baked christmas cookies with alicia! we had good intentions of going from scratch, but that would've cost us like a million dollars to buy all the ingredients, so in the interests of fiscal responsibility, we used the mix instead. christmas is so much more like new years here: an excuse for a party and a smooch. people were milling around en masse in silly hats and bells.

on christmas day, alicia and i did the traditional thing: hit up an englishman. we trekked all the way out to tai po for a home cooked christmas lunch that lasted from 2 pm till 9 pm. alex made goose and salmon, and there were minced pies, custard, christmas pudding, eggtarts, chocolate cake, and brandy butter for dessert. of course, i had some of everything, and digested while losing at mahjong deep into the night.

on boxing day, shevaun led a small group of intrepid explorers to summit sharpes peak. i'm the dumbass who wore my tevas and almost died on the way down. sharpes peak is gorgeous though, and the hike is 4 hours, ending on a white sand beach with super clear water. we actually had to do a lot of scrambling and the thing wasn't all paved like a lot of hk hikes. yay! and for dinner i had bimbimbap!!! super awesome day.

today, i'm back at work with sore quads and the inability to raise my left arm above shoulder level, thankful for my sedentary job.

when i up, down, touch the ground, puts me in the mood...

some broker got the office turkey and ham for xmas lunch! i'm all aflutter with anticipation. last night we had a departmental xmas party (distinct from the company-wide one), involving a wine and cheese event, a dinner, a club. i only stayed for the cheese and the dinner, natch.

most notably, there was some special ham that took a really long time to cure and was made from special pigs raised on a diet of acorns.

i wore an afro and 70s glasses. people said i looked like lauren hill...but then again, they also said this guy looked like kate bush when he totally didn't.

apparently i'm too brazen around the bigwigs. this morning i accidentally accused an md of stealing tissues (he took two and put them in his pocket...does anyone else think that's weird behavior? i mean, the office is full of tissues...it's not like he realy needs to save them for later). they accused me of still being drunk.

pushy and grabby and the rest of those damned dwarves

i just got declared a minority in the US because i'm not white, in fact all non-whites in america are ethnic minorities...regardless of what the actual population numbers are. apparently, because white people were there first. this pisses me off a bit. white people do not own america. they were not there first. stop trying to take away my identity, fuckers. and all this from a brit.

and then someone came and took away my favorite toy.

i'm gonna sit in my corner and suck my thumb until i get a pony or some attention, whichever comes first.

free food tally at work

yesterday:

• starbucks
• pizza
• baklava
• haagen daz
• christmas cookies
• starbucks

today:

• starbucks
• dimsum
• krispy kreme
• pacific coffee
• beer and chips

:-DDDDDDD (<--double chins)

evil is in the eye of the beholder

i watched real genius with val kilmer this morning, and i love that movie. it reminds me of mit, and that bowl of popcorn in the house? a totally awesome hack (except for the fact that they destroyed the house, which i guess disqualifies it).

anyways, it got me thinking. the evil professor is creating a laser that can kill people from space. it's got amazing range, amazing precision, but it can only be turned on for 15 seconds at a time. in effect, it's a sharpshooter laser for the government. is that really so bad? if we had a laser like that, wouldn't the need for a lot of wars become obsolete? we don't need to drop bombs on whole countries if we could just zap their leaders.

or would it make the US too powerful? would we start acting like the mafia? yo, you give me the trade conditions i want or else i'm gonna zap your baby and your little dog too. or is a congressional veto enough of a safeguard? maybe if the laser's startup procedure is really complex, then stupid presidents couldn't use it as their personal toy. better yet, if the laser left a really obvious calling card whenever it was used (like a big hole in the ceiling and a dude fried to a crisp)...would accountability ensure responsibility? is it a sad sign of the times that i'm siding with the bad guy? mwahahaha...

what to do?

christina slapped me hard-on-the-face yesterday. she meant it as a joke, but i think she did it harder than she planned...it was completely unprovoked...she did it in the spirit of a pantsing (swoop in, swoop out). i'm pretty protective of my head...i was so shocked that i didn't really know how to react. i mean, we were just walking and talking about random stuff.

the dynamic between us is getting weirder and weirder. this happens to me a lot, where people become super comfortable around me and start to cross little lines. i think i come off as a kid so then people feel free to treat me like one, which usually involves using me as a whipping boy for their jokes. eventually they respect me more as a person or get to know more dimensions of me or something, but it stops.

this is the first time anyone's slapped me like that though. the thing is...she's smaller than me and older than me (by a lot), so i feel like i'm the lumbering giant swatting at a fly...what she's doing is annoying, but if i retaliate, i might really hurt her, so how do i get the message across? i've told her to stop multiple times. is this what it's like to have a younger sib? maybe i should just put her in a duffle bag and toss her down the stairs.

the weirder thing? she told me i'm her ultimate idol, which i can believe because if i tell her something on the field, she takes it super seriously, so it's not like she doesn't respect me. relationships are complicated.

inputs and output-put-puts

starbucks you motherfucking corporate liar. my decaf soy no-whip iced gingerbread latte not only had whip, it had caf! don't try to tell me otherwise, i can smell it in my pee. i understand your employees are harassed by your free coffee hour; i understand there were lines going from here to somewhere farther than china, but i've seen ben and jerry free cone days and i know it can be done. your employee called out my drink order perfectly and handed me a cup with a dollop of whipped cream. she even called out my order twice because i blinked at her the first time. then i laughed and took it because it's free and they're doing their best and i'm the yuppy scum who asked for a million modifications to a free drink. but caffeine?! now i'm wired like a chihuahua on crack, which means i'll probably drink a lot, and if i make an ass of myself at the company christmas party, it will be on your head! moreover, if i find out you screwed up the last of my modifications, i'll...i'll...well, i'll be uncomfortable, and nothing bad will happen to you. and yes, this is me whinging about a free drink. i'm just trying to fit into my corporate role better. sue me. no wait, can i sue you?

MISSING!

what happened to the smite blog?! nancy? atong? nancy?! who is responsible for this? is there a new incarnation for this year's smite? that would make me feel better. the rug has been snatched from under me. boohoo.

my foot still hurts, and i don't know what's wrong with it. it feels like the bone, but nothing is swollen. i've been playing frisbee in sneakers and running heel-toe (instead of on my toes), which means i have to focus on turnover (instead of power) if i want any kind of speed. hopefully i'll have much faster turnover when my foot does finally heal. i'll probably have to spend a week or two correcting my gait too. i always end up with residual limps.

when ppl invite you to christmas dinner, do they mean the 24th or the 25th? if it's the 25th, then i'm gonna scam my way into a christmas eve dinner too.

word of the day: akimbo.

one step closer to home

i bought plates and cups this weekend! except for four matching mugs, nothing, um, matches, which is fine with me, because i love the boxcar children, and color trumps dignity anyday (which is actually my excuse for tripping and falling at work so often: at least i'm tan).

i'm most excited about this small espresso mug and its matching saucer. the thing is so petite yet so cheerful. the christmas tree on its belly is blue and green and yellow. it's darned lucky it's cute because i never drink espresso, and it would've never gotten a home otherwise. as is, i'm planning on using it to treat myself to chocolate soymilk every once in a while, which i will drink with legs crossed and pinky curled (if only i had a distraught friend whose knee i could pat compassionately).

next step on my journey towards domestication? silverware! or i could keep stealing chopstix from 711...actually, i'm really hoping to find a cereal bowl to bring home. i've come across quite a few, but none of them seem right enough (i need a bo-wl. i'm holding out for a bowl till the end of the night, it's gotta be deep and it's gotta be round, and it's gotta be larger than life, i need a BO-OWL!) ahem.

photodump: perth

pui'ism of the day: i need an eyelid tuck (why?)...because i have too much eyelid.

i'm slowly going crazy.

i have no idea who that girl is. sneaky mcsneak snuck into my photo. she looks like she's looking at another camera, but there was no other camera, just mine. weirdo.

i don't know him either.

paul et shwu in matching orange jumpsuits (ps, someone give me paul's email so i can fwd pics).

they're preparing me for the italian rollercoaster. it was scary as fuck because my limbs were all slippy from sunscreen, so they couldn't get a good grip and had to do some grabby-grabby with my arms. they swung me back and forth three times before flipping me over the top such that i ended face-down near the grass. when they demonstrated on one of their own girls, i was seriously worried about dislocating both my shoulders (again).

me atop the italian rollercoaster.

team karoake night.

a real live tasmanian devil!

i named him cathychu.

he liked it.

the wombat and paul. the hole in the middle of its tummy is its sack (and all marsupial babies are called joeys).

speaking of sacks, the giftshop sold coin purses made from kangaroo scrotums for $25 AUD (for $20 you can get the sack of a lesser endowed kangaroo).

a room with a view.

and somewhere along the way, the palm trees outside our rooms caught on fire. one room of people (mostly born and raised in the US) grabbed our laptops and evacuated the premises, whereas the other room of people (more asian in nature) stood on the balcony and gawked. sadly, none of my pictures turned out. it was kinda funny watching the aussies assembly line water from the pool to the trees though.

thinking ahead

i'm totally gonna be waldo next halloween, except i'm gonna be the norwegian version: willy.

digital diarrhea

the rest of perth:

we played joyride first. they were supposed to cream us, but we hung with them...i don't remember much about this game except that one of their men tried to layout thru me for a disc that was already on the ground (we were on O, i was popping, the handler turfed it). he hit the small of my back at just the right angle to dig my already skinned knee hard into the ground, and that's when i started bleeding thru my tights. throughout the tournament, many many men would try to layout through me, and my knee always came away the worse for it. for those of us who are too old to remember, skinned knees hurt like a mofo.

we really really kicked the honey badgers' asses, which is good, because we were aiming to win one game within our pool.

the next day, we lost badly to bad larry, but the wind was incredibly strong. i think i winged a couple of points on the side that they were trapping, but my handler kept looking away from me so i couldn't dump it right back to her. she also managed to drop at least three passes off the pull...it's kinda hard to do your job as an offensive player when you're continually trying to play transition d at your own endzone.

the next day went much better. i had no idea who we were playing, and i didn't care. if you're ever on the same team as me, please don't try to give me info about the other team unless it's strategical stuff (like keep your left hand low on that girl). i don't care what her name is, i don't care what her dog's name is (i didn't realize this was a pet peeve until manila this past weekend where one of our girls kept trying to introduce me to all the girls on the other team. line conversations went like this:

me: "i've got pink shorts."
her: "oh, that's sol. you've got sol. ok, so then i'll cover maddy, and christina, you can cover wilma."
xtina: "which one's wilma?"
her: "she's the one next to sol."
me: "they're both next to sol."
her: "yes, but xtina knows which one maddy is, so then she can figure out which one wilma is."

no joke. and later, she kept saying things like "i've got brandy." to which i would reply, "which one's brandy? nevermind, i've got long braid.") anyways, we played endzonis first. down 9-3 at half, then down further, but somewhere along there we starting playing a trapping cup and they never figured it out. we came back to win it 16-15 or 17-16 or something. terribly exciting stuff, but up to this point in the tournament, i wasn't really in it. i wasn't invested, i didn't really care. none of the girls had really challenged me, and even if i played amazingly, i kinda felt like i couldn't change the outcome of the games...i guess this comeback made me believe in the team. accordingly, i drank a cup of coffee for our next game and cranked up the eminem.

we played limited express (from ny) next. this may have been my best game of the tournament. i popped a lot, and guys would come flying from across the field into me, but i'd catch the disc anyways. after the game, one of our guys told me i played like a man, which i took as a compliment. oh, i also caught a tough hammer. like i had to jump to catch it cuz a guy was bearing down on me. i scored about half of our points, i think. halfway thru the game, they moved me to handling because our handler girl kept dropping pulls and passes. most vividly, i was her wing, and i was calling her name to let her know i was open for the swing, she drops the pass, and they score immediately. on the way back to the line, she tells me not to yell her name while she's trying to catch. like it's my fault that she dropped the disc. hmm. people who don't take responsibility for their fuckups really irk me. and the thing is, it's not like she practices throwing and catching during warmups. it's like she doesn't care. sigh, we couldve been such better friends if only she were good at frisbee.

we didn't win a single game after this one. we played a bristol team that made the worst calls i've seen to date (since then, i've met some asian teams that make worse calls...ahem, taiwan). most notably, i told a small italian man i'd kick his ass if he laid out into me one more time, but i said it in such an even tone of voice that i think all the people around me thought i was joking.

i spent many moments in weird chemical states crooning to myself as cathychu. like sometimes i wouldn't eat breakfast, would drink two redbulls and play the day...maybe consuming some ibuprofen along the way...by the end of the day i'd be a pulpy mess and i'd feel like crying...so then i'd pretend cchu was holding my hand and saying, "it's ok baby it's ok." it sorta became my mantra. i bet the others all thought i was batty.

i've learned that if i want to make a difference in coed, i've got to learn to bait/poach more. too many teams don't use their girls at all.

last weekend i went to manila (in the philippines!). they have terrific american fastfood chains, but not much else. i felt like i stepped into the set of the first karate kid or something. i didn't get to eat much local food, but at one point i bought some fried flourescent balls on a stick...they turned out to be deep fried robin eggs or something. pretty good. people ride around in converted wwii troop transfer vehicles called jeepneys.

in manila, i played against ben wiggins! i handled in a zone against them, and it was ridiculously easy to break through the cup (they were trying to force toward a sideline). ben wiggins is awesome. he proves that one can play spirited high level ultimate. he's just so chill.

i'm calling HR...

cathy: "why don't you lick youself..."

pui: "i'm licking so hard i'm sucking!"

pui: "i think i gave myself a hicky."

this is where i work, people.

(in reference to an incident involving a fruit rollup)

i'll never go hungry again

ugh so full. i'm not complaining, just stating.

thanksgiving dinner was oaken and comfortable, and flouting the squish and squash of hk, it was of all things spacious! kate's flat is gorgeous. it manages stately and exotic and comfortable at once. the old wood chests and spanish tiles provide a perfect background for the cats. the cats really bring you home...especially the orange tabby attention whore. i love attention whore cats even more than i love fat cats (and i like fat cats more than chocolate).

with only two days notice, we managed to put together quite the respectable shindig. brian got up at 5 am to roast the five chickens that were to be his contribution (he did it using two gas burners and a microwave!--the man is a banker!). marcus brought the wines (he's an importer/exporter of...well, wine). i only ended up bringing 2 pies (they messed up my order)--apple and pecan (i know! they forgot the pun'kin!!), but the pecan was a big hit (with ice cream, fruit rollups, and orange icing--hehe, i'm such a kid, but mostly, i was just excited to have found these things in asia). and various other people provided: mashed potatoes, mashed yams, two types of salad (with goat cheeses and apples and other sophisticated things you'd put in salads), lots of cheeses and olives, stuffed portabello mushrooms (brought by the lone vegetarian for the lone vegetarian), broccoli, carrots with...parsley?, cranberry sauce!, stuffing (but we forgot to serve it), gravy baby, gravy.

we went around in a big circle and said the things for which we were thankful, and two big themes seemed to be personal sovereignty and babies. i talked to the only non-frisbee person there about physics and felt incredibly geeky and incredibly at home. they heckled me all night for calling people off alcohol duties. i'm ok with that, and refused their jaegermeister shots with a prim smile. later, i fell asleep on the couch.

eating lots brings dreaming. i dreamt that i was still in perth, and the ocean was so comfortable and effortless that i forgot which way was shore. the stars were out in such incredible force that i couldn't distinguish city from sea, making me feel vaguely turtlish. eventually i gained land by listening for big city noises, and there found a monkey (who was secretly kate's orange tabby). the monkey told me he liked me best because i have either the best or the third best survival instincts of the whole group, but before i could question who had the second best (i suspected yelena), i was standing on the endzone line of a field , playing disc with smite against a bunch of skinny indian boys (dot not feather), except my team was interspersed amongst the other team in the endzone much the way that the aliens are arranged in space invaders, so there was no where to cut, and indeed no one was trying to cut. to complicate matters, the field seemed to be in the middle of a sandy classroom--the ground was sand, but there were walls and randomly placed desks (a row of which, incidentally, blocked any io options to the first row of friends and foes in the endzone). i ended up throwing a blade to the back of the endzone at stall 3. i didn't see specific faces, but dorphne and erikas were definitely there. probably cchu, darlene, and yelena too.

happy tday, y'all

i love my job. someone ordered birds and sides for everyone for lunch. chestnut stuffing and mashed potatoes and baguettes and gravy. i finished the jar of cranberry sauce pretty much on my own. when most people had done eating, there was still half a jar left (i had eaten about a third of the jar on my first serving), so instead of letting the nice canadian man take it home, i put it out of it's misery (he told me it would've lasted him till next year). two heaping plates of sides later and i'm sleepy and happy and happy and sleepy. mmm....turkey is so much better than pot.

when i tried to give the girl responsible for the food a hug, she cringed away and said, "no no no no..." but unlucky for her, i had already caught an arm, and her vague dissentions were no match for my determined gratitude. in she went, and we haven't made eye contact since. such is the danger of turkey.

i've ordered three pies (two apple, one pun'kin) for tonight. they're only 8 inches, but there are only ten people...and i'll bring some ice cream too. i'm excited. when we were figuring out food duties, they assigned three whole people to booze. i tried to explain that some of those three people could be bringing food instead of booze, but i was overruled, sigh. i'm thankful for other people and their fucked up priorities.

on a more serious note, i am thankful for my past and my future. i'm still amazed that i can eat whatever i want whenever i want with whomever i want. i'm thankful for smite and smitten :-).

Tagging Along

Amber tagged me to write five things most people don't know about me, which will be hard because i'm not a very private person, but here goes.

1. when i was a kid, i used to think there were people watching me from secret drainpipes to evaluate my social acceptability. as such, i didn't do things like pick my nose even when there was no one around. yeah, i was a paranoid child.

2. if i eat a lot around you, it means i like you (or i'm bored and you happen to be around). hmmm...take the contrapositive. if i don't like you, i won't eat around you. yeah, that's definitely more true. something in me doesn't like breaking bread with enemies, and there's nothing like annoyance to take away my appetite--perhaps a remnant from my high school days when i was perpetually annoyed at my dad, mostly for trying to shove food down my throat (i'm an ungrateful cur, i know).

3. the only sin i believe in is needlessly (or spitefully) inflicting pain (which doesn't include punishment or even necessarily revenge). i can't not hurt others, but when i do, i should be aware of it, and it should be done towards achievement of some goal...use a scalpel not a hand grenade? i dunno, articulation is hard and i'm lazy. maybe this is the red headed stepchild of utilitarianism: ceteris paribus, choose the way that hurts less/fewer. no, that's not really it. if you must hurt someone, know why you're hurting them so that his pain at least trades for something (a handful of beads for your tears, mister)--even if that something is your own peace of mind. where there are causes and effects (eg revenge), reason plays at least some role. there is at least a weighing and a deciding, and then it's just a matter of what scale you're using (and who's to say what scale is right?). what's really wrong is wanton lashing out--spitting barbs to get the metal from your mouth and not caring who gets hit. hmm...actually, i just thought of another sin: confusing people on purpose. the world is complicated enough without spin. as such, i think the american patent system kinda sucks (try reading a patent, you'll see), and that people who twist words to hide holes are jerks.

4. imo, my biggest fault is laziness/sloppiness. i used to have nightmares where my downfall was invariably caused by some oversight of mine (for example, leaving the holy book in the cave so that water dripped on it, rendering my incantations worthless and allowing the witches to subdue the rebellion i was leading). it's my tragic flaw, and i'm sure it'll lead to my undoing. on a related note, i'm terrified of erosion...these little forces that eat away at all the things we've done (oh yes, we're in this together), that say nothing is ever finished, you'll always need to come back to it, to maintain it. entropy, bite my ass. once i do something/buy something i want it to keep doing/working until one day it goes from running perfectly to running not at all. none of this chipped paint shit. it's the mundane that will get me in the end--i just can't remember all the maintenance it takes to keep life going. i can plan the fucking witch rebellion, but i can't remember to put up the holy book, and if it's not the holy book, trust you me, it'll be some other little thing. running errands is the toughest thing in the world for me. i want my mommy (and a cookie).

5. i like to write long paragraphs about how mental i am...oh, you knew that? well, would you like a mommy and a cookie?

liver
laura
atong
erikas
darlene...tag, you're it.

twice in a day!

i'm feeling sorry for myself because i don't get thanksgiving off. it's literally my favorite holiday ever (well, that and the superbowl). the whole thing revolves around food and football! there's absolutely no guilt, no presents, no obligations. just cooking and eating and goodwill. for one day, everyone has a license to feed.

wilg spoiled me. i loved hanging in the kitchen all day, sitting around the chopping block, picking giblets from the turkey, picking stuffing from the pot, eating predinner clam dip. just sniffing things. man oh man. last year i went to three tday dinners. THREE. i am the king!

this year? i'm working hard to organize a few americans to pull together a small meal. it's rough because no one has an oven and everyone has to work. we might have to settle for rotisserie chicken and scalloped potatoes out of a box...i don't even know if hk sells cranberries, but I AM DETERMINED to eat something american this day of days (and to eat a lot of it). if that means scarfing a dozen pb-banana sandwiches, so be it. hrumph. this is my revolution. join me my brothers!

ketchup pics

i am way behind on my blogging. as such, it's time i posted the pics of laura and cliff's visit, instead of injecting random pics of laura into random posts.

in the thai restaurant, they put us next to the sauce counter, and we ordered enough food to feed even me.

eat your heart out dor-dor.

we even squeezed in a hike amidst the moving frenzy

and when we came back, the streets were flooding--someone had done in the fire hydrant.

mmm...beef noodle soup.

the absinthe exactly matched my shirt color. uncanny and reminiscent of that scene in garden state.

and the next weekend, i went on another hike with bill and xtina.

that involved a lot of stairs.

but we climbed them like good little soldiers.

and i claimed king of the mountain.

it was pretty.

the end.

28th in the world baby!--part 1

so much has gone on that i don't know where to start (from the beginning, proceed until the end, then stop). i reserve the right to write in installments.

The beginning:

I took the redeye there friday night. my apartment looks like a garbage monster threw up in it. there are random ice skates, taekwondo belts, plugs that don't fit any sockets, and ropery strewn all over the floor. that's what happens when you use your suitcases as storage for useless american things that perhaps should've been thrown out (no athena paper though, sigh). the highlight of the night might've been the popeyes i found in the airport. YES! the hk airport hosts a popeyes and a burger king. the chicken disappointed, but given that it was nearly midnight, i guess expecting fresh food was unrealistic of me (we'll try again next time, yes we will). nicole baked us chocolate chip cookies for dessert. the dearie even used orange food coloring and put them into a flourescent orange box for us (orange is our team color).

the flight was uneventful. i wasn't gonna eat their inflight meal, but the stewardess woke me up and insisted that i unincline my chair so the person behind me could eat, and i was so pissed off at this that i took a meal just to spite them. fuckers. it hurt.

(oh, and i met ben wiggins! we were handing out the left over cookies to other frisbee players at the terminal, and i said, "hi, is your name ben? ben wiggins? GASP! you totally won the callahan my freshman year, wow and boy!" while pumping his hand enthusiastically...or i may just have been holding his hand, i'm not sure, but it was awkward--more so for him than for me cuz i'm shameless, and i had this clear picture of myself as yelena simpering at him as nancy).

at customs, i made the mistake of telling them that my friend roberto (the venezualan) and i were traveling together, which meant that we got flagged down and searched. the conversation went something like this:
customs officer: "hi, welcome to australia, where are you guys from?"
us: "hong kong"
co: "ah yes, avian flu."
us: "um, ha ha...cough"

then they confiscated all three pairs of my cleats (for washing). the poor lady who came back with them had mud patches down her white shirt (whoops). i was supposed to declare my cleats (any athletic equipment carrying dirt), but i lied. this made me slightly nervous, but it was nothing compared to the orange feather boas that my diplomat friend planted on me (never trust a canadian). the co takes one look and yells "contraband" or some word meaning BAD GIRL and flips a switch attached to a flashing yellow light (some of this might be my imagination, but i felt like i should've been in black and white stripes, squeezing against a concrete wall, dodging searchlights...and there probably should've been a small grey dog named porkchop cowering alongside me). anyways, she's like are those real feathers? and i'm like um, no. i had the good sense not to tell her that the boas were actually bought in guangzhou--why stop lying now? ok, so then the feathers turn out to be ok, and i think she's pretty suspicious of me by now, so she takes a swab of my suitcase (for explosives or drugs, she says). i'm not worried...those are two things i definitely don't have...or so i thought. the reading comes back medium level alert for cocaine. WTF?! i look pleadingly at roberto: if this is your fault, now's the time to fess up...are you using me as your mule? what did you do to me while i was sleeping? what exactly was that white magic powder you used on my skinned knee...OH SHIT the white powder! YOU TOLD ME IT WAS ANTISEPTIC YOU CRIMINAL! please, officer, take him, i've been framed, i tell you, i'm innocent...

so then they take an xray of my suitcase, with said incriminating white powder in the front pocket, and miraculously, nothing. no flashing lights, no arrrouuugas, no cuffs, no butt rape. she swabbed again just to be sure, and it came back negative. false positives are common, she says, cocaine is one of those really sticky things, after all. but then, why medium level? why not low? i am so licking my suitcase lining when i get home. to sooth me, my wallstreet journal friend told me about her columbian friend who snuck out with his coke scattered inside the binding of his lonely planet. the customs officer held the book in his hand while searching the rest of the suitcase and came away none the wiser. phew.

i thought about laura as i packed the trunk of the rental. they said i couldn't do it, but i did. shuangy helped some too. the turn signals in aussie cars are located solely on the right of the steering wheel and you flick them up or down to turn left or right. flicking the lever on the left of the steering wheel activiates the windshield wipers. we had really clean windows by the time we got to the apartments.

the crotchety old man at the front desk gave us the wrong apartment number. when the random guy in 304 opened the door, the first thing i said was, "hi, i'm lily, and i hafta pee. oblige me?" he blinked at me for a bit, and i blinked right back at him. when he realized i wasn't joking, he closed the door softly in my face, and we trooped back downstairs to get the right apartment number from crotchety old man. 204.

weekends

two weekends ago i went on a junk trip to saikung, which is far enough away from hk that the water is clear. it's the premier scuba'ing spot around here, which incidentally, is not saying much, but you can actually see your feet underwater. the day was quite nice. we brought a picnic of breads and olives, cheeses and meats on sticks. for the vegetarians and the ants, we brought dorritos and baba ganoujh (and by we, i mean they who do the cooking and bringing). we lazily disc'd for a bit, but mostly, i paddled around on a windsurfing board (with a kayaking paddle) and explored the shoreline. it took a lot of balance since i wasn't strapped into the board, and the next day my obliques were sore. i totally saved the day by going on a beer run back to the boat when we ran out...but it turns out that after all that clamoring (by them) and all that rowing (by me), only two people drank the beer. the rest of them pirated my seven-up and coke. while rowing, i sang the pirates of the caribbean theme song and just around the riverbend at the top of my lungs...the whole thing felt slightly anti-social and totally shuangy. oh, and i snorkeled for a stint. plenty of rocky crabs and little silver fish skimpered across my path. i crept up to a dark cavern, but shied away...if i were in the little mermaid, i'd be Flounder.

last weekend i played lots of frisbee and dressed up like a pimp. halloween here is a Big Deal. the police roped off lankwaifong because once some people died mufasa-style (a la trampling).

this weekend i fell asleep during a mongolian throat singing concert. the jazz band accompaniment wasn't doing it for me. the two mixers on their stupid ibooks were even more vexing. stop exploiting these people's culture. let them do their own concert and make your money being a jazz band. sheesh. horses can't run in a darkened coffee shop. at points, the music reminded me of that scene in funny face (with audrey hepburn) where she's in the french cafe and dancing with lots of elbows and knees and trombones.

saturday, i: got my cable fixed, played some disc, skinned a knee, won HK$100 in a poker game, fell asleep during the aviator, scored two cigars from a friend (one cuban, one dominican-for comparison's sake).

sunday, i: watched connie and carla (heart), played more disc, ate half a watermelon by myself sans spoon, got a foot massage, and rode around on a friend's motorcycle. SWEET. my life is sweet. and of course, throughout there was plenty of food.