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orga-ma-nizing

today mostly avoided the heat, and hung out at home.  calvin had a morning chinese class, and is doing a great deal of reading for class.  so i tried to tidy up the house.  we always try to clean a bit before ayi comes, i hate hearing stories about expats who turn insta-slob once they hire ayis.  isn't that so mean?

so now my monstrous collection of dvds are now neatly organized into these black dvd binders i bought from xiang yang market.  it actually looks like i don't have that many now, a small miracle.  they don't correctly hold a dvd cover (hello, in china) so a lot of cutting, unwrapping and trimming involved.  i just couldn't figure out which countries to mix together.  for example, would the italians or the spanish be offended that i put fellini and almodovar together?  i will admit a temptation to put the fassbinder and fritz lang with beat takeshi and ozu, too.  i settled on putting the british with the french, although that didn't make much sense either.  neither did putting tsai ming liang (taiwanese) with zhang yimou (mainland), but we're still all one big happy family, ethnically speaking, right?  sigh.  maybe i should have bought more folders, but i have faith that they'll work out their differences.  talk things out, you know?

organized our crazy magazine collection, and wished SO badly that china had a recylcling system in our building.  i didn't know what to do with the extra "that's shanghai's" that we picked up, and those paper covers from the dvds.  found almost a years worth of 2004 new yorkers that had all the fiction articles read by me, and not much else, ambitiously brought over from san franciso to pour over once i was in my quiet 3rd world reverie. a year ago.  d'oh. couldn't bear to part with any of them after opening to an article about the adventures of a squid hunter and back on the study shelf they went to be visited later.  being sentimental or curious isn't always so good for a streamlined, organized, zen-like home.  shizzle.

dreaming about sedaris

hi, wow am i happy the weekend is finally here.  2 weeks of working straight, i really have come to appreciate how calvin works in the office on the weekends. and that i'm not going to do that again.  i am very happy to say that i made it to david's vc presentation, which was awesome.  he and steven leong put it together - it was a full house.  i felt very grown up in as i took a lot of notes on this fancy ritz-carlton paper while drinking fancy water out of a blue wine glass. and now i know what calvin does pretty well which is pretty neat.

came home and cal and listend to david sedaris' live at carnegie hall.  it managed to put a little sarcastic smile on my face and then i think i conked out.  i actually had a dream about sedaris, we were pals and he was telling me about my good friend audrey wu (who is the biggest sedaris fan i know - of both amy and david. she told me she had a 'thing' for gay, self-depricating writers after snatching every copy of david rakoff's fraud at three lives. just kidding. but she would've, she's that loyal.).  in this dream, we, along with my friend tom pyun, were back in my old 'hood in the west village, in this enormous crazy crooked brown house i used to live in in douglasville, georgia.  (at that time, the house style was referred to as "contemporary".) i think we were talking about china.  i woke up with a little hole in my heart missing new york.  both tom and audrey have moved from new york since i was there, one to work in non-profit in san fran, and one to publish art books for the getty in la.  even david sedaris lives in france now.

tomorrow is rosanna's going away party!  excited.  henri says they will visit all the '-stans':  pakistan, khasikstan, iran, russia and then to la marche.  it will be nice to see them off although it will be sad to see them off.

oh audrey i miss you!  and your little chelsea apartment, where we'd get take out and and i'd listen to your dry crackling jokes.  that new york grows more distant year by year, but i remember it with a heavy sigh.

shark o'neil

today was a bit hectic.  i went in early this morning to help edit the 'shanghai noon' newstories before polishing headlines.  bombings in egypt, an ugyhr girl that needed a rare blood transplant, oil prices are up, walmart to move to pudong thursday.  ate my lunch from yamazaki while watching bizchina for cctv-9, then had another recording for english language tapes in the afternoon at east china normal university. 

reading for this tape wasn't nearly as pleasurable, the room was hot and smoky when we arrived, and had numerous errors.  the passages included having confidence in oneself, protecting the environment, and the early entry of chinese kids into nursury school.  teetered on moralistic, but well-intended.  but annoyingly (and surprisingly) enough, there was a passage about "shark o'neil" (i was tempted to leave the, ahem, mistake), the "world famous basketball player".  hello, isn't this the guy who insulted shanghai's pride and joy, yao ming, by calling him ching-chong-ching?  i'm not a big sports fan, but was interested in how yao would react after i heard the news.  he roused pride being a perfect gentleman.

anyways, had a nice sushi dinner from jiuguang with calvin to relax.  we "sa xi gua" afterwards and stickified our faces eating delicious cold watermelon.  there's a remedy for everything.

english language tapes

hi there,

the english language tapes chomped up the whole weekend.  did manage to grab dim sum at royal china at jing'an temple with david and pauline, who we hadn't seen in a while.  david is giving his seminar on raising vc at amcham at portman this thursday, i'm disappointed i won't be able to make it.  pauline is finally done with animation festival, so her shedule is a little bit more relaxed these days.  hopefully we'll all go to wuxi on saturday for a run.

the english language tapes were ... interesting.  i was introduced to my partner at the foreign language institute, an oberlin conservatory graduate with a lazy eye, who told me that his medicine for bi-polar medicine was stuck at customs. this came after witty improvisations to our reading such as "wanting to see your naked body", mentioning a failed nudist colony in china, and hitting on the assistant.  typical in shanghai.  they turned off all the air when you are recording, in the small david lynch-ish recording room he started to sweat (but read beautifully, i might add) and i quietly breathed in choking sexist fumes.  the next day, i told him i didn't want to hear any more perveted jokes or comments.  i know i should have said something a bit earlier, but that southern gentlelady thing that will earn me stomach cancer one day frequently keeps me from saying f*** off earlier than i should.  anyways, the tapes turned out well, and it was actually quite a fun experience being at the college amongst students again.

i met with anna today for lunch, she showed me an entry in her "book of places" called okinawa.  beautifully laid out, thoughtful musings paired with imaginitve photographs.  we chatted, as usual, about the struggles involved in being here, how to retain a sense of courtesy when little grandmas and businessmen trample you, and what li po might have thought about super - modernizing china. how did the culture that build the great wall with such precision, or the forbidden city without a single nail, become satisfied with "hai ke yi" or "cha bu duo" as answers?  what happened to guys like zheng he who visited (not colonized) america and africa, when it seems some times there's little evidence of a people who show self-respect or respect for others?  is that time over?  is it yet to come?  between the choice of kindness and selfishness, what makes someone easily choose the latter?

went back to work for 'news at ten' and then met calvin for dinner at g.g.s (giggles) a taiwnese chain my mom liked.  sometimes me and my editor go there too.  taiwanese fast food, felt gross afterwards.  the soymilk there is still top notch, but we'll need to be healthier during the week to make up for the oil.  we walked home since there was a little breeze that night, and probably burned off one greasy "jaozi." 

cruelty-free lunchables

i had plans to meet up with raul at jimix today for lunch, and as an extra bonus, beverly came!  she is very, very pregnant, and full of energy.  i refrained from eating the arugula-proscuitto pizza which is usually my favorite.*  she even brought a little ultrasound picture so we could see what her baby girl will look like.**  raul is now preparing for his big trip outside of china (and smic-free) to tunesia, back to milan, africa and thailand. i know calvin is going to miss him like crazy. guys are wierd. they wouldn't say something like that.

am seriously looking forward to having dinner with tony and vivian in their new "suburban" jinqiao apartment!  tony "iron" chef, and vivan is a sweet and talented architect from puerto rico- excited to see what the new place looks like and what's on what promises to be a beautiful menu.  we had a little mini celebration at creek cafe at suzhou river art gallery since tony is also no longer working at smic, and vivian will start chinese classes soon an jiao tong university.  

too many changes!  raul off to the sahara, beverly about to be a mom, tony and vivian's new jobs and new place.  what's next? cruelty-free proscuitto?  just kidding.  i know.  no way.  well - no.

*okay, so i'm back to thoughts about becoming a vegetarian.  AND, there's no reason not to use cruelty-free cosmetics - it seems that a simple search shows on the all for animals website a huge list of companies, from revlon to henri bendel that don't test on animals.  i mean, its the least we can do.

a neat place i begin wandering:  http://www.treehugger.com

the clincher was popping in mike figgis' "hotel" last night over din - i know the cannibalism is a metaphor, but thanks for ruining my favorite italian meat, prociutto.   ugh, mike!  gross.

**seeing beverly today brought back a lot of memories of linda and baby sean.  i miss you guys, a lot.  i am wrapping my arms around you as i speak.  mrgph!  that was a big crazy squeeze.

aquarela do brasil

brazil, where hearts were entertaining june,
we stood beneath an amber moon
and softly murmured "someday soon."

brazil
return i will
to old brazil

we kissed and clung together,
then, tomorrow was another day
the morning found me miles away
with still a million things to say;
now, when twilight dims the sky above
recalling thrills of our love,
there's one thing i'm certain of

return i will to old brazil.
that old brazil
man, its old
in brazil
brazil, brazil

girls + boys

this morning when i went to work, 30 little chinese girls, no more than 10 years old, dressed in black leotards and red jumpsuits, each with their hair neatly combed into 2 braids, gave a little dance performance right in the lobby of the shanghai telvision station.  or maybe they were just jumpy.

this is a funny place.

i bought a couple of watermelons from a young boy who was resting on his wheelbarrow outside of our apartment building the other day. he said they were 8 mao per jing, and i tested his math to see if he could ring me up for 2.  he smiled charmingly because he couldn't, and guessed around 5 yuan for both.  i ran into his dark & leathery dad coming down the elevator as i went up, and wondered if the kid would tell his dad about the profit.  must be hard for a kid to be out there like that.  what part of you toughens the quickest under the heat?

tessa asked me to help out a friend dub some english language tapes this weekend, and c volunteered to read ther male part.  wouldn't it be funny if we both were just talking to one another on a tape to teach others english? 

but you know what?  i've started to pronounce certain words with a chinese accent.  like, i can't stop pronouncing the word "culture" as "coe-hure". i just can't say it anymore. "coe-chure, coe-chure, coe-chure." see?  and i don't even live in beijing.  what's my excuse.

w-e-e-k-e-n-d it's no longer weekend, but i'll tell you what i did over the weekend

sorry this is going to be an abbreviated version of the week and past few days.  soaring temperatures have sent my brain into a slow jam. 

just got back from having a catch-up dinner with gary and shannon at the little tonkatsu place near our house.  haven't seen much of gary, we've seen his cat "tigger" more than him this past month since he's been in beijing for music gigs.  since shannon's arrival we noticed the christmas tree (circa 2004) is gone, and the apartment smells nice and girly.  the tonkatsu place is cozy, with little ceramic pigs with aprons and chefs hats as decorations, as if to mock their plight.  we tried the black xinjiang beer, which was very black.

mom called tonight, which is unusual but she said she had an eventful weekend so i thought we'd catch up.  mom usually calls me around 8ish on thursdays, so that's the night i look forward to hearing what's going on in her world, if her clients are annoying her, when auntie patsy might be due for a visit, and we chat about marriage. i'm very close to my mom, as most of you know, since she and i spent most of our lives getting by, ourselves.  she is the main reason why i am sad to be here in shanghai, actually, but i should consider myself lucky to feel this way about my mom.  isn't that how it is with most things that acutally mean something to you. 

calvin and i had an unintentional weekend "retreat".  man, i didn't realize how much we really needed to unwind from the city, commuting, melting heat, construction noises, work stressors.  it had gotten to a point when cooking dinner became an unsumountable task, much less managing to talk to one another or brush our teeth.  oops.

so, what i did this weekend during our relaxation time:

1.  finished reading po bronson's 'what should i do with my life', thus, am on a little adventure to find out, yet again, in career-speak, who am i?*  i've deduced that i'm trying out the media junkie who dreams about designing wellness hotels, so i can only forsee opening a place where you can watch a bresson flick and then get a brain massage. pretty soon.

2.  watched the cassavetes box set, and thus, scrambled and readjusted my ideas of love and self-deception.

3. considered becoming a vegetarian after watching "the corporation", until gary and shannon called for tonkatsu.

4.  scarfed (shared) hazelnut gelato and 3 scoop sundae at our new favorite bookstore, garden books, on changle lu

*quotes i liked:
He did not drft aimlessly into space, was not tugged off track by the gravitational pull of other worlds.
Raymond Carver:  And did you get what you wanted from this life even so?  I did.

 

c's birthday

c just taught me how to post photos today, so although this is a bit late, i thought i'd put a picture of his birthday in hong kong.  c came into the world on the 25th of june, and i took him to felix for his 32nd year to celebrate.  check out his deck casio calculator watch we picked up in cambodia.

we saw the sun set and lights go up over the water during dinner.  the buildings lit up before dessert for dramatic effect. 

muji

today i am super excited.  i have some time in between copyediting and chinese class, so I’m gonna stop by muji.  and look around with my one good eye.*  miwa was the first person who ever told me about this store.  that's a good sign, right?  muji is here!

purchases made (with great restraint): 

1) 2 light grey squish-a-licous memory foam pillows. looks like a rock that might be in a fabric isamu noguchi garden.  they needed some jill bliss’ cozy rock covers, so we dressed them in calvin's old t-shirts as a sad substitute.  they're still cute, they just look like teenage runaways. 

2) grapefruit tea lights + peach votives (i grew up in georgia)

3) super tiny soy sauce dispenser for jiaozi

should have food & clothes soon which is good because we heard that among the other wonderful things at muji, the socks rule.  (thanks jake.)  we went muji crazy in hong kong for calvin's birthday for presents for family and clothes for cal.  everything just looked so cute on him i couldn't help myself.  muji items were actually cheaper in hk too!

neat link howard showed me today:  in japan you may have this tiny muji house built for you. 

it's a little pad's dream!

*last night, my one of my eyes (right) swelled up like a eyelid surgery patient.  i put some drops i got from huashan hospital in it, it hasn’t been the same since cambodia.  cal wanted to get it checked out this morning but I’m going to wait until after today to see if it gets better.  i hope its not serious.