Attention! Please Update Feed

This message is for any of you who are still reading these posts on the Blogger Atom feed. I've now moved to Wordpress and the entire site is in another location. Please re-subscribe to sushipanda.com at the following link:

feed://http//www.sushipanda.com/?feed=rss2

Look forward to your visits!

Snore Boarding

In my building, there are two kinds of people that everyone has come to hate. The first are the folks who take the elevator either one floor up or one floor done; but especially those that take it one floor down. I work on the 7th floor, and give evil looks to anyone who makes me stop on the way down, just because they were too lazy to walk down a single flight of stairs.

The other is the guy on the bus who, when he sits down, immediately falls asleep with his mouth open and starts snoring. Not the low-volume, heavy breathing type snoring, but the full-on buzz-saw-in-a-wood-chipper type snoring. Thankfully, I had never encountered one of these guys, had just heard rumors about them existing on our company shuttle buses. I was lucky in that every time I got on the bus, I would just put my headphones on and fall asleep, and thus enjoyed a relatively disturbance-free ride.

Oddly enough, in recent weeks I noticed strange behavior on the shuttle whenever I got on it. I'd start getting the same types of looks that I gave those aforementioned elevator parasites, and just last week, I saw people get up from their seats and move a few rows back after I had sat down close to them. And then it dawned on me: I was the guy who was doing all the snoring! All this time I had just figured I had the good fortune never to encounter him, but in reality he was with me all the time!

Then, I sheepishly looked around me, saw that all the seats in front of me and next to me had been vacated, and everyone had squeezed themselves to the back. I then proceeded to prop my feet up, fold my arms behind my head, and turn up my iPod.

I love being famous.

Men are Rational Beings

The beautiful white DVD player I had paid 300 RMB extra to buy because it was beautiful and white has a USB outlet on the side. Initially, I tried to plug in my external hard-disk to see if the player could play all the mp3s and video files that I had downloaded throughout the past months and years. When it couldn't, I tried with non-volatile flash memory instead, and wouldn't you know, it worked! I could now listen to mp3s on my DVD player without having to burn them onto a CD or carry my computer into the living room. Of course, I could have simply connected my iPod to the speakers, but c'mon, that would have been too easy. Plus, I really wanted to use that USB outlet for something.

In regards to the video files, after some trial and error, I concluded that the player would only play videos in mp4 format. I went online and spent hours trying to figure out how to convert .avi files and .real files into mp4, but only succeeded with avi. Unfortunately, most of the episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" and "24" I downloaded were in Real Player format, and thus unconvertible.

I spent a few more hours researching online, and learned that there was software out there for my Mac to take DVD's and rip them into mp4 format. Perfect! So I went out and bought DVD seasons of "Grey's Anatomy" and "24" and "Lost" and spent hours and hours ripping them into the right format. Then I uploaded them onto the flash memory sticks, and plugged them into the DVD player through the USB slot. Finally, I figured out how to use that fancy feature on my new, beautiful machine.

And then it hit me: I had basically spent all that time converting my DVDs to files on the computer for the sole purpose of watching them on my DVD player, when I could have just watched the DVDs instead. Men truly are rational beings.

----------------------------------

Speaking of rational beings, this is Rusty's last weekend in Shanghai. He's heading back to Louisiana on Sunday for higher education purposes. Rusty, I never knew thee well, but you were fun to drink with, your gumbo is so good that I leave it in my fridge for a week and eat it until I find maggots in it, and you're an upstanding fellow who likes to take care of his buddies. And I liked beating you at poker. Happy trails and best of luck to you!

A Glimpse

We celebrated my brother's arrival P.D. (Pre Diarrhea) by, what else, making him do stuff for us. Thus, early last week he found himself in the kitchen, working on making burritos and salsa and tacos for the panda household.

For those of you who have never met my brother, he's a stand-up fellow with a very relaxed demeanor and a very unassuming disposition. This sets him up to be the perfect bitch for me, and I took full advantage, forcing him to compliment my apartment every 20 minutes and to set up my exfoliating bubble bath at 8:30 pm every night. And of course, to make the one thing that I crave the most every since I moved out here.

Needless to say, ANY burrito would have been savory and welcome in my mouth. Nevertheless, I as surprised at how delicious my carne asade burrito el Andrew tasted. I crammed two down my mouth, along with three tacos, and was reminded of El Faralito down in San Francisco's Mission District, where Harsha and Joe and I often found ourselves around 2 a.m. in the morning, waiting in the ever-egalitarian line (SOMA geeks, Market Street bankers, Mission St. artists alike) for the steak quesadillas. Man, sometimes I really miss being back in S.F..

But then, there's Shanghai, the greatest city west of the Huangpu! And for my loyal readers outside of this gloriously decadent city, here's a not-so-clear shot from my balcony. Imagine it being much clearer and brighter, and know that that is the sight that greets me from a long day of slacking at work.


A glimpse of the world at my feet

Cultural Droppings

My venerable little brother Andrew is in town for an undetermined amount of time, and accordingly I took some time off to make sure that he had someone with whom to spend his wintry Shanghai December. Good intentions can lead to gruesome results, however, as I took him to a New York style deli a short bus-ride away from my apartment for a quick American lunch to counter his impending homesickness. Unfortunately, not only was the food disgusting and the service akin to the quality of my underarm scent, we both caught a nasty bout of food poisoning that made us prisoner to our respective toilets last Thursday and Friday (and for me, much of the rest of the weekend).

On Friday, at his very worst, he suggested that I go buy some bananas, as both Web MD and his doctor back in San Diego had prescribed the fruit as an effective anecdote against what Mike and I eloquently term R.A. (Runny Ass). Odd, I thought, since everyone in China (even Chace) had told me that bananas are the cause of R.A., and not the cure.

At work, we often identify misinterpretation between the U.S.-based team and the Shanghai-based team as a result of inherent "cultural differences." This issue with the bananas was a blatant case of "cultural conflict." These two banana-beliefs could not be more antithetical to each other.

So I sat there and debated and debated whether or not heeding my brother's advice and going across the street go buy bananas was really the best course of action for our present crisis. I felt just as torn as when I'm at a fake DVD store, pulled both by my desire to watch the latest American movie fare as well as my commitment to anti-piracy and artistic ownership.

Wait, that's probably not the most accurate of statements.

Anyway, I decided to go with the bananas, not because I accepted one argument over another, but because I have two jars of Nutella in my cupboard, and pouring them on bananas was the perfect excuse to circumvent the, ahem, diarrheal impact of my choice. And there you are, the time tested axiom holds true: garbage in, garbage out.

100 Bucks If You Don't Smile

Need to thank Jamie for sending me enriching and valuable Internet content during the work day. Isn't it funny that juat 5 years ago, someone with the masculine pedigree of Jamie would not give a second thought to sending baby panda content to another dude? Too cute not to share.

A Gust

The seasons have officially changed here in Shanghai, and I wondered today if the spate of biting, stormy days the past couple of weeks indeed has a discernible effect on the disposition of the city's human population. The thought crossed my mind during lunch in the canteen today as I contemplated whether to tear out the nostrils of the guy serving me noodles behind the counter.

The canteen in my building is split into different sections. There's the line you have to get into if you just want a bowl of rice and small plates of food in varying stages of rot. Then there's the lunch box line (套餐), where you can get combinations all chosen out for you. The hot pot section used to be a lot bigger, and I was a big fan of this because they had a nice MAH-LAH (麻辣) pot with chunk of duck blood in it (my favorite, as you all know). The consistent spot was always the noodle line, where I could get oily dry noodles, soup noodles, and even won tons, which is what the American guests usually got because I think it made them feel safe.

On this day, I waited quietly in line for warm soup noodles, since it was cold outside and I didn't get a chance to eat my usual breakfast of oily, deep fried pieces of toast with pork jam (the most delicious artery-clogger available in Shanghai today). When it finally got to my turn, the noodle chef inexplicably waved me off and told his helper to give the last remaining bowl of noodles from the current batch to the woman behind me.

Confused, I asked him: "Why?" He turned and said that the woman behind me had gotten in line earlier than I had, which I guess would make sense if we are all supposed to stand in line facing backwards. Perhaps implying that I had cut in line, when in reality all I had done is reserve my place to get a tray, I told him matter-of-factly that I indeed had gotten in line earlier than the woman behind me. He turned back around to tend to the noodles, a gesture that indicated he was dismissing my claim as fallacious, at which point I became infuriated and yelled out: "You're crazy, it's your own stupid fault for not seeing me stand here, when I was here first." I felt like such a whiner, but the one thing that makes me squeal like a baby instead of coming back with an ascerbic comment is when I am falsely accused of something, particularly when I'm stuck with the choice of having to deny a woman a bowl of noodles or stand there like an acknowledged miscreant, steam rising out of my ears.

I ended up just taking the noodles that rightfully belonged to me, but I as I sat down with my co-workers I couldn't help but look back to my beloved noodle station, wondering if I should go back and start a row. Petty, perhaps, and definitely childish, but I was overcome with an overwhelming desire to jump over the counter, stick my two fingers deep into the infested nostrils of the noodle chef, and then fling him head backward into the oily vat of pork lard.

Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind. What if the VP of my division, an older fellow who works right under the CEO of one of the largest and famous companies in the world, had been victim to the same treatment? If the noodle chef had known that someone who had enough private wealth to buy the entire office building we were in outright was standing in line, waiting for an 8 kuai bowl of noodles, would he have reacted the same way.

The key is, that he would never know that. He knows nothing about who he serves, but in his own mind he is responsible for dishing out the justice on his own little square area of noodle turf. In this most enigmatic of countries, the noodle line remains a superannuated beacon of what a people's republic should really be: everyone is the same. Regardless of whether you're a street sweeper or Siddhartha himself, this is still China, biatches! What the noodle chef says, goes, and he only sees what he believes. I guess even after three years of living here, the red and green remnants of the Cultural Revolution still thrive sometimes to the hoi polloi. It's just a fact that all of us used to a society built on individual rights and respect have to swallow and digest.

That being said, I'd still like to do the nostril thing, just to get it out of my system. I guess the sudden bout of rage is a symptom of the impending arrival of more gloomy and freezing weather. Or maybe I'm a sociopath with very thin skin. Either way, I'm meeting him outside after work and will deal with him old-school Shanghainese-man style...that is, I'll slap him really hard and run the other way. That's right, that's how shit gets taken care of up in hee-ya!

Lack of Utility

The past couple of weeks can be categorized as one of those “get in the groove” periods, where I basically run out of excuses to do anything of any consequence, and chalk up all my inactivity to “getting in the groove.”

“Eric, why haven’t you updated your blog lately?”
Oh, I’ve been busy getting in the groove of things, I’ll get to it soon.

“Eric, why haven’t you bought any plants for your new apartment? Aren’t they the last thing you have to buy?”
Just getting in the groove, I’ll find some time to go buy them this weekend.

“Eric, what is that awful smell emanating from your underarms? When was the last time you took a shower?”
Oh, just been getting in the groove of settling in and figuring things out and getting a feel for everything. I’ll get to it.

Now I’ve seriously run out of excuses, and my procrastination finally crawled up and bit me in the arse this past week when I realized that all my utility bills were overdue. Unlike with everything else where I can blame Republicans, I had no one to blame for letting the bills fester except for myself. They were delivered on time, and I had them either on my desk or in my bag for the past two months, but whenever it came to me actually learning how to take care of them I just found myself paralyzed with inactivity. After all, this was the first time since San Francisco where I had the responsibility of paying for my own resource usage; I guess I had just gotten used to all the ass-wiping that foreigners usually enjoy when living in China.

In all actuality, the Shanghai utility companies make it extraordinarily easy to pay your bills on time. They deliver the paper versions a month before the deadline, at which point all you have to do is walk to the nearest convenience store and pay all of them there. For the phone bill, you can also buy prepaid credit at endless number of stalls lining the side of the subway stations. For the super-savvy, you can just go to the bank and set up your account to automatically deduct itself and transfer the money straight to the payees.

And of course, if you’ve done none of the above, then you’re pretty much screwed. Which is the position I found myself in, ultimately having to take an afternoon off and visit every utility company separately. That meant taking numbers at the China Mobile, DaZhong Gas, Jing-an Municipal Waterworks, and China Telecom. Not to mention the American consulate to get my new passport, as well as Huashan hospital to confirm that I can’t get my weekly enemas reimbursed by my health-insurance company. With so many millions of people in Shanghai, taking numbers at each of these places was, as Shakespeare would say, a total bitch!

I’d like to think I’ve learned my lesson, that I now know to pay all my bills on time and to avoid getting down and dirty with the other local delinquents. I’d like to think that. I’d also like to think that I’m going to hit the gym and develop that Terrell Owens type physique that I always wanted. I’ll see you at the utility company in two months.

A Solid Week

The week of November 4-11 had to be one of the best weeks I’ve ever had since I moved to Shanghai, not counting that one week I flew across Xinjiang in a hot-air balloon with Jessica Alba and Albert Einstein (what, didn’t read the blog posting on that one?). It was so great that I proceeded to ignore writing about it or posting anything about it for a good week and a half after that. And here I am now, a little too lazy to do a deep-dive into the events, so here is the McNugget version:

Saturday, 11/4: I finally made the switch and went to Hong Kong and got the Macbook Pro. Yes, I’m now an Apple user. Let’s just say that I’m a hopeless victim of their marketing/branding strategy. After months and months of waiting for Apple to load up their line with the new Core 2 Duo processors, I found myself debating for hours the night before I crossed the border, as I still didn’t know whether to get the iMac (more bang for the buck) or the Macbook Pro (a completely unnecessary and expensive buy, but damn did it look good!). And here I am, blogging for the first time on my new, $2000 machine. I’m also surfing around the web and listening to music on it; basically, doing what I did on my previous computer, which is probably worth about $300 if that. But hey, it looks good and now I can pretend I’m the hipster Apple guy from the ads. Go Mac!

Wednesday, 11/8: I “worked from home” on this day and discovered the true value of Viidoo TV, as I watched Fox News all day announce one by one that the Democrats were taking over Congress. It was like watching a Lakers game; I was so thrilled with every passing hour realizing that everything the pundits were saying in the podcasts I was listening to and the articles I was reading online were right, there would be no surprise on this election night. Congrats to my congresswoman Nancy Pelosi; now get out there and fucking do something!

Friday, 11/10: I didn’t go out all night and stayed at home intending to learn how to do great and magical things with my new laptop, but instead finished up the 2nd season of Grey’s Anatomy on DVD and spent the rest of the night trying to download every song from every episode one by one. Then I found a torrent that had all of them zipped up in one file. Thank you, piracy gods, thank you. (Great show, by the way. I knew when I started watching all these acclaimed TV series I’d get hooked, and here I am, downloading new episodes from Season 3 on BT China). Let me say again, I am a victim

Saturday, 11/11: My housewarming party. Total chaos at the end of the day, and I spent a ton of money on booze and food, but it was totally worth it, as these pictures can attest to. Lots of friends were invested enough to stop by and pay their respects to the new pad, which was introduced to the public for the first time since I swept in and painted one wall gloriously blue, and then proceeded to decorate in my minimalist, modern aesthetic. And now, thanks to all my visitors, my Ikea wine-rack is now full and I have a nearly full bar well (only missing tequila and gin, which I won’t miss). The whole night reminded me of back in Berkeley and San Francisco when we used to host parties in my apartment, mix a ton of drinks, get sloshed and get friendly with everyone. Good times indeed.

All in all, very strong series of days, indeed. And I’m 7-3 in both my fantasy leagues. It can only go downhill from here. Better hit the sauce before reality sets in.

These are Fantasy Times

For the past three autumns, Monday morning has served as an extention of the just finished weekend, rather than the birthing of an arduous new workweek. The reason for the recreational nature of a time slot that would otherwise be a weekly banality can be summed up in two words: fantasy football.

This is the 8th or 9th year our Yahoo league has been in existence, and aside from one glorious Week 16 way the hell back in 1999 (and the reason why I will always have a soft spot in my fantasy football heart for the now washed-up Marcus Robinson), I've done little in the way of winning anything. And yet Monday mornings still enchant me, to the point where I wake up 10 minutes earlier than usual on Monday (6:20 am, egads!) just so I can get a perfunctory glance at the scores before I head off to work, either in glee or in utter despondence.

Fantasy football, however relishing it is, is only one of several fantasies in which I and perhaps many other rogues indulge ourselves. These are fantasy times, gentle men and gentle women, as defined by the fact that occurences and patterns in my life often weave themselves in and out of the fabric of reality.

Case in point: I've been working in this office for nearly 11 months now, and I'd say that I average about 12 trips to the bathroom each day (with a standard deviation of about 1.7). I'd say half of those are due to coffee/diet coke consumption, and the other half out of sheer distraction. Normal, you say? Well, how do I account for the fact that out of all those visits to the bathroom, I'd say about 60% of them are met with the sight of the same co-worker, either zipping up or whipping out. That's quite a large sample size to work with. It's one thing to find a slacker with the same penchant for utilizing company resources to avoid work; it's another to do it near simultaneously, over half of the time. And of course, as all such awkward office moments go, I've never spoken to him. Not once. You see, I've concluded that there are two reasons why I always see him in the bathroom: a) he actually finds a way to be in there 72% of the work-day (I'm in finance so trust me on the math) and makes it impossible for me to avoid him, or b) like Joey Tribiani and his black-jack dealing hand-twin, he and I are fated to be each other's toilet Doppelgängers. Can either of these frightening conclusions possibly be real? These are fantasy times, my friends.

The thought struck me again last Friday, as we decided to make an impromptu after-dinner appearance at the new club Attica out on the Bund. After a very dispiriting jaunt through Glamour Bar ("Welcome to your mid-thirties" was Jamie's well-timed chime as we swiftly moved through the middle-aged and predominantly white crowd), we walked down the Bund toward the new hotspot, only to be greeted by an aggressive throng of clubbers waiting to pay 100 RMB to get in. It was shortly thereafter that both Jamie and I recognized the pair of party promoters, and after the usual greet and kiss, we found ourselves quickly escorted in without any cover and into the elevator with a gaggle of models and actresses...one of the best elevator rides ever.

On the prominent deck of the club overlooking the Huangpu river, surrounded by beautiful people everywhere, I thought about the VIP treatment I so fortunately receive in this magnificent city that seems to exist only in a hazy dream. In what kind of reality does someone like me, a dude with a seriously misproportioned head whose only noticeable skill is to fill out a Super Mario costume once a year during Halloween, get to sit amongst Shanghai's elite with nary a discerning glance? Perhaps it was my beautiful date. sipping her Sex on the Beach next to me and and waiting for me to show her to the dancefloor, that showed that having the most beautiful creature in the entire place on your arm can go a long way towards acceptance. Perhaps it was our veteran status in Shanghai's night-life, having become accepted in the weekly throng of transient faces that moved effortlessly from Fuxing Park to The Bund to the trendy new place with delirious ease.

Whatever it was, it is still an ongoing fantasy. After three Shanghai years, life is as good as ever...and the fact that reality is even more promising shows how wonderful these fantasy times can be.

Cautionary Tale

In many ways, I represent the exact opposite of how someone is supposed to lead a life. I've already reached certified "Public Service Announcement (PSA)" status when it comes to what happens when you drink too much (vomit on other people's shoes), drink too much and sleep too little (vomit on your own shoes), and eat too many deep-fried chili peppers (I'll leave that to your imagination). And last night, I reminded myself again why I'm the worst kind of cautionary tale: the kind that doesn't caution me to change anything at al.

Here's rule number one: when you buy an external hard drive for your computer and decide to put every visual and aural artifact from the past 12 years of your life into one location, make sure you don't pound on the hard drive when you get annoyed when reading the Dodgers' box score, slam your palm down on the hard drive when YouTube freezes in the middle of a Conan O'Brien skit, and never EVER drop the hard drive on the floor because you got distracted by the pretty girl walking in and out of your new apartment.

Faced with the potential of losing all my photos and documents and emails and porn artwork from the past decade, I've spent much time this morning re-assessing my life and my imprint on this planet so far in my 20 odd years of meaning existence...and then I concluded that it's really been only about 2 years of meaningful existence...and then I got really depressed.

Those are teardrops you can't see on my keyboard right now.

95%

After three weeks of living in my new apartment, the dust has begun to settle and for the most part, I've returned to my old ways of doing things. It's the famed "Eric Hu 95% rule." Basically, it means that at most, I tend to complete up to 95% of a taste before stopping, either too lazy or too satisfied to finish up the remaining 5%. I make this observation because I'm sitting at my new desk, the one I waited weeks to get delivered while my DVD cases sat stacked up "temporarily" in the other room, waiting to be organized. Well, the desk arrived a week ago, and I simply haven't mustered up the energy to move the DVD cases over to the desk and organize them properly. Once again, I've only complete 95% of the task. In fact, I'm probably going to end up writing about 95% of this blog, and then leave the computer on while I sprawl across my new sofa and watch 95% of a Grey's Anatomy Episode.

However, this 95% rule can be said to only apply to my life 95% of the time. Which means that the other 5% of the situations I face I either don't do at all, are meticulously program to the point where one could possibly say I invested 120-130%! And in those rare instances, usually in matters of great importance to me such as a) finishing all the food placed in front of me and b) attempting to find true happiness in the realm of love and emotion, I find that 120% usually means that I'm trying extra hard to change something that simply cannot be changed.

Do people, myself included, have the capability to alter something fundamental in their nature? Does it take time, patience...or is it a hopeless cause? Or does it vary, depending on which fundamental...and which person? I struggle with these questions as I find myself giving 120% to something...and I'm not sure I'm even getting close to 95% in return. Perhaps it is time for me to ratchet it down, to stay within the confines of the 95% rule. It's gotten me far enough in to provide me a blissful and contented life. I guess it is just that I thought I could finally get to 100% on something, to feel whole...and instead I'm still wandering around in the wilderness.

Time to lose myself in a television series...

Time Capsule

Ok so this isn't the first time that I've been away for a long stretch of time and come back to defend my indefensible ass with a slew of excuses, but this time, I really mean it when I say I'll be blogging more regularly now and taking panda love to even danker corners of the web than ever before.

Ah, forget it, even I'm getting tired of this schtick. To be honest, a lot has been going on for pretty much the entire month of September, and while I simultaneously rub the 9 day Chinese National Holiday from my eyes and set my sights back on normality, it makes sense that this blog had to take a bit of a backseat. After all, I had to spend time getting my new apartment ready to be inhabitable, to then buy the necessary accoutrements to inhabit it myself, and then to bask in the new pad during most of the break. Most of this activity entailed actually leaving my computer and physically doing stuff, which is new to me, and has taken me a while to adjust.
Thank God vacation is now over and I'm back at my desk at work, mindlessly surfing away like I was created to do! And to my bosses who are reading this and deciding whether or not to keep me on the payroll...I kid, I kid.

So here are some highlights from the past few weeks when I neglected this site that, in hindsight, I would have blogged about had I the gumption or the initiative (or hell, someone to move my lazy-ass fingers over the keyboard):

- Went to my third Chinese wedding, and I think I'm really getting the hang of these things. First off, it is necessary at any one of these ceremonies to play as much Celine Dion in the background as possible. This includes when the guests are sitting down, when the couple is reading off their vows, and even when they are exchanging rings. Also, parents are of utmost
importance and have to be thanked for making everything in life possible for the young couple. Tokens of gratitude this time included back-massagers for the respective sets of parents. This wedding had both a bubble machine and a dry ice machine, so there was a lot to look at top to bottom. A lovely evening for a lovely couple, and suffice it to say that I will be fine sitting out my next handful of wedding invites unless they can top this past one in visual stimulation.

- My annoying habit of celebrating a noticeable weight loss by giving myself carte blanche to gorge on beer and fructose and beef fat has gotten the best of me again. And now, corporate services has just emailed out a notice saying that in addition to the two kinds of cookies we already get for free in the pantry, they're adding two more varieties. So that's four cookie flavors now that I can snatch up and cram into my mouth with abandon, and no one will stop me. My desk is now literally a crummy place to be.

- The furniture guys called up last week to tell me they were set on delivering the bedroom set the next day, "would someone be home? Oh, and by the way, one of the nightstands hasn't been delivered yet, do you mind if you just deliver one tomorrow and its companion a few days later? Thanks for your patience." So the delivery guys come, and I'm excited because I can actually move into my apartment since I have something to sleep on. Hold the phone, the mattress has been delayed as well. Someone forgot to mention it to me. I end up calling the furniture company again, and what do you know? I'll have to wait four more days at the earliest before they can deliver the mattress. Which, of course, is perfectly fine since everyone knows that as long as you have the bed frame, the mattress doesn't matter at all! Getting a little worried, I call the sofa people.

"Oh yes, we forgot to mention. You wanted a sofa with the recess on the right hand side, but we only have one on the left hand side. We're sorry for the delay." So I clenched my teeth and retorted, "So you're telling me that the sofa that I ordered two weeks ago that you promised to deliver tomorrow...you won't deliver?" To which she replied, "yes, we're very sorry, but we can deliver the sofa that you didn't want tomorrow if you really need it tomorrow." Tomorrow being the day they committed to deliver it to begin with. "Oh, and to show you how sorry we feel we'll throw in complimentary foot stool." Did I get the foot stool if I agreed to take the sofa I didn't want? "Yes, we will send that to you either way." So the next day, dirty spots on it, and it's also a vomit-inducing shade of peach whereas the sofa it's supposed to be paired with is white. This causes the innocent lockmith who is standing next to me when the sofa is delivered to say out loud to me: "the colors don't match, why on Earth would you buy such ugly shit?"

- I've finally gotten off my schneid and started buying DVD sets of TV shows. I burned through the first two seasons of "Lost" in about a week and a half, and I'm relieved the second season is wacky enough that I won't obssess about keeping up with Season 3. And now, I'm in the midst of drowning in two shows that couldn't be more antithetical to each other: HBO's "The Wire" and Bravo's "Project Runway." I know I'm late to the game, since I'm on season 1 of both shows and Joe used to rave about "The Wire" back in '03. The show is unbelievable, though I have to admit to being swayed by all the critical love that the online guys that I read so much are lathering on it. I like "Project Runway" because it turns out I love watching grown men sew. It's that simple.

- My Dodgers are out of the playoffs, my Detroit Lions are now 0-187, and all I have on TV are 60 Chinese channels, 30 of which show the same news program at 7 pm every night. But I'm happy because I stare at all of this stuff on a 42 inch LCD screen sitting on the floor of my living room. I also spent about 400 RMB too much on a DVD player because I thought it looked cute in white. No wonder I'm so into "Project Runway."

- My new refrigerator freezes everything I put into it, including broccoli and milk and a huge pot of stew. This, even though I have it now turned as low as possible. Wait...maybe it should be as high as possible.

It's 4:30 pm on my first day back from vacation, and things are finally beginning to make sense.

Of Life

Today is the 5th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

On my way home from work today, I got a call from Wil. It was 3 am in DC when he called, and I was surprised as anyone who receives a call from someone else during the darkest hours of their day. Turns out he had trouble sleeping, unable to prevent his mind from ruminating on that horrible day.

"I've been thinking about that day, about how I've changed in the past five years."

During the same time one year ago, I wrote briefly about what was going on in my head when I first heard the news of the attacks on my way to work that day. While chatting with Wil, he mentioned that he had blacked most of the memories of that day out of his head. I, on the other hand, remember everything with a crisp lucidity that has maybe only attached itself to a select handful of other important memories. He mentioned that he did remember going to the candlight vigil later that week at Dolores Park, which led us to talk about the "Candle of Life." This story thus goes:

Wil, Angela, and I brought our candles out to the highest point of Dolores Park and just sat there, watching other San Franciscans gather both where we were, as well as near the bottom of the hill. This was Craigslist at its most efficient. A few people brought guitars but just laid next to them, staring up at the sky, perhaps thinking that the moment didn't need any musical accompaniment. Everyone brought candles. As the sun set, while overlooking downtown San Francisco, the three of us lit our candles and sat quietly. I'll never know what either Wil or Angela was thinking, but for me I was marveling at how throngs of people who never met each other could find a spot to congregate, and do nothing but just sit. I do remember thinking that all the candles looked really pretty scattered all throughout the park, and then thinking that maybe I wasn't supposed to think they were pretty. Maybe I was supposed to just be sad.

Somewhere during the course of that evening, I decided I didn't want to let go of that feeling of togetherness. San Francisco is a pretty warm place, not temperature-wise but people-wise, and even then I was feeling a strange communal warmth that I didn't really want to shake. So I told my two friends that I was going to let my candle burn all the way down. I dubbed it the "Candle of Life," and I balanced it on my lap as Angela drove us to Safeway to get us food, then cradled it through the grocery aisles. Back at home, I set it down on the coffee table as we joined the others at our house to watch the 9/11 "Tribute to Heroes" telethon. Afterwards, we found ourselves talking about our feelings, much as we had done the past few days as very few of us went to work in the days following the 11th. Then, I went into my room and laid the candle next to my bed. It still had a long way to go, which was fitting since I had chosen such a dramatic name for it.

The next thing I knew, my entire dresser (one of those cheap Tupperware type roller-dressers that I had picked up somewhere) was on fire. It was almost 4 am in the morning, and my entire room was flickering in the glow of the "Fire of Life." I stumbled out into the kitchen and somehow got my hands on the smallest pot in our arsenal of cookware, and then proceeded to fill it up with water from the tap, all the while watching the hallway grow brighter and brighter. Finally, with the pot three quarters full, I ran into the room and sprayed my dresser with enough water to cook a packet of ramen.

For all the good it did, I might as well have spit into it.

As I ran back, blabbering something in my half-confused, half-asleep state, Wil rumbled up from his room upstairs, saw what was going on and ran into my room, then took off his shirt and with about four huge smacks snuffed the fire out. The whole time, I was still in the kitchen, still with the tiny little pot in my hand, still trying to fill it up. Where there once was a huge orange glow, there now was nothing but a huge cloud of smoke and the putrid smell of burning plastic. Will, shirtless and clearly agitated at having to save the life of a roommate who had a working heater in his room, stumbled back downstairs without saying a word.

And that is my "Candle of Life" story, which in the ensuing days became re-titled as the "How the Candle of Life Almost Turned Into the Candle of Death" story. The moral of both stories is that even in times of great distress, of great sadness, of anxiety and fear and confusion, one thing will remain a constant in the fabric of our great country: I will also be a stupid, fucking idiot.

Thanks for saving my life, Wil. Thanks for giving me a call today and to remind me how young we all were back then. Thanks to Harsha, Joe, Jason, Mike, Sabrina, Angela, Annie, Homer, Jerry, and all the other good friends with whom I huddled together during that terrible week that will never be completely wiped from our memories.

And as promised, here is a mention of Wil's zest for life...and an odd addendum to that is when he first mentioned that I should write about said zest in my blog, I had this strange image of Wil holding a bar of Zest soap, with all this water squirting out of the soap, just like in those old Zest commercials. I guess whenever I think about Wil and his passion for living, I think of soap. And you know what? There's something oddly fitting about that.

Laziest Sunday

Here are some thoughts...

- I was complaining to some of my pals on messenger today that I was so incredly bored, and then midday I realized that it wasn't that there was a dearth of things for me to do, it was just that I was too lazy to do them. For instance, It's taken me about 6 hours to actually muster enough energy to log on here and begin blogging, even though I had been thinking about doing so all morning and afternoon. It got me thinking: everyone and their pet camel know that I'm prone to extreme bouts of laziness (if you can call a lifetime a 'bout'), but am I at the point now where I've reached my own personal nadir of stasis! Is it possible that I cannot get any lazier than I am at this point in my life?

*Given the fact that after I wrote the above paragraph, I sprawled across my bed to rest for 10 minutes indicates that the answer is a distinct "yes!"*

- I was at Chace's yesterday afternoon eating Xiao Yang Sheng Jian dumplings (小杨生煎), and as the fatty juiced dripped down my chin I noticed Chace sitting at the dinner table, quietly staring out the window. I asked him what he was thinking about, and he replied: "How to get rich."

When I stare out the window I usually think about...well, nothing at all, really. And here my good friend was actually using his brain cells for something useful. Something that had value. And so I stared out the window with Chace, trying to see if we combined our brainpower, we'd come up with a sure way to get rich and live the lives that we all wanted for ourselves (him hunting turkeys in the back-woods of North Carolina with a bazooka, and me staring out the window, thinking about nothing in particular but dressed in one of many Armani suits and gold-encrusted slippers). And here's what I came up with:

One of you dear readers, please invent something that is so awesome that we can sell tens of millions of them. Then give the idea to Chace and I and we will take care of the rest. Ready? Set? Go!

- On the eve of another NFL season that I can only observe from a distance (and a fantasy football season that I will surely lose because by the time I wake up for work on Monday, all the good players have already been picked up by Harry), I leech off someone else in cyberspace to pay tribute to the one man who made me decide to be a cursed Detroit Lions fan. Yes, the same Lions who have the worst record in the NFL the past five years, and who hire assistant coaches who like to go to Wendy's in the nude.

- I was passing out in the taxi on my way back from Barbarossa last night when I suddenly thought of something from "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." I'm not the only one who thinks that this is one of the greatest films to come along in the past few years, and those of you who know me well know that I often pop in the DVD when I'm alone and questioning the sanity of the concept of men and women loving each other (which is why movies about men and their dogs are always so happy).

So while I'm drifting in and out of consciousness, I think back to the last memory that Joel has of Clementine, right before it gets wiped from his mind. She whispers to him "Meet me in Montauk." And for those of you who paid attention from the very beginning, you know that they will. At the time, it seemed the perfect way to bring the viewer back to the start of the film, and makes the story together.

However, I realize that while Clementine saying this to Joel explains how Joel can wake up the next morning and have the strange impulse to go to Montauk, it doesn't explain how Clementine can be there as well! Unless in her memory of their first meeting, Joel requests the same thing of her. And if that's the case, the the entire premise of the film is based on the idea of destiny. Or unbelievable coincidence, which can often be interpreted as destiny.

I'm not a big believer of destiny, especially when it comes to people (i.e. the "we were destined to be together forever" drivel). Does this new discovery change how much I love the film. After thinking about it, probably not. Apparently, I'm a believer that when you love something or love someone, you love everything about them, including these types of gaping holes that tarnish one's perception of perfection. Makes sense to me.

Ok, writing that just now felt like the most productive and substantial thing I've done all day.

Those Damn Heavens Again

As always, the fates have it out for unsuspecting bears.

After almost three months, I finally decided to get back on the wagon...the wagon being my dear bicycle Julie, of course. Three months: that's nearly 12 weeks that I haven't ridden Julie to work. Of course, I had very good reasons. Summer days in Shanghai usually make me feel like I'm some soft, gelatinous pupa stuck in a cocoon made of spandex with no air-holes. For those of you who've never been baby insects, I'm trying to convey the sense that it's DAMN HOT. The prospect of peeling myself off the seat on the shuttle bus didn't appeal to me, so Julie sat neglected in her usual spot next to the dining room table.

Of course, on the day I finally wheel her out, excited as a puppy about to hump and old woman's leg, what happens? The heavens open up and fling big, fat raindrops on my part of Shanghai. And of course, with my wretched history of always carrying an umbrella when it doesn't rain and never having one when it does, I soon found myself drenched to the dual core. I'm talking shirt, pants, socks, shoes, panties...everything ended up completely wringable. It got to a point where I could not get any wetter as I pedaled furiously down Yan'an road. In fact, after I parked my bike, I slowly sauntered toward the building, while everyone around me was scrambling to dodge the rain. I felt like I was in one of those movies where there's a big explosion and everyone starts screaming and running away, except for the bad-ass hero who keeps walking straight without ever looking back (see "Desperado" and "Syriana"). Anyway, that was me today. Of course, I didn't look nearly as cool as those movie heroes, since I was totally sopping wet and carrying a big, dorky Intel backpack with my lunchbox inside. But still, it was pretty cool.

Dog Days

The end of August are the dog days of summer. A classic baseball term, it refers to the fact that players get tired and hurt around this time, the weather in most cities with baseball teams is at its hottest, and a lot teams have to play games on strings of consecutive days to make up for earlier postponements. Essentially, it connotes exhaustion, lack of energy, and grown men grinding every day out like dogs.

I guess I'm feeling the dog days too. It's strange, since I was just mentioning to a coworker that it really hasn't been that hot this summer. Of course, that hasn't stopped me from immediately breaking into a sweat every time I move a single muscle, but the heat hasn't been as devastating as summers that came before this one. Still, I feel slow and enervated, and even in Xiamen last week I was enjoying just lying in the hotel room watching crappy Bruce Willis movies and spending two hours chatting with Lydia about how we should really get out and see the sights instead of actually getting out and seeing the sights.

As the lethargy penetrates every inch of my physical self, it becomes more and more difficult to find copious amounts of mental energy as well. The weekends, which are designed to let mind and body recover from a hard week's worth of work, have instead turned into the most draining days of the week for me, since my mind is spent indulging, struggling, grappling, and [insert more active verbs in this place] with a crazy cocktail of bliss, joy, sadness, frustration, and [insert any dramatic emotive noun in this place]. The workweek, on the other hand, is where I unwind to the point of being brain-dead, of feigning productivity in light of all the pending changes in the organization and the sheer distracted nature of my soul. If these aren't the dog days for a weathered panda like myself, then I'm not sure what else coud be.

In the midst of these doldrums, vanity prevails. Since I'm moving to my new apartment in a few weeks, I was dismayed to learn that the neighborhood hair salon to which I have devoted myself ever since I moved back to Gubei was now requiring a minimum 500 RMB charge every time one wanted to refill their VIP card. At no credit whatsoever, my card was as sorely in need of recharging as my head was in need of a mowing, but I was loathe to put down 500 RMB when I was probably going to be able to squeeze out two haircuts (three max) before I changed neighborhoods.

And so, I let the darn thing grow. Having nowhere to hide it, I could only grease my hair directly up, so that suddenly I was a good three inches taller and feeling the bottom of some of Shanghai's shorter doorways (there are many in this town). This led to Ariel (amongst others) at Anabela's birthday party last Friday to make the flattering but misguided comment that I looked thinner. In reality, the massive amount of hair on top of my head made my face look deceptively smaller, which was an optical illusion that I did not care to reveal to anyone at all.

The offshoot of all of this, however, is that my neck is beginning to ache and creak as it is being asked to support more and more mass. Even though 28 years of supporting this planet of a head of mine have made it burly and robust, I suppose that the weight of all that upwardly mobile hair, combined with the typhoon of thoughts swirling inside my brain, have made my neck akin to a Shanghai woman's personality: nagging and wholly unsupportive. Thanks to Lydia, who was kind enough to hold my head up and stuff huge pieces of cheesecake and chocolate mousse into my gaping mouth throughout the weekend...I'm sure that will help make my head weigh less.

Yes folks, during the dog days of summer, this is the kind of shit I write while at work. Enjoy.

Yes Sweat

As we walked out of the hotel in Xiamen on Sunday around noon, I looked at Lydia and said "I give myself 30 seconds before I start sweating." She glanced at me and said "Too late, you already are."

Yes, dear readers, I fall in the accursed category of having an embarrassing physical feature that no one is rude enough to point out, but in their minds they think "ewwww." I have an oversupply of sweat glands, which I've heard is actually quite healthy. Whoever said that must never have experienced the joy of literally peeling off his shirt from his torso, then hopping into a nice long shower to cleanse his body, and then stepping out of the bathroom only to immediately start sweating again.

That is my life. I'm glad that women are the (allegedly) less superficial gender, however, and they can look past that brightly lit sheen on my forehead and see the vapid, superficial dude nesting inside. Even so, if the spirits above were to grant me one chance to change something physical about me, I'd most likely choose to make my body as sweat-free as possible. Either that, or decrease the massive size of my...(sorry, coughing fit).

In all seriousness, though, sweat is a byproduct of the human body emitting too much heat. I am indeed a very, very hot guy. I like to think that my heart sometimes beats too fast, and that the extra for of the blood rushing through my veins causes my body temperature to rise. Having a heart that can get excited and moved like that, resulting in hands that are always warm to touch...there's something pretty goddamn nice about it.

Then again, maybe I have a defective heart and I'll die any minute now. In a pool of my own sweat. Which, on many an instance during the past weekend in Xiamen, I definitely wanted to do.

Check out the photos section for updated pics of our weekend getaway. Xiamen is a nice place to check out...when it's not as humid as a moldy sock buried in the Amazon jungle.

Crisis

As if things couldn't get any worse, I opened the door to my very surprised a-yi yesterday evening before I was ready to head out to the Agnes B Fashion show. Firstly, I was hoping the person at my door was NOT the a-yi; secondly, she brought the incredibly bad news that she was going to leave after one more week of working for me.

I was initially numb at the news, but now that I've digested it I'm really beginning to see what that means for me. For the entire month of August, up until the 9th day of September (which is the earliest day I can move into my new apartment), I will have absolutely no one to take care of me. For the first time in nearly three years.

Yes, I know, it sounds the squeal of a terribly spoiled child, but at this point that's who we've all become. The last time I did my own laundry, ironed my shirts and pants, and did any sort of sweeping or mopping was back in my uncorrupted San Francisco days. And here I lie on my bed, nursing a ridiculously painful cough, a bleeding heart, a mind that is running at 90 mph in all directions, and in one more week I'm going to have to re-learn how to take care of myself. The fates sure know how to teach us lessons about ourselves in wonderful ways. Hopefully, by the time I move into the new apartment I'll be freshly equipped in mind and body and spirit, and my shirts will be clean and wrinkle-free as a result of my own two hands. The phrase "taking care of yourself" has never meant more at this critical juncture of my life here in Shanghai.

Or, I could ask my Northern Angel to come back for a much needed visit. But I guess we all have to learn how to NOT take the easy way out...however tempting Northern Angel can be.

Can anyone come rescue me?

As All Things Go

It's funny how in such a short span, your life can change. Forever, just like that. The days and the nights appear and disappear as they always do, but you're not the same person that you were the day before. In my absence from this space, several suns and moons rose and vanished in the hazy Shanghai sky. The trees outside my window, so familiar and static every time I stare out from my room into the rest of the world, continue to bristle in the breeze as they always do. But I will never be the same again.

The rest of the planet moves forward, and though I'm backward right now, soon I will have to catch up. I looked in the mirror this morning, another sleepless night closed out with the grey, heavy heat of morning. I've lost a lot of weight. The beer belly has shrunk down to a mere red-wine belly. Depression makes your body do that. It makes your soul not want to do the things it should be doing. Like staring out at the moving world when your heart is anchored down by pain and ghosts and questions.

Keep moving forward, keep groping for the future. This is what I tell myself.

Another year has gone by, and tonight I celebrate my birthday once again. Loyal readers will remember the celebration last year, a bonanza of booze and friendship and hopefulness. Hope that another year would bring completion, bring love and joy that defines the process of growing up. And indeed it has. Along with the requisite pain.

But tonight, as all the dearest people in my life who live in this city (sans a crucial one) gather at the swankiest new night club to fulfill their obligation of making me happy, I stand on the cusp of another new panda age. What will the next year bring? What kind of life will I live at age 28? I expect it to be filled with equal amounts of joy, pain, suffering, ecstasy, and love that my 27th year ended on. And you know what? That's not half bad.

Wil used to say that all things are circular. All that I've given to situations and to people, whether bad or good, will come back to me. Love will come back to me. Sorrow will, as well. But I hope love more than sorrow, because that's what I'm good at giving. My heart is big, and it will be filled again.

On the day after my birthday, a couple of days ago, I stumbled into the office fresh from a goodbye that never should have happened. I was greeted with the news that Jean, who as much as anyone has come to define who I am as a human being, gave birth to her beautiful baby boy on the same day 28 years after I was born. I had been joking with her for months before that she had to have her baby on the same day as my birthday. And what the fuck, it actually happened. I smiled when I heard that...and kept right on smiling.

All things are circular. May her son be blessed with the love and the warmth that I've experienced so much of, and will eagerly wait for someday. As all things go, as all people find who they are and with whom they belong, as all things are circular...this world is still a fucking magical place. It's just TIME that's a royal pain in the ass.

Happy Birthday to myself. Happy Birthday to Jacksan Poe Gorman. May you live two hundred beautiful years. Tonight, I drink to all that is good in my life, including all that has left and will return.