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April 4th, 2008
11:17 am - "Once you have given up the ghost. . ."
 That's my old userpic, right there. When I first started journaling, I used three covers from Atari 7800 games--Xenophobe, Dig Dug, and Kareteka. This was back in 2002. I kept those until 2004, when I photographed the cover to Tropic of Capricorn, touched it up, shrank it, and pasted it down on another 7800 box scan. Hoopity fucking doo! I was exceedingly proud of myself, at the time. I deleted the other three userpics.
"So what's the point of the game?" someone asked. "You gotta fuck some chick?"
That really irritated me.
As I put that little graphic together, the game I was imagining was a little different. Basically, you play Henry Miller. You've got a suit and tie on, a little fedora. Gray. Your character sprite is gray. And he's wearing roller skates, too. In the main stage of the game, you rollerskate through various rooms of the Cosmodemonic Telephraph Company's headquarters in New York City. You skate around collecting spare change and abandoned bottles of bathtub gin. You need to avoid colliding with desks, secretaries and intoxicated homeless men of all ages, colors and creeds. Also, your boss is on your case, so need to avoid him. Hitting a chair, for instance, will slow you down--maybe even enough to allow your supervisor to lay his hands on you and drag you back to your desk. Provided you manage to waste enough of your workday, you get to go on to a bonus stage. The bonus stage takes place outside the Cosmodemonic building. It involves drinking all of the contraband liquor and then pitching the empties through the windows of assorted banks, federal buildings, and police stations. Should you get more work than skating, done, you're forced to go back home, to your wife and kid.
I still think that's the best game I've never played.
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November 23rd, 2006
October 30th, 2006
01:15 am - Happy Devil's Night
 ("Why do your hands smell like gasoline, Daddy?")
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12:23 am - Getting ready to hit the runway in Electric Heavyland
 I should probably take this opportunity to alert you all to the fact that I'm reviewing records, elsewhere. The name of the site is Diminished 7th. These guys are operating primarily on the East Coast and are doing a good job of getting a music site off and running. There are, at present, no advertisements. It's got a clean, professional look and the reviews, articles and features are all very well-written. You'll find my stuff under "Reviews." I'd urge you to poke around the site, a little. . . see if anything catches your eye. Dropping them some nice mail would, most likely, be very much appreciated. I feel that I'm very lucky to have been taken aboard on this little venture. I'm very proud of what I have, so far, contributed to the site, and hope to start doing a little more now that I'm settling in here. If you're shy about contacting them, or have some suggestions for me in particular, please let me know what's on your mind. I'd sincerely like to see this thing work.
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October 25th, 2006
01:49 am - "Come on, Detroit, 'cause The Blues is still number one."
 On May 26th, 1995, I was introduced to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion by a fifteen-year-old Iraqi girl, although to be fair she was a dual citizen. She'd been introduced to the group by her big brother. He studied law at Oakland University and was a music snob. His little sister and I aspired to be like him, though we were both well on our way.
It was a Friday night and we were on our way to see Johnny Mnemonic at the Novi Town Center, about forty-five minutes from our houses. We were idling at the intersection of Union Lake Road and Richardson, right where the old drive-in once stood. Last time I was back in town, I believe I saw the old sign still standing. Anyway, we were there. It was about seven in the evening. And she told her cousin, who was behind the wheel, to put *Orange* in.
BAM! BAM! Followed by those taught strings, just hanging there, wavering, then Judah Bauer's leads came in, and then Spencer starts doing his slow-mo, Jerry Lee Lewis on Presley-strength meds. . . And with only the first minute of "Bellbottoms," I knew I'd stepped over and through a threshold. I uttered some foul-mouthed expression of awe and she told me the song wasn't even a quarter over. The hairs on my neck stood on end, my toes went alight, neural synapses started popping off, there was a Chinese wedding going on in my Floyd soaked brainpan. I felt like I'd just crested the first hill of the Mean Streak.
The physiological responses I enjoyed at the introduction of novelty goes a long way in explaining the size of my record collection and my library.
( Turn your stereo up! )
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October 4th, 2006
11:23 pm - For A Broke Motherfucker
 Robert Anton Wilson can't make rent. Apparently, he's really sick, too. His website(replete with Midwestern Chinawoman Minivan Music), states that he's suffering from Post-Polio Syndrome and is need of constant care. A friend and collaborator of his has also taken to begging for the man. It seems legit. You can click on Wilson's or his pal's links to find out how you can send a few bucks his way.
I'm not promoting this call for an assist out of any love for Robert Anton Wilson. I've read a few of his books. If I had to pick one out as a favorite, I'd probably go with Cosmic Trigger. I liked the layout. In point of fact, it was the first book I'd ever read with such a layout.
I think I probably came to Wilson's work too late for it to have much of an effect on me. I think that, at the time I was exposed to his works, I had been as sufficiently "altered" by books as I'll ever be. On the other hand, I came across Tago Mago, last spring, and that record pretty much blew my mind. Same goes for Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O.. And I'd thought my mind had been sufficiently "altered" by music. Anyway, Wilson didn't exactly turn my world inside out, but I appreciated what I took to be his commitment to "Art For Life's Sake," nonetheless.
(Upon further reflection, Wilson *did* introduce me to the concept E-Prime, which has proven helpful, over the years, in a lot of ways.)
Anyway, there are probably people closer to you that could use the money. I don't really have any to speak of, right now. Even if I did, I can think of at least two people who probably need it more than Wilson. Still, I feel obligated to bring it to your attention. The man has made a deep impact on our. . . society. Not deep enough, in my opinion, but he did, I think, help quite a few people out, got quite a few people thinking, got quite a few people reading books in a way they never did before. That's an accomplishment. He deserves our respect, I believe. Help out, if you can, but at least acknowledge what he's done for the reading public.
In closing, I'd like to say that it pisses me off (royally) that Jim Carrey is starring in a motion picture titled The Number Twenty Three and Wilson's friends need to beg so that he doesn't have to die in some nursing home. That seems fucked up.
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September 8th, 2006
12:13 am - "1993 is the year September never ended."
To your right, you see a picture of Dave Fischer standing next to his personal, home(made) computer. Here is a link to more pictures of this. . . machine, and a few words Dave has written about it.
Here is a link to Dave Fischer’s collection of film reviews. Take a look around, see if any of your favorites are there and read up on them. I’ve just about read them all. He writes about the films he sees in a very unique way. For instance, his review of Titanic begins “Titanic was the most talked about, surprise hit of the year.”
On that same page, you’ll see links for “optimized video downloads.” Click on any of those.
This is the main page to his site. There is a bunch of other cool stuff that he’s made that you can get to from there. He’s got (or had) a noise band, for instance. He’s also made some cool art with legos. Lot’s of neat stuff to look at, really. His fiction is very funny in a John S. Hall kind of way.
I’ll bet that because there is one Dave Fischer in the world, there are at least ten people who don’t hang themselves.
Everyone really ought to check this out and send him some nice email or something.
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May 23rd, 2006
01:31 am - “No question about it, Bill, you're indispensable to the News Team.”
A few years ago, early one summer, Bill Bonds was pulled over on a Saturday night. The write up in the Oakland Press must have been less than five hundred words long. The photo, in fact, was bigger than the text. It was taken from the police car. They had Bonds in cuffs, he was pushed up against the side of his car. One of Oakland's Finest had his hand on Bonds' shoulder. He was looking into the camera, what we are to think of as his hair was knocked to the left side of his head. That's what people were looking at, the following Sunday morning, toward the end of Section A.
( His DWI's hadn't made front page since the back eighties. )
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November 15th, 2005
02:38 am - Early Years In Michigan Part Two
I remember two of my earliest revelations. Both were related to perception.
The first one was one weekday morning. I had just woken up and I was in my bed. It was a single bed, and it was painted yellow. Bears were on the sheets. It was an overcast day. I was laying down and listening to Phil Donahue. He was on in the other room. I could hear my mother fixing a bowl of cereal. I knew that I would be going out to see her and that she would fix me breakfast. I think I was stalling so that she could eat first.
I've always hated interruptions to my meals.
But I was there in bed and my head was lying on my hand. I could hear the sound. The sound was like a "choo. . . choo. . . choo. . ." in my ear. I had heard it for the first time only recently, then. It kind of sounded like a train, but the image in my head was one of those telephone poles out near the road gently scraping up against the side of the house. Like a brush. I only saw the top of the telephone pole. What it looked like beneath a certain point, what was holding it, I mean, stayed out of view and I was never compelled to imagine it further.
It struck me, that morning, that that "choo. . . choo. . . choo"-ing was in time with the beating of my heart, and that I was actually listening to blood pump through my veins.
That wasn't particularly mind-blowing.
But what got to me afterwards, and I was still in bed, was that anyone else could have and would have made that very same deduction. Anyone could have figured that out. I imagined myself being born a girl, with dark blonde hair and brown skin, with eyes like my mother's. . . blue. . . And I imagined making that very same discovery. . . as a different person, in a different house, on a different morning.
It occurred to me that I could have been born as someone else and still learn much of what I knew to be "the case." I would not have the same family. Or the same pets. Or the same house. Or the same toys. But I would learn the same things about life.
And this made me very sad.
I quickly stopped thinking about this girl when I realized that I wanted my family more than anything else. Which is a perfectly natural way for a child to feel, to my mind. I went back to imagining her later. And imagining the lives of others. But I was always happy to be born when I was, where I was, and to whom I was.
The second revelation came a little after that. All of this was before my sister was born. This would have been in November, so I was about three while all of this was going on.
This was a weekend. I was with my father and we were their room. Their room had really deep blue carpet. Blue shag. And their bed was blackened wood, and piled high with really heavy blankets. They had the corner room of the house and there were two windows in it. . . set high into the wall so that no one could see in. Beyond the panes were trees. Bare trees. Sunlight came streaming in, bringing the chaotic zigs and zags of the maples' shadows onto the bedspread, and the babyblue wall. It was warm.
The cat, Dum-Dum, was under the bed. And my old man had a ball of red yarn. An old school, Richard Scary, textbook ball of yarn. He had fastened the loose end in a not and left about a six inch line. He was spinning it around and letting the cat pounce on it.
I was impressed that dad had the cat playing. Dum-Dum and I were never really close. He wasn't around much. He had no balls. But he still had his claws. He was a hunter, through and through. He had love for my parents, sure. Especially my dad. My dad was the one who rescued him from the side of the road, right there next to his feeding dish. He had love for my grandparents, who watched him when my mom and dad were unable to keep him. He had no love for me. What did I ever do for him?
I was asking my dad if Dum-Dum liked the color red. He explained that cats can't see color. He saw that I was puzzled by this. . . or maybe a little saddened. To me, not being able to see the sunlight on the wall of my parent's bedroom was tantamount to being born without a left leg. He then reminded me that cats could see in the dark, which was something we couldn't do.
I thought about that all afternoon. And that night, while we were driving out to Burger Chef, I wondered that if Dum-Dum had never seen the color red, how would he miss it? To him, my hair was gray, my skin was white, my clothes were black, and everything else surrounding me was a combination of those colors. . . he saw the world as if it was an old movie. That was the world to him.
He had no idea of what he was missing. I had no idea what a dark room looked like to him. We had our differences. I accepted that.
Years later, when we moved out to Highland, my mom and Mom started taking me to the library. There was sign near the front door that read "Ignorance is not bliss."
My mother explained what bliss meant and I thought of Dum-Dum.
But I wasn't so sure the sign readily applied to that scenario.
To put things in perspective. Before my sister was born, at our old house. . . with it's babyblues and maples, I was taking a bath one afternoon. My dad was out in the front room watching This Old House. I had some toys, the water was warm and I wasn't in any danger of drowning. I was playing with those Playschool Little People, or whatever they're called. I know I was talking. He heard me. I was safe. I was always safe.
Anyway, I took a shit in the bathtub and didn't notice it until it floated up against my elbow. I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye and, not knowing what it was nor wanting to take a second look, ran screaming into the livingroom.
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November 10th, 2005
03:43 am - More About Comics
 Dan Truman fought in World War Two. He had come back from Europe and tried school but didn't care for it. He had a sweetheart who became his wife and together they had two daughters. Sometime in the eighties, whenever it became profitable to trade in baseball cards, he opened a baseball card shop and stocked the extra space with comic books, "vintage" skin mags and sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks.
Over time, his customers clued him in that the better name for his place was Truman's Comics. After a few nights of deliberation, he changed the name of his store to Truman's Comics from Truman's Baseball Cards, Comics, and Your Dad's Old Playboys.
He had his own store. I don't know how business went for him. I really only remember bits and pieces. . . snippets of conversation between him and my mother and father. I reckon the early nineties were good to him, business-wise. But he died in '92.
( Excelsior! )
Current Music: Doc Butcher and the Cardiac Arrest
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October 25th, 2005
02:42 am - Up Evil and Fuck Off
We live right next door to a barbershop. The landlord was quick to point out that it was a barbershop for the elderly, although my money's on them saying "yes" when I finally get around to cutting my hair again. He pointed this out because he didn't want us to think that we were living next to some kind of slickfist, jerk-off joint. We lived next to one of those, on Nanjing.
Like the old neighbors,( they keep odd hours, these new neighbors. )
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October 23rd, 2005
03:03 am - Brainwashing the masses and fighting for freedom wherever there's trouble
 I remember, one weekend afternoon in November, walking into my mom and dad's room just as my mom was finishing up a phone conversation with her mother. She said she needed to talk to me. The gist of it, and she didn't bother trying to break it me gently, was that Hasbro toys was being pressured by a number of people to stop making G.I. Joe toys. I was shocked. I wanted to know what problem anyone could possibly have with G.I. Joe toys. She explained that some people believed these toys glorified war.
I didn't have a clue as to what was wrong with hyping war.
Looking back at how much the Reagan Administration had spent on the Military. . .
Of course, by the time the G.I. Joe toyline had degenerated into the "War on Drugs" subset, I had pretty much written off all toys, altogether. I'd sold them all in order to buy Atari 7800 games. . . which I later sold in a lot for about twenty bucks, to buy gas.
Recently, though, I did a search and couldn't find the Cobra Pothead, Cottonmouth, for sale on any online auction. I do want that one. That's a pity. As far as I know, Cottonmouth was the only G.I. Joe guy that came in a black, Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt.
But, Reagan. . . In 1986, we went into the red for the first time since WWII. The New York Times 2004 Almanac attributes "a meteoric rise" of the national debt to that asshole. Man, Hinkley deserves conjugal visits from Jodie Foster impersonators just for trying.
Of course, it could've been worse, I could've been into He-Man.
Those kids were *fucked* up.
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October 14th, 2005
02:23 am - He Chose Us Back
 Shiba Inu are prone to bolt from their leashes and harnesses. We knew this. We'd even been warned. Back when we were living off of Nanjing, he managed to slip out of his harness a few times. He'd go right back to our front door and wait for us. Once, he ran four city blocks back to our place. If you want to see fear in a Taiwanese's eyes, let your dog jet past one, following in hot pursuit. Seeing foreigners run scare the shit out of them.
We were being negligent in our selection of restraint mechanisms. When he was just a pup, we started him early with a choke chain. I thought a little bling would go a long way. He was able to slide out of the choke without any problems. He went on to a harness. This one was too big and, with a little wiggling, he was able to shake that loose, too.
( Cut for gushing prosebleed. )
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September 29th, 2005
02:12 am - Early Years In Michigan
 When I was about nine years old, my mother's mother divorced. My mother's mother, we called her "Mom" for no other reason than that's what everyone else called her. We being my sister and I. When Mom and Papa split, she and I were the main benefactors.
We drove to their house and loaded up all of her belongings in my father's pick up truck. It was an '80 Ranger, I think. Silver. Had a LEER King Of Caps cap on it. We loaded up all of her stuff as well as the stuff from my mother and my uncles' childrenhood. In a few trips, we had it all at Mom's trailer out in Highland. That's where she stayed, pretty much until she died, a couple of years ago.
Now, it was the last batch of stuff that meant the most to us, really. Just boxes and boxes of old shit. Old records. Old model kits. Old Erector Sets. Old Barbies. Old Barbie clones. Stuffed animals that weren't allowed inside the house. Old boardgames. It smelled wonderful. We all sat in the livingroom, playing old records, smelling old things, looking at old bumper stickers on toolboxes that read "Sock It To Me!" (That one still gets me.)
The toys were great. But we also got a 1970's Yamaha snowmobile. The thing was bad. Really heavy, big engine, white. I don't remember how fast it went. The spedometer was broken. But it seemed fast. It seemed faster when the snow was falling, and you got the George Lucas hyperspace effect when you barrelling down the straightaway of your iced over lake.
My Dad had spent awhile getting that Ranger running. It wasn't in tiptop shape when he got it. He was working on it in the garage with a kerosene heater, that fall, most nights after work. He had to wait until a paycheck came in to finish the job, as I recall. And at the time, there was only one car between him and my mother. It was a source of pride for the old man that he got the thing running as quickly as he did. And he was proud also to put it to use moving Mom out. The heater didn't work all the time, and even when it did, it took so long to warm up that we could drive to Pontiac before the truck was a comfortable temperature.
Which is all just to say that his mechanical skills were probably at an all time high and he got that thing running in no time at all, that Yamaha snowmobile. That, and I was never cold while riding it.
The engine, it was a heavy, high-pitched whine, dulled by the crash helmet. You could feel it, though, no matter what. The whole machine shook. The engine canopy would kick the heat right back into your face. He would sometimes take my sister and I out on it, together, sometimes one at a time.
He would take us all around Loch Lake, back into the swamps and wetlands that froze over, across the island in the center, past all of the uninhabited lots, and the thick patches of woods. Home to deer, mostly. Quiet of the year.
We'd see cattails jutting up out of the ice, heavy, heavy grass killed by the old and pushed nearly flat--but not quite--by a snowdrift, trees caked with the stuff, branches bending to the snow, weighed down with ice.
He would sometimes pull my sister and I on this toboggan. We had to wear helmets. We were never cold at the other end of the yellow nylon line.
The snowmobile lasted for almost ten years. We took it to our home in White Lake.
The last time I ever rode it, my father was taking me out on a snowday. I'd sat on my ass playing Sega all afternoon, and reading Stephen Kind all that evening. I hadn't done a Goddamn thing all day and he totally had a right to look down on me, after his day. . . which was a cold, and busy one. He was doing heating and cooling and he was still taking the real jobs back in those days. The hard ones.
But he wasn't. He asked my sister and I if we wanted to go out, after dinner. Of course we took him up on it. She went first and I waited out in the driveway. He came back and got me. We went all around and across the lake a few times, we went into the back canals and the bay. We went down by the river and then through one of more dimly lit series of backyards. He cut between two houses and shot out onto the street. . . which at the time hadn't been hit by the salt trucks and was still icy trecherousness. We went through the neighborhood streets, cut across Oxbow and then went through the wetlands. Out there, the machine broke through the ice. . . the tread sank and we were up to our boots in icy water. Together, we pulled the thing out of the water and got it home. We were inside in no time.
We had hot chocolate a little later. He had a thermal undershirt and a red flannel. I was in my pajamas. I asked him if the Yamaha was broken. He said he didn't think so, but as far as I know, that was the last time we ever rode it.
My Grandfather moved to Florida shortly thereafter, and my Dad got all his tools. . . which included a drill press, two table saws, and some other gadgets that took up a lot of floor space. The snowmobile had to go.
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September 14th, 2005
02:33 am - Way To Milk Your Grants (Assholes)
This is a front page article from the Taipei Times. It was reprinted from the Associated Press and I imagine it created some kind of stir. Front page material, after all. The title of the story behind the link, in Taipei, is “Chinese and Americans Just Don't 'See' Eye to Eye.”
Here is the first sentence of the story:
“Asians and North Americans may really see the world differently.”
( This is not Two-Fisted Science, ladies and gentlemen. )
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August 27th, 2005
02:31 am - I Need Someone To Help Me Turn It Om
A couple of weeks ago, I met someone from a certain international Buddhist organization. I met her at someone's birthday party. I would advise anyone interested in Buddhism to keep their stupid yaps shut about being interested in Buddhism when talking to anyone affiliated with a Buddhist organization.
Imagine a Baptist hearing from someone at a party that he or she was "interested" in Evangelical Christianity and you've pretty much got the picture.
( Except the Buddhist doesn't whisper, 'Hey, Jesus hated bald pussy.' )
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August 23rd, 2005
12:16 am - And He's Finally Asleep Now
 There were a few times when I wanted to leash the little bastard up and drag him all the way down to the twenty-four hour Veterinary Clinic near Rao He at the three in the morning.
I've lost count of how many articles of clothing I've had ripped during one of his little hyperaggressive episodes.
( This afternoon, we took our little dog in to see the Good Doctor. He left forever changed. )
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August 6th, 2005
01:34 pm - Art and Beauty and The Sheer Pointlessness Of It All
 In the summer of 1998 I had a job at Bob Evens. I was bussing tables for minimum wage. I wanted to go home every summer, back then. I didn't want to stay in Ann Arbor. Picking up a summer job was tough, back then. No one really wanted to hire you. Not if you were up front about the fact that you just wanted to work there two weeks. Occasionally, some kind-hearted soul--such as my boss at Bob Evens--would offer me job and I'd take it. Short-term employment.
I wanted to go home where my friends were, that and the lake at my parents house. I wanted that, too. I was still paying rent on the place back in Ann Arbor, for Christ's sake. Part of the reason I even had a job (at all) was because I had to pay for a room in a crackhouse I wasn't even staying at.
( Jesus. It was a haunted crackhouse, too. )
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August 4th, 2005
12:13 am - The Usual Bushiban Dogshit
I rarely refer to the circumstances surrounding journal entries. I can rarely do it well. This was intended to be the August 3rd post. It's a little late because the dog just ate a Chuppa-Chuppa. Or Choop-Choop. Or something like that. The Goddamned dog just managed to get into my bag and swipe this shitty little sucker some shitty little brat passed out to make people like him just a little bit more on his birthday. I didn't even want the fucking thing.
Right now, the dog is locked into whites-of-the-eyes, Shiba-Leg-Humping-Frenzy. Translate that into Chinese in four or less characters by seven p.m., my time, tomorrow night, and I'll send you a copy of Can's *Tago Mago.*
But he doesn't look like he's dying, so I'll skip the cab ride to the 24-hour vet located next to the Rao He Night Market. Of course, if he wakes up dead tomorrow morning, I'll have to delete this post and replace it with a heart-rending account of an intoxicated KMT party-member hauling ass the wrong way down our alley (waving an ROC banner) and smearing our little dog from the whorehouse to the egg wholesaler.
Did I mention I hate Beijing?
Anyway, I was at work today. Against my better judgment I showed up yet again and handled the K1 and K2 summer camp. Strangely, the Taiwanese manager had a great idea for an activity. I'd thought of it before, kind of, but things more important than work came up and I "kind of" ditched it. It was role-playing, basically, and the kids worked at, and shopped at, a supermarket.
Tony, the quiet kid, was the stock boy. I thought that was kind of fitting seeing as how I've known a few stock boys in my day and the best ones were quiet. Winnie, the class hypochondriac, got to be the cashier. Again, I'm thinking of my days at Arbor Drugs, here. Maggie was the bagger. Like most baggers, she wasn't really into her job. I'd have been afraid if she'd thought it was a total gas but, hell, give her credit for not complaining.
Yeah, the Taiwanese teachers set up one of the empty rooms so that it was like a grocery store. In true Taiwanese fashion, none of the products for sale were priced.
But, this is the thing, at one point. . . I forgot to mention that I was the manager. . . at one point, I looked at the line at the counter. It was eight kids long, and I thought to myself "Jesus Christ, I've gotta get in there and straighten this mess out."
It was what I like to call a "direct thought." It came from seemingly out of nowhere and hit me so hard that my initial impulse was to step up to Winnie's side and help her out, it came to me and I forgot that I was playing a game.
Hey, far out, the dog just took a shit! It's just as greenish-brown as ever, same smell, same consistency; but it's segments are shorter, this time. As if all the synthetic nastiness in that little guilt-trip inducing candy bound up his insides. Signs of high pressure, at the ends, like maybe he had some trouble squeezing them out.
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August 2nd, 2005
11:48 pm - My Black, Black Soles
I'm taking Chinese lessons from a very pleasant woman who likes showing up early. We scheduled our first lesson for today, at seven in the evening. I had the wherewithal to take the dog out at around six-thirty. This was after dinner and an hour-long reading of Freud. I was fucking around, basically, thinking I'd take my sweet time. It's August, time to relax.
Now, I've been wearing sandals for a few months now. I have to wash my feet about three times a day or they start to stink more than usual. When I got back in with the dog, I checked my phone and saw that it was six-forty two.
I went to the bathtub and got my feet wet when the buzzer sounded. I hadn't even got the little brush all soapy.
So the woman is very pleasant and she'll correct you left and right but, damn, when you sting seven or more syllables together, the woman goes off her nut. She insisted that I get a better book. I suggested we see how things look at the end of the lesson.
I suspected as much, I know a lot more Chinese than I thought I did. Vocabulary and pronunciation, I guess. That's what kept her smiling. She persuaded me to let her purchase a new book for me.
But this is the sad part. We were going over the Chinese syllables, and she was sitting on the couch. She had her copies out in front of her, and I was leaning toward her from my chair. The poor woman would occasionally bend down to check and see what I was looking at, and her little eyes would squint and her spine would instinctively recoil, you could hear her on ass on the couch, it was such a violent jerk. Her eyes did not well up with tears, however.
She was unable to contain a little gasp, though, when the dog trotted up and began licking my feet.
He got a time-out in the air-conditioned bedroom, for that.
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rjhudson's journal
