Dreaming

ok, i'm really really sorry i have not posted in a month. mom, i'm sorry. but seriously i'm really busy here people. i am going to try here and explain just what the hell i've been up to. i have been writting down some thoughts from time to time. i think i'm gonna just transcribe them here. i'll fill in the blanks too. read on. it's weird.

july 7th
this country is so damned hot. i've been here a week now and it seems impossible that so little time has passed. we are all in loudong now working on the parade. it is incredible the amount of work we have to accomplish in so short a time. i am very lucky. everyone on the team is wonderful. i have fallen in with the czechs. there are 5 of them and they are fantastic puppet makers. they are charming people. there is one malasian named goh. i'm not sure exactly what he does but has such a flamboyant and infectious personality you can't help but want him around. he is a very talented designer and has but 2 obsessions: how to make money in the cottage industry and his weight. and then there is clebson. he is a brazilian costume designer and has been living in taiwan for a year now working for dream community. he speaks very little english and very little chinese so i dont know how the hell he has done it. he is sort of gordon's (my boss) personal pet. he makes wonderful fantastic brazillian style costumes that make my heart ache with envy. they have ferrited him away in his own airconditioned studio here in loudong. he has a small army of cute little taiwanese girls working silently, diligently making his costumes. they are very very ornate. seeing his work i have to ask myslef "why am i here?" when compared to my work his is visionary. i asj this over and over. it's not just clebson. everyone here is so talented... professional. i am in awe of my luck for being selected to come here. everything here is so dream like... so sperate from everything that has come before it.

july 8th
let me just for one moment expound on the virtures of the squat toilet. hygenicaly miles ahead of the throne and ergonomicaly correct. it's like shitting in the woods every time.

july 11th (?)
i have a heat rash on my ass and some sort of puss filled rashy sore in my left arm pit. (latter i would also develop a strange burst blood vessel in my eye for no reason)

we are working in the heat every day all day for 12 damned hours under this huge circus tent canopy thing that mostly serves as an oven. it's been about 100 degrees for 2 now. the locals in our community groups dont even show up until nearly sundown. i'm drinking so much water. we all are. and we never piss. it worries us. but walt was right. if you drink enough water you become almost god-like.

i might have to bludgeon the office girls soon. dude, seriously, fuck them. (the girl largely involved in being one big pain in my ass and a total bitch has since been taken off the loudong parade and replaced by inch, who i love)

i don't think i can eat another lunch box. why does every single resturant have the exact same lunch box? why? rice, meaty item, greens, veggie, 1/2 of a tea egg. it's not right. they make me eat fish here everyday. they worry about my not eating meat terribly.

i am smoking a minimum of 1 pack a day. smokes cost about $1.25. we work so much and never sleep and i just can't stop.

july 14

mutiny on the bounty. there is the smell of dissent amongst the troops. (this was our day off and the czechs were experienceing what they call sub-marine affect. essentially cabin fever from working and living and sleeping with eachother too much)

july 15th (?)

there was an earthquake in the night. i have rarely felt smaller or more helpless. it's strange to me, have never experienced it before, how instantly recognizable it was. even as i was shaken from the dead of sleep the knowing was instanteous. i lay awake for an hour or more after. i could not shake the feeling of something so big. (side note: we are on the 6th floor of the hostel.
we REALLY felt this thing. also our hostel is acctually connected to a temple and is for people on religious pilgramages and not so much for alcholic foreign artists.)

july 16th
a funny thing happened last ..... (edited for adult content).... these are trecherous waters.

july 17th
i don't think you can ever get used to this heat. you can only learn to endure it.

i have to stop drinking and start sleeping. (the czechs and myself have by now developed a nasty habbit of staying up too late and drinking and smoking on the 6th floor balcony)

last night michael and i took the scooter to the beach (we have a company scooter at the work shop. i estimate it is around 1000 years old and is a total piece of shit. we all take turns using it after work. we have a beach we frequently go for night swimming, all of us) the moon was a big beautiful orange half moon hanging low in the sky. as far as romantic nites go this ranks right up there with minnesota corn fields and aurora borealis.

i'm tired. did i mention i'm really really tired?

july 18th
lucas last night carried me naked in his arms into the sea. (this was one of the nites we borrowed the dream community van. there were about 10 of us there and it was so perfect and romantic. i am afraid of the ocean. it was just perfect to be held by this guy as the waves crashed over us and our friends were all around us under the stars. am i lucky or what?)

july 25th
(edited material)

stupid fucking bell ringing puppet! i hate you.

last night everyone went to the beach. the water was so calm. it was filled with blue-green phosphorous plankton. i've never seen it before. it was so beautiful to see them sparkle and glow against your skin (we swim naked ok?) i can't explain the magic of it.

i am still smoking too much.

i think i ate pizza with shrimp and snails on it today.

there are many beautiful people here.

i am a lovely golden color.

i completely understand the tern lost in translation now. i dont recognize my voice here. i am speaking in a abridged version of myself. i have completely re-defined the way i use the english language. ( i am the only native speaker of english here and nobody can understand american english. i talk really funny here.)

july (?)
ok so i dont know the date. but i think we are pretty up to speed here. here i am in taipei. michal and i took the bus this morning from loudong. we had to get out. i had to do this internet thing. he hates cities (we are in the suburbs) and is off smoking hash by the lake. i can't help thinking we should have stayed in taipei city a few more hours. this is i think our last week of work for the loudong parade. we are so sick of it. there is a week of parades starting on the first and then a big final parade on the 8th. in theory we will have this week to party and have fun. but after loudong the czechs have invited me to come with them into the mountains. they will be preforming a traveling puppet show for the aborigional communities based on a czech fairy tale. i think i'm the princess. i am also doing costumes. so we have to spend the parade week getting ready for our show. work work work. it's all so un-real. i am happy. i am a manic mess. all of this is true and i know i forgot everything essential and special and.... i left out the texture of all of this some how. there is no way to explain any of this.

i mean i didnt ever tell you anything. not about my job or the weird town or the night market or anything. it's ok. i'll try harder next time.

i dont know when i can write more. after loudong we go to the mountains and i can only imagine that the internet access is even worse than in provincial loudong. also, sorry there are no pictures. i am still really really bad at taking them and already forgot how to get them from the brain of my camera and into the brain of a computer and then on to the interweb.