NOT YOUR MOTHER’S CHINA

Here I sit. I leave for the US in about 30 hours (it’s Friday night 2/2) and I was just contemplating how odd my life is. While I sit listening to Opie and Anthony online and watching the Daily Show on YouTube during commercial breaks, I’m eating Nutella out of a jar shipped in from Europe with a chopstick bought at the local market and clementines bought from a local vendor who peddled them in today on his bike. I know, dinner of champions but I’m leaving on Sunday (hence the empty fridge) and I don’t want to go out because I don’t want to have to deal with the great concern of my Chinese friends about either my great trip (the likes of which they have never experienced; nothing settles nerves like "Aren't you afraid of crashing or dying in a firey wreck?" when you're already waking up at 2 am every morning with images of crashing and dying in a firey wreck) or the great concern of my Chinese friends that they have stumbled upon me all alone. I’m never aware of the great trauma that being alone seems to be until I’m quietly enjoying my own company and friends find me only to show their great pity that I’m "all by [my]self!"

And it’s been six months. Six fucking months. Holy shit, how did I make it six months? How did I make the friends, fall for the boy, find the redemption, communicate with little kids and learn to herd them even though we have no common language? How did I go from New York to midland China and manage to blend? How did I survive six months without, not just sex, but no man contact whatsoever? Who am I?

Crazy times. Hope you’re having fun wherever you are. I know I'm entertained.