Greetings from Taipei airport

Chinese noodles and dim sum: Conquered. They were unspeakably amazing. Beef udon type noodles in an oily broth with chunks of beef, green onions and bok choy. Shrimp and pork dumplings with a variety of dangerously hot sauces. May have contained MSG?

Now I feel sick and Miho has fallen asleep.

Here I goooooooooooooo!

I have to be out the door in less than 5 hours to begin my journey. I hope to have some interesting photos up in the next couple days, but I might be too busy receiving free coffee and cookies (and phone numbers) from Panera employees or scarfing down Chinese takeout leftovers during a particularly severe case of the munchies while watching Doctor Who with my dad.

I can't wait to buy new clothes that fit. I weighed myself after my run today and was quite pleased; seems I've lost almost 20 lbs since early spring. It sounds like a bigger difference than it really is.

Really though I'm just psyched about eating dim sum and noodles at Taipei Taoyuan airport. Also excited to see Walter, who has kindly offered car service from JFK all the way to Albany. What a babe. :)

My stupid friends and our clothes.

Jinbei for a summer festival. Vest and patchwork/paisley skirt as swimsuit coverup. Obnoxiously large aviators.

Jinbei bottoms, linen striped top, farmer straw hat, aviators as a final touch.

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Had a lovely weekend running around with these fools and some other friends. Too much beer and too much festival/bar food so I'm up almost a kg but I'm not going to have a prolapse over it as spending quality time with my favorite people (and food and beverages) is a damned good excuse. Found possibly the only dance club in Kokura and the DJs were spinning actual Japanese music rather than American/European foreign fare - reminescent of Capsule and other J-electropop artists. Held a birthday party for Shaun and Greg (pictured) at Miho's restaurant with Mexican food, cat ears, and sexual harassment. Spent Sunday lazing about in Nogata (and taking the above photos), with a fireworks festival in the evening. Lounging on a blanket in the grass with my favorite people eating festival food and watching colorful explosions in the sky was the perfect way to end a perfectly imperfect weekend. I'll never tire of the sound of music in the distance at an outdoor festival while relaxing on the outskirts.

A weekend in pictures: Kobe, Osaka and Fukuoka

Running

I have been vocally anti-running ever since I tipped the scales at 48 lbs in kindergarten, but in the past couple weeks I have been, um, actually really getting into it. I'm still awful and slow and easily winded, but the exponential improvement factor coupled with the ever growing firmness of my ass and thighs is very encouraging.

My recent interest in this stupid hobby stemmed from entering a weight loss race with a few e-friends on a forum I post on during work. Seeing what other people are doing to combat lardassery and get in shape is a good way to figure out something that works for you. A few folks mentioned the Couch to 5k program, which is designed to get people who have never run before in their lives into running, building up to running 5 km over 9 weeks. I downloaded the first podcast and tried it out and found it was pretty good, but I got bored of the mediocre music and found it was too easy after the first run. The phasal exercise-bulimic in me was dissatisfied in the total amount of time running --> calories burned, so I decided to push myself some more.

The very first time I was absolutely shattered, out of breath, keeling over from stitches in my sides, and my lungs and legs hurt so badly I thought I was going to die. I've only gone out running a total of like 6 times, but I am already at least ten times better than I was the first time I went and I know I'll be even better the next time I do it. The last couple times I ran with DJ Fab's History of Italo Disco 5 megamix. I originally thought I'd prefer running to death metal but turns out I'm partial to '80s cheese with subpar English lyrics about absolutely nothing.

Hopefully I won't blow my motivation load prematurely and revert to inputting lasagnas intravenously. I used to be quite hefty when I was younger, and I'd strongly prefer not to ever look like that again.

My dad is a badass.

Last night dad called and we talked. I was in the middle of watching Forrest Gump for the second time in one month when he called and had just finished the scene where Forrest and Jenny meet at the big anti-Vietnam protest in D.C. I asked him how realistic that scene was, and he said "very" and proceeded to share his experiences.

Dad went to said protests when he was a college leftist in 1967. After he transformed from a Young Republican with a crew cut to a long haired liberal with a ripped up draft card, he was one of the most radical students at his school (Albion College, a moderate-conservative Methodist liberal arts school in Michigan). He got in some trouble with his classmates for questioning the authority of the school's decisions regarding curfews for women but not men. When he went to the D.C. protests, he brought along a gas mask and carried a blackjack in his pocket to defend against the evil wills of cops and soldiers who wished to crush the resistance. He drank beer in the back of the van and smoked pot outside and brought only $10.00 for a whole weekend. He schemed and plotted how to storm the Pentagon and upon returning to Michigan wrote an extremely positive article in the school paper about the experience. After the Kent State University riot incident, he was absolutely convinced that the U.S. was going to Fascist Hell and flirted with the idea of joining the Weather Underground.

Then he married my mom, they didn't talk about politics, and now he reads Dostoevsky for fun. He still doesn't trust cops.

Cat People vs. Dog People

Generally speaking, dog people place a lot of value on home, the family, and pooping where you are not supposed to poop. They listened to "Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick a few too many times in their youth and are convinced that even though they have like 12 human saplings already, they need a Peter Pan dependent in their home - something that will never, ever grow out of the drooling, floor-shitting and inconvenient noisemaking characteristic of babies and just-barely-higher-than-vegetables adults. What better to fill this role than a dog who is bred specifically not to bite children who may pull its ears? How about one of the "Family Friendly" breeds with floppy ears: Golden Retrievers, Yellow Labradors, Chocolate Labradors, or any combination of those?

I've been a cat person since day one and I have observed throughout the years that dog lovers are often red-blooded Americans who resemble the disgusting hambeasts in my "MILFs of America" post and drive Dodge Caravans with "I LOVE MY YELLOW LABRADOR" bumper stickers on the back. Dog lovers tend to resemble their beasts of choice: loyal, conservative, and a little bit retarded. They are well suited to careers in sped handling, early childhood education and other jobs that involve lots of care with little to no progress. Their arguments against cats are that cats are cool and moody - why have a pet cat when you can have a dog who humps you fiercely the moment you walk in the door? Some dog people engage in behavior that straddles the line between "affection" and "bestiality;" letting their dogs lick them on the mouth like it's not gross. Also, and this is a big one, 9.9/10 adults who use the baby talk voice to interact with eight year olds are dog people. I don't even need to provide evidence because you know I'm right.

I like dogs better than children for sure, but I would never date someone who likes dogs better than cats. Sorry, I have standards.

MILFs of America

Stay tuned for the Japan edition!