Taiwan Update
Got locked out of this house. Headed down the street for a foot massage. According to Chinese reflexology, a vigorous (read: painful) foot massage improves other bodily functions. For $6 more, was offered a shoulder massage. Took it because my neck/shoulders have been tight since running 7 miles on the treadmill at the gym. He rubbed my shoulders like 3 times before spending the next 20 minutes on my butt, inner thighs and…climbing on top of me and reaching around to my stomach? Called Reggie and asked him how many shoulder massages involve areas close to where-did-the-bad-man-touch-you areas. He laughed. Maybe in Taiwan, a person’s shoulders are in a vastly different area of the body.
Foot massage: $30.
Shoulder massage: $6.
Getting molested by a toothless middle-aged Chinese man: priceless.
It was Bohr’s birthday yesterday so my former boss took us out for his birthday. We went to this Russian bakery for drinks after dinner. They have this refridgerator unit that’s been converted into an “ice bar,” with ice covering the shelves, floor and bar, complete with miniature ice snowman. There were hundreds of vodkas to choose from. We picked two from Russia, including one that was 160 proof. I will never ingest anything that is 160 proof unless I am officially trying to kill myself. My stomach was still burning a half hour later, and combined with the fact that there is mass smoking inside bars in Taiwan, I had to call it an evening early due to wanting to put my head in a toilet.
Went home, called Reggie. I had called in the morning my time, then drunk dialed him again at 1am. It was weird because on his end, he had received a call from me late at night and then the next day. So it was still the same day for me but another day from him. How many drunk dials will you ever receive at 10am on a Wednesday, I asked him. Hopefully, not that many, unless someone is trying to re-enact scenes out of Leaving Las Vegas.
My ex-boss has lost a lot of weight. I haven’t seen him in years. He’s married now and expecting a daughter at the end of this month. He’s still a very attractive guy, in a very low-key, quiet manner, and girls fall hard for him as witnessed by the fact that all the girls in the office went nuts when he and his girlfriend broke up while I was working with him. I’m not talking about a handful. I’m talking about over 30 girls, complete competitive madness as though an attainable celebrity were now available. I was watching him last night and I think I figured out what it is. He’s very soft-spoken, easy-going, nice, subtly charismatic, etc. But he always looks sad; there’s just this inherent sadness to his energy, that just demands the instinctive nurturing side of a woman to want to be gentle with him. Yet he’s dynamic in his career and very successful. It brings out the part of a woman who wants to save a man, the part that thinks that with unconditional love, you can open up a person and fulfill them, and once that happens, he’ll take care of her in return. It’s somewhat risky reasoning, but it is what it is and it’s the basis of many relationships. But some people just carry around inexplicable sadness and I suspect that with people such as this guy, no one will ever be privy to what it is that makes him so sad, in certain deep, private chambers inside of him, no matter how unconditional the love. I suspect this type of sadness is so deepseated that it’s been with him for quite a long time, and he wouldn’t feel whole without it, so as a result, those around him either overlook this aspect or if they notice, they have to accept that there will always be a private part of him that they will never get to see. Some people’s loneliness comes from the inside out, and nothing from the outside can warm that part of them. It makes them who they are.