May 8, 2008...1:48 pm
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After several days of stellar weather, rain moved in and lashed the city today. Bea Long and I went on a walking tour of shikumen (stone gate houses) with a local celebrated artist and a group of fellow gringos, weaving our way through massive puddles, the rubble of razed houses, and clambered inside several dwellings. I like to think I am a tough cookie, that not much can shock or surprise me anymore. But this cookie is crumbling, the day’s events deflating me, in a kind of subcutaneous emotional beating that only true squalor can inflict on a mind accustomed to privacy, order, and softly scented dryer sheets. A figurative cyclone of wreckage in a metropolitan, man-made, functioning setting, this is no Act of God.
4 Comments
May 8, 2008 at 3:36 pm
We’ve got to toughen you up. I suggest snuggle in the rinse cycle instead of those insidious dryer sheets! While you’re waiting for the stupid wash cycle to end you can do bicep curls with the snuggle jug.
In no time at all you’ll be running through squalor like a champ!
May 8, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Dear Heart, I am dense. Did the cyclone make this mess? On the right picture, when did everything collapse? I notice there is a lone travel trunk, but I do not see much else in the way of personal effects. Please explain.
May 12, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Got a Blackberry. Am finding it extremely handy at getting through email during car waits, but not too skilled at surfing on the internet with it yet. I thought of you today when I heard about the earthquake in China. Steve and I are coming to China next April, itinerary still unknown (it is business for him, pleasure for me).
May 13, 2008 at 6:48 am
Readers All: what was inside the houses I just cannot write about. Yet. It depressed me for days so if my post made no sense, sorry! The trunk was just lying in the middle of rubble, Radish, and the cyclone I referred to was development and juxtaposing political ideals.
Raftbuddy: hurrah! I can’t wait to go bowling with you!!! Wear your worst sneakers, ones you want to throw away.
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