I finally have time...Sounds like an excuse. But I've been hurting creativity-wise and I've only myself to blame. Myself and my situation. Funny, but I've been trying really hard to espouse the whole "suffering is good for oneself" ethic. And that ethic comes in all shapes, sizes, colors. This neocat (neocatechumenal I mean) woman I know believes that persecution saves the soul. Another 30 year old blossoming hippie chick believes the same thing although she frames it quite differently. And me? I know that it must be true. I wonder though. I'm suffering and have I brought it on myself? What can I control? What can I NOT control? Time for writing and creating---is this kind of time something within my power? I still don't know. I often wonder if I'm kidding myself and maybe I'm not really driven to create. Again, I don't know. I refuse to believe that one. I'm probably just feeding into my own laziness. Ahhh yes. Laziness. I'm so tired sometimes. I'm so tired. I'd rather watch Dharma and Greg, Golden Girls repeats and TCM old movies. NOT even new stuff like, well I don't even know what's new in TV land. I want reliable mind-numbing episodes. Familiar predictable. I'm so tired I don't even want to be entertained. So how do I even bring myself to write?

I have been reading though. I'm happy about that. I don't say that in an uppity way. I 'm not even sure why I brought it up. I suppose I'm feeding my heart through words that I wish I could create on my own. Maybe someday.

You who hear my tale should listen very carefully and straighten it out for yourself. Sometimes what I say is not straight--Pohnpeian folk tale ending

It is funny reading back through old posts. I looked at the 300 words thread from last March and wondered how my whole world could be so different in the space of a year. The things I was stressed about last year seem so dumb compared to what I am worried about this year. It felt like I was reading a stranger's words, not my own. But such is life and here I am now and next year I may read this post and wonder who that woman was too. On to bigger and better things. We may finally be buying a house. I can't believe it has been so difficult to find anything. Well, not true- we have found stuff, it's the actual buying thing that has been hard. Sellers backing out, changing their minds, us changing our minds about what we want, getting outbid by other buyers, etc etc etc. I found a cool mixed use space that would have been the perfect studio space but after considering the giant sheets of lead paint peeling off the walls and no yard, no homeyness whatsoever, I decided I just can't do that to my son. He needs a little yard, a happy place to live and I can make a studio anywhere I figure. Hell, I've gone this long without one and still manage to make things. I was looking at this art magazine that was doing a series about artist's studios. You can submit pictures and an article about how great your studio is and they pick whichever ones they like and feature them in the magazine. I thought it would be funny to write an article about having no studio. How to make art on your front porch, in the street, and in public spaces. In some ways it has made me think more creatively. Of course I'd love the cathedral ceilinged studio with custom built in cabinets and lots of southern light too but here I am now and I do have a whole show up in a museum of large scale sculptures that were built on my front porch while my son played in the sandbox. I'm proud of that.
Back to the house. I found an old brownstone! On a wierd little hidden street that I've never seen before. The street is filled with old victorians and rowhouses. It's within spitting distance of the projects but it is oddly secluded and it seems to be somewhat insulated from that. Racially mixed, which makes me happy after spending the last four months in ignorant white suburbia. I may be the only white person in America who breathes a big sigh of relief to meet my new neighbors who are a mixed race gay couple. Oh! I am going to back near sane people again! I can't take these Archie Bunker people where I am at now. They give me a twitch. Seriously, in my left eye. And the house! An old victorian built in 1900 with bay windows with window seats and a view of the surrounding hills and AND Manhattan and the ferries coming and going. I am so already sitting on that porch drinking tea watching the boats go by... I can't wait. I hope this one happens. I hope next March I am reading back through the old posts and laughing at how stressed I was back then.

I'm aggravated. I'm having a discussion on my journal about using the word "retarded" as a slur, and damn, the other person is being pigheaded. It's been quite polite, but she won't admit that it's wrong to slur. The funny part is that she's Jewish, and she'd be the first to say that slurring Jews is not acceptable. And she'd be right.

I think we've finally come to the kernel of the matter, though. She went to school when the idea of mainstreaming was in full force, generally without any judgement about who could actually cope with a mainstream classroom, and who could cope but needed support. So her experiences with retarded people have been very negative.

And she thinks this is a justification for using "retarded" as a slur.

Maude.

I responded, and we'll see what comes down the pike. I'm trying not to be judgemental, because I know there are plenty of areas where I'm still biased, but it's hard. And I'm doing my best not to take it personally; my younger brother is mildly retarded. So I'll vent here and keep it impersonal there.

And I'll keep shooting down her arguments until she quits. If she doesn't change her mind, that's on her, but she won't get the last word.

Somehow, the driver's side front bumper on the car got a big circle punched in it. It's kind of down low, so it was hard to see, since it's still attached on one side so there's no hole. B noticed it a couple of days ago. My guess is that one of us whacked a snowbank, but B says he didn't and if I did, I must not have noticed. It's more likely to have been me, because I'm the one who usually drives the car, but I simply don't remember doing anything like that.

Anyway, it's going to cost us a $250 deductible to get it fixed. The autobody place is paying for a rental for us for two days (my guess is that they get an excellent rate and allow for a little extra in the estimate, but it's not an issue.) That's handy. Otherwise I would have to take B to work at gods-awful cock's crow for two or three days, since I unfortunately can't do without a car.

That really bugs me. We didn't often walk when we lived in PA, but we were close enough to the schools where the children's activities were that we could walk if we needed to. With the gas prices the way they are, we'd have done more walking, especially now that the kids are a little older. I'd be healthier, too. But we truthfully can't do it around here. This is one of those damned developments that were designed on the assumption that there would be cars.

There are neighborhoods around here where that's not true, but they are a lot more expensive than this one. We're part of the sprawl outside of Chicago, and we were built with the idea that most jobs would be a lot further into the city, and that the neighborhoods would be relatively affluent.

We looked at less expensive neighborhoods, but what it came down to was at least an hour and a half commute for B, rather than forty-five minutes. Down an incredibly congested section of the interstate, too. From here he avoids the interstate all together.

Best of all would have been housing close to his job, but houses there start at half a million for tiny little houses on postage stamp lots. Half a million? Hahahahaha! No. It's like the developments around here that advertise "starting in the low $200,000s." Sorry, but there is nothing low about $200,000. Or we could have gotten close to his job by buying one of those huge six-bedroom, four car garage monsters for an amount that I won't even guess at. We'll live further out, thank you.

V has a friend over. Her friend has a cell phone, and was apparently running through some of the ring-tones for the girls. My poor, poor children, deprived of cell phones.

We may get one for P some time in the next year, though -- he's going to be fourteen soon, and out and about on his own a lot more. Having him wear a watch is hopeless, so it will be helpful to have a way to get his attention and have him come home. We won't get him an open plan, though. We'll do the same thing for him as we did for me -- purchase minutes ahead of time, so that the phone is charged only for the minutes used, rather than us paying a monthly fee.

That's what I have; very useful when the phone is only for emergencies and contacting parents. Unless I'm out of the house with the children left behind, I don't generally even turn it on. Sometimes that makes B crazy, because I'm not at home and he'd like to contact me, but that's pretty rare, so I keep it off and save the battery.

I still like conventional phones better. I have a "brick" cell -- that's what it's shaped like, as opposed to a flip -- and it always disconcerts me that it doesn't reach all the way from my ear to my mouth. I did finally learn to trust the microphone, and where to put the speaker so that I can hear, although I still sometimes have to shift it around a bit.

I notified Susan about the bloody spammer. I don't know why, but I particularly resent it that she/he is invading the 300 words threads. On the other hand, as someone else has said, it has inspired me to go back and read some of what I wrote last year. Interesting, especially the stuff that I simply don't remember.

Good day. I got up at a semi-reasonable hour; I woke up when B took P out to church. (He's acolyting today, which is the only reason he'd motivate himself to go to an eight o'clock service.) B made buckwheat pancakes, which were excellent. Then I went back to bed and crashed for more than an hour. So much for getting up at a reasonable hour.

I was glad to see the pancakes. Theoretically, I'm supposed to be cutting back on refined carbs and upping whole grains. I already avoid sugar most of the time, and we haven't eaten white rice in years, so I need to tackle things made with refined wheat flour. The trouble with that is, it's awkward to work that in with what the rest of the family is willing to eat.

For instance, tonight we had spaghetti and meatballs. The pasta is refined wheat flour. I'm more than willing to eat whole wheat pasta, now that we've found one that doesn't taste like raw wheat paste, but the kids object. It's too frustrating to cook one starch for me and one starch for them. A lot of things are like that. Cooking separately for me means a major adjustment, and changing everybody's diet (which would actually be a good thing) isn't likely to happen.

What a pain in the ass. And it's amazing what sort of things harbor refined white flour. Gravy. The baked chicken we had at P's concert. Mama mia.

The kids had friends over to sleep last night. P and V invited the W's, who have been over before. That left F feeling left out when we made the plans, because while she is friends with the W's, neither of them is her age, and they are kind of special friends of the other two. So we invited F's friend M.

On Friday, M's mother called up to tell us M was sick and wouldn't be able to come. Poor M. I know she was really looking for this. And F! F was so upset that she threw a temper tantrum, which surprised me. I could have strangled V, though; she came to me and begged me to find another friend for F, not to make F happy, but to keep F out of her hair while she plays with A.

Luckily, we were able to arrange for R, the sensei's daughter, to come for an overnight. Providentially, R's sister J was going to be away on a Girl Scout overnight, so R was stewing, too. Her mother was *very* glad to hear our invitation.

We also arranged for H to come over to play with F this afternoon, and the two of them will probably play at H's house next weekend. It was very good for F; too many of our friends are V's age and P's age, but not too many of them are F's age. She's perfectly capable of playing with kids of other ages, but interests diverge, and bigger kids tend to get involved with P and V, and she gets frustrated.

We took the kids and H and K (the girlfriend) swimming in the afternoon. Everybody had a ball, and H was very reluctant indeed to go home. That's part of the reason her father suggested another play date next weekend; he hoped it would help get her out the door. (It did.) K stayed for dinner. (White bread crumbs in the meatballs. I'll have to start making my own bread crumbs. Honestly.)

B and I did some more painting. This time we did *not* invite the children to help. He rolled the inside and end walls again (third coat is the charm) and I painted the trim around the sliding doors. I got a third coat on there, but I'm not sure whether I'm going to need a fourth or not. All of the paint in the kitchen was high-gloss, and we should probably have added a layer of primer before we tried to paint over it. I'm also not sure the color will work. We didn't have a sample of the cabinet wood with us, and the paint looks sort of bilious. The walls are fine, but the trim? I don't know. That's one reason why I'm painting only the door. There's no point in painting the rest of the trim until we know what color we're using. If I have to paint three times to get coverage, that's one thing, but darned if I'm painting five times when I don't have to. If the current color doesn't work, we have about a gallon of a color that we know will work (pale cream white,) so at least we won't have to go buy more paint. Those two rooms have sucked up more paint ...

Okay, the one positive thing the latest spammer has done is post in a 300 words that's nearly a year old. That brought it back up to the top of the list and I just spent 20 minutes skimming through my entries from almost a year ago.

instead of washing my hair

or going to sleep.

It's a nice walk down memory lane, to think that last year, at almost this time, I had finished a book proposal and submitted it. I still haven't heard yay or nay from them. I thought about that last night at the opera that dd wanted to go to. Five hours of Chinese opera. No idea what the plot was, but there wasn't a lot of fighting in it, although when the lead character was seized by the guards, they flipped him over, which was pretty impressive and didn't happen until the 4th hour. But while I was watching the two lead characters sing about, I dunno, love or spring or something along those lines, I wondered if I should drop the editor another line asking for the status of my proposal and, if so, how I should phrase it.

I thought about it but also realized that, at this point, I don't have time to rework the proposal or the manuscript in progress or even to rework one of the chapters to be the sample chapter that I might send along with my proposal. When I get back, I have to hit the darkroom (and hope that this scratchiness in my throat goes away once I'm no longer exposed to clouds and clouds of burning joss on a daily basis), develop the 40 or so rolls of film in my bag, make contact sheets and figure out what to print. Then print it and frame it and ship it to Mexico City. All before the end of March.

And then there's that article, that I was working on last March (and even some time before that) and that I never finished. I have a real deadline now and a real synopsis and a truncated focus (I wonder if that means that I'm still expected to come up with 50 or so pages or if I can go with my theory of "less is more"). I didn't bring anything to work with on my trip,specifically because I didn't want to be bothered. Of course, that seemed to be a mistake. I *should* have brought stuff, even if I never looked at it once. I think having writing projects keeps my spirits up, although it doesn't make for that much of a vacation.

Although it isn't as if I've frittered away my time. I feel as if I ran around like mad, taking photos, documenting changing Hong Kong (although I missed the Temple Street Night Market. I picked up a copy of some free English-language paper the other day because one of the headlines said something like "Good-bye Night Market?" and realized that yes, I should have gone and photographed that too.

But I didn't. Luckily, the government's redevelopment scheme (putting a highway or something right through the neighborhood) doesn't physically start for five years, so there's always next year. Or the year after.

Tired. need to wash my hair and get ready to get up in five hours and go to the airport.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

I took my walk and I bought some flowers. At first I was going to go into the flower shop at the grocery store to look for vases, but then I realized that they'd probably be super-expensive. I went to Target, where the vases, such as they had, were also super-expensive. However, when I went back to housewares to see if they had vases that didn't come with fabric flowers, I found a plastic water pitcher that was nice and heavy, simple but attractive, and big enough to take tall flowers. I bought orange lilies, some small sunflowers, and irises to go in it, and now I have my own fresh flowers. I am very pleased.

Today I have a headache, instead. I took the kids skating, which meant sitting in an uncomfortable booth for an hour and a half. I promised V that this spring I will take out my in-lines and get back in shape to skate, but today I sat on my ass and got stiff. Then I took F to class and spent another hour on an uncomfortable chair. My hips ache.

I felt so bad for F's friend M. She can be timid, and trying new stuff in class sometimes throws her back on her haunches. She got braces on a few weeks ago, and her mother says she's been having a hard time coping since then. So last week and this week there were major tears in class when D asked her to do something that felt scary to her. She did eventually go back in, but came out again almost immediately; according to F, when she started to cry the second time, D told her to go ahead and leave. I'm sure D did it very nicely, but I would guess that M feels very badly now. I remember being a sensitive kid like that, and being mortified when I cried, so I really, really feel for this poor kid.

For Christmas 2005, one of the kids, probably V, gave me a stained glass ornament for the window. My first reaction was, It's a cross! Aaaack! But I stored it gently on the windowsill by my workbench, and eventually we hung it in the other window, where it will catch some light.

Now I look at it a little more objectively. If you want to see it as a cross, it can certainly be read that way. But it's five diamonds, four of them elongated, set on their points in a cross shape, the whole thing mounted in a larger diamond-shapped frame. There is some filigree amongst the diamonds. I have decided that I can see it as a cross and be irritated by it every time I look, as well as guilty that I don't like something one of the kids bought me, or I can look at it as an attractive pattern of diamonds and enjoy it, or at least be neutral about it, my choice. I chose non-irritation.

I'm never quite sure what to do about the kids where religion and spirituality are concerned. Because I was quite a dedicated Christian when they were younger, I raised them Christian. P still is, although he's not all that interested in formal observations. V is a lot more conflicted, and I don't think F cares either way, as long as she doesn't have to sit through boring church services.

I don't talk to P or F about issues of religion, except to listen to their desires in re: church. V is a deep thinker, though, and likes to come to me with her uncertainties. She likes a little structure -- she always wants to observe holidays -- but at the same time she's highly reluctant to do things that she sees as boring or meaningless. And she's quite capable of wanting to go to the Easter egg hunt while simultaneously wanting nothing to do with either Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday services.

For V I spend time listening and discussing, and she's the only one of the kids who knows, or as far as I know cares, much about why I don't attend church. She knows because she has come to me on various occasions and asked. It might be easier for her if she had a parent with some more structured religious convictions -- B, basically, is a Christian as long as nobody bugs him about it -- but as it is, she's thrown back on her own resources and decisions when it comes to her relationship to the universe, and because she's a thinker, she has to deal with some pretty big questions.

Today is Ash Wednesday, which V figured out on her own. (It's a pity we missed Mardi Gras yesterday, but I don't know what we would have done anyway. It's not as though we would have been attending a festival somewhere.) She commented that she was thinking about what to give up, and had decided to give up playing with her clay. I asked her what she was going to do in a positive vein (I feel very strongly that spiritual fasts should not be simply about denial, but about what you are going to seek to put in your fast's place,) and she thought about it and said she was going to pray. Interesting. I wonder what she's going to pray about.

I don't even know what she means when she says, "Prayer." Now that I think about it, I didn't know much about prayer, as it is practiced in the Christian church, for many, many years. I was familiar with the prayers that people prayed out loud, and I didn't understand them. Eventually I got into the habit of asking for things inside my head, theoretically addressed to God. Laundry lists, although I didn't grow up in any of the traditions that "claim" things in prayer. I ran into that when I was grown up, and also into the custom of spending a lot of prayer time praising God.

Praising God was a wonderful thing, but it ran into a serious wall when I got sick and help of any kind just never came. There is a limit, for me, to how much I am willing to praise someone who is apparently never around when I need him.

I also, from a very different direction, ran into the Christian practice of prayer as meditation. Not praising God or asking from God, but simply taking time to be quiet and see what might come along. It's not like Buddhist meditation as I understand it. But it was attractive. I never got that far into it before I found myself divorcing myself entirely from God, the Christian church, the whole sorry mess.

Now I rarely pray. When I do, I don't really think of it as prayer. It's usually a brief comment to the universe at large that I could use some help in a specific and always small matter. I don't ask for big stuff; I don't believe I'll get any answers. I think I do get answers, mostly for the little stuff, but I don't demand them or depend on them, and I don't get into a twist when something still doesn't go my way.

And I have to deal with all of this in the context of being a parent and supporting the kids when they need it, spiritually. I don't believe that there is anything inherently wrong with Christianity; it's just not something I can personally coexist with. But I have no problem with other people believing. So it could be worse. I have a lot of anger and bitterness, but so far I've been able to avoid dumping it on the kids, especially V.

we met the maskmaker at Tai O this evening. I had met him briefly one time before--I believe it was during last year's visit. We were about to leave the village; my aunt and uncle were waiting for us at the bus stop, anxious to get on that particular bus and not have to wait half an hour for the next one. i stopped to read the newspaper article (in English) about the maskmaker posted outside his shop.

He (at least I think it was he) asked, "Do you want to come in?"

But I couldn't, not at that time. My aunt and uncle were frantically calling my other uncle's cell phone, urging us to hurry up, that the bus was going to leave soon.

Today, we got to Tai O late in the day. the light was already fading and I had to set my camera at f5.6 at 1/60 of a second for most of my outdoor shots (some required f3.5 and, if there was a railing for me to use as a tripod, I set the shutter speed to 1/30).

I stopped to take a photo of a decrepit altar outside a shop. After taking two, I looked and realized it was the maskmaker's shop. There were no masks out. The article wasn't out. The doors were closed. A white piece of paper, looking like one-half of a New Year's couplet, was pasted onto the door. I asked my uncle if it said anything about the maskmaker being back or perhaps being closed for New year.

He simply confirmed the obvious. "closed."

Later, I stopped in the Tai O Gallery and, after purchasing a postcard of Tai O, asked the "gallery" owner (and painter of most of the works) about the maskmaker. He didn't know. Perhaps he had gone to China for New Year's. He didn't keep regular hours. He opened when he felt like opening; he couldn't tell me more.

So off dd and I (and my uncle and my aunt's mother) went to try to find the salt pans. We followed Back Kat Hing Street rather than Kat Hing Street and ended up, as we always seem to do, at the Young Temple. This time there were no smuggler boats from China; whether this is because smuggling to the beachfront has stopped or because of the new Year, i'm not sure. There were simply tourists lounging around on the benches outside the closed doors of the temple.

dd and I climbed around for a while, discovered a few shrines on the waterfront hidden away from most eyes. She lit incense to several of the deities, accidentally quenching the fire in the incense lighter. We left her half-eaten pineapple cooky (that's the way it was spelled on the box) as an offering to the 2 lion statues on the water that she hadn't managed to light incense for.

Then we went around back to see if the abandoned nursery was still there. The buildings themselves were still there, but they had been redone, painted, the smashed windows replaced, and were probably going to be some sort of housing once they were finished. They reminded me of non-chain motels I stayed in in the upstate New york and PA of my childhood--one story buildings of rooms all stuck together.

on our walk back, we passed the maskmaker's again. A man was standing in front of the door getting his photo taken by 2 white girls. They motioned for us to pass them and that was when I realized there were masks out now. And the door was open. An old man sat inside. dd and I squeezed in (and I *do* mean squeezed. there was just a 4-foot long aisle that was perhaps one foot wide once you passed the threshhold. I was worried that, with both of our bulging backpacks, one of us was going to knock over a mask or something else and cause thousands of dollars worth of damage.

Luckily, no such thing happened. The first thing that happened was that dd spied a small box shaped like a heart. The top was covered with dust.

"how much is this?" she asked (in English).

I translated. It was HK$40, a handmade lacquer box. She dug out 2 tens and a 20 from her red envelope; the man found a cardboard lightbulb box that was too small for his handcarved box and tried to wrap it around her purchase, breaking the cardboard at the seams and then banding it all together with a rubberband.

I looked at the masks. I didn't recognize any of the faces.

"gong mm gong yingman?" (Do you speak English?)

No, he didn't. I picked up one mask and asked who it was. "Jeung gong," he said. (Later, my aunt's mother said it might be Jeung Fei, but she wasn't sure.)

I looked at two others, but this one appealed to me. It was handcarved and then handpainted. It had a beard--real strands of something (horsehair? It had the same feel as a rough paintbrush) came out from holes in the chin. So I bought it and asked the maskmaker to write on the back of it what it was.

He tried to explain to me (in Chinese that I didnt' understand) just what he was writing. Partway through his explanation (I think at the fourth column of characters), my cell phone started vibrating and singing in my pocket and dd wanted to know how much a handcarved duck cost. Between the two, I'm really not sure what he was trying to explain to me about that last column nor do I remember anything about the first three. I'll have to ask my aunt tomorrow morning before trying to figure out how to safely pack it in my suitcase. (he simply put it in a plastic bag and then gave me another bag to carry it in. The whole way back home, i worried that someone would jostle into it or step on it and the mask would break). he also threw in a bilingual article from 1997 about himself and his masks. (It wasn't the same as the one outside, which I want to go back and read in more detail)

The duck he gave to dd for free. Then he wanted to take a photo with dd outside his shop, which was touching. Except that it was not only starting to drizzle, the light was REALLY bad and so I set the shutter speed to 1/30 and prayed that my knee, which I was using as a tripod, wouldn't move and I'd get a halfway decent shot. I thought about trying to pantomime getting his address so that i could send him a copy of the photo. Then i thought that instead I would simply bring one the next time I visited (whenever that is).

Then we said good-bye and returned to the bus station where my uncle and aunt's mother were waiting for us.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Things have been sort of on-and-off since New Years'. I'm not sure where the time has gone. I haven't kept track of the books I've read, but it hardly matters since I think I've only read three. Possibly four. I've read parts of several.

I want flowers. I didn't want them for Valentine's Day. I'm not into flowers for that. But I saw pictures on the Net of a friend's flowers for V-Day, and I'm a little ashamed to admit that I'm jealous.

Well, maybe not jealous. I don't want flowers from B, particularly. And I'm very happy for T that she got the flowers -- it really gives me honest joy to see her so happy, especially given how much crap she has to deal with day-to-day. But I would like flowers in my house.

Years ago, when I was in the throes of a struggle with both my spirituality and my religion, I spent some time considering what I might put on an altar. I was confused about what I might put there for Air. I wasn't really hung up on having all the four elements, but I liked the feel of them, so I was using them as a sort of framework for thinking about it. A friend suggested scented flowers for Air. (Now that I think about it, windchimes would be good, too.)

Scented flowers sounded too complicated to me. I wanted something that I could put on the altar and then ignore if I needed to; obviously flowers weren't going to do it. But today I'm wondering if I want flowers because I need, either literally or metaphorically, some Air.

I'm certainly feeling a little hemmed in by the weather. It's nice out now, and pretty warm, but I'm being pig-headed about going for a walk, and I'll probably delay until it's too late. And Mom and Dad's visit, although wonderful, has left me feeling stale. Mom tries hard to give me space when we're there -- she knows that, while I am stronger, I am still fragile -- but I'm not comfortable taking it yet. So I made my world even smaller for protection, and now I'm pushing back at the walls. So I want some air.

Maybe I'll open the windows for a bit, and maybe I'll buy some flowers at the supermarket when I go to drop V and F off for class. I wonder if I have a decent vase? I don't think so; I'll have to think of something. Whatever happened to the wine carafe that Mom and Dad gave me? That worked nicely.

Okay, enough of this. I'm getting my shoes on and going outside. And I'm going to open some windows.

Well, 12,800 Buddhas if you want to be more exact about it.

i didn't photograph every one, not even close. But the place did excite me enough that I snapped shot after shot, sometimes having worshippers or other tourists walk through my shot and having to reshoot (oh, the joys of digital).

It started with Shatin Pai Tau Village, right outside the railway station. It's not a remarkable village, like Tai O or Po Toi O. it's just an old village that happens to be outside the railway station and at the foot of the hill that you need to climb to get to the Monastery of the 10,000 Buddhas.

But something about it entranced me. there is one old house, that, at first glance resembles a temple under construction. There are corrugated tin roofs in the front yard; it turns out that this was once an old Chinese house that is now divided into subsections in which different families live. I have no idea if these families are all related and this is why they all live under one giant roof (some of which is growing interesting looking moss) that resembles that of an ancient temple or if it's all the whim of Real Estate that threw them all together.

At any rate, it was interesting. So was the little living room set-up, complete not only with chairs and couch, but also exercise machine, under the pedestrian walkway. I imagined people in the evening sitting around on the chairs and leather (or pleather) couch, someone using the exercise machine--a communal scene that was un-self-conscious enough to be exercised not only outside, but in a seemingly strange locale (under the pedestrian walkway! Okay, so the stuff doesn't get rained on...) as well.

We walked up the hill. We passed what looked to be another village and various government signs stating that some of the land had been slated for clearance and that some squatter huts had been designated for clearance as well. that made me wonder if the corrugated tin houses a bit below the walkway were squatter huts.

I asked my uncle, who didn't know. "If they are, they're very old," he said. Now, it is forbidden to build squatter huts. Or maybe he said "impossible."

Part of the way up is a luncheon area. It's not really a vegetarian restaurant; today, to mark the head monk's emergence from seclusion, the meals were free. The monks asked for a donation, but there was no fixed fee to eat.

As we sat and waited for an empty table, the head monk emerged, dressed in turmeric yellow robes. He was accompanied by two monks, clad in black robes. People kowtowed before him and numerous people had their photo taken with him.

We ate, although dd whispered to me that she didn't think the food was very good. Ah well, it's a place to eat, not a real restaurant. We finished before my aunt and uncle and started up the steps (lots and lots of narrow, winding steps). We reached golden statues of Buddhas, lots and lots of Buddhas in different shapes, sizes and expressions. dd got a little freaked out about our altitude after a while and gripped the handrail tightly, looking a little panicked when the handrail on her left-hand side stopped and she had to let go and walk two steps to get to the right-hand one (and vice versa). But she was still doing fine.

Until she saw the monkeys.

There are wild monkeys near the Monastery of 10,000 Buddhas. They were picking fleas off each other, chasing each other around and climbing on the golden Buddhas that lined our path.

Last year, my cousins took us to Monkey Hill, a hill in Hong Kong where wild monkeys roam. Despite numerous signs telling (human) visitors not to feed the monkeys, people do. Thus, the monkeys associate humans with getting fed and the crinkling of things (like the film wrappers for 120 film) with food. We were fine until I stopped to reload my camera. A monkey paused and watched me. When I ripped open the wrapping for a new roll of film and started to load it in, it tried to grab the film out of my hand. I yanked my hand back (although I was still scratched) and stamped my foot at it.

This, however, was a monkey used to people and I am a very small person. It didn't budge, but bared its teeth and hissed at me.

dd burst into tears and didn't want to go any further. Even now, over a year later, she remembers that the monkey tried to steal mama's film.

So this afternoon, she saw wild monkeys in her path and froze. She started to whimper and didn't want to go further. I had visions of her panicking, running down the stairs and tumbling down them (all however many of them) or throwing a tantrum about not wanting to go further up the stairs and then falling down them. I made her take a deep breath, I kept pointing out that these were Buddhist monkeys, that if they were attacking people, the monastery would have gotten rid of them, etc, etc. We kept going, two steps, then two more steps, then three steps, then two more steps at a time. Until a monkey ran across our path pursued by another monkey. its pursuer stopped and stared at us. dd's lip started to tremble and I prayed to the golden statues that the monkey wasn't sensing her fear or, if it was, it wasn't going to exploit it and jump at her.

It cocked its head and stared at us, then ran back around the golden Buddha, jumped into the arms of another Buddha, then disappeared before I could focus my camera and snap a shot of it.

We continued on our way without incident.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

Seems that I'm starting the Year of the Pig restless.

Last night, I was supposed to go to the Lunar New Year flower Market at 2 or 3 am with my auntie and assorted other relatives. I put dd to bed and fell asleep myself around 10, figuring I would wake up later and go with them. The voices of assorted relatives, calling back and forth to each other, woke me from time to time. At one point, I actually woke up and thought, "I'll bring my plastic camera and take pictures of the flower market with that." I even thought about loading my purse with film and putting on pants to hold my money.

Then I fell back asleep.

My aunt tried to wake me when it was time to go. I must have been fast asleep because I didn't get up to go. She didn't push and they all left without me.

this morning, the house is a mess. There are food dishes on the table. Plastic wrappings from newly-bought flowers on the living room floor. I'm sorry to have missed it, to have missed the chance to walk around taking pictures. The flower market in the hours before dawn on New Year's is somewhat of a madhouse, but it's tradition to go and buy flowers. And photograph people with their strange boughs and branches too.

So here it is, Chinese New Year and I am up before everyone else, typing away, realizing that not only do I not have a new outfit for the New Year (I never got around to buying one), but I also don't have a new book and didn't take any pictures even though I lugged around my heavy Rollei yesterday and have a mark on my shoulder from the strap digging into my flesh.

Today, I will dress up in the skirt I have not yet worn and bring my plastic camera around with me as we visit various relatives. For now, I will start picking up the plastic wrappers and maybe try to figure out how to use the coffeemaker and make myself a cup of coffee. Maybe I'll go for a walk in a bit and see if that pulls me out of my funk.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

My life is focused lately on home. Trying to sell a home, trying to buy one. In between panic attacks I've been thinking alot about what home means to me. As we look at potential places to live it's hard to figure out what I want anymore. I'm really ready to just say- ok we're buying whatever comes up first because I can't take living in flux anymore. We have considered raw warehouse space to fix up and we have considered condo living. And houses in between. We didn't qualify for the coop and the fixer uppers we have looked at are really fixer uppers- no plumbing, no heat, no kitchen or bathroom, etc. And I'm not really sure we are up for that with a small child in tow. My fantasy live/work situation with a nice big studio seems to be fading fast. I can't face moving into some blah house in a blah neighborhood. The realtor thinks I'm a crazy person because when she asked what we are looking for, I told her, I really have no idea- as long as it is interesting. I did find this one funky urban log cabin. It looks like a little swiss chalet in the middle of a blah neighborhood. Now even though it's a blah neighborhood, having this wierd little house plopped down in the middle of it I find interesting. It also feels safe- it may not be the most fabulous fantasy loft, but it could be home. A safe warm place to go to. Maybe I could fit a yurt in the backyard for a studio. I'd be ok with that.

all month i've been getting real jacked up around 6pm right before one of my evening classes. i have three evenings at school.
last week was bad manic. this week a bit more contained.
not much though. i'm feeling very unstable and uncertain and weary and over excited, and vibratey, and buzzy and giggly. and my thoughts are not even in this galaxy.
my thoughts are fragmented, chopped up, splayed, sporadic.
and fast.
and i still have two more essays due for the month. one due tomorrow.
must pack for reading week run away!
too freaking excited!
oh yes. grafitti, friends, not here.
currently my brain is a mush of bazanian realism and silverman's suture, of the mirror phase, and of non-productive expenditure.
batailles.
and i have to read two novels. i'm half way done "paradise".
i hope my mania becomes more focused...don't think that i've ever felt very focused when manic.
actually, no that's not true.
scrapbook collage books, reading voraciously, and cleaning the window sills and screens with a toothbrush.
so i need to figure out how to incorporate all this new info into my brain.
some things are no problem, clicking.
other stuff, i read and take notes, "yep, no problem...uh huh. got it"
get to class and "uhhh huh? i have no idea."
gone, it's gone.
been typing up my notes and i think it will help if i stay on top of it this semester. i didn't type a thing last semester.
that's ok. this term is theory heavy.
i need to make my notes nice and organized.
what the fuck am i thinking?
somedays, i really don't know. i don't know.