The Bad Mothers

I have a case of the "bad mothers" creeping on. I'm going out for the first time without my daughter. She's almost five years old but I hardly go anywhere without her when I'm not working. I'm a total freak of nature and should probably be put out of my misery but I can't help it. I feel like I'm doing something wrong just by having five minutes to myself. I'm going to a reception at the American Club. I've never set foot in the place and I haven't a clue as to what to expect. I feel like I've lived in Taipei for years, but I live on another version of it. There are three different Taipeis for foreigners in my opinion. There's the Taipei for the young backpacking set. They can hang out at the nightclubs, roll up to work pissy drunk, and sing happy songs to a room full of three year olds. Then there's the Taipei for the "expat". Exclusive clubs, TAS tuition paid for by the company, cars with drivers, and posh apartments up in Tien Mu. Next there's the Taipei for people such as myself. We're not exactly the backpacking foreigners, but more like the people who just came and stayed. Our homes are furnished by IKEA, our cars are third or fourth hand, and life is rather the same as it would be anywhere else except for the fact that everyone speaks Chinese around us. We're not rolling in cash and our kids have never had a nanny change their diaper or carry them down the street while we walked in front of them. Oh, do I sound bitter. I'm not. I just find it very interesting how there is such a huge divide among people. When I first got here, I used to smile at every foreigner that walked down the street. I was like a puppy, sticking out my tongue and wagging my tail. Most of the time they would just walk past, but sometimes I'd elicit a smile. Now, I'm the head forward, ignore my fellow citizens that I used to hate. Oh, how times they are a changin. Well, I'd better fly out of here. Me must go and mingle with the moneyed set.

Feeling my age

It is a half an hour before lunch and I'm really starting to feel my age. I know I'm only 34, but there are all of these aches and pains showing up that I didn't have when I was younger. I think I'm in better health, but things just aren't working like they used to. I keep saying I'm going to go to the gym during my lunch break, but I'm not feeling up to it. Even my hair hurts from my lat workout.
I'd better get back to work. I have a ton of things I can be working on, but my ability to concentrate can really stink sometimes. I swear I must have ADD or something. I was watching a pirated copy of Desperate Housewives and the woman with the four kids took some of her kids ADD medicine. She was able to do all of these things and had a ton of energy and was focused. I must be sick because I found myself really wanting to get some of this stuff. According to the show, it works this way if you don't have ADD. I don't think I have it, I'm just too quick to jump onto something else. Oh, I'd better get back to work.

A sadness

I should be working. I have a file open in front of me that I'm writing, but my mind keeps flipping to different pages. I can't stop thinking about what has happened down in New Orleans and Mississippi. I feel like the world and the country I grew up in has changed. It isn't the same and a line has been crossed that can't be uncrossed. As a kid I traveled all over the south. Every year my father would take us down to Alabama to visit his relatives in Jasper. It was a form of punishment in our eyes and as we grew older and developed wills of our own, the idea of spending a hot summer surrounded by dogs in heat and my aunt yelling across the yard every few minutes just did not appeal. Though I wasn't a big fan of the south, it is part of my blood. My cousins and kin folk all live down there though I anticipate never going back there ever again.

Once my father took us down to New Orleans for the World's Fair. Being a hot, sweaty, fat preteen, I hated the trip. I thought everyone moved slow and was beneath my Northern ways of living. After all, I was from Ohio. The food was excellent and every opportunity to eat some of those fried donuts was taken.
When I was in the Navy, I spent New Year's Eve walking around with a bunch of other sailors from the photography school. We drank huge beers, threw up on the streets of the city, and crashed in a hotel room off of Bourbon Street.
These are the memories I had. I now only see the sadness and pain from the faces of the people of New Orleans. I'm disgusted with George W. Bush. I'm disgusted with people who support him. I'm disgusted with Donald Rumsfeld and all the other bastards just like him. Dick Cheney has been awfully quiet in the past few days. Are they afraid he'll open his mouth and stick his foot in. If this were a suburb of Illinois or an upper-middle class neighborhood, would this have happened? Hell no. Anyone who says anything about not being ready is totally full of shit. I think they were just watching and waiting. Maybe trying to weed out some of the people they considered undesirable. Would they be doing anything if the world weren't so connected and TV cameras weren't recording any of this? If this had been fifty years ago, would they even be in their right now? Thirty? Twenty?
I'd better get back to work.
I have a bad taste in my mouth and no amount of gum can get rid of it.