Back Home in Taichung

8-7-13 6:56am Wed. (1)

      We are back in our home in Taichung. We got to the airport at 10:30pm and home at 2am after a shaky drive back from Shih-Dong; he drove most of the way on the highway trying to stay in the left lane with his bright lights on! He had to stop at a rest stop to wake himself up. I offered to drive for him with my flashy new international driver’s license, but he ignored my offer.

      I wrote forty-three pages of the journal while I was on the road and in Brooklyn and am now up to page 290 for the year, with five months to go!

      The Giant ‘Roam’ bicycle is beckoning me. I put it in the dining room while we were away. I finally taught myself how to pump air into the tires by myself and it’s ready to ride. The front tire was half flat after not riding the bike for six weeks. I can’t wait to ride it up the Han-Xi River, which Leona said means “Dry Wash,” as descriptive as it is named.

      On the plane back, I read less than an hour of Last Words by George Carlin. I hardly did any reading at all in America. Also, I only wrote one depressing poem in six weeks there.

 America, in general, and New York City, specifically, is a depressing place. I feel lucky to have gotten away from there with only a scratch, now only scabs falling off of my right leg from a fall off the bike. 

 

8-7-13 5:23pm Wed. (*2)

      I’ve been putting away the extra books I brought back from Brooklyn. There are ten boxes more coming on a ship to Taichung forty-five to sixty days from July 9^th, the day they were picked up. There is space now in the three bookcases but they will be crowded once the ten boxes of mostly books arrive. It’s okay; there is room for another smaller bookcase in the study, if necessary.