I don't know if it was because I was drunk or because I hadn't had coffee for the first time in I don't know when. I don't think I was that drunk, I've been drunker, so I guess it must be the coffee.
It was really dumb, too. As careful as I am riding, drunk or not, this was the stupidity equivalence of falling off a sidewalk curb. I was riding on the pedestrian walkway crossing the Jingmei River, something I've done just about every time I left my apartment riding my bike, and my bar caught the railing and I went over, hitting my head on the railing on the other side.
Huge bruise and slight bleeding, visible due to receding hairline. The irony is that a helmet would have been perfect to protect from this injury. And recently I was even thinking of getting a helmet, finally.
When I was down in Kaohsiung for New Years, my uncle gave me a red envelope. Now, red envelopes are for kids, so it was a little weird, but I'm not married and I don't have a career, so I think I'm still considered a child. Anyway it was the gesture that counted, and I told myself that when I move to Kaohsiung, I'll wear a helmet.
I rode to school and went on with my day, but at the end of the day, my head still hurt and whenever you fall off a bike, your confidence is shaken for at least a short time. And I just had a premonition that I shouldn't ride, so I walked home. The impact was so hard, my top teeth were aching. Oh and I've found falls bring on bouts of melancholy. I should eat a chocolate bar.
And I'm not sure of the significance, but I'm moving next Sunday. I'm moving and I finally have a fall. No significance. This all started two weeks ago, when my cousin Audrey told me her aunt on her mother's side had an apartment available. I'm not exactly sure what's compelling me, since I really like my current apartment, but eventually I took it.
It's back in Taipei, but pretty far from anything I do. I'm currently living in Xindian, just across the river south of Taipei, and the new place is all the way on the east side of the city. I'll still have a river close by with arguably nicer parks and bikeways – the Key Lime River (基隆河).
Riding to school will be much more dangerous, all major streets, and will probably take no less than 30 minutes, more as the Summer comes around, as I'll probably ride slower in the heat. Same thing with rehearsals, all major street riding at night.
I can take the Key Lime River to the Saturday meditation group, and getting to Dazhi, where Hyun Ae lives, will be that much easier, too. She verbalized not minding meeting up more often than we had been this past year, so I think I'll take advantage of that. See if I don't get bored with her first.
Her little sister just arrived from Korea to start language classes for a semester at Taida. That was a surprise she dropped on me last week. I don't want to meet her little sister. When she and I interact, I don't know, I feel pretty close to her. The way we used to interact, of course, was totally inappropriate of someone who has a boyfriend, but she's toned it down since then, but there's still a feeling of closeness inappropriate for little sister to witness. Even if it's just in my mind. Especially if it's just in my mind.
Audrey's aunt and uncle reduced the rent since I'm kinda considered family, even though Audrey's mother, my aunt, died a long time ago. And they're allowing me no lease term, so whenever I want to move to Kaohsiung, I can. But if living there is nice enough, I just might live here longer.
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| WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 3:55 p.m. - Where I'm moving. |
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| 4:52 p.m. - Taipei Grand Hotel from the Dazhi Bridge over the Keelung River. |
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| THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 6:12-7:56 p.m. - Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival. I'd ridden to Pingxi before, but getting there for this involved taking the MRT brown line all the way to the terminus at Taipei Zoo Station, then taking a shuttle bus to Pingxi which took close to an hour on the same road I rode to get there. I tried to take quite a lot of pics but most would qualify for being "artsy" and "impressionistic". This was when I decided that as great as the zoom capabilities were on the Ricoh Caplio R4, I'd had enough of the poor low-light performance and needed a new camera. |
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| FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 9:08 p.m. - Rehearsal room in Ximending. |
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| Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super |
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| SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 5:48 p.m. - Celebrating Lunar New Year, the character for "spring (春)" is often depicted upside-down. We cornily like to say "spring has sprung". In Mandarin they say "spring has arrived (春到了)" but a homonym for "has arrived (到)" is to "turn upside down (倒)", like turning a bottle upside-down to pour a drink. So the character turned upside-down captures the whole idea of "spring has arrived". A clever people them Chinese. Then the Communists took over and began an ongoing campaign to dumb everything down. Canon IXUS 860 IS. |
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| FEBRUARY 25, 11:15 a.m. - My current apartment, which I love but will abandon because of the asshole white guy who moved in next door. Story of my life. It's hard to make out, but the box of my new Canon DIGITAL IXUS 860 IS is on the shelf. Canon IXUS 860 IS. |
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| 1:57 p.m. - Jingmei River default shot. Quite possibly right before I went over. IXUS 860. |
