Their Lonely Betters

I subscribe to an email newsletter that sends out a poem a day. Today I received this one by W.H. Auden. I really like it so here it is:

Their Lonely Betters

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.
A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.

Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.

Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.

I leave tomorrow morning for Bangkok. I've already laid out my big girl pants (erm, the clothes I'm going to wear tomorrow) and most everything else is spread out on my floor waiting to be tucked into my backpack. Time to go travel the world!

Box Bookstores

Barnes & Noble posted a big dip in holiday sales this year. I can still remember as a kid when Borders and Barnes & Noble came to Anchorage and my parents, being small business owners themselves, insisted we shop at the independent local alternative whenever possible.

I shopped in B&N before Christmas this year. I was in the store for about an hour and no one ever asked me if I needed help. Yes, it was days before Christmas and the lines were long, but still. At checkout, the clerk asked if I wanted to renew my membership. I weighed the fee against how much I was likely to spend there in a year and decided it wasn't worth it (i.e. the member discount wouldn't cover the fee). We had a short, friendly conversation and he conceded that he thought if the fee were a bit lower more people would bite, and then I admitted I mostly shop for books online. Then he said something about how when everyone does that, local jobs disappear. 

He wasn't antagonistic about it, just stating a fact, and while what he said is assuredly true - why should I shop at B&N? I got less out of my B&N experience than I do out of regular Amazon shopping. Since I'm a bit of a book fiend, I appreciate that Amazon tracks my purchases and then makes suggestions for similar books. I like that I get a monthly mailer with editor's picks and all the best new releases. And when no one in B&N even asked if I needed help, they're clearly not competing on the "customer experience" front. Further, now that I have a phone with 3G, I whipped it out and saw that the Kindle price for a certain book was $4 less than the version sitting on a B&N display table. That was an easy decision.

Even more confusingly, the first thing that greets you when you walk into this particular B&N is a giant display area for the Nook, their e-reader. And I think there was floor staff dedicated to hawking it, as opposed to helping me. Yeah, things are going the way of the e-reader, but you still need to shore up the base!

The whole business model seems fraught. I don't really like walking the aisles at B&N. I find it overwhelming and most the end displays seem to be geared toward a consumer who isn't me. 

Conversely, I still love a good used/indie bookstore, a place with a shelf full of employee recommendations where you can get store credit for bringing old stuff in. After B&N, my mom and I went over the University of Oregon bookstore and I really enjoyed it. So much so, I wound up buying three books that I hadn't intended to. 

B&N, you're doing it wrong.

Three more weeks...

Today I paid a visit to the great and glorious REI, the only clubhouse every upstanding Northwesterner ought to be a member of. Everyone else may as well just expatriate to New England, which is basically what I told my Seattle-born, Dartmouth-prof cousin who tagged along before we dropped him at the Eugene airport to fly back east.

I don't like travel shopping, there's an infinite amount of "preparedness" one can buy and the difference between necessary, nice-to-have and utterly superfluous can be difficult to discern. I like this kind of shopping slightly better when mummy dearest pays (here's lookin' at you, oh venerable matriarch). And I especially like it now that it's over and I have all this nifty gear laying on the garage floor. I love the anticipation that comes with packing.

It's high time I actually actually start making a game plan for this trip. Yesterday I sent off for a Russian tourist visa, and really a lot depends on if that comes through or not. I've also made hostel reservations for my first two nights in Bangkok. So I haven't dropped the ball entirely. Mostly, I'm procrastinating because I hate the idea of crossing anything off my list of things I want to see, and, inevitably, I can't see everything.

What I'm Reading

Just finished

In Praise of Messy Lives by Katie Roiphe 

This is a collection of essays by Roiphe, who is a Salon columnist and culture critic. She's best known (and in some circles, reviled) for a book she wrote in the nineties that took a critical look at "date rape." More recently, she's written a lot in defense of single motherhood. Like most interesting opinion leaders, she makes a lot of excellent points that are sometimes subsumed by a larger, less solid broad statement. Still, her most strident detractors thrive on making a straw man out of her arguments. I really enjoyed a lot of what she had to say and the book as a whole.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

I read it! December was the month of mid-career, feminist lady writers for me. Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone when she was 26. I really liked the details on the physical aspect of the journey and her introspections were fairly interesting too, though I lost interest in the last 20 pages. That's not necessarily the book's fault. Introspective journeys are interesting when they're fraught, not when they're resolved ("I'm happy and at peace with myself now!" ...zzzzzz). What most surprised me about this book was how little Strayed wrote about loneliness. I doubt I could spend so much time on my own, but props to her.

Currently reading 

The Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses

An anthology of the best poetry, fiction and essays from lit mags. It's a monster book so I try to read one or two things per night before I go to sleepy sleep. So far, I've read some good poems. I finished one and thought to myself, "Wow. This is kind of dark. And abstract. I don't really get it, but I like it," figuring it was some cerebral, meta poem that only people with master's degrees can properly understand. Then I looked in the back of the book and saw that it was written by a fourth grader. Fourth graders with Pushcart prizes. Man...

I'm still working my way through the 2008 travel writing anthology and deciding what's the next thing I should plow through. I can probably get through two more books before it's time to leave.

Also: This is an excellent profile of George Saunders. I've only read a tiny bit of his short fiction, but now I think I'll buy his new book, Tenth of December.

2012 Reviewed

This may be my favorite kind of blog post, and now I'm doing it for a fifth time  (see 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008).


Shanghai - just shy of 5 months
Cambodia - 1 day (end of last Christmas break)

Wuxi/Tai Hu - two nights

Yangshou - 2 nights

Guilin - 1 night (Billy and I had our flight back to Shanghai delayed)

Beijing - 6 months

Taiwan - 1 week

Chicago - 2 days

Oregon - 5 weeks

Seattle airport - a few hours, a few times

Most of the things I thought would happen this year didn't, but in a good way. Instead of spending the second half of the year traveling, I went up to Beijing to be a chief editor and I got all the power and the money, money and the power, minute after minute, hour after hour. Not really. But sorta. (By the way guys, that's a Coolio reference.)

In May, all my plans changed so quickly. I'd already dropped my passport off at the Vietnamese embassy - all ready for my extended beach stay - and then I wound up speeding in the opposite direction. To an urban desert. To work my ass off for six months. Hmm.  It was stressful, but it was great too. 

Despite the added responsibility, I wrote a cover story I feel good about. I spent a few fun weeks catching up with my good friend Lily. I savored my final months in Shanghai. I showed my brother what expat life is like over spring break. For a second time, I moved alone to a foreign city. And by making a life in Beijing - a basically unpleasant place - I proved to myself I could probably be reasonably comfortable anywhere. I met wonderful new people through my roommates and through work. I probably ate Peking duck six times in the space of my first month up there (lots of lunch meetings, and all the hotels want you to try theirs...). I took an online course in sociology and half a course in modern poetry (which I need to finish). I was in my college girlfriend Elizabeth's wedding and saw my best friend Ashley for the first time in four years. I caught the bouquet, and Tebowed it. There wasn't much competition because all my other girlfriends waved their hands limply at shoulder level, kind of like "please don't let it hit me!", which seems to be the post-feminist college woman's requisite bouquet-catch behavior. Too bad, because I was ready to throw some 'bows... ironically. 

 Now it's almost time to revisit last year's resolutions, which I have mixed feelings about, because everything just went so differently than I planned. I got into zero grad schools, which, with the last year in perspective, seems like a good thing. I may apply again, but I don't have a sense of urgency about it. Though I had less time to write this year, I still made improvement. The things I learned both about editing and about myself in Beijing are invaluable. As I prepared to leave Shanghai, before I knew I was moving to Beijing, I had a lot of anxiety about "what's next." I don't have that anymore. Partly because an extra six months at the magazine affirmed that I'd rather write than edit, partly because it's a confidence boost to be hired to manage something. I am good for a task that's tangible, that has dollar signs attached to it. Sometimes you don't get that sense  when you're just writing articles. When I think back on 2012, I'll remember that was the year I moved to Beijing with only three weeks' notice. And that makes me happy, that life is surprising like that. Enough stalling! On to the resolution revisiting:

2012 Resolutions

1. Be less busy/prioritize time with the people I care about most (Nope. Basically, I did the opposite of this.)

2. Eat and cook more quality, nutritious food, eat less crap (Kind of. I ate well when it wasn't deadline week. When it was deadline week I drank too much coffee, then got ravenous and sucked down a lot of McDonald's. I also did a fair amount of therapeutic baking. This is probably a wash.)

3. Prioritize exercise (I exercised regularly in Beijing, except during deadline week, and I always walked or biked to work)

4. Make meaningful progress in writing fiction (Nah, not really)

5. Travel more (I saw Chicago, Tai Lake and Yangshuo over a couple weekends...)

6. Journal every day-ish (briefly) and keep track of books I read, movies I watch and people I meet (ugh, I tried to do this for about three days and it was hard and boring. I journal when the mood strikes, which is about quarterly.)

2013 Resolutions

1. Lose 10 pounds. There's no deadline week when you're fun-employed, so no excuses.

2. Read a lot of good modern things and a lot of classics.

3. Write a novel

4. Write 3-4 non-fiction essays

5. Pay my respects to Lenin and Ho Chi Minh, cuz I love me some embalmed Communists

Five seems like enough. I feel nervous typing them since I batted one-ish for six last year, but then having zero jobs  takes out a major variability factor. Anything I don't accomplish will be my own deciding. Now I am the master. (That's a Star Wars reference, guys.) Happy New Year!

One Month Away

I've been on the Oregon Coast 11 days now, and I'm still not used to the good-smelling air, big, wet, green forest and beautiful Woahink Lake and the Siuslaw River. I love getting in the car just to look out the window, and I don't really mind it's been pissing rain since I arrived. Six months in Beijing lends a lot of perspective.

In about a month I leave for Bangkok. My plans are vague, I haven't thought too hard about where exactly I'm going because every time I sit down to contemplate where I want to go the list gets bigger.

I am nervous about being on my own for so long. It will undoubtedly be lonely in parts, but my friends who've traveled in SE Asia brush off my concerns, it's such a well-traveled route I can always meet people. Still, I don't romanticize the lone wolf aspect of it, I'm traveling alone because (surprise) most people can't take off for a four-month, mostly-unplanned walkabout.

On Monday I stumbled across the essay, Every Woman Should Travel Alone, and have decided I'm going to start thinking of the solo aspect as a challenge rather than something to be anxious about. I've been interested in Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (by Cheryl Strayed, who hiked 1,100 miles alone when she was about my age) since it was released, but I think I'll make the effort to read it before I go. And my last source of courage, but by far the most relevant, is my good friend and freshman roommate Lily who has been traveling the world alone for over a year now. We'd hoped to travel together for part of her journey, but I couldn't get out of China fast enough, so she preceded me in many of the places I want to go. She blogs here.

What I'm reading:

Just finished
Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion by Janet Reitman

An excellent, incredible read. Some parts are so crazy, it seems like science fiction. I listened to a Longform podcast with Reitman. She talked about struggling as a hard news reporter and "surviving on kill fees" for magazine articles that never quite came together for years. She could be my cool big sister, alas, I'm stuck with two stinky brothers. Curses!

Currently reading
The Best American Travel Writing 2008

I've read many of the essays before, but thought I'd give it another gander before my travels. I'm in the middle of a piece about river travel in Congo.  My favorite so far has been a journalist who hung out with a bunch of pirates in the Strait of Malacca.

Madame Bovary

While I'm not working, I want to fill in as many gaps in my classic lit knowledge as possible. There are two great things about reading a bunch of classics: 1. They rarely disappoint and 2. I have a Kindle so a lot are free. So far, Gustave Flaubert is doing a pretty good job making me sympathize with his bored and despairing country housewife, Emma. And I love this description of the sinister rich folks she comes across:

...And through all their gentleness of manner pierced that peculiar brutality, the result of a command of half-easy things, in which force is exercised and vanity amused -- the management of thoroughbred horses and the society of loose women.

Timeless, no?

Old/New

Old writing station (in Shanghai)

New writing station (in garage - garden view)

Last work day in Beijing. This is the dream team. They saved me on several occasions and made work (even when it was taking place at 2am) fun. I'm going to miss these ladies. 

But then this happened on my first full day at home. First tree I've helped put up in years. I'm so happy to be here.

Closing a Chapter

I've passed the crown, relinquished the keys to the kingdom, I am no longer the chief editor of That's Beijing. I am appropriately sad, or I was last Friday. Now, I'm sitting in a French Concession cafe feeling supremely relaxed. I took the high-speed train to Shanghai sunday night. After six months away, it felt like coming home.

But for the times when being chief editor was exceedingly stressful, I had a comfortable life up north and I learned a lot. I was sent to Beijing to make major changes to the publication and I'm satisfied with what I accomplished. I had excellent roommates and I formed meaningful friendships with my work teammates. Last Tuesday evening I went for my final free massage. Alas, as I step away from the swaggy world of lifestyle magazines, I reckon I've had more spa treatments in China than I'll have for the rest of my life.

Even if it hadn't come with a generous helping of free facials and comped dinners, I couldn't have dreamed up a better way to have spent the last three years. I went to rural schools in the mountains of Anhui Province, to crab farms in Jiangsu and to China's richest village, Huaxi. I've been to Tibetan mastiff kennels and movie lots and inside plainclothes police vans. I went to Guangzhou and Hong Kong and all the way to the Kazakh border in Xinjiang where I scored a Saddam Hussein nesting doll.

Last week my mom sent me a note she found on her computer. She'd typed out a conversation we had early one morning my freshman year of high school. I had awakened her to write a letter for me to put in a time capsule to be opened my senior year, and I was waking her up because I'd forgotten about it and it was due. So far, this all sounds about right. I didn't usually forget homework, but I was always a bit contemptuous of any assignment I saw as sentimental. Not for any good reason, in retrospect it was a nice thing for our teacher to organize, I think my feeling at the time was if you weren't challenging me then you were wasting my time. Or in this case, my mom's!

I recall she wrote a longer letter later, but the one she sent so I wouldn't miss the deadline was as follows:

You are a great daughter, a good student, in wonderful shape from all of your JROTC drills and RECONDO training.  I appreciate your sense of humor, wit and ability to write, how you read books all the time, how you pay attention to current affairs and engage your father and I with questions about world events.  

I like looking back on this now because, thought it was something she wrote quickly, I think it shows that at 15 I was well on my way to becoming who I am today. Three years of JROTC was enough to learn that the military wasn't for me, but I still try to make fitness a part of my life, except when I get too busy, or when the temperature drops in Beijing (a cold apartment is deeply demotivating). Reading and writing are still the two most fulfilling things that I do. And I'm still insatiably curious about the world. I want to see the whole goddamn thing. This winter I plan to take a sizable chunk out of that goal. I'm going home for Christmas and then flying to Bangkok in January. 

I'm only in Shanghai for the week to finish up a bit of banking and say goodbye to friends. I've taken a lot of long walks. Last night I went to my second Shanghai Sinterklaas celebration (the Dutch version of Santa, only their Santa rides a boat manned by his black "helpers," and he stuffs naughty children in a sack and hauls them back to Spain - horrors!). I've fielded the "what are you doing next" question a dozen times now and still haven't perfected my answer. So far I'm responding with something along the lines of "uh, writing?" Question mark included, as if the person I'm speaking with will maybe have a better idea than I do.  

But actually, I'm very excited about what's coming next. I'm thrilled to be the sole master of my creative energy for this next season, to have time to read and write, and to keep filling up my passport.