The American Way

I got extra homesick yesterday. And I wasn't even homesick for one place - I was aching for the whole Western seaboard: I miss drinking coffee in the morning with my mom and watching the fog burn off Lake Woahink. I miss taking my brothers and the dog out to the beach for romping in the Oregon dunes. I miss driving to Los Feliz with friends for midnight pie on a Tuesday. I miss Highway 101. I miss pine trees. I miss palm trees. I miss Fall in Alaska.

So today James and I went to the megaplex in downtown Taipei and saw Eagle Eye. Before the movie we ordered Burger King.

Feminism or control freakishness, I don't like men ordering my food for me. If I'm hungry, I can tell you about it myself. But since we're here and I can't talk real good ... that's pretty much what James has to do, every day.

But today I pushed ahead of him at the Burger King counter figuring I could manage "We want two number ones."

The lady behind the cash register waited for me to quit speaking and pointing. Then she turned to James and pressed forward with the transaction.

"Two not six," he said afterward. Turns out I'd said something like "We want six ones." That might've actually been more cheeseburgers than I could eat. But had I been given the chance, I would've considered it my patriotic duty to finish them. As it was, just one Burger King cheeseburger had that familiar overdone flavor and entirely too much mayonnaise.

During the movie some dude behind me kept readjusting his feet on my chair. If we were in America, I would've done a 180 and given him the stink eye. But we're not in America, and I don't know if stink eye is the appropriate means to defend against movie theater feet in Taiwan. Maybe I'm not supposed to ward them off at all?

Back home I wouldn't think twice about busting out my "could you please take your feet off my chair" in my voice that says "if you don't, we may have to throw down outside." But, groan, like it or not, I am representing America over here. And I don't speak Chinese. So I try to keep myself in mild-manners mode. We'll see how long that lasts.

USA - home where I don't mind being a bitch - I miss you.

Sometimes in Life...

... you do something real dumb, like go hiking in Hatcher Pass wearing your only pair of diamond earrings. One falls out somewhere in the vicinity of your tent and the tundra it's pitched on. It's midnight. It's frickin' cold. You comb your bedroll to no avail. Then for twelve months you carry a single diamond stud around in your jewelry case and contemplate a cartilage piercing just so you can wear it. You go to California, Oregon, Washington - solitary stud in tow. Then you come back to Alaska for two days. Your boyfriend unpacks and repacks his backpacking pack. However, he has done this at least a dozen times since you lost your beloved earring. In eight hours, you're leaving the country. Your boyfriend is about to vacuum the floor when he spots something shiny. Eureka! All of a sudden you have two diamond studs again. How's that for a good omen?

10 Day Count Down

I leave for Alaska in 10 days. Two days later, I leave the country. There’s an element of surrealism to it; I can’t believe just yet I’m going to be gone from the good ol’ U.S. of A. for so long. I feel like I should be preparing more for it, but how exactly? Eat enough cheeseburgers to last a year? Shoot some guns so I don’t forget how? I expressed my anxiety over departing America to Graham, a friend who lives in North Carolina. He said not to worry, he’ll send me baseball cards and a pair of Levis if I get too homesick.

Tomorrow Mom and I are driving to Portland so I can buy enough makeup to last. I also need some new pants, since - I’ve been told adamantly on several occasions - it will be near impossible to find pants that will fit my big white booty in Nationalist China.