Wednesday, May 18, 2005
I'm So Tired
My mind is writing checks the body can't cash or something like that. Can't recall if that line is original with me or a variation of some song lyric long buried and just pushed to the surface. Arrived back in the "Big HK" as Julian terms it at about 1am Wednesday after about 20 hours total in transit and couldn't sleep worth the proverbial tinker's damn. Awoke at 7:30am Wednesday, mulled around listlessly until hunger and thirst and an empty fridge forced me out to shop and consume prepackaged edibles and then reported to work where I found I'm not due back until Thursday.
Some flashbacks: Two of C's primary goals while in the US were:
1. Visit a strip club. (None in China or Hong Kong that I know of, but the corrupting influence of Hollywood whetted her interest).
2. After shmoozing with a fellow Chinese tourist she met on the boat tour of the 1,000 Islands area who loudly hailed the price and selections of electronics at a Best Buy, go to a Best Buy.
I dunno about you, but if I'm only spending 10 days in my native land, about the last two things I want to do is hit a strip club and a mall chain store.
But mission accomplished. I know many guys would kill to have a girlfriend who is eager to soak up a titty bar, and I guess I count myself lucky in that regard but the places generally depress the hell outta me. Syracuse was no exception, though with guidance of my bro in law we managed to find one of three that didn't charge an arm and a kidney for cover and where there were other male/female couples checking out the silicone. The three or four "dancers" (I use the term loosely) we saw didn't so much dance as slouch their way through some hip-hip, though one managed to do some impressive 45-degree lifts on the pole, her surgically enhanced, gravity defying breasts remaining plasticized perky in relation to the floor.
"It's all the same thing," C remarked upon leaving, a little disappointed that it wasn't like in the movies. She was also a little amazed that neither my bro in law or myself have ever indulged ourselves in a lap dance.
Best Buy in the Syracuse New York Carousel Mall on Sunday afternoon is like the movies. Like a stimulating cross between a Soviet-era Lithuanian documentary on flax production and an American Meat Council film strip on "Pork: America's Nutritional Keystone!"
"You're bored, aren't you?" she asked somewhat rhetorically as I watched her carefully compare prices on iPods and digital cameras for 45 mintues as a service guy about my age in a blue uniform jabbered about what a great day and purchase opportunity it all was.
I think one of the things that jeebs me out so badly about an American shopping mall is the huge number of folks my age and older in ludicrous uniforms trying to make a barely living wage. Combined with the forced cheer, the bad lighting and the general mall denizens, in darker moments it all just makes me want to lock the garage in the home I don't have, swallow a combo of vodka and pills that I might have, and turn the ignition on in the car I don't have.
I could be one of those folks, and have previously come closer to that station in life than I care to recall. Something I have never confessed to C.
My mind is writing checks the body can't cash or something like that. Can't recall if that line is original with me or a variation of some song lyric long buried and just pushed to the surface. Arrived back in the "Big HK" as Julian terms it at about 1am Wednesday after about 20 hours total in transit and couldn't sleep worth the proverbial tinker's damn. Awoke at 7:30am Wednesday, mulled around listlessly until hunger and thirst and an empty fridge forced me out to shop and consume prepackaged edibles and then reported to work where I found I'm not due back until Thursday.
Some flashbacks: Two of C's primary goals while in the US were:
1. Visit a strip club. (None in China or Hong Kong that I know of, but the corrupting influence of Hollywood whetted her interest).
2. After shmoozing with a fellow Chinese tourist she met on the boat tour of the 1,000 Islands area who loudly hailed the price and selections of electronics at a Best Buy, go to a Best Buy.
I dunno about you, but if I'm only spending 10 days in my native land, about the last two things I want to do is hit a strip club and a mall chain store.
But mission accomplished. I know many guys would kill to have a girlfriend who is eager to soak up a titty bar, and I guess I count myself lucky in that regard but the places generally depress the hell outta me. Syracuse was no exception, though with guidance of my bro in law we managed to find one of three that didn't charge an arm and a kidney for cover and where there were other male/female couples checking out the silicone. The three or four "dancers" (I use the term loosely) we saw didn't so much dance as slouch their way through some hip-hip, though one managed to do some impressive 45-degree lifts on the pole, her surgically enhanced, gravity defying breasts remaining plasticized perky in relation to the floor.
"It's all the same thing," C remarked upon leaving, a little disappointed that it wasn't like in the movies. She was also a little amazed that neither my bro in law or myself have ever indulged ourselves in a lap dance.
Best Buy in the Syracuse New York Carousel Mall on Sunday afternoon is like the movies. Like a stimulating cross between a Soviet-era Lithuanian documentary on flax production and an American Meat Council film strip on "Pork: America's Nutritional Keystone!"
"You're bored, aren't you?" she asked somewhat rhetorically as I watched her carefully compare prices on iPods and digital cameras for 45 mintues as a service guy about my age in a blue uniform jabbered about what a great day and purchase opportunity it all was.
I think one of the things that jeebs me out so badly about an American shopping mall is the huge number of folks my age and older in ludicrous uniforms trying to make a barely living wage. Combined with the forced cheer, the bad lighting and the general mall denizens, in darker moments it all just makes me want to lock the garage in the home I don't have, swallow a combo of vodka and pills that I might have, and turn the ignition on in the car I don't have.
I could be one of those folks, and have previously come closer to that station in life than I care to recall. Something I have never confessed to C.
# posted by Justin @ 12:56 AM 
