sushipanda

As if things couldn’t get any worse, I opened the door to my very surprised a-yi yesterday evening before I was ready to head out to the Agnes B Fashion show. Firstly, I was hoping the person at my door was NOT the a-yi; secondly, she brought the incredibly bad news that she was going to leave after one more week of working for me.

I was initially numb at the news, but now that I’ve digested it I’m really beginning to see what that means for me. For the entire month of August, up until the 9th day of September (which is the earliest day I can move into my new apartment), I will have absolutely no one to take care of me. For the first time in nearly three years.

Yes, I know, it sounds the squeal of a terribly spoiled child, but at this point that’s who we’ve all become. The last time I did my own laundry, ironed my shirts and pants, and did any sort of sweeping or mopping was back in my uncorrupted San Francisco days. And here I lie on my bed, nursing a ridiculously painful cough, a bleeding heart, a mind that is running at 90 mph in all directions, and in one more week I’m going to have to re-learn how to take care of myself. The fates sure know how to teach us lessons about ourselves in wonderful ways. Hopefully, by the time I move into the new apartment I’ll be freshly equipped in mind and body and spirit, and my shirts will be clean and wrinkle-free as a result of my own two hands. The phrase “taking care of yourself” has never meant more at this critical juncture of my life here in Shanghai.

Or, I could ask my Northern Angel to come back for a much needed visit. But I guess we all have to learn how to NOT take the easy way out…however tempting Northern Angel can be.

Can anyone come rescue me?

For one night, it was great to drop everything on my mind and revel in drunken friendship and celebration. If only we could make time stand still in these moments. Thanks to all my friends who came out and helped me remember this forever. And thanks to all those who thought about me on that night, if only for a second. May my 28th year be as rich as the 27 before it.

It’s funny how in such a short span, your life can change. Forever, just like that. The days and the nights appear and disappear as they always do, but you’re not the same person that you were the day before. In my absence from this space, several suns and moons rose and vanished in the hazy Shanghai sky. The trees outside my window, so familiar and static every time I stare out from my room into the rest of the world, continue to bristle in the breeze as they always do. But I will never be the same again.

The rest of the planet moves forward, and though I’m backward right now, soon I will have to catch up. I looked in the mirror this morning, another sleepless night closed out with the grey, heavy heat of morning. I’ve lost a lot of weight. The beer belly has shrunk down to a mere red-wine belly. Depression makes your body do that. It makes your soul not want to do the things it should be doing. Like staring out at the moving world when your heart is anchored down by pain and ghosts and questions.

Keep moving forward, keep groping for the future. This is what I tell myself.

Another year has gone by, and tonight I celebrate my birthday once again. Loyal readers will remember the celebration last year, a bonanza of booze and friendship and hopefulness. Hope that another year would bring completion, bring love and joy that defines the process of growing up. And indeed it has. Along with the requisite pain.

But tonight, as all the dearest people in my life who live in this city (sans a crucial one) gather at the swankiest new night club to fulfill their obligation of making me happy, I stand on the cusp of another new panda age. What will the next year bring? What kind of life will I live at age 28? I expect it to be filled with equal amounts of joy, pain, suffering, ecstasy, and love that my 27th year ended on. And you know what? That’s not half bad.

Wil used to say that all things are circular. All that I’ve given to situations and to people, whether bad or good, will come back to me. Love will come back to me. Sorrow will, as well. But I hope love more than sorrow, because that’s what I’m good at giving. My heart is big, and it will be filled again.

On the day after my birthday, a couple of days ago, I stumbled into the office fresh from a goodbye that never should have happened. I was greeted with the news that Jean, who as much as anyone has come to define who I am as a human being, gave birth to her beautiful baby boy on the same day 28 years after I was born. I had been joking with her for months before that she had to have her baby on the same day as my birthday. And what the fuck, it actually happened. I smiled when I heard that…and kept right on smiling.

All things are circular. May her son be blessed with the love and the warmth that I’ve experienced so much of, and will eagerly wait for someday. As all things go, as all people find who they are and with whom they belong, as all things are circular…this world is still a fucking magical place. It’s just TIME that’s a royal pain in the ass.

Happy Birthday to myself. Happy Birthday to Jacksan Poe Gorman. May you live two hundred beautiful years. Tonight, I drink to all that is good in my life, including all that has left and will return.

This morning the heat was full blast in Shanghai. I slept until around noon, sporadically tumbling out of bed to gulp mouthfuls of water in a preemptive strike against the evil forces of Hangover. Through the small seam under the curtain I could see the powerful rays of China sun, and I knew that it would be wise to spend the day inside.

Now it is 4 pm, and the sky is gray and filled with rumbling noises. About an hour ago, it opened up and literally hurled down torrents of rain. In a span of 20 minutes, the walkways in my complex were filled with small ponds of rainwater. The droplets attacked my window in a rough, pounding staccato. The trees danced in a rhythmic fury, and suddenly the day had taken a dramatic tumble in tone and feel.

Such are these little metaphors of life: nakedly conspicuous when necessary.

Never before have I felt that the moment in which I presently existed was this much of an inflection point. The next couple of months promises to serve up a healthy amount of change and evolution in not only my personal life, but for all those around me as well. I’ve humored before on many a previous post about how old I’m getting, but these past few days I’ve realized how very young I still am. I had likened myself to someone who had seen and experienced enough to take that next step forward; now I am aware that with that next step forward comes a host of new lessons to be learnt. Inevitably, they will be more complex and daunting in nature than those that have come before, or those with which I currently grapple and are seemingly so filled with pain. And at this moment, all of these realizations only make me want to escape as far away as possible, to remain in some cocoon of blissful detachment. I know this is not the manly thing to do, but can I still get an extension on my man-child days?

All I want for Christmas is that flying skateboard that Michael J. Fox had in Back to the Future II. Something like that would solve all my problems.