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[A.K.A.T.D.N.]

Here's a nice theme, and I eat it up. I like the children and families and the way they gather at nights at outdoor restuarants. I like the neat streets and motobikes and ducking in to an awning alcove for a bite. It makes me feel the CHinese aspect of it all to hear them speak, eat, and to feel the rain collect in pools, dark nd murky, just like my eyes.


I do not have to stare at them, but can only feel I'm here, dreaming. I'd like to be somewhere else, maybe under a palm tree or in the mountains, but here, in Taipei, it makes me feel I'm where they are. It's their home, and mine for now, so I drink it up and watch them slurp their fine noodles. I don't care. THe cats scatter at such human kind.

So I relate. I can live here. BUt my stay is only predicated upon their existence, making me want to elbow my way into crowds and howl and say a swear word or two. They do not care, as long as I'm not being a jerk. MOst want to go to LA, California, and to them, this is the life. BUt here life seems to be fulfilling, robust. Nothing else back home makes sense other than Chinatown and the Asian communities and the rats that cling to the garbage and sidewalks. I rub my eye and say I'm here, away from it all, and a part of life. But to them, life just exists. It's not something as trasparent as glass and mannequinns. Yet the noodles.

THey make me bow and think. I could slurp and enjoy the taste of open air markets. But I sit there, and watch the life, feeling all along that what I enjoy is what they call existence. So I sit there, eat, and feel I'm just part of life and nothing more.