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2-3Feb99
I am getting heartily sick of sweat. It is beginning to seem as if sweat pervades every aspect of my existence. By the time I walked the half kilometer to work this morning my shirt was soaked through with sweat. When I take clothes off, I have to hang them out to dry for a day or two or I'll end up with a hamper full of soggy clothes. I tried brushing the dust off of my black pants until I realized that it wasn't white dust, it was dried salt from my sweat sweat. Sometimes it feels like my scalp goes days without drying out. As to chafing, If I had a car here I should get a bumper sticker that says "I'm not bowlegged, I just live in the tropics".
A local TV show came out and shot some footage at my Lindy Hop class the other night. Here's the email from the dance studio:
JITTERBUGS ON TELLY:
The Airwaves continue to Jive with Jitterbugs with a showing of a documentry made about our studio opening in these less than flourishing times! "Opportunities in Crisis" will be shown tomorrow at 9:30pm on Premier 12, so don't miss us explaining why we put our bank balance on the line to do this Thing called Swing!
I realize that I'm not always the best about promptly replying to mail. However, I really appreciate getting mail from home. Not only do I sometimes get a little lonely out here, but since I never see or talk to any of my friends, I have very little idea what's going on in anyone's lives. I'm not asking for the great american novel, as a matter of fact it's easier to find a few minutes several times to reply to a few short notes, than it is to find half an hour or so to reply to a long letter. I hate to sound like I'm asking for gossip, but if you know of something major happening in a mutual friends life, please let me know about that too.
I always kind of thought that Chineses New Year was a parade in San Francisco with a few fire crackers associated with it. I'm beginning to realize that it is basically Christmas, New Years and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.I suspect that it's following close on the heels of Hari Raya has hidden some of the build up from me. With it two weeks away, the celebratory momentum is definitely building up. One sees bright red everyplace, and rabbits. Happy little rabbits adorn everything. The supermarket was even playing New Years music the last time I went. I don't know if this was a particularly obnoxious record, or it is all like this but every song was in the same monotonously cheerful, or was that cheerfully monotonous beat. I was worried that my head was about to explode like a Martian listening to country music.
Last week, I went on a tour of one of the factories of our parent company, Amtek. They mostly make things out of sheet metal. The prototyping shops had some tooling that just about any racer would fall instantly in lust with. It was interesting to notice several buddhist shrines around the factory. I've spent very little time in American factories, so I can't really compare and contrast.
When drinking something that purported to be sasparilla, I came up with the term "cartoon food". While the images in cartoons are recognizable for what they portray, with their flat colors and lack of depth they can in now way be confused with the real thing. Just as cartoons can have bright vivid colors, so can cartoon food be rich, sweet, sour, even hot, but it is food entirely in primary colors without shading, texture, subtlety or complexity. In retrospect, the Mee Goreng that I had at Denny's a while back was a good example of cartoon food. It was a recognizable portrayal of Mee Goreng, but not easily confused for the real thing.
Despite going dancing several nights a week, I've noticed that my cardiovascular fitness is getting very bad. It's the weather thing again. It's too hot and muggy to really enjoy doing any exercise outside, where one has the room to do most cardiovascular activities. Even if one has an airconditioned place to pursue vigorous exercise, it's still so humid that it takes about 5 minutes to totally soak through ones clothes. Our apartment has a pool, however it has been fenced off during the restoration project. I really hope that we can use it soon but I fear that somehow I'll even be able to get sweaty from swimming.
Last modified 06 Feb 1999
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