Too much to write about and too tired. And, miles to go before I sleep.

Back in Starbucks. Wanted to make sure I uploaded some pictures to guard against my computer dying and losing all. Now, I just wait f0r the upload.

More food, more family. I swear his mother is making up for 20+ years’ of meals not cooked. And, the woman can cook.

The family is subsiding a bit, having to go back to work after the holidays. For me growing up, Chinese New Year was like a novelty holiday, a mere blip on the screen of “oh yeah, there are other people in the world who don’t groove to the Jesus/Christmas/Easter family calendar.” Here it is a bona fide shindig holiday. There’s even sales in the stores, like the day after Chrismas.

I may not have ever felt quite this white and Western.

The remaining family is still planning outings for the return of the native. The lavish attention is making me a bit jumpy, but I try to roll with the punches of offered kindnesses. I do feel completely unworthy of the mother’s gift and of Auntie Fay’s.

The only real difficulty at all here is natural — the actual residents of any area never know from the desires of tourists thrilling on the idea of the exoticness of their home town. If your biggest problem is not having anyone willing to show you the sights where you are most apt to get hosed by jacked prices and mediocre fare, I guess you maybe have hit a bit of Shangri-La.

Back in Starbucks. Wanted to make sure I uploaded some pictures to guard against my computer dying and losing all. Now, I just wait f0r the upload.

More food, more family. I swear his mother is making up for 20+ years’ of meals not cooked. And, the woman can cook.

The family is subsiding a bit, having to go back to work after the holidays. For me growing up, Chinese New Year was like a novelty holiday, a mere blip on the screen of “oh yeah, there are other people in the world who don’t groove to the Jesus/Christmas/Easter family calendar.” Here it is a bona fide shindig holiday. There’s even sales in the stores, like the day after Chrismas.

I may not have ever felt quite this white and Western.

The remaining family is still planning outings for the return of the native. The lavish attention is making me a bit jumpy, but I try to roll with the punches of offered kindnesses. I do feel completely unworthy of the mother’s gift and of Auntie Fay’s.

The only real difficulty at all here is natural — the actual residents of any area never know from the desires of tourists thrilling on the idea of the exoticness of their home town. If your biggest problem is not having anyone willing to show you the sights where you are most apt to get hosed by jacked prices and mediocre fare, I guess you maybe have hit a bit of Shangri-La.

The collective computer jones caught up with M. and me, so his cousin has brought us to a wi-fi connected Starbucks.

There is much to much crazy to report. I’ve been eating for days straight. Apparently, large Chinese families are nine times bigger than large Irish Catholic families.

I seemed to have passed the inspection and conspiratorial chatting in a Chinese dialect I could never hope to understand of assorted aunts and one mother. They seem to like me well enough in the company of the returning prodigal prince.

Goddamnit though, the food here is totally amazing. All of the aunts and mom have been cooking madly and nothing at all has caused a polite smile and discrete drop into a napkin. Everything is great. Weird.

Food is apparently a national pastime.

We’re in the lovely Singapore airport. I might move to the Singapore airport, since all of my needs can be met here. I showered. I had a cup of tea, an English cucumber, mini, crusts-cut-off sandwich and a bit of pound cake. I have the Internet. And, M.’s with me. Yeah, I’m moving to the airport.

The napping space we hired didn’t really work for either one of us, so a move to the airport will entail some insomniacal pacing the terminals. You can’t expect everything.

Didn’t realize the itinerary included a stop in Seoul, Korea. As photos that will eventually be uploaded attest, the most outstanding feature of the Seoul airport to me was a Dunkin’ Donuts. Sadly, without the local currency and the desire to have no more caffeine to increase the likelihood of rest, I passed on a cup of DD joe.

I had not seen one since I got in my car last March, bought an extra large and headed west. DD has not, as far as I know, crossed the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. of A. You definitely cannot find a Dunkin’ Donuts anywhere in the Bay Area, and there few comparable-style donuts. I brought their beans to my sister in Wyoming once. Still and all, they’ve made it to South Korea.

The start of the trip was auspicious. I hired a limo company that does work with my employer to get a mildly discounted, sleek ride to the airport. We scored the three seats in a row for just us two on an almost completely full plane.

Other than that, still having not made it to our destination and having lost a day, I can only say, Asia is way the fuck faraway from North America.

Sitting, waiting, anticipating.

Farewell my America. Happy new year of the dog to all my Chinese peeps.

Getting out of work was tough, but among the rush job, I got my review. These people like me. They really like me.

Weird.

While I am so digging the third world vibe of remote Mexico, I can’t fucking wait to get home!

Here I am in Mexico City. So far, nothing scary, even if I fear work and work functions.

I’m in the hotel room. Hotel rooms are always such a weird combo of oasis, like, yeah, time enough to think, read, whatever and enjoy myself, and horrible, horrible alienation. I whiplash back and forth from peace to loneliness to peace to loneliness. Like in the internal head soundtrack (made famous by Allie McBeal), one minute it’s Aretha (all R&B anthemy) and the next Bessie Smith (feeling all the shit that done bring you the fuck down).

Part of me is just getting used to the old domestic routine. I don’t know how to use the hotel phone and call Cali, and I am too tired to figure it out. No boyo, reassuring me it’ll be fine and probably this job is OK, and the evil is likely behind me (and I guess, um, not curing cancer).

Must sleep, big exciting day just jampacked with meetings tomorrow. (The other thing that kind of sucks about work travel, apart from say hotel-room alienation, is they fucking make you work.)

On vacation, I swell with the pleasure of a hotel room and room service and foreign lands and exciting adventures. At work, I just get exhausted.

And, GODDAMN IT, someone explain the water to me. I’m deathly afraid of the water.

If I’m not too lazy when M. goes to run 20 miles, I might upload my set from last night. It wasn’t a bad set. No notes, a few new things and overall I was gladly lowkey and relaxed.

Apart from getting laughs in the right places and playing for a pretty good-sized audience, I was gratified by my favorite schaudenfraude-ish comedy experience. Right before the show there was one comic with whom I had worked before (and who M. fucking hates, partially for her leaning heavy on the Asian thing, of which she’s half, and partially for her “edgy” yelling), and she was chatting with another dude. She was asking if he was performing, apparently he was a comic, but his name wasn’t on the night’s show flyer.

His reply, “Yeah, well, I’m up, but, you know, I’m like the best kept secret in SF comedy. They don’t always put my name on the sign, but I do them a favor and perform.” Or something to that affect. Your basic poor me, I’m misunderstood, but watch me blow the doors off this dump, comedy braggadacio that always, always, always is a portent of nothing pretty.

I made a mental note to watch this guy’s set, because clearly he was going to play like a rockstar.

I was fully and thoroughly rewarded for my judgmental cynicism. He blew the doors off alright, in the sense that he totally blew. He sucked so hard, you could feel the pressure change in the room. My personal favorite two moments were (1) his homeless rap with the big punch of seeing a guy with a sign “Will work for drugs,” rim shot, which he presented in classic, vaudevillian “Ta Da” outstretched arms to chilling silence and (2) his big closer with a 20-year-old street joke (personalized, though, which was nice).

The street joke is the one about walking up to a punk with multi-colored hair and something about thinking it was your son, because once you got drunk and fucked a parrot. Ha ha ha ha, like in 1979, when crayon-colored hair technology was new and punks were unusual and life was fresh and pure and clean.

But, a wacky punk reference in late 2005? By a guy with shoulder-length a straggly, aging biker/hippie ‘do, beard and mustache? In fucking San Francisco? Yeah, right, ’cause in the fabled streets of SF, where people go way the fuck out the way to appear creatively bohemian, a punk is noticeable?

I get way too much pleasure hating on that kind of comic and their irrepressible arrogance. M. spent the whole of this guy’s set watching me wince and laughing his ass off.

My other favorite bit was the poor guy’s opener about his appearance and, “Yeah, I know, you’re wondering if I ride with the Hell’s Angels.” Actually I wasn’t thinking that because, um, you look about as edgy as a triangle of pumpkin pie, and anyway, when was the last time anyone ever worried about the Angels? Altamont Speedway, maybe?

Honestly, though, I swear, I actually reserve my comedy bitterness and excessive bile for the jokers who you overhear bragging on their badass comedy selves. For any potential audience members, there is always an inverse relation to funny, if you overhear someone touting his greatness before a show.

Other than that, it was a fun show with a lot of interesting, funny and original folks. I wish I had talked with Sherry Sirof, if only because she had the best abortion reference I have ever heard.