Adventures in Mushrooms

My new favorite restaurant is at the bottom of a major building/mall 7 min from my house. It is hot pot, and you sit at a counter, kind of dinner style, and you have your own hotpot. It’s just spicy seasoned boiling water, you cook everything in there [I’ll give the full description for those of you that don’t know]. Then I order tofu slices, lotus root, spinach, and lettuce which I eat raw, and dip everything in a sauce called ‘ma jiang’ which is like sesame/ peanut butter-y. So yummy. I would have a ma jiang IV if I could. For some reason the meat isn’t doing it for me. So then I try to sample different kinds of mushrooms, because they have so many that we don’t have in the country of Dubya. Last time I ate with Raleigh we tried “old person head” mushroom and this time Alison and I ate ‘monkey head’. I don’t recommend the monkey bit, can’t do the consistency. Ha! Nutritious and delicious. I’m losing the craving for Westerns food [I didn’t know I was going to be able to do this!] and it is SO nice to feel SO good after I eat, everything I eat here makes my body feel GREAT. As some of you may know [Linds, Son, thanks for your patience with my issues] I have some trouble with the typical American fare… anyway, I’m loving it. If I never use my kitchen once I’ll be ok with it. It’s VERY tiny, only two burners, that’s the only thing to cook on.

THE PARTY WAS FABULOUS-O. highlights include: despite bucketing rain, and like any other city there are no cabs, even at 10 pm, when it is raining, still many many people showed up. Probably 30 altogether. Some attendees: Wu Xia, after saying that she definitely could not come, nor could her man who has an English test on Sunday, stayed for a while, being cute and chatting in the corner, LBX downing whatever alcohol was around, and Wu Xia, well I tried to get her drink, at one point I had her double fisting Bailey’s in one hand and red wine in the other! Ha! They were very cute. Glad she got to meet some of my friends. My new Euro friends- Anna from Italy, Bea from Switzerland, who only speaks 5 languages. Old roommates April, boyfriend “Da” [meaning big], Bri, Alison, Jeremy. A handful of Chinese friends of both Summer and me. Then there was the lesbian constituency. Hysterical! Hannah, new friend from Decatur [ATL BABY! WHAT UP!] brought her ever growing collection of young cute Chinese lez with fabulous English and an penchant for Bailey’s. Love ‘em. Then there are the Euro lez, most seem to be Italian and let me tell you they are LOUD and HYSTERICAL. So need to hang out with them more. I like that my party ends up being 50% straight and 50% downright queer. Wu Xia of course had No idea. So it was a bomb party, the apt was just big enough, lots of beer and wine was gifted so no one went home parched, and the neighbors were actually pretty chill. One neighbor came upstairs to ask us to turn down the music, I was in my room chatting with some folks at the time, so Summer talked to her, and kindly gave me the finger as I looked on while the neighbor was bitching and moaning. Love the American-isms Summer has picked up! She’s great. It’s nice to chill with a non-traditional Chinese girl, I think she is the first Chinese I actually feel a close connection to. So, we kicked everyone out at about 1 [maybe?] and went to a club to ‘get down’ as they call it… A good time was had by all. This morning my apt smelled like a frat house, delicious. Tried to get folks not to smoke in my house but that was Far from actually being a reality. Ah, this is Not the US!

Just ran into my neighbor while on my way to the internet café, we chatted for a bit. She lives right below me and was telling me that her husband has a heart illness, but didn’t seem particularly sad about it [not surprisingly the Chinese def do Not where their heart on their sleeve!]. She has a 26 year old daughter who still lives with them [of course] and who supposedly ‘speaks’ English [speak and study are very different, but her mother thinks she can speak it] and I am dieing to hang out with. Love having neighbors, my own little neighborhood. Everyone loved my house last night, it is very homey. I’ll take pictures, possibly even today, since I cleaned, and post them soon.

Question: are y’all that I haven’t heard from enjoying my blog? Are you even reading it? I know there are the addicts- folks, Linds, Hil, The Berg, anyone else read it religiously? Or do you check it occasionally and see I have written way too much for you to be bothered to read so you scan it? Is anyone getting offended or annoyed? Crying? Laughing? Overwhelmed with joy at my magical way with words? Give me your thoughts/ comments, would love to hear. Apologies for being so out of touch email-wise, its been a crazy week but I should be answering all emails next week as the ol’ boss is going to Warsaw for a week on Monday.

Some Ani brilliance for y’all:

so we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter

serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water

and the old farm road's a four-lane that leads to the mall

and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall

i'm wondering what it will take for my country to rise, first we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes or nature succumbs to one last dumb decision and america the beautiful is just one big subdivision