I am back from China is more or less one piece

I was planning on transcribing my journal that I wrote while I was there, but now of course, that I am back I can't find it, so I will just give a quick tour of the highlights.
And of course most of my fears turned out to be silly. Let's start with them.

Malaria: I did get eaten up by mosquitoes one day but it was in a city and therefore, according to my travelling compasnion, not a malarial risk. But then I got scared that the malaria medicine I was taking would make me go psycho, as my travelling companion warned. Turned out not to be a problem.

Bandits: As far as I could see, China was crime free. But our guide Dorjee did refuse to let us eat in one place because the owners were muslims and he thinks muslims eat people. We spent some happy moments trying to assure him that this was VERY VERY unlikely, as Muslims have very strict dietary rules, but I don't think we succeeded. It's possible that he didn't really mean Muslims though.

Chinese airports: The Shanghai airport has three confusing floors, with the roof of the top one looking like a giant hairbrush, huge bristles coming down. On the way there I managed fairly well, with some running around, but on the way back I had a really long layover so I decided, what the hell, let's get drunk. I had a long island iced tea and then I made the mistake of ordering iced coffee with brandy, wwhich came with ice cubes (potential dysentery carrier that I had to pick out) and a big raw egg that i had to scoop out. And then when I went to check in they told me I had to retrieve my luggage and recheck it in, which meant a frantic drunken dash through the airport, sweating sheets, and only just making my plane.

yak butter tea:
I had some, and it wasokay. Salty, creamy, and reminiscent of breakfast cereals. It was fine except that the idea made me nauseous. But it was worth it to see Dorjee's father, a wizened little old Tibetan, hand churning the tea.

hepatitis: well who knows? I don't even know what the symptoms are.

altitude sickness: In Ba Mei, the most remote place we went, I had to rest every few feet I walked and my lips and fingers went numb and I had a symptom I can onloy describe as butt weirdness. But then later I got true altitude sickness. Headache and nausea, lying in the dark groaning, after a brisk little eight kilometer hike which my travelling companion said was "almost" enough exercise for her. I just lay there and groaned.

insomnia: and plenty of it! Especially the night we spent with Dorjee's adorable relatives and their adorable screaming baby. It really was cute but not a wink of sleep!

not being able to find anything to eat there
right on the money. Turns out one week is about all I can handle of Szechuan food. Dorjee would find something we liked and make sure it was at every meal after that. or maybe small village restaurants don't have a lot of variety. Either way, I won't be eating pork again anytime soon.

Getting on my friend's nerves:
And how!

stranded in China with no place to sleep:
we were okay there--lots of dirt cheap hotels, but we got tired of towns. All day long we would drive through gorgeous countryside only to fetch up in some dingy, nasty little town where we would spend the night.

Those were my fears, but tomorrow I will write about the good stuff, the cool stuff that I saw and bought.

Cherry on

Why did I say I was going to shanghai?

That's the title of one of my favorite Doris Day songs, but the truth is I really am going to Shanghai. Tomorrow, and I am more than slightly freaked out by it. I am taking off, leaving on a jet plane, with toilet paper and a towel.
So it all started a few weeks ago when I was trying to find something extra special to do on my birthday, and my friend said she couldn't do anything with me, she was going to Tibet. So I said I wish I could go to Tibet. She said, "Come with me!" And now I have a ticket to China (we're actually going to be in the Sichuan province of China) and I am more than slightly freaked out by the whole prospect.
My fears include
1. malaria
2. bandits
3. not being able to figure out how to navigate a Chinese airport to make my connecting flight from Shanghai to Chengdu
4. yak butter tea
5. hepatitis
6. altitude sickness
7. insomnia
8. not being able to find anything I can eat there
9. being a burden to my friend because of my weakness and constant neurotic fears and finally
10. being stranded in China with no place to sleep

So the next time I write I will be a seasoned world traveller with a two week trip to China under my belt.

Is this the death of the Cherry Terror?

Side note: I just came back from a weekend in heaven with a hundred or so of my closest friends and can I just say i llove my friends with a more fanatical, heartbreaking and pure love every year? Hell YES. Did we have a good time? We made the history books of good times. After a weekend like the one I just had I just walk around glowing for a long long time. Love is in the air...

Cherry on everyone

YES!

So I got mself worked up into a royal tizzy over this whole "wrestling naked in oil" thing, and then when I got there it turned out to be very simple and lots of fun. Drink tequila, get in the ring. I wrestled twice and only in the second match did it get oily: halfway through they started to pour baby oil on us and I'm still a little greasy, truth to tell.
The hidden content of all this is my identity crisis: I used to be a svelte little number rampaging through the San Francisco streets, drunk as a skunk, kissing women and running away. There used to be nothing I wouldn't do. Porn shoots and sex parties. But then I gained twenty five pounds and lost my mojo. I let too many naysayers and party poopers tell me that I was too loud. I tried a couple of schemes and plans that went awry. Stuff happened. I had to go to Florida to visit my mother an grandmother, and a vulture hit me in the face.
And the truth was---pause--I just wasn't sure I was Cherry anymore. Gasp! No, it's true! I thought my days of wild parties and antic behavior might be in the past. Because you can't fake that stuff and you don't even want to try, it's no fun wrestling someone in oil because you're trying to be someone you used to be. It's just not a good motivation. You either are that bad girl or you're not.
But Friday night I was. And met all kinds of people and they actually liked me and asked me out and want to kiss me and do all kinds of stuff.

Which brings me to the other problem: I'm not ready for anything more than giggling at someone from across the room. This is still day sixteen or so of heartbreak, after all. I'm not ready! It's all moving too fast! I have to practive saying what I mean and meaning what I say, or I'm going to end up in another one of those situations where I am sneaking out of God knows where at three in the morning thinking, oh my God, what have I done? I hope this dude doesn't know my real name!

And then there's the energy expenditure! I was up something like five hours past my bedtime and the entire rest of the weekend was more or less spent recuperating. I so envy my friend Petra (not her real name) who seems able to stay up till five, sleep till two, eat a pizza and repeat the procedure. One night out and I have to spend the entire rest of weekend on the couch, watching Cary Grant movies and drinking nutritive teas. Did I get any real writing done yesterday like I promised to do? Certainly not. Why can't I remember that I am something like a nineteenth century invalid, suffering from the vapours and neurasthenia and hysteria and requiring smelling salts and hartshorn on an hourly basis (that's atavan and coffee in this day and age). And how am I ever going to reconcile the fact that I need to drink too much tequila and run around making trouble in latex with my other need to live an unruffled and productive life with lots and lots of time for writing? And what am I going to do about the very cute couple who asked me if I want to do a threesome with them?

I'm feeling a little like a kinky Bridget Jones. I have a feeling I would get very little sympathy from most people: oh no, I have too many friends and too many parties to go to and too many people asking me out on dates so I can't get my writing done. And next week the party I have to go to is of course Friday, and I have to teach a class Saturday morning, and then there's another party Saturday, but I probably will be all done by then, I'll probably be hitting the couch with Cary and tea, or maybe back episodes of South Park and a bag of cheesy poofs. And then I think I am making dinner for friends on Sunday. And when will I get my writing done!!!????

Wrestling naked in oil

One of the downsides to being someone who has done some crazy shit is that people will expect you to do even more crazy shit, which you (I) don't always feel in the mood to do. Which is why I find myself semi-committed to wrestling naked in oil tomorrow night. Do I want to? Should I? How does one even begin to evaluate the question of whether one "should" wrestle naked in oil?
I want to want to wrestle naked in oil; I want to feel that raging cherry spirit that says "pass me the tequila and oil me up, boys!" After all, I have wrestled in tapioca and in lubricant but not, yet, in oil, and I have so few occasions to wear my latex cherry thong.
But truth is truth, and I am feeling flabby butted and heart broken these days. I was two years younger and thirty pounds lighter the last time I wrestled in anything!

Well, I tried to compromise. I made arrangements to be there--"Sorry, Mommy has to miss movie night this week because Mommy's so-called friends want her to get drunk and wrestle in oil. Put I promise that tomorrow we can play a fun game called 'Nurse' where you get to take care of Mommy's hangover." (I know, I am the worst mom ever, but my kid loves me, so screw you). And then I said, okay guys, to my friends who are planning this caper. I will come. I will live by the boy scout motto and come prepared: I will bring tequila. I will shave my naughty bits. I will wear cherry pasties and a thong. But if I don't want to do it when I get there, the hell with yall.
But then my so-called friend says, oh great shug, sign up for a match. And I said, say what? So if I don't sign up ahead of time I can't wrestle? What if I sign up and then don't feel like it? What if I don't sign up and then I DO feel like it? This is already one of the reasons why I am not a famous stand-up comedian: I don't feel like performing on demand, goddammit (not quite being funny enough might be another reason, but I doubt it). I refuse to go around coking myself up just so i can live up to promises I made before I knew what I was going to feel like doing. Keerist. So who knows what I m going to do. Then again, one of the joys of being me: who knows what I am ever going to do?
Just where did I put my latex cherry thong anyway? Tequila, anybody?

Cherry on, yall

The true meaning of chisman

Life continues. This week I read an essay that saved Christmas-- excuse me, I mean Chisman, as that holiday will now, thanks to this poor ESL student forever be known at our college. She wrote an absolutely charming essay about how hardly anyone knows the true meaning of Chisman and we should all renounce our materibble-ism and get in touch with the true meaning of Chisman, and by the time the essay was done, I was gushing tears of mirth. Merpy Chisman everyone!

day 10

Had to read paper after paper today, all these test papers. ESL found poems are some of my favorites: The thoughts of children, however,therefore; the color of snow (i think it) in additonally.
Long tiring day. Then I forgot to dry my clothes. So right now all my pants are wet. Not the fun kind of wet either.

poop cracker

heartbreak, day 9

This has been a long long day. Saw lots of people, gots lots of love, told people stories. But here's the thing I don't like to say: there's this loneliness seeping into everything, even when I am with people, even when they tell me they love, as if everything and everyone is just faintly blue and sad. And this loneliness says it doesn't matter how many people I see, because only one person really exists or can make me feel as if I exist.
Still and all, it is good to have people to see and places to go and stories to tell. I met an Enlgish guy named Benjamin and we talked about the Protestant ethic and Max Weber. I met another Brit named Simon who wore orange pants, and yet another guy whose name I forget who told a tory about wearing a sundress while on a road trip in Texas: "Yall should just git." I met my friend's hunky boyfriend: yowza. I told the story today about the time I caught a mouse with my bare hands.
Remind me to tell you sometime.
I listened to a lot of people perform at a cabaret but got so tired I decided not to perform myself and just came home. And now: herbal tea, melatonin, brush the teeth, good night.Heartbreak's not so bad. It's here on the end of lonely street...

Cherry on everyone

my asshole smells like cinnamon

And what else is there to say, really? It was a good party.