The Brain Dump

Hello, again, from China.

Obviously, Christina and I made it here safely, but that is not to say the road was not bumpy. Oh no. <--a lot of negatives in those two sentences . . .

No, first we had to navigate the treacherous waters of bureaucracy. And not just any bureaucracy. Chinese bureaucracy. Paiyow. This was, naturally, back when we were still in the US. We had to go to Houston, because that is the only consulate in Texas (and Arkansas--but I'm getting ahead of myself).

We cut it a little close. Not our faults, though--it was the Olympics. The Chinese didn't want too many foreigners amongst them, so our departure date was delayed a month. Alright, fine. We only had to navigate Orbitz's bureaucracy to make them change our flights. Not so bad, what else you got? A hurricane? Oh . . . you . . . you have a hurricane . . . I did not know that.

Yes, the week Christina flew into Dallas, the week we decided to go to Houston, just happened to be the week that God (or maybe his Chinese Overlords) decided to send Ike our way. Awesome. Of all the fucking . . .

You know, when my mom told me that there was talk of evacuating Houston (on that Monday), somehow it didn't phase me. Of course there was a hurricane. I mean, it would have just been too easy any other way.

So I kept a close eye on the news. Luckily, the evacuation talk was set for Thursday or Friday. Christina was flying in Tuesday. We could leave Wednesday, turn in our visas, wait however many hours, and pick them up in the morning. We could still do it. This was made infinitely easier by my wonderful friends, Will and Kay, who were gracious enough to let us spend the night at their house. Kay was out of town, but I got to see Will, so that was fun.

So yes! We raced down to Houston and turned in our visa applications. While at the consulate Christina and I saw no less than three people leave in a fit of rage. The first was an American. We don't know what the problem was, but we did hear him when he began yelling at the Chinese bureaucrat behind the bulletproof glass, "I drove twelve hours to here from Arkansas! I drove twelve hours to here from Arkansas!" Alas, the Chinese man did not care. The other two were Chinese people. One looked to be in his early twenties. He was with what I assumed to be his girlfriend. Evidently, he did not appreciate the service he was receiving because he threw his pen down and started yelling. Until the security guard came over. Then he was escorted out. The other was a Chinese lady who didn't understand that when she got out of line to fill out an application, she couldn't just jump back to the head of the line. Add to this the fact that she was paranoid about losing her passports (she was applying for more than one person) and Christina and I got another bit of a show.

Things went smoothly for us. We filled out our applications, turned them in, and were stoked to get our visas the following day. We had to leave our passports with them overnight. That was something that was hard to surrender to the Chinese bureaucracy. But we did, and we spent a lovely evening with Will. The next day we found out that parts of the city were being evacuated at noon. Crappity crap-crap. The consulate closed for lunch at 11:30, didn't open again until 1:30. That would have been messy, so we set out to get everything done in the morning. We managed to get there--through traffic and with a bit of Starbucks to keep us awake--around 10:30. We found a parking spot. We got in line. We stood in line. We stood in line. We finally made it to the front at about . . . 11:05, I think. We gave the woman our receipt, she got out our passports, together with visa, and started to hand them to us when she said, "Three hundred dollars, please."

I'm sorry, what? Three hundred dollars? Good lord. But whatever, sure, here, do you take Visa?

"Cash only, please."

Yes, with what I will call a pun in very bad taste, the Chinese consulate did not take Visa. I actually got my wallet out and looked at it (knowing I only had sixty dollars) and was surprised when I did not find three hundred. I looked back at the consulate lady, smiling patiently. The phrase "We drove five hours from Mansfield!" bounced around my skull. Off to an ATM! Any ATM! Anything! We raced across Montrose. We found a Chase ATM--thank god! That's Christina's bank. We still have time! Except that it wouldn't process her card. Dammit. Will it--no, not mine either. Crap!

We raced again. What time was it? 11:15. Oh god . . . but then! Bank of America! We will pay the fee, just, please, give us money! Success! Back to the consulate! 11:20 and we were back in line. Waiting. Waiting only a few minutes. Finally we made it to the front at 11:25. Yes we do have three hundred dollars (in cash). The nice lady took that money and then she handed us our visas.

Relief . . . washes over us . . .

We got out of there with three minutes to spare. Thank you, Chinese bureaucracy. It took us another five or six hours to drive back to Mansfield (thank you, Ike) but we made it. And we were able to keep our already-changed plane tickets. Phew.

That, I feel, is the best word to describe working with any government: Phew.

What's the difference between a vice presidential candidate and a pit bull?

The pit bull has a longer leash.

Hello, hello, hello!

Christina and I have successfully made it to Anyang, Henan Province, China. Hoowah! It was a crazy long journey (we woke up in order to catch our 6:30am flight at 3:30am on the 17th, finally pulling up to our apartment in Anyang at 1:00am on the 19th--that is, after a flight to Toronto, a four hour lay-over, the flight to Beijing, and a six hour drive to Anyang--jet-lag doesn't even come close), but now we're finally starting to settle in and we have the internet working and I can update the ol' blog. I wanna give Christina a chance to putz around on the intertubes, though, so that's all I'll say for now. But there is much more to come, so check back with me tomorrow.

Yay for China!

I sit here in my living room, watching the First Lady of our country address the assembled Republicans, and I begin to wonder. To be fair, I began wondering last week, while watching the Democratic National Convention. I wondered when Michelle Obama spoke. I wondered when Hilary did the same. Biden, Bill, even Barack Obama--they all made me wonder if any of this really makes a difference. And--if it does--then why?

Better articulated: My parents are watching (did watch) the convention(s) on CNN. They are . . . kinda liberal, though living in Texas, or perhaps simply their aging worldviews, have lent their political affiliations a certain conservative tang. They watch CNN because it comes in HD.

Regardless, I watch it with them and on the television Wolf Blitzer (beard blazing) and Anderson Cooper and everyone else in the biz are explaining to me what the Republicans have to do tonight. They told me what the Democrats had to do, too. The Republicans just have to establish the tone of their convention. They just have to respect George W. while politely distancing McCain from his administration. They just have to keep the enthusiasm for Sarah Palin going. They just have to.

The way they do this is by speaking. The Democrats and the Republicans gather their best speech writers and their best speech speakers and they start telling stories, weaving a Grand American Narrative. Declarative sentences charge forth. Tropes march in strict formation. Standing ovations abound. Each convention tells its own story about the America that came before us, the America that we have today, the America we need tomorrow. At the end, everyone claps and cheers and hugs. Then CNN tells us how they did. Then the other side responds.

I wonder how any of this can matter as much as Wolf and Anderson say it does. How can either of the political parties accomplish anything when all they are doing is telling a story? Make no mistake: neither story is true. Both are simply idyllic visions of a Democratic or Republican Utopia. I wonder . . . I wonder how so much talk can make any difference.

But that's not the really amazing thing. The really amazing thing is that these stories do make a difference. They really do. They change people's minds and they rile people up and they keep the Grand American Political Machine chugging right along. Ask yourself, though--when all of this is over--what really changed? Did it really acquaint you with what any of these politicians are actually like, what they actually believe, how they'll actually act (how they have acted) in office? Or did it just give you a better story to tell?

Granted, I would be lying if I didn't admit that I, myself, am affected by these stories. My fingers tingle and my heart goes aflutter when one of these speakers starts a rhetorical tumbling routine and then sticks the landing. I do, after all, respect a well-written story. But to put so much stock in it all . . . to rest your vote, your political philosophy, your country's future . . . on a few well-told stories . . . it kinda makes you wonder . . .

Alright. This is it. The last day. And I have 5,059 words to write. Totally doable (I wrote 5,036 words the day I crossed the 50,000 word finishline), but it's going to be a long day.

Assuming you're interested (which, I suppose, is one of the reasons for writing a blog in the first place), I'll be updating sporadically throughout the day. So here's hoping it's at least exciting. The good news is I have two scenes coming up that I've had all night to think about, so I know more or less exactly what I want to happen. So at least I'll hit the ground running.

My father wants to take the family out to lunch and I need to shower, so my first update will probably be in two hours or so. My goal is 1,000 words per minute--16.666 . . . words a minute.

Alright, enough stalling. Time to get to it!

Update: 3:40pm

Ooooook. So my dad waited until two minutes before 1pm (as we were finishing our lunch) to tell me that he had scheduled a half an hour massage for both myself and him. So how do you cay "No" to a massage? Which is my way of saying I did not. We got a massage by the same lady, which meant we were there for an hour, which meant I did not finally settle in to get down to writing until 2:30. Which means I've only been writing for an hour so far. It hasn't been so bad. I have 653 words.

I've been writing in the living room, so as not to seem anti-social to my parents. But my father went to the store to by some cable that he wants for his new PS3 and my mother is asleep in a reclining chair . . . leaving me the only one aware of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the television. Time to go to my room and get serious about this.

4,406 words to go.

Update: 4:44pm

Another hour past and you can add 720 words to the count. That brings the total to 1,373. 3,686 to go. I imagine my family will want to eat dinner in an hour or so, so I'll update you again right before that.

Update: 5:45pm

Wooooo! One more hour: 906 more words. I'm starting to get cocky . . . 2,279--almost halfway there. I'm feeling a might peckish, so I'm going to take a break before finishing out the day. At this rate though, I'm hoping I'll only need another three more good hours. Kinda makes me feel bad about all those days I was a total slacker . . .

Update: 7:43pm

I'm back from dinner. So it's back to writing. My parents (naturally) chose today to rent the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which is . . . about the longest movie this side of The Lord of the Rings. I told them I would write and watch it at the same time. We'll see if I can keep up the pace.

Here we go.

Update: 8:43pm

645 more words. 2,924 words total. I'll try another hour of watching this movie, but I don't know if this pace is going to work.

Update: 9:47pm

Well, not quite an hour has it been, but a wonderful time I have had. I've effectively managed to ignore the movie more or less, whose intricacies have lost long ago. It's a confusing mess of a plot and it's trying to be way more than it should be . . . at least to me. Anywho, that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing to say I've had a heroic hour, managing 1,173 words, bringing my grand total for the day to 4,097. Ahhhh . . . 962 words left. If all goes well, I should reach 31,000 before this movie is done.

Huzzah!

Update: 11:08pm

Here the mighty stand triumphant!

Oh yes! I stand triumphant. 5,996 words! Here, wait. Hold on a second.

. . .

6,005 words! Is that a personal best? I have no idea. I'd have to check my January records. I don't care--I'm calling it a personal record. 6,000 words and I made my deadline with forty-nine minutes to spare! I'm glad I didn't leave it till the end . . . :)

Alright. It's been a long day. Time for beddy-by. Good night, and a Merry August to you all!