gyrmination

I hear soft drums tapping Nepali rhythms, a whimsical, meandering flute dances above it. Masala-scented breeze would chill me if not for the afternoon sun gently browning me. Suddenly, I am tempted to write “Namaste!” on a paper airplane and send it soaring down to the men gathered on the neighboring rooftop.
We are definitely not […]

Everyone,
朋友,
We will cross the Chinese-Nepali border sometime tomorrow. This seems a somewhat momentous event to me, as our epic Land Cruiser romp from Lhasa to here (Zhangmu) has come to an end and I prepare to enter a land where knowledge of Mandarin does not necessarily earn me bonus points. Another ramification is that I […]

Addendum to the China LP: how exactly to make your way across the warping sands of the Southern Silk Road from Hotan to Golmud. Reconstructed from recent memory, so take with grain of salt. It takes about a week and lots of poking around for current information unless you come armed with the tricks of […]

Woke up at 4 pm day before yesterday to the driver’s companion energetically scraping frost from the front windshield. Defrosting system to be installed. Hadn’t taken out my contacts in 3 days. Hadn’t showered in 7, Gobi grime scrubbed into my epithelium through and through. Freezing and cramped next to the window in a smaller […]

美影
不要照我的像
不要假设我的魅力
我不美
因为我还年轻
不要赶长大的潮流
不要给他人提供美的根据
不然一个陌生人会在众里立起
不请自来
不可抵抗的引力
会使得我不知不觉地嫁给他
几年后我是否会面目全非？
有朝一日你会把这张已经非事实给他看
看到那青纯的美貌
亮晶晶物质的双眼
我不是她的对手
他一定会讨厌岁月在我身上导致的沦落
于是为了追寻那张照片里的天真女孩
而离开我