Even Betel Nut Girls Get The Blues

They sit or stand in glass booths by the roadway. Colorful flashing lights and neon attract attention. Miniskirts and skimpy tops attract more. They run out in their high heels and sell betel nuts to truck drivers, and to anyone else who needs a mild stimulant and badly stained teeth. In between customers, they sit exposed at a high table preparing more batches of betel nuts. They don’t have time while doing this to write their NaNo novels.

Me neither. Stepping through meeting agendas, negotiating technical details and resource usage while outnumbered two or three to one (the Chinese don’t under-staff projects like we do), touring factories, going out with our hosts to huge dinners, doing the company email thing afterwards, getting to bed late and lying on a mattress so hard it cut off the circulation in my arms if I lay on my side …

Then yesterday we rode the Taiwan HSR from Taichung to Taoyuan and caught our plane where I sat in the second to last row, my keyboard on my stomach, my wrists bent double, my elbows jammed past my ribcage to the back of the seat, and my aching head and neck in contortions so I could see the screen. Wrote some; not a lot. Couldn't keep my eyes open in that dry air anyway. Last leg from San Fran to Sac was cancelled so I rented a car and grabbed this cloud’s silver lining to visit family strung out like gems along the highways home.

Counting today’s quota I’m only about 2 ½ days behind, and that ain’t bad. The value of the exercise is undeniable. Just gotta make time. Plan is to do so after the concert tonight and git it on this weekend in between other things. [12,194]