It happens

Her tinny voice came to him from across the country, another coast: "So you left, I can't believe it. Did the city crumble behind you as the plane took off?"

"Ha, why do you say that?" He fiddled with new batteries for his remotes. One fell on the floor and rolled somewhere.

"Shit," he mumbled.

"Huh?" She sounded absentminded, but who knows with her.

"Nothing. Why would the city crumble when I left it?"

"Oh, I dunno. I just imagine the buildings crumbling as you took off in the plane, I mean you'd been there longer than anyone. You'd become an institution there."

He didn't know what to do with that. Maybe she was serious. Apathy took over.

"Hey I gotta go, I gotta get this TV set up."

"Ok then...goodni--," but the line went dead before she finished, probably hung up too fast. Damn hinged cell phones, conversations over before they begin.

It's About Time

Well, here I am.

Back in Shanghai for another year, for grit and for glory, for better or worse. I find myself far less enchanted, but also far less fatigued by life here. My Chinese stammers and stutters, preventing expression on all fronts, but at least I'm familiar with that month-long transition. It's times like these -- when the logistics of a situation have been secured, but the old self is still furiously renovating -- that grind on the soul. Nostalgic wheezing.

It's times like these when I could even take comfort in the ol' brog, where my mess of worries and exuberance might find a place to sit and cross its legs and be content with being.

So here I am and here we go.