asymptomatic

t left today for his chinese new year trip to guiyang. he spent a year or so down there during his block of years here, and it proved a defining time for him. he has a good friend down there and spends the time with the friend and the friend's family. when asked to describe guiyang, he usually says something like, 'its the capital of the poorest province in china' to which i usually interject some smartass comment about how he beelined for the poorest area whereas i would run far far away from anything that sounded that grim. but he loves it down there, has a great time, and that's that.

recovery from over 2 weeks of having couple-time is in-process. because its still the cny holiday and my friends have literally all fled the country, i'm in no mood to venture out. it would just be more of the same. my holiday consisted of watching 'rome,' cooking, eating, and taking walks with t. the longest time we spent apart for these 5 days was yesterday afternoon when i took a yoga class and he met his buddy for meat sticks and beers. i think we would make most people vomit, including myself.

last night must have been some specific day in the new year where it is auspicious to blow up all of the explosives you can get your hands on. the warfare started at dusk and heavy artillery fire did not cease until about 10 this morning. those of you who live here know what i'm talking about - you can't really describe it because verbal accounts don't even come close. i would say it sounded like a battle, but i don't think any military on this planet would have the luxury of using ammunition like firecrackers are used here.

a few days before the actual new years day, our friends all gathered to watch a member of the social circler, anthony, in his annual tradition of blowing shit up. he spent 1200 rmb on fireworks this year. i thought they were bringing in cases of beer, but they were 12-packs or 18-packs of rockets, and giant wheels of firecrackers laced together. these are not the measly little bottle rockets we get at home, these mothers were loud, powerful, and housed together so you need only light one wick on a case to set off about 12 rockets. it was pretty awesome, actually. a bit concerning knowing how many knuckleheads there are out there and how completely unregulated it is, but fun nevertheless.

i dropped a short video in here for your enjoyment. this was last night from my bedroom window. unfortunately i didn't think to film during midnight, when it honestly sounded like we were in the middle of an air raid, but this does pretty well to demonstrate what was going on all around. mind you, i live in one of the most densely populated areas in the city, so these are blowing up in between apartment buildings in narrow lanes that cars can't even squeeze through.