I saw these girls wearing pantyhose that look like thigh high stockings, but are really just two toned stockings. I bought a pair for about $3-5 and I think I’m pretty happy with them.

They look so amazing on girls with long thin supermodel legs, but for those of us who are normal, they are still pretty cute.

I’ve been finding a lot of cute stuff in Taiwan. I also found these bunny ear hair clips, which, though completely impractical, were too cute for me to resist buying, so I bought a pair of those too.

Christmas in Taipei is very odd. Here it’s a holiday that’s mainly celebrated casually with friends and is not really associated with hanging out with your family. I asked my friend about it, and she said that she doesn’t usually spend Christmas day with her family. She usually does some sort of gift exchange with her friends and then they go to eat at a restaurant. This is pretty different from the way I grew up celebrating Christmas. I remember cold wintry nights in New York where my family and I would sit around the fireplace and open presents by the Christmas tree. Those are probably my fondest memories.

I felt a bit under the weather this afternoon so I decided to stay back in the hotel room for the evening and ponder about things. I should work on things, but I don’t feel like doing so on vacation. 

Thinking about the past makes me so angry. If only I could turn back time and tell myself never to be with him when I had the chance. I should never have been with him in the first place. I would have rather that I died than to have met him and deal with this daily struggle against anger and resentment. I hope he has died and gone to hell by now.

Merry Christmas everyone

Whenever I start to think and hurt about the past, I suddenly realize that I’ve never had a boyfriend as good as Steven before. There is no reason now for me to feel depressed except for my mind’s own inability to release a fantastical construction.

Whenever I travel, I am reminded of my time in Holland. Whenever I am reminded of Holland, I am reminded of my ex. And whenever I am reminded of my ex, I am seeped internally with an unforgiving hatred and anger towards him. I find myself aching for retribution and hoping the universe will exact a revenge upon him for me. But to think the world would ever care is completely futile. 

I still believe in karma. I remember the ladies at the hospital where I volunteer would talk about certain people who have gotten bad luck after doing something terrible to someone. I do believe someday something bad will happen. If not now, then some time in the future. If not in this life, then in another dimension or life. I will believe it will happen so that I can continue to live.

Steven is taking care of Clover for two days since my Dad is allergic to Clover.

Haha. I used to hate these kinds of quotes – they are so presumptuous and self aggrandizing (assuming the writer of the quote is the one experiencing this “all encompassing love”). What about the people who have experienced the hellish side of love? Abandonment; pain like a limb being cut from your body – something that felt so much a part of you, but was taken away against your will. 

The thing about abandonment is that it is the most difficult emotion to overcome when you are a severely depressed person or even just a person prone to depression. 

Went to Ximen today. Finally got to go to a Watson’s (which is like the CVS of Taiwan), and bought some stuff I’m not really sure I really need. 

I’ve been reading Marilyn Manson’s autobiography, which is actually pretty good. I’ve always known he was an intelligent guy, but he explains himself well in his book. He is more of a performance artist than a musician – this concept is actually very interesting to me because now I see him more as an artist than a musician. All of the things he does is not really necessarily “bad” or “good,” but just symbolic of his reaction to the society that formed him. I guess he is like an allergic reaction to his reality. That’s why he spends most of his time recreating it into something different, something livable for him. 

There are other ways of understanding what he is and what he does as well, but I want to finish reading the book before I continue to think about it.

Taiwan is wet and gloomy. It smells like mildew and smog. Still, it’s nice to wander around in search of food and interesting gadgets. There’s nothing I love more than picking up something from my travels to decorate my home with. At least there will be a story behind it when people come over and ask about it.

My brother and I were talking about transportation issues in urban environments. I told him that he would love Holland not only because of the bike lanes everywhere, but because of the socialistic way they run everything. That part of the conversation stemmed from the recent shootings. You already know my stance on guns – I really think guns should be banned, especially assault weapons purposefully made for killing large numbers of people. I can’t imagine ever needing a weapon like that unless there is a zombie invasion. In that case, I would love to have a gun like that. For most purposes, I think a simple handgun or shotgun is more than enough for the average household to have. Ideally, I’d opt for a complete ban on guns, but for now, I think the best that we can hope for is a ban on assault weapons (of mass destruction). 

Anyway, so after that conversation, I told Brian that we should go to Holland next year where he can bike his heart out.