I’d like to take some time and share some of the birthday cards I received when I was in Taiwan. They are among some of my favorite cards of all time, especially Cristina’s.

By April many of the girls had turned to each other in sexual frustration and desperation. Or they claimed to. Or they just kissed while we all got drunk off our asses in a park somewhere. I’ll wait for the gentlemen to take a cold shower before I continue. …. Allrighty then. The next card is from the students with diplomatic immunity, Raul, Jorge, and Eduardo. I’d love to have diplomatic immunity. I’m fairly certain that it’s not granted to people like me for just that reason.

The last card is from my friend Lukas. He was so thrilled that I taught him american slang, especially the ever-popular gangland slang (as much as I know of it, which I will freely admit is very little). After teaching him the proper usage of ‘bitch’ in a sentence, he never ceased to refer to himself as MY bitch, which, of course, never ceased to amuse and please me.

On the actual date of my birthday, we went to a school party. Here, schools have dances and little get-togethers maybe once a month. In Taiwan, each school does it once a year, and it’s a HUGE event. They get bands (and not the struggling-to-eat-and-pay-rent bands, but very popular Taiwanese bands) to play on a giant stage, they’ve got pro lighting, they make souveniers and memoribilia for everyone who attends, and everybody gets dressed up and dances. The crowds these events draw are insanely huge. I believe the event we went to was at Lukas’ school. I’ve still got the keychain that they handed out at the entrance with paid admission. Stanley Huang was one of the performers, and if you follow the link, you’ll see that he has a shy childlike smile, and a charming single eyelid.

…Yes.

We danced, sang, laughed and had a blast all evening.

A few days later, I got my first tattoo, as my birthday present to myself. The whole concept behind it is that Huang su su read my character and judged that my personality and elements were way off balance, and he said I needed to include the other elements in my life in some meaningful way in order to achieve harmony. So I had them tattooed on my back in order to carry them with me always. I’m not sure if it worked 100%, but it’s a reminder of how I’ve grown and changed. 5 years later, I still love it, and it’s still meaningful to me. And that’s the most important thing, I think.

This post is way out of chronological order, in that I have quite a bit to post about that happened before my birthday (the Lantern Festival, Chinese New Year, the Taiwan tour, Uncle Yoshio’s death, Lucas Brasil’s going-away party, the National Palace Museum, etc) but I wanted to do the stuff that happened on my birthday right around my birthday. Because, as I’ve said before, I like to claim at least a week for birthday festivities, if not a whole month. I’m selfish like that.