Aidan is sitting on our bed and telling me about the earthquake. He holds his hands our in front of him and shakes them side by side. He says the ground moves like this. Then he raises his hands face level and says the roof falls. And that many, many si le 死了 (dead). Schools where hit the hardest and after my last post I looked at pictures of small children lying side by side in the rubble and one picture simply of their backpacks. And if that doesn’t get to you, nothing will. ...

He lost his muse and didn’t know how to find her again. He tried looking for her in coffee shops, restaurants, and bars. His writing was blocked because he no longer had anyone to write to. No one who would read what he would write and drop the perfect comment over a shared biscotti. He tried to write anyway, but the words came slow and what came was an unfocused mess. ...

It’s Monday, and Aidan comes to our bed at 6:30am and tells me he wants to watch cartoons. I’m somewhere still lost in a dream about something most definitely not a cartoon but still manage to find the remote and tune into channel 42 – Kaku – the cartoon channel. I see a news broadcast, in Chinese of course since we are in China after all. The strange thing is the Kaku channel logo is visible so it must be the right channel. Aidan repeats his request for Cartoons so I flip through each channel one by one more so because I want sleep than I want him to have cartoons. They are all showing the same news broadcast. All 60 or so cable channels we have. ...

It was Monday morning after the fateful Friday and she was laying out her clothes for the day. She was careful to pick the right length skirt that was short enough without being too short and showed her shape without being too tight. She picked a black sleeveless blouse because on Friday night he said he liked her arms and because this particular blouse had been successful in the past. She showered and combed her long straight black hair. She looked in the mirror and was happy with what she saw, a fairly tight body for 35 but at the same time there was no denying the effect of age and gravity. ...

The day is over and she is tired and she just wants to get home, have some tea, curl into a blanket and sleep. She waves down a taxi, gets in and says “Zhichun Lu”. The taxi driver replies “qu nar”? She repeats. He repeats. She then says the larger area name, Zhongcunsun followed by Zhichun Lu. The driver still asks where. She is so frustrated. Then the taxi driver says the damndest thing. that he doesn’t understand what she is talking about. At this point she decides he’s flake and she gets out of the cab. ...

the kid played with his small gi joe soldier. he had just the one gi joe and no enemy soldiers so he had to use a stick in their place. he found that the stick naturally beat the gi joe but then found himself bored and needed to break the stick himself and start over. there were no other boys he could play with beause the other boys his age wanted to punch and kick and otherwise do things he wasn’t interested in. he liked to play catch and play games. but not touch. not fight. not tease. ...

How do you eat an elephant? You start by taking a bite. Such was our move strategy when packing. Just do it. So we packed bit by bit over a week, in between meals, cat naps, nights on the town. And when the movers arrived Friday morning everything was mostly packed into plastic bins and plastic bags. There were three movers and three supervisors. Yang supervised from inside the condo and our ayi and I took turns supervising the elevator area and the truck area outside. We don’t have anything super valuable but it would still be a bummer to have stuff stolen, so we stood and watched as the workers lifted, carried, and placed. We also had to supervise as our apartment security guard would occasionally hassle the movers for no apparent reason. On time they asked them to keep a man at the truck at all times so that it could be moved even though they clearly left enough space. ...

I’m in this place of mind, maybe it is work, maybe it is the friends I keep, where I feel people over-think things. For the most part this doesn’t bother me – hey go to town on your discussion of three inch washers – but does kind of annoy me when I get asked to participate in the hyper analysis of such things. Yes, it’s true that if your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail. But it is also true that a hammer is a damn good tool. If you have a nail, you should use a hammer. There are lots and lots of nails out there. ...

Lydia finishes her 15 kuai ice cream and she wants more. She asks for one more, a pinky one this time, and being denied this asks for Aidan’s but not mine because it is chocolate. She is such a strong willed little girl who knows what she wants and knows when she wants it. One may consider he spoiled or selfish. I call her Lydia. In lieu of ice cream I ask her if she would like a piggy back ride. She gently suggests that she would prefer ice cream. Gentle as in “No!”. But she relents and it turns out she didn’t know how much fun a piggy ride could be, at least for the rider. ...

James Blunt came onstage, made a sound with his guitar and then his voice and the Star Live club in Beijing came alive. In a kind of middle aged expat, rich young Chinese kind of alive. I appreciated that he was on time. Yang and I were 20 or so feet from the stage, off to the side, and when as the rest of his band joined in and the lights came on Yang’s heart skipped a beat and she asked me to let my hair turn back to brown and grow it long and maybe grow a shaggy style beard. I noticed Blunt’s eyes were unnaturally white and alert as he ripped through the song and toyed with the audience. ...