I was babysitting the other day and one of the kids in my charge told me that he liked my sweater, asking if it was old. It is grey and fuzzy with hot pink, cheetah-like heart-shaped spots. It was one of my first purchases in Taiwan, made right about when I posted about the Shida Night Market in “night time is the right time.” I almost told him, “Thanks! And no, it’s not old.” Then I realized that I bought it almost two years ago.

Old? No… But no longer new.

Yes, y’all, I’ve been back from Taiwan for a full year! It wouldn’t be as hard for me to believe if I didn’t feel like I’m still picking up the pieces.

It’s definitely been a good year. I’ve been healthy, had some successes with shows, and I fell in love! But there are just some things I wish were a bit more together, like ohhhh, sayyyyyyy, my financial situation… (Working on it!)

It’s been hard for me to find a focus for ze blog since I’m no longer technically “a big apple girl gallivanting through the city of azaleas.” Now I’m just that rare breed of native gallivanting in the big apple with some Taipei azaleas inked on my side.

On one hand, I am narcissistic enough to have a blog, but it’s been hard for me to find the right sort of interesting stuff to blog about. For instance, I moved to Flatbush from Bed-Stuy a couple months ago and loooooove my neighborhood. I’d love to go on and on about the beautiful Victorian homes I stumbled upon in Ditmas Park, and the bougie cafe I found on Cortelyou, but I don’t want to be another white girl posting about her adventures and explorations through predominantly black neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Granted, I might have different things to say than a lot of gentrifiers to the neighb, and I can’t promise that there won’t be some of those in the future (because lord knows I can’t keep my mouth shut about race (or those beautiful houses…), and why should I? Dialogue, people!), but still–that’s not gonna cut it for me.

So, a few months ago I tried to make this a place where I could discuss my transition back into NYC life. I posted goals (yeah!) with the thought that sending them into the WordPress ether would help me stick to and track them. Alas, life happens, especially when you’re home. And all of the not-reaching-my-time-oriented-goals-in-time (like the fact that I’m STILL, yes, STILL not done transcribing) proved so embarrassing that I just took a hiatus stopped all of it.

That being said, I’m happy to say that I have 3 hours and 15 minutes of interview recordings left to transcribe. Getting through those should be a piece of cake! Now that I’m nearly done transcribing, I’d like to devote some space here to discussing the research and progress of the play I am finally going to start writing about politics and ethnicity in Taiwan.

I’d like to proclaim, “I’m back, bitcheeeesssss!!!” But time will tell if this phase of ze blog will prove to be one I can stick to. And with that, I’m going to stop talking about things I plan to write about and, like, get started on these projects already!

Happy 100th post to me! Thanks for continuing to read and bear with me, peeps!

I saw Lily Allen at Terminal 5 on Tuesday and she KILLED IT. This one’s for her and my buddies from my first time living abroad: in LDN, when this first came out.