DeKlerkily deliscious

F.W. De Klerk is visiting Taiwan! And one of my students is the head of security for his wife. She's a woman with incredible style and womanliness who turns into a gun-toting badass when VIPs arrive. So cool. She's met Chen Shuibian so many times that she finds it yawnworthy. I also love that ex heads of state can come here and extend a long overdue middle finger to the mainland now that they no longer represent official state business. So the Nobel Peace Prize winners can come here for a lil chat. a lil tete a tete. and Chen can say scandalous things about how Taiwan's constitution could follow the South African model...implying that Taiwan has a constitution that it is responsible for and is able to change. heh.

New love found in Brian McLaren. Just read his Sojourners interview about DaVinci Code. Luscious, really.

I just shaved my legs for the first time in...I'll just let you guess. Anyway, it's a religious experience now, the few times I indulge. It's so funny how shaving our legs is a cultural thing. Like, I wonder if many of the girls here have any idea that women in the west shave their legs every few days. It's definitely a part of our lives, we must have razors when we go places--we sometimes have shaving cream and certain lotion we use that doesnt sting after shaving. We have to think about how much salt water hurts after a fresh shave. Girls here don't shave their legs. Can you imagine a whole life without leg shaving?I remember my mom thinking I wanted to shave to early when my blonde leg hairs were poking out of my 1990s opaque navy blue tights. And now, she's mortified that I have become a bohemian hairball. Blame it on Taiwan. I saw my students wearing skirts without shaving their legs. So I followed suit. Except that when I wear shortish skirts I do get some heart palpitations, like I am doing something very countercultural and revolutionary, and I don't know whether to be excited or ashamed. Whenever I think of shaving my legs I think of this quote from Jack Black from the movie Enemy of the State and it makes me laugh. Fiedler: *Please* let me follow the nanny. She doesn't shave her legs. Women like that are so... HOT.

Nana nee Taco, my hairdressing stalker, is turning 19 in a few days. She informed me that people don't usually celebrate birthdays ending in 9. so she is going to have a party in which no one is allowed to wish her happy birthday. hilarious.

Whenever I see stray eyelashes or eyebrows that have fallen on to my desk I can't help but think of Gattaca and Jude Law saying "keep your eyelashes on your face where they belong."