Every week day I wake up no later than 7 am. Grumpy and bleary-eyed, I stumble out of bed. My amazing husband gets up with me, even though he doesn’t work until much later. He makes me tea. I manage to make myself look minimally presentable. I kiss him goodbye and head off to work. I see him again when I come home every day for lunch at noon. We eat something, and I flop down on the couch to try to relax for a few minutes before going back to school at 12:45.
Not long after that, my husband makes himself minimally presentable and leaves for his job at a small cram school. He reports to work at 2 in the afternoon. This means that when I leave work at either 4:50 or 5:15, there is no one home. I sit here by myself for up to four hours just waiting for him to come home so I can have someone to talk to and hang out with.
Sometimes I am quite content in the quiet moments, but often I get bored, lonely and hungry. See, one problem is that I can’t put dinner on the table until 9:15. If it were up to me, I might be in bed by that time some nights. Lately, I’ve found myself sorely tempted by all the Scottish treats that have taken up residence in my fridge since returning from England. It’s doing nothing for my quasi-diet, I can tell you that. (Remember that stale cake yesterday?) Occasionally I do get over-zealous and pass some of the time with yoga and pilates, but my allergy-induced haze has plastered me to the sofa the past few days. Most of the people I know in Taiwan work in the evenings, and everybody on Facebook and Twitter are just getting out of bed, so there’s not even any gossip to catch up on or cupcake photos to look at. Perhaps that boredom is part of why I started this blog in the first place.
So there’s still an hour before I can start dinner. I’m hungry, but I’ve already snacked way too much. Guess I’ll read some more and watch another episode of Weeds. Can I be Mary Louise Parker when I grow up? The time seems to be passing extra slowly tonight. Save me, Neil Gaiman.
On This Island 