The Portfolios

I have been back in the States for a few days now. Right off the bat I went back to the caddy yard and got a few loops, earning some quick cash. Most intense workout I’ve had in years, though I guess that’s not saying much. Had dinner with Mom, Will, Gia and Piers for Mom’s birthday - just amazing to see everyone again. Will and Piers are grown people now, it’s a strange feeling. Will drives me around in his car, the opposite of how it used to be. Life is funny.

Dad is doing well also. Stopped by his office on the way home from the airport and had dinner at his house the next day. Big old cheeseburgers, just like he always makes. It’s good to be back.

“When people ask if I have health insurance, I say, ‘Yes, a plane ticket back to China and pocket full of change.’”

-“Bike Mike” Sutherland

Truer words hath never been spake.

I went back to the hospital and spoke with the doctor. Turns out I’m going to need surgery on my knee, I suppose to remove some loose cartiledge or something. With not enough time to operate before my upcoming trip to the States, I’m probably going to have the surgery when I get back to China.

I called my dad to talk about options. He said the surgery would cost around $15,000 in the States! Meanwhile, here it costs RMB10,000 (about $1,250). Having no insurance, it’s well decided where I’ll have the operation.

Some have raised the issue of safety. The argument runs basically like this: how could you consider having surgery in China, a backwards, third-world nation? This argument doesn’t hold much water as far as I’m concerned, as the hospital I’m going to is one of the best in China and from everything I’ve seen, doesn’t differ much from my hometown hospital. The procedure, meanwhile, is minimally invasive and routine. It’s not like open-heart surgery, here. If I was going to do something serious, I’d want the best doctor in the world. But this thing is probably less dangerous than, say, getting your tonsils out.

The other option is to begin a physical therapy regimen, which may be able to “cure” me eventually. However, the amount of work and time involved is prohibitive, probably more so than just spending the money. Supposedly the healing time after the surgery is quick and relatively easy. So it’s just a matter of ponying up the cash, which hurts a lot more than my leg right now.

People, this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Quality, custom-made blazers delivered to your door for a fraction of what you’d pay at any of the big brands.

Coley and Jeff have worked long and hard to make DressMonkey a reality, and now that day has come. Everyone should go over to DressMonkey.com and check out the great site they’ve built.

You can choose your own fabric and every feature of the design can be changed according to your own whims and desires. They provide instructions on how to measure yourself and you provide your numbers. In a few weeks your new blazer arrives at your door.

For a brand new Ralph Lauren blazer, you can expect to pay about $1,000. But most brand new custom-made DressMonkeys will set you back only $150, and that includes shipping - and doesn’t include the stodgy, stuffy image associated with Polo posers.

Still, it’s understandable that some may be apprehensive. Many of us want to touch the fabric before we pay for it. DressMonkey has the answer: simply provide your address, and they will send you a fabric swatch book free of charge. Go here to order one.

By the way, I own an original DressMonkey blazer from the first test run, and it’s great. I am now going to get myself another - I’m thinking Classic White Linen.

Although my knee has been slowly getting better over the last two weeks, and I’ve felt good enough to stop using the crutches, I still haven’t been able to completely straighten my leg without pain. So I decided to get an MRI. I figured I might as well do it here since it’s probably ten times cheaper. Some random web searches indicate that back home, without insurance, an MRI could cost a few hundred bucks. Here in Shanghai, I scanned my knee for RMB300 ($37.50). Oh, I also had to pay to see the doctor first. That cost RMB17 ($2.12).

The scan itself is a pain. You have to sit there with your leg stuck in this machine for about 40 minutes, and you’re not supposed to move. The machine makes all these whirring and buzzing noises, then it’s quiet, then it starts clicking and clucking, then it whirs again. I fell asleep and was awoken at least three times with a start - the kind where you jolt awake and your body tries to leap into action like there are commandos invading your bedroom. Each time I jerked my leg a bit and got worried they were going to have to start over again, but nobody said anything. In fact, most of the time I was alone. A doctor came in every 10-15 minutes to check on the computer and see that it was still working, then he’d leave again. I wondered why the computer still had a drive for a 3.5 inch disk - you know, the kind everyone stopped using about 3-4 years ago at the latest.

That was yesterday. Tomorrow they will have my results. Dr Zhai, who referred me to the MRI and was the type of person who immediately gains my trust (I don’t know, he just seemed to know what he was doing), gave me his cell number and told me to call to get his recommendation. Let’s hope I don’t need surgery. It costs about RMB10,000.

I don’t know why I asked for 2 more months of work to do, because I didn’t want them to get rid of me before the company retreat in Thailand next weekend? Or I just have the far-sightedness and bold vision to stay with my job longer for my future career!

But I don’t have that much work to do since I’m leaving, so I’ve been reading a lot. Just finished “On the Road” 3 days ago. And now I’m reading “In Cold Blood” and “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”, which I’ve almost finished. I love foreign literature, for me, it has vivid, curious, inconceivable, wild and infinite imagination. Abnormal story is my favorite story, that makes me forget all the troubles and pain in my life. Maybe books are one of the drugs - good drugs. Of course, I love Chinese literature too, but some of them are too depressing, so I only buy “happy” writers’ books, who love travel, love people, love live and know how to forgive.

Can I buy books in Chinese in the US? I know America has the most books in the world. Otherwise I have to read English all the time, which will take me much longer to finish one book, because I don’t like to rush myself, I love to read slowly and carefully, so that gives me space to enjoy.

Moving is going to be harder than I thought. I’ve been so wrapped up in getting the visa that I haven’t had time to think about the follow-up. And now that we’ve got it, I’m looking around the apartment thinking, How am I going to get all this stuff home?

Does anyone have any advice in terms of shipping? A friend once mentioned a “book rate” on shipping books, but FedEx and DHL both said no such thing exists here.

It’s going to require some masterful cash-flow management (as well as the use of my credit line) to make this happen. If you don’t see the Portfolios cavorting about town over the next few weeks, you know why!

Today is the first day of my new period of unemployment. I have officially left my job.

My boss knew it was coming for about nine months, ever since I enlisted his help in securing Xianyi’s visa. He has been very supportive. Over the past few months I have hired replacements and additional people to help keep the company’s operations running smoothly and efficiently. For the last couple of weeks there hasn’t been much for me to do except answer questions from people filling new roles. Of course, I’m still available to them if they need me. But imagine my relief when Xianyi got her visa. If she had been rejected, I would have been in a difficult situation, having already written myself out of the company.

My time there was great. I went from an inexperienced “freelance writer” to an accomplished editor and project manager in a little under two years. My resume already landed me a phone interview that I thought I would never get with a company in NYC - although it doesn’t look like I made it to the next round with them, it was definitely a boost of confidence to have been called.

Now Xianyi and I are getting excited about the next chapter in our lives: The USA. It’s really exciting, and at the same time daunting. I know we’ll be fine, but I know lots of challenges lie ahead. The visa was just the first step.

Bumming about

My leg is slowly getting better. I never bothered scheduling that MRI because every day it has felt a little stronger, and a bit of internet research seemed to confirm that many cases of torn cartiledge can heal themselves given enough rest, ice, and eventually exercise. And even if I’m wrong, and the knee doesn’t get back to normal after a month or so, I can always go back and get it checked out again. Surgery down the road won’t lose any advantages of surgery right now. So I opted for wait-and-see.

I think this is the first weekend all month that there hasn’t been something major planned. The band did two shows this month, plus there was Coley’s birthday/Bananas and the Roller Revival. So I hopefully won’t be missing anything while I sit around trying to get better and get a job in America.