About The Blog

How am I doing? It varies from hour to hour. At 11am, I got permission to leave my compound to walk the 3 blocks to my boyfriend’s...

I spent my Friday night in lockdown reposting the same video over and over again. For a video that dominated my WeChat Moments feed for...

The rain in the last couple of days helped. Its not as inviting as the sunny bright blue skies that’s taunting me right now. The water...

Infographic by SmartShanghai So my freedom was short-lived. Turns out many communities have taken it upon themselves to "control" the...

The hardest parts about isolation? Not being able to explain to my friend's dog Mocha (covid foster, my friend is in hotel quarantine)...

For the first time since the pandemic started, someone I personally know tested positive for COVID in Shanghai. That gives you an idea of...

Our whole compound tested negative and lockdown was *gently* lifted as scheduled at 6 p.m. today. I say gently because we were still...

OK, here we go again. There are a few hundred cases in Shanghai and the city is on lockdown lite. Or as I like to call it, rolling...

515. This is how many days it’s been since I’ve been home. What used to be a 5-hour door-to-door commute from Shanghai to Taipei is now a...

A year ago, on January 23rd, I landed in Taipei, home for Chinese New Year, to find that the city of Wuhan in China had been "locked...

I met a pet mini pig today. Her name was either Tofu or Belly, both work. Jing’an district, where I live, has been particularly strict...

Spent most of the morning traumatizing one of my cats, trying to feed her her medication. Cats really cannot be forced into doing...

Every time I walk out of my apartment complex, there are more posters. Notices and registration forms and pamphlets. This time I walked...

I’m trying to remember what life was like after the earthquake that hit Taiwan in 1999. It was a massive quake and killed over 2,000...

Yesterday an old friend half way across the world sent me a headline: Woman refused to evacuate without her cat. He asked, “is this...

Self quarantine day 10: 4:00, wallow in self-pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30, jazzercize;...

​It snowed last night in Shanghai. No, you can’t tell in the photos because it’s mostly just leaves (very nice ones) with a teeny tiny...

Cats really do make staying at home a lot less boring. Case in point, this morning I dropped my coin box. It took me until age 33.89 to...

I don’t usually celebrate Valentine’s Day, but since this year (by default) I am my own date (not my cats. I’m not that level of crazy...

Saw a squirrel 🐿 My first in Shanghai. I kid you not. If I wasn’t on my scooter with 10 second left at the stop light I would have taken...

Uneventful day, aside from my neighbor’s laundry debacle (see earlier post). The day started out gray, though the trees outside my window...

Just dropped my phone into a bowl of popcorn. Starting to think this little diary is a very helpful routine to keep me from becoming...

First day “back to work” for most of Shanghai, so I spent it working from home and counting my blessings. I know might I seem calm about...

I went out. Hence the quotation marks around the word “quarantine.” Folks have asked me how the quarantine is enforced. I’m allowed to go...

My company required that everyone returning to Shanghai must stay home for 14 days before returning to work. I've decided to keep a daily...

Photo by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash Friends visiting me in Shanghai have often asked me: How do you live without [insert one of many apps...

A Facebook friend of mine recently posted cheerfully about his work being rejected. There’s a parallel to be drawn here between modeling...

When I saw the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show posts starting to pop up in my WeChat moments feed, I knew exactly what to expect from the...

Conference calls are awkward. I work in Shanghai as part of a dispersed corporate publications team. All of my colleagues are situated in...

You don’t come to Shanghai to coast. Most take on modu (魔都), or Monster City in Chinese, because it is an adventure. The challenges...

They told me not to set the fur on fire. #DontTellMeHowToLiveMyLife Confession — I did modeling in my early 20’s. It started when a...