twinkly stars on the other side of the world

The air smells like smoke. It has intensely for the past couple of weeks - a yellowish smog most every morning here on the southwest coast. This time of year there's a temperature inversion that traps it close to the ground, too, and makes it worse. The smell wakes me up in the middle of the night thinking that the building is on fire. But apparently it's just Indonesia.

At work I consult my office buddies. WTH, smog?? say I. And they're like, Indonesia! "EVERY year we ASK them NOT to burn up their island", a friend said. "But do they listen? Nooooooo."

It makes me feel like we're all one great big neighborhood here in southeast asia, dealing with a douchebag neighbor. Turn the gd stereo down, INDONESIA, we are TRYING to sleep over here.

So anyway I open the grill on the windows in the living room and lean out, just making sure the building isn't on fire and happen to look up. Stars! Singapore, you understand, is just like Boston with the degree of light pollution. And you rarely seen see one or two stars, excepting planets-- Venus or Jupiter, which can be quite bright. But here, tonight, I see Orion's belt! And maybe his head ... or is it his foot, whatever. What a delicious surprise! Here is my ignorance: I wasn't even sure I could see constellations here from my former side of the planet.

And the stars-- the most I've ever seen-- are twinkling like crazy. The atmosphere is on the move and there's a good breeze. It'd be perfect sleeping weather if it didn't smell like a housefire.

We're gonna get a home weather station and install it here. When you arrive in Singapore you're like, oh geez, the weather never changes here, it's hot and humid all the time, there aren't any seasons, I'm trapped in a perpetual MargaritaVille endless summer with extra monsoon, omg plz help. But after a while you come to appreciate the little shifts in wind, in temperature, in humidity, that you'd hardly notice at home. And be thankful as hell for them too because a degree Celsius and 10% less humidity here will make you feel like falling to your knees and weeping your gratitude to the beneficent sky.

After midnight and my neighborhood gets darker. We all go to sleep about the same time every night because the fierce sun gets us up at the same time every morning. One by one the the lights in the flats around me go out...though we'll never have complete darkness here, the lights in the corridors of the apartment buildings are always on.

Goodnight, Singapore.

Shut the hell up, Indonesia!