problemos

Blogger wont let me post. Maybe it's a sign and I shouldn't leave...

The Gospel

Day 89

It's the eve of my departure from the homeland and I do realize that I haven't posted in quite awhile. My apologies for not posting more. It seems my resolution has been short lived - and I have come to regard this as the nature of such things. I have spent the last week of my journey sequestered at the beach at a small little bungalow in a tiny town called Nathon, on a beautiful island called Samui in the homeland. It has truly been a life changing experience and I don't mean that in any born-again-I've-found-the-light kind of way. I'm not going to say that spending one week Dharma healing center has brought me complete clarity and peace of mind but it did manage to help me pull together a lot of thoughts and issues that have been haunting me for quite awhile. I don't know if it was the location, the fasting, or the change of community but its the best thing I've done for myself in a long long time. I highly recommend it to everyone and even if you do go to this retreat just to lose a few pounds, you will leave a changed person. That's all the proselytizing I will do for now. Which is ironic considering the fact that at my last Thai lesson on Wednesday, my very sweet teacher took the opportunity to enlighten me about Jesus and the Bible, which they call the Bibon because no words end in the letter L in the thai language. It took me a good ten minutes into her sermon about having the lord in her heart and finding answers to her prayers in the verses of the Bibon before I figured it out. So funny - on my last day, it's my shitty knowledge of Thai that saves me.
I returned to "real" life and a heavily thunder-storm ridden Bangkok that is in the throes of civil unrest- not really but I like how dramatic that sounds. The day I returned was the first day of a massive protest in the center of town that shut down the three biggest shopping malls in the city. A travesty I tell you and even so the Prime Minister is still holding post. The protest drew tens of thousands of people and was referred to by the thai's as "the mob" I love it.

I am so very sad to leave

The strange things you can't forget

Day 78

There are those things that you just can't lose whether you want to or not - like those cheap CHANET sunglasses you bought on the beach in Cabo or that annoying flap of skin that swings from your arm when you wave. Like those people that no matter what you do, they just keep popping back up when you think they are finally gone. This guy has sort of become one of those things. He goes by the moniker: Space Invader and he is a crazy but cool french guy who posts these Super Mario Brothers-esque alien and robot mosaics of varying sizes in cities all over the world. I briefly met Mr. Invader when he was in Los Angeles for a solo exhibit and one of those painfully hip downtown LA boutique galleries and I really thought he was kinda full of shit and I wasn't buying that whole video-games-as-art thing. Of course my first impressions are almost always wrong and I have been completely floored by how MANY invaders I have seen in all the random places I have been - most recently right in the middle of Siam Square in Bangkok. Maybe it is some kind of strange irony that I was introduced to this "artist" by a certain bad-for-me-guy I happen to have a hard time ridding myself of. In my darkest moments, i might say that it is perhaps because I don't want to, but usually I say other things that make me feel better and make people nod in sympathetic agreement, things about being better off as friends, or about how I was never that into him anyways. However, i digress.
this guy is crazy start looking around especially you guys in NYC and LA - they are all over the place. take a closer look up in the rhs of the photo of people lining up for hours to buy the hottest new treat in BKK - hot malaysian sugar buns. Of which I will not be partaking in the upcoming week of detox. More deets on that later

Accomplishments of Friend Carrie

Day 71

On her very first visit to Thailand, friend Carrie has successfully:
1. Peed in a whole in the ground swatting at mosquitos with her free hand so they don't bite her bare ass while squatting
2. Hiked a rainforest in jelly shoes
3. Taken a 40 minute ride in this "taxi"

4. Eaten hastily prepared but delicious food from a street vendor who is unfamiliar with Purell
5. Been taken by the Thais

All in all a very successful trip. I'm sure she's going to miss all this when she gets back to the States and will have to pay more than a dollar for something. At least she will have her photos from the second half of the trip.

Have you ever seen an elephant penis?

Day 65

It doesn't look like this. This is friend Carrie being capped by a female elephant, I do believe. Unfortunately, the shot of the ginormous elephant dong (imagine your horny dog's lipstick multiplied exponentially times 5,000) will be lost forever. I'm not sure if I should still refer to friend Carrie as "friend," or rather if the reverse reference is still true because I accidentally ( it really was a freak accident!) reset the memory on her digicam while fiddling with it in the car on the way BACK from a very long day of sights which included a great shot of the two of us at the highest point in Thailand, officially. Egads. I know I'm a total moron - more than that - don't know if there is a word for someone who erases all her friends photos from her first trip to Thailand. Ah. But friend Carrie was so nice about it because that's what friend Carrie is - a good friend. I hope she wont hate me forever.

What I have to say about the elephant: I don't know if I should be talking about his because I know my dad happens on this here page every now and again, but seriously, friend Carrie and I were both like oh my holy shit what the hell is that. At first I thought there was another elephant following behind the first one swinging his baby pink trunk between the first one's legs. Then I thought, does that guy have TWO trunks? But no. He just had to whiz. or as friend Carrie would like to think - he got lucky in the back barn before showtime. What I have to say about that is: at least someone's getting busy.

Tomorrow we are off to the islands. Koh Chang. Chang incidentally being the word for Elephant in Thai. I wonder if seeing a 4 foot elephant jimmy is auspicious in any way. I have vowed not to touch FC's camera again for the rest of the trip which means we will have no choice but ask the (hopefully) handsome German/Australian/Irish/British (probably) boys that will invariably be sunning themselves chez the KC Grande Resort to snap loverly pics of us on the white sand beach drinking Mai Tais and cocos.