Sometimes, even when I don't intend it, I find it impossible not to write and write and write. But no, I won't do it now! Instead I'm inserting another one of my "60-second poems." These are, obviously, poems I write in 60 seconds or less and usually adore. Ahhh love.....
Love comes in creeping
*bite chomp slurp*
You are nothing....
but...
a snack...a hors d'oeuvres..
wrapped in the embrace of its lips
The agony of its teeth
The sliding trauma of its throat
Until you are digested...
like all the others..
into the abyss of the intenstines.
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Thursday, May 02, 2002
Fearless
Yeah, I haven't been around in awhile. One of those things that are more tiring to explain and less interesting than what you may think.
Also, I've changed my template (again). I really loved the last one, but it seems that it causes havoc on some browsers, and well, since I only really know of one person besides myself who reads this, I want him to have a bit of an easier time. Hope this is okay.
-----------------------------
Anyway, I'm going to write about tonight's triumph. As I write this out, and you read it, you will be thinking to yourself? THIS is the "triumph? Pfffff!" Well, one woman's triumph is another's snore. But it feels pretty fantastic to me. I recently acquired a motorcycle .. a small but longstanding dream of mine. If you have any idea of the traffic here in Bangkok and the dangers riding a motorcycle presents, maybe you'll understand me a little better. Just imagine traffice, from slow moving to gridlock, every day, every hour, 24/7. NO JOKE. Now imagine, weaving cars, hostile buses, arrogant taxis, crazy tuk-tuks (3-wheel contraptions), and dexterous motorcycle riders. I get to drive in that! No stretches of road with green grass and trees as side landscape! Anyway, I've been going out at the dead of night (like now) to make "dry runs" around town. Let me tell you, just crossing the bridge (and the giant Chao Phya river) was a major accomplishment. But tonight, I worked up to. Basically, it's many miles from my house, over bridges and through many busy streets to a place where I basically park (and then get on a sky train). I have to go the French embassy twice a week for lessons and it's on the other side of town. I want to start driving there, halfway, but it's seemed like an impossible task and distance. Tonight, I did it, with nearly no troubles. I even negotiated with the guy who owns the place I'll have to park. It was so damn exhilerating. And a little bit scary too, but I was just happy I didn't see a police (BRIBE!) or get lost. I don't handle getting lost well. Anyway, I did it! I survived. I didn't get lost. I obeyed traffic laws, etc. I feel good, and tired. Real tired. My mother would be proud, sort of.
My mother isn't one for compliments. Well, no one in my entire family is really, except maybe my second cousin Wendy, who is totally cool, but I see her pretty rarely now. Anyway, my mother came to Thailand about a month ago. It was her first trip outside the United States..ever (she's 49 years old). She had a really great time. I did too, though I have to admit to fits of inner torture and moments of outward physical exhaustion. While here, she gave me one compliment, over and over.
"You're fearless," she'd say. She said it with admiration (even if she did have to associate my sister in the same breath and compliment. My mother is totally unable to not talk about my sister for more than 5 minutes at a time). I took the compliment full on. Like I said, they're rare, and it's not like my mother would ever call me beautiful (ha! That only belongs to my aunt who I was raised with, JC), or smart (that would be threatening her own identity within the family). In fact, there was a time when I was an undergrad and my early days in grad school when my mother was constantly attacking my intellectual capacity at family gatherings. That was fun. One time, at a round table packed with Thanksgiving food, she blurted out, "Actually, I'm a much better writer than Sabina."
*cough*
Anyway, although I enjoyed the compliment, it sort of puzzled me. It wasn't something I had ever considered myself to be or not to be (*snicker*). But a lot of people in my family think simple act of getting onto a plane for Thailand was an incomprehensible act of bravery. I'm not belittling them. I'm just lucky, really. Mark, you will hate to hear this, but I feel so lucky to have escaped the lives they've led. My life may not be perfect, but I feel that I have been so fortunate, and most of that has had to do with my diligence (and opportunities!) in my education. I escaped a life, or at least, one I saw around me. High school education, blue color shitty job, probably shitty husband, miserable marriage, teetering on (or falling into) bankruptcy, harassing calls from creditors, eating peanut butter or mayonnaise sandwiches, Velveeta, and Chex, having a lemon of a car, getting fat, having kids really early, yelling...yelling all the time. Was this life a guarantee without my education? No, of course not, but that doesn't mean I wasn't terrified of it. Education was my life preserver. As usual, I digress.
And from a few opportunities, and a linear progression of my life in mind, I ended up here. I've been here a year and a half now, and though there are things to still accomplish at my job, in terms of Thailand, well, there aren't a lot left. The nice thing about being ALONE as I am (yes, that's supposed to be in caps), is that it forces you to be fearless. This was why my mother's compliment seemed so strange. Can you really be considered "fearless" if those acts were forced upon you for survival? When you're alone, especially in a foreign country where the language is a barrier instead of a facilitator, you find yourself doing things you really don't want to do and putting yourself in awkward positions, but just because you HAVE to. No one is going to show you how to go to the dentist, or how to use the bus, or what the hell is IN that street vendor's dish. You just have to do it and learn from mistakes.
Nevertheless, those compliments don't come like rapid machine gun fire, so I'm taking this one and sticking it upon me like a brownie badge, because tonight, I was fearless!
---------
P.S. Super shitty thing happened on the way home on my motorcycle tonight. I was on page 368 of a 380 book I was really enjoying. Somewhere on that long ride home, it fell out of my basket. I retraced my steps (wheels) twice...nothing. DAMN IT! How aggravating! And it's not like it's so easy here to get a new book back unless it's really popular, like all the Tolkein books in stores now.
Also, I've changed my template (again). I really loved the last one, but it seems that it causes havoc on some browsers, and well, since I only really know of one person besides myself who reads this, I want him to have a bit of an easier time. Hope this is okay.
-----------------------------
Anyway, I'm going to write about tonight's triumph. As I write this out, and you read it, you will be thinking to yourself? THIS is the "triumph? Pfffff!" Well, one woman's triumph is another's snore. But it feels pretty fantastic to me. I recently acquired a motorcycle .. a small but longstanding dream of mine. If you have any idea of the traffic here in Bangkok and the dangers riding a motorcycle presents, maybe you'll understand me a little better. Just imagine traffice, from slow moving to gridlock, every day, every hour, 24/7. NO JOKE. Now imagine, weaving cars, hostile buses, arrogant taxis, crazy tuk-tuks (3-wheel contraptions), and dexterous motorcycle riders. I get to drive in that! No stretches of road with green grass and trees as side landscape! Anyway, I've been going out at the dead of night (like now) to make "dry runs" around town. Let me tell you, just crossing the bridge (and the giant Chao Phya river) was a major accomplishment. But tonight, I worked up to. Basically, it's many miles from my house, over bridges and through many busy streets to a place where I basically park (and then get on a sky train). I have to go the French embassy twice a week for lessons and it's on the other side of town. I want to start driving there, halfway, but it's seemed like an impossible task and distance. Tonight, I did it, with nearly no troubles. I even negotiated with the guy who owns the place I'll have to park. It was so damn exhilerating. And a little bit scary too, but I was just happy I didn't see a police (BRIBE!) or get lost. I don't handle getting lost well. Anyway, I did it! I survived. I didn't get lost. I obeyed traffic laws, etc. I feel good, and tired. Real tired. My mother would be proud, sort of.
My mother isn't one for compliments. Well, no one in my entire family is really, except maybe my second cousin Wendy, who is totally cool, but I see her pretty rarely now. Anyway, my mother came to Thailand about a month ago. It was her first trip outside the United States..ever (she's 49 years old). She had a really great time. I did too, though I have to admit to fits of inner torture and moments of outward physical exhaustion. While here, she gave me one compliment, over and over.
"You're fearless," she'd say. She said it with admiration (even if she did have to associate my sister in the same breath and compliment. My mother is totally unable to not talk about my sister for more than 5 minutes at a time). I took the compliment full on. Like I said, they're rare, and it's not like my mother would ever call me beautiful (ha! That only belongs to my aunt who I was raised with, JC), or smart (that would be threatening her own identity within the family). In fact, there was a time when I was an undergrad and my early days in grad school when my mother was constantly attacking my intellectual capacity at family gatherings. That was fun. One time, at a round table packed with Thanksgiving food, she blurted out, "Actually, I'm a much better writer than Sabina."
*cough*
Anyway, although I enjoyed the compliment, it sort of puzzled me. It wasn't something I had ever considered myself to be or not to be (*snicker*). But a lot of people in my family think simple act of getting onto a plane for Thailand was an incomprehensible act of bravery. I'm not belittling them. I'm just lucky, really. Mark, you will hate to hear this, but I feel so lucky to have escaped the lives they've led. My life may not be perfect, but I feel that I have been so fortunate, and most of that has had to do with my diligence (and opportunities!) in my education. I escaped a life, or at least, one I saw around me. High school education, blue color shitty job, probably shitty husband, miserable marriage, teetering on (or falling into) bankruptcy, harassing calls from creditors, eating peanut butter or mayonnaise sandwiches, Velveeta, and Chex, having a lemon of a car, getting fat, having kids really early, yelling...yelling all the time. Was this life a guarantee without my education? No, of course not, but that doesn't mean I wasn't terrified of it. Education was my life preserver. As usual, I digress.
And from a few opportunities, and a linear progression of my life in mind, I ended up here. I've been here a year and a half now, and though there are things to still accomplish at my job, in terms of Thailand, well, there aren't a lot left. The nice thing about being ALONE as I am (yes, that's supposed to be in caps), is that it forces you to be fearless. This was why my mother's compliment seemed so strange. Can you really be considered "fearless" if those acts were forced upon you for survival? When you're alone, especially in a foreign country where the language is a barrier instead of a facilitator, you find yourself doing things you really don't want to do and putting yourself in awkward positions, but just because you HAVE to. No one is going to show you how to go to the dentist, or how to use the bus, or what the hell is IN that street vendor's dish. You just have to do it and learn from mistakes.
Nevertheless, those compliments don't come like rapid machine gun fire, so I'm taking this one and sticking it upon me like a brownie badge, because tonight, I was fearless!
---------
P.S. Super shitty thing happened on the way home on my motorcycle tonight. I was on page 368 of a 380 book I was really enjoying. Somewhere on that long ride home, it fell out of my basket. I retraced my steps (wheels) twice...nothing. DAMN IT! How aggravating! And it's not like it's so easy here to get a new book back unless it's really popular, like all the Tolkein books in stores now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)