His energy is way out there. He looks in your eyes like he's digging for treasure while he talks.
"My sister has been trying to make me gay my whole life!" He laughs a real open-mouthed laugh, rolls his sparkling blue eyes, and shakes his head back. Time slows down for a frame-by-frame of the wild masses of curly blond hair bouncing around his face and shoulders.
The gypsy girls at the dance distract him vaguely, but not nearly to the extent that others are distracted by him. When he's dancing, his perfect t-shirt body moves with the rhythm of your own secret pulse, and when you watch him, everything spills out of your heart and out of the closet and it's all in the open, swirling into the air with the music. All the cute boys aren't ashamed to look at him, and none of the beautiful girls feel inhibited from staring. Even you, buhao yisi and blushing a bit, aren't really that ashamed.
"Look at that guy over there," he says, oblivious to his own beauty, "the guy behind the bar. With the dreads. He's so cute! I wanna be like that." He is laughing and happy and he's confident even without knowing that he's beautiful.
As he keeps dancing, all you can really see is that hair. Instant freeze-frame: you glimpse his adam's apple peeking out from beneath his curls. The feelings you had looking at high school guys when you were 12 resurface and catch in your chest.
When you dance with him you move seamlessly together like the tides with the shore. Quickly or slowly, you're like one body, and you're not sure which one of you is the tide, and which one the shore. Is it him who is so in tune that he can pick up your vibe and roll with you, inside your own fantasy? Or is he so entrancing that you are actually being carried along with him, that he has gotten into your veins, and your heart is now beating with his rhythm? Though the thought terrifies you, you think it's the latter... All you can do is hope you don't fall too hard.
Later, your footfalls mute in the luminous midnight snow, you're smoking up together and laughing. He talks about his kids and his job. You tell him he amazes you, because he does. He doesn't find that warranted. "People always congratulate me like I am doing something special, and I don't like that. I am just doing my thing, you know, changing diapers and playing with my boys and going to work." Just being natural, right?
You nod, but really you understand why people congratulate him on holding it together. He's a 22-year-old with two toddlers at home, while most of your circle, already in their thirties, still can't contemplate that much responsibility. People in your demographic can't even tear their attention away from their own insecurities long enough to move their hips when they dance. They just stand there looking at the band in their thick-rimmed glasses and castro hats, thumbs hooked into belt loops, a conspicuously uncontrived-looking stance. With those gen-x-ers, everything is always so "casual-but-i-meant-for-it-to-look-that-way." How do you dance to that?
Has he always been so natural, or did he get this way from having kids? You want to ask him. But you know the answer. Of course he is natural. He is natural through and through. What could be more natural than coming out west from Montreal at 17 to pick fruit in the Okanagan, living his freedom and his energy... reveling in Nature and reveling in romance, and having a bit of unprotected sex?
Now he's part single dad and part big brother. On normal evenings, his kids tug at the legs of his shorts, asking him to turn up the stereo, to dance with him, demanding alternately Kimya Dawson or AC/DC. They scream-sing, they playfight, they jump on the bed, they sometimes eat cereal for supper. But not this evening - tonight, he's out with you, and his kids are at home with his best friend.
He is independent, honest, and hard-working, but he's still fresh, fun, and as poor as you are. He's so much less well-traveled, well-read, or well-fed than anyone you know, but so much better at his second language, so much more experienced at life and living and accepting, so much more experienced at reality, at being an adult.
Meanwhile you, Peter Pan, you've stayed away in never-never-land so long you feel like your own hometown is just a stopover. You've forgotten to grow up. You don't even know what it means.
You may be older than him, but standing here in the snow, your acquired earthly wisdom is reduced to tidbits, factoids: hostel recommendations, restaurant reviews for cities he'll never visit, pat academic opinions, and music suggestions in Mandarin.
You want to offer something, but you have nothing. You feel like a giant sponge. Now this adult boy has his big, steady hands around your shaking wrists, and he tells you he likes the smell of your sweat. It reminds him of peaches.
And you know he means the juicy, soft, real peaches of the Okanagan, the ones that drip and ooze and make a mess... not the small, hard, dainty celestial peaches you and the eight immortals have to peel with a knife in China.
Your skinny wrists are still shaking the next day.
2008-12-23
2008-12-16
Christmas is from Hell
Sunday was the day we were going to do it. We'd been procrastinating, hemming and hawing, beating around the bush... but we were going to do it, we were going to decorate my mom's place for the Christmas season. My brother and I had squirmed and resisted, chanting refrains of anti-consumerism and de-colonization, but mom had been adamant: she really wanted a Christmas tree, and she wanted to decorate it together. As a family. Well, almost - my dad, the smart one, had already escaped to Barbados. But my brother, his partner, and I were required to be there.
So we'd bent and twisted all our schedules to create a window of time when my me, my mom, my brother, and his partner would all be free. That window was going to be Sunday afternoon.
I wrenched myself away from my selfish lifestyle and made sure I was there by 1 p.m. because I had been informed that if I arrived later, my mom would feel that she was unimportant, that she was merely "tacked on" as an afterthought at the end of someone's day. I didn't want to be responsible for that outcome, so I got there early, but not so early to seem conspicuous. Just early enough to seem eager. I got there at 12:30.
Right away I had a bad feeling. Mom told me the news: My brother wasn't coming. Neither was his girlfriend. Oh shit. I did not for a second bask in the knowledge that for once, I was the "good child"... I knew what this really meant. It meant I was going to have to do this alone. All the pressure of creating a loving family decorating afternoon with my mom was resting on me, and me alone! I needed to regroup! I needed to plan a strategy! I needed to escape to Barbados!
"Mom, I need a shower ok? Then we can start," was the only escape I could negotiate. I fought the urge to smoke up in the bathroom. Wouldn't that just ease the whole experience? I thought. Wouldn't that just help me stay calm if my mom starts to freak out? No. No. That sounds like a person with a substance abuse problem thinking. I don't want to be a person with a substance abuse problem. I will not use consciousness alterants to escape from my problems. I turn on the shower. I will just go back to China as quickly as possible. Or at least James Bay.
Do I have a travel abuse problem? My dad in Barbados... his grandfather who never came back after ostensibly going to buy some smokes... my brother on his way to Indonesia... my uncle who stayed in Fiji until his beard was down to his belly... half my twenties already spent in Red China? Does this addiction run in the family? Why do we always need to escape? And my poor mom, who wants the opposite, is surrounded by us and we're all she has in her life. Waves of guilt washed over me as I rinsed my hair.
I dried off and got dressed. I went out into the living room. We agonized over where to put the tree. Honestly, there is no room for a Christmas tree in my mom's living room, but we moved furniture until we MADE room.
The tree, which we'd bought the other day, was waiting out on the deck, where the recent spell of cold weather had frozen the sugar water in the hummingbird feeder. It turned out the tree was frozen into the bucket of water we had placed it in, too. So we had to boil water and pour it carefully around the frozen trunk and the frozen bucket until our tree could be freed from the ice. Of course, when the tree was freed, it was still covered in ice and snow, some of which had begun to melt and was dripping everywhere. I reached out and grabbed the tree's trunk about halfway up to prepare to carry it into the house... and came away with a handful of sap. This was not going to be pretty.
Mom and I arranged a pathway of towels to catch the drips as we carried the tree into the house. I can't overstress the importance of these towels. Mom's just had her floors redone and she's got some very expensive carpets that she does not want to see damaged.
The tree stand was already arranged where we wanted it and all we had to do was lower the trunk into the hole, towels in place to catch the drips.
It wouldn't go in.
The stand was too small! Should we buy another? No, this stand may be rusty, ugly, and old, but it'sa family heirloom. Mommy's great aunties used that stand. So no, no, let's get out a saw and SAW the knots off the trunk so that it's smaller and it will fit in this ugly defective too-small stand! Great idea.
Now let's stress about the sawdust on the towels! Let's fight about whether we should move the towels and vaccuum the floor right now this very second even though we're not done the decorating and there are going to be needles and crap all over the floor when we are done anyway so we might as well wait until the end and vaccuum up our whole mess in one go!
Uh-oh, now the trunk is uneven and when we put it in the stand it leans waaaay over to the left... not nice. Now let's FIGHT about how to straighten it! Yeah! This is fun! Why isn't my brother here? Do you want me to draw you a picture to explain why we have to actually lift the tree a bit and not just tighten the screws on the left? No? Then quit telling me you don't understand!
"Do you like this music?" I asked in disgust.
"These carols make me sick!" Mom retorted.
"Why don't you turn them off?"
So it was that after an hour of messing with the god damn tree, we decided to take a break from fighting with it for a while, and fought with each other instead! Yeah I am a selfish offspring! Yeah you are a manipulative parent! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Finally I went and made some soup. We settled down a bit and I asked mom to go get the box of decorations. We finally started having fun putting up the lights, unwrapping the antique ornaments, including the little santas my grandma has stolen from her dentist's office as a child... my favourite white plastic reindeer... those exquisite glass baubles...
And then it happened! Just as we were finally starting to enjoy mom's decorating afternoon (which was now 8:00 at night), we noticed something. Something wet on the ground. (Thank god the towels were still in place).
The stand was leaking!
Oh yeah, rusty antique Christmas tree stand juice was running down onto the expensive carpets!
We had to undecorate as quickly as possible, launch that fucking tree back out onto the deck, and throw out the flawed and past-its-prime tree stand. Then we had to carefully ("I said CAREFULLY!") pick up the towels and wipe up the mess and vaccuum and put the ornaments back in careful wrapping and place all the boxes back in the closet and move the furniture back into place. No tree, no decorations... everything as it was.
All that suffering, for nothing! But isn't that what Christmas is all about?
Can I go back to China now, please?
8 years ago, I had a Chinese Christmas experience that I still remember fondly. I was walking through anonymous Chinese crowds on my way to class when a young man's intent face suddenly came into focus. He strode purposefully toward me, calling out and smiling in English, "Happy Foreign Holiday!" I realized it was December 25th.
I thought then that the joy for me in that man's holiday greeting was that it reminded me of Christmas at home with my family. (Of course, China has changed really quickly and these days Christmas Fever over there is as sick as it is here in Victoria BC). Now I realize the true joy in that memory was just the fact that December 25th did not actually have to mean that much. Just a foreign holiday...
If only Christmas could always be that painless.
So we'd bent and twisted all our schedules to create a window of time when my me, my mom, my brother, and his partner would all be free. That window was going to be Sunday afternoon.
I wrenched myself away from my selfish lifestyle and made sure I was there by 1 p.m. because I had been informed that if I arrived later, my mom would feel that she was unimportant, that she was merely "tacked on" as an afterthought at the end of someone's day. I didn't want to be responsible for that outcome, so I got there early, but not so early to seem conspicuous. Just early enough to seem eager. I got there at 12:30.
Right away I had a bad feeling. Mom told me the news: My brother wasn't coming. Neither was his girlfriend. Oh shit. I did not for a second bask in the knowledge that for once, I was the "good child"... I knew what this really meant. It meant I was going to have to do this alone. All the pressure of creating a loving family decorating afternoon with my mom was resting on me, and me alone! I needed to regroup! I needed to plan a strategy! I needed to escape to Barbados!
"Mom, I need a shower ok? Then we can start," was the only escape I could negotiate. I fought the urge to smoke up in the bathroom. Wouldn't that just ease the whole experience? I thought. Wouldn't that just help me stay calm if my mom starts to freak out? No. No. That sounds like a person with a substance abuse problem thinking. I don't want to be a person with a substance abuse problem. I will not use consciousness alterants to escape from my problems. I turn on the shower. I will just go back to China as quickly as possible. Or at least James Bay.
Do I have a travel abuse problem? My dad in Barbados... his grandfather who never came back after ostensibly going to buy some smokes... my brother on his way to Indonesia... my uncle who stayed in Fiji until his beard was down to his belly... half my twenties already spent in Red China? Does this addiction run in the family? Why do we always need to escape? And my poor mom, who wants the opposite, is surrounded by us and we're all she has in her life. Waves of guilt washed over me as I rinsed my hair.
I dried off and got dressed. I went out into the living room. We agonized over where to put the tree. Honestly, there is no room for a Christmas tree in my mom's living room, but we moved furniture until we MADE room.
The tree, which we'd bought the other day, was waiting out on the deck, where the recent spell of cold weather had frozen the sugar water in the hummingbird feeder. It turned out the tree was frozen into the bucket of water we had placed it in, too. So we had to boil water and pour it carefully around the frozen trunk and the frozen bucket until our tree could be freed from the ice. Of course, when the tree was freed, it was still covered in ice and snow, some of which had begun to melt and was dripping everywhere. I reached out and grabbed the tree's trunk about halfway up to prepare to carry it into the house... and came away with a handful of sap. This was not going to be pretty.
Mom and I arranged a pathway of towels to catch the drips as we carried the tree into the house. I can't overstress the importance of these towels. Mom's just had her floors redone and she's got some very expensive carpets that she does not want to see damaged.
The tree stand was already arranged where we wanted it and all we had to do was lower the trunk into the hole, towels in place to catch the drips.
It wouldn't go in.
The stand was too small! Should we buy another? No, this stand may be rusty, ugly, and old, but it'sa family heirloom. Mommy's great aunties used that stand. So no, no, let's get out a saw and SAW the knots off the trunk so that it's smaller and it will fit in this ugly defective too-small stand! Great idea.
Now let's stress about the sawdust on the towels! Let's fight about whether we should move the towels and vaccuum the floor right now this very second even though we're not done the decorating and there are going to be needles and crap all over the floor when we are done anyway so we might as well wait until the end and vaccuum up our whole mess in one go!
Uh-oh, now the trunk is uneven and when we put it in the stand it leans waaaay over to the left... not nice. Now let's FIGHT about how to straighten it! Yeah! This is fun! Why isn't my brother here? Do you want me to draw you a picture to explain why we have to actually lift the tree a bit and not just tighten the screws on the left? No? Then quit telling me you don't understand!
"Do you like this music?" I asked in disgust.
"These carols make me sick!" Mom retorted.
"Why don't you turn them off?"
So it was that after an hour of messing with the god damn tree, we decided to take a break from fighting with it for a while, and fought with each other instead! Yeah I am a selfish offspring! Yeah you are a manipulative parent! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Finally I went and made some soup. We settled down a bit and I asked mom to go get the box of decorations. We finally started having fun putting up the lights, unwrapping the antique ornaments, including the little santas my grandma has stolen from her dentist's office as a child... my favourite white plastic reindeer... those exquisite glass baubles...
And then it happened! Just as we were finally starting to enjoy mom's decorating afternoon (which was now 8:00 at night), we noticed something. Something wet on the ground. (Thank god the towels were still in place).
The stand was leaking!
Oh yeah, rusty antique Christmas tree stand juice was running down onto the expensive carpets!
We had to undecorate as quickly as possible, launch that fucking tree back out onto the deck, and throw out the flawed and past-its-prime tree stand. Then we had to carefully ("I said CAREFULLY!") pick up the towels and wipe up the mess and vaccuum and put the ornaments back in careful wrapping and place all the boxes back in the closet and move the furniture back into place. No tree, no decorations... everything as it was.
All that suffering, for nothing! But isn't that what Christmas is all about?
Can I go back to China now, please?
8 years ago, I had a Chinese Christmas experience that I still remember fondly. I was walking through anonymous Chinese crowds on my way to class when a young man's intent face suddenly came into focus. He strode purposefully toward me, calling out and smiling in English, "Happy Foreign Holiday!" I realized it was December 25th.
I thought then that the joy for me in that man's holiday greeting was that it reminded me of Christmas at home with my family. (Of course, China has changed really quickly and these days Christmas Fever over there is as sick as it is here in Victoria BC). Now I realize the true joy in that memory was just the fact that December 25th did not actually have to mean that much. Just a foreign holiday...
If only Christmas could always be that painless.
2008-12-12
Home Town Feelings
Victoria is a cool place. I'm staying out of town on the peninsula with my mom, of course, but lately, I have been spending more time out and about in Victoria itself. I stayed downtown the other night at my friend's place, and apart from having a great time doing that, there was another surprise piece of joy: the morning!
I love waking up in the morning in my own hometown! It was so great to be right there, the beach is right there, people are right there, cafes with real muffins are everywhere, people are walking around in the morning interacting with each other... wow. I felt like I had re-entered civilization! I was not surrounded by endless impersonal voiceless fog like out on the peninsula.
And it was sunny. I could hear seagulls. I could smell freshness. People were speaking different languages. I can speak Chinese with people in Victoria. I borrowed a french book from the library and I am practicing my French!
It's easy to feel awake and alive in the morning when I'm in a city, even if it is only a small provincial capital on the tip of an island on the edge of the Pacific. Especially when there is so much here connecting me to my childhood: the acorns being ground into the dirt beside the sidewalks, the chestnuts rotting on the boulevards, bare garry oak arms reaching up from rocky outcroppings, peacocks calling in the park... the scent of vanilla wafting from the ice cream shop on government street... the canned classical music in market square...
I love waking up in the morning in my own hometown! It was so great to be right there, the beach is right there, people are right there, cafes with real muffins are everywhere, people are walking around in the morning interacting with each other... wow. I felt like I had re-entered civilization! I was not surrounded by endless impersonal voiceless fog like out on the peninsula.
And it was sunny. I could hear seagulls. I could smell freshness. People were speaking different languages. I can speak Chinese with people in Victoria. I borrowed a french book from the library and I am practicing my French!
It's easy to feel awake and alive in the morning when I'm in a city, even if it is only a small provincial capital on the tip of an island on the edge of the Pacific. Especially when there is so much here connecting me to my childhood: the acorns being ground into the dirt beside the sidewalks, the chestnuts rotting on the boulevards, bare garry oak arms reaching up from rocky outcroppings, peacocks calling in the park... the scent of vanilla wafting from the ice cream shop on government street... the canned classical music in market square...
2008-12-08
The Fine Art of Pretending
I was walking to the grocery store and I saw some people caroling. They were not just caroling though. They had costumes that looked like they were from the sets of historical films, and they had fake English accents and horses with white carriages.
Ugh, I thought to myself as I crossed the road. To me, the general collective unreason that fuels the Christmas season in my culture seemed exemplified by the actions of these actors. These people are living in a fantasy world, I concluded.
Of course, as I was having these typical, western, self-righteous thoughts, I was on my way to buy supplies for the tabouleh, hummus, and falafels I was making to serve along with platters of olives, dates, and halva in a furniture-less, frankincese-fragranced room strewn with cushions, where there would be toy camels overlooking the burqa, sari, and headgear-wearing guests partaking of the hookah pipe, with Xinjiang Uighur music on the stereo and mini tealight fires winking from across the vast sand dunes we were drawing with crayons on windswept sheets of newsprint.
Yup, at my party I used random desert symbols (objects that just scream "desert" at me) to simulate the generic desert of my imagination, as if there could ever be such a thing as a generic desert... Yes, I combined objects and foods of diverse provenances under this one exotic, catch-all generic term, "desert."
The idea of all this was to celebrate my 30th birthday in a way that would allow me to get something out of my unwillingly-abandoned (poor ME!) plan to be on a camel trek in Rajasthan.
And I accuse these carolers of living in a fantasy world? At least the carolers were doing it on purpose, whereas I was proving once again that you don't need a snooty English accent to play a snooty role.
Ugh, I thought to myself as I crossed the road. To me, the general collective unreason that fuels the Christmas season in my culture seemed exemplified by the actions of these actors. These people are living in a fantasy world, I concluded.
Of course, as I was having these typical, western, self-righteous thoughts, I was on my way to buy supplies for the tabouleh, hummus, and falafels I was making to serve along with platters of olives, dates, and halva in a furniture-less, frankincese-fragranced room strewn with cushions, where there would be toy camels overlooking the burqa, sari, and headgear-wearing guests partaking of the hookah pipe, with Xinjiang Uighur music on the stereo and mini tealight fires winking from across the vast sand dunes we were drawing with crayons on windswept sheets of newsprint.
Yup, at my party I used random desert symbols (objects that just scream "desert" at me) to simulate the generic desert of my imagination, as if there could ever be such a thing as a generic desert... Yes, I combined objects and foods of diverse provenances under this one exotic, catch-all generic term, "desert."
The idea of all this was to celebrate my 30th birthday in a way that would allow me to get something out of my unwillingly-abandoned (poor ME!) plan to be on a camel trek in Rajasthan.
And I accuse these carolers of living in a fantasy world? At least the carolers were doing it on purpose, whereas I was proving once again that you don't need a snooty English accent to play a snooty role.
2008-12-04
My Camel Trek in Rajasthan
Tomorrow is my birthday and I am at a really interesting point in my life.
First of all, I am turning 30, which seems unbelievable. I have spent half my twenties in China and half in Canada, so I feel like my Canadian age is only 25. I guess that would make my Chinese age 5? (Sounds about right for the reading level... actually, naw my reading is better than a 5-year-old's!) My Canadian age of 25 sounds pretty accurate. I just don't feel like I have the full amount of experience living in this society that other people my same age and younger already have. There's so much I just don't understand about how you're supposed to do things here. So many adult tasks, like getting jobs, finding apartments, talking to bosses, networking, and sucking up to landlords, are things that I learned how to do in China. And I am pretty good at them... over there. Here in my own country, on the other hand, I feel a bit out-of-the-loop. I've never even seen the show Survivor.
Secondly, I am suspended between realities that don't even exist. I know, we all are, since the past is gone and the future hasn't arrived yet... but I really really am! I finished paying off my student loans, finished a two-year contract working at an offshore BC school in northeastern China, and was living in a lovely little apartment up the hill from the park in Kunming biding my time before I could go to the Sivananda yoga teacher training course in Vrindavan, India last October. My plan was to travel after my course: on my birthday, I wanted to be on a camel trek in Rajasthan smoking hash under the stars. Beyond that, I was coming back to Canada for January to go to another three-and-a-half month yoga development and teacher training course in the Kootenays.
It didn't work out that way. When I was in Kunming, I got really sick with a nasty strain of e.coli that also infected my blood. Altogether, the process of being hospitalized for days on end, being released and finding myself unable to digest almost anything, relapsing, and being readmitted (three times) took over a month, and during one of the "released" times I went to India... against my doctor's orders. Well, I already had my ticket! My plan was great! I didn't want to give up my course. So I went anyway, couldn't digest anything except the couscous I had brought from China, and after a week I had relapsed again and was in the hospital in India, and couldn't finish the course I'd gone there for in the first place.
I realized I should just go "home" to get well. So in mid-October I came back to Victoria to stay at my mom's house. I couldn't even digest plain oat bran when I got here. I couldn't digest any oils at all for two months. This lack of oil affected my body a lot, but my mental state even more so. I have only been increasing my digestion of oils over the past two weeks, with the help of a master of ayurvedic medicine. Thankfully, I am having great results so far.
So I say that I am suspended between realities that don't exist because basically my old plans are gone and my new ones are not formed. This past year, my common-law relationship of 4 years has dissolved, which I experienced as part of what feels like a mysterious transformation. I'm not sure if I will be able to go to my course in the Kootenays - it depends how my digestion continues to improve over December. Since I might go there, there seems to be no point in getting a job and getting a new place, but it is weird not having my own place right now! After years of being a student and then being on contract, this life of drifting with no job and no place of my own feels pretty ungrounded. But as I said, it feels like part of a mysterious transformation. I just feel like a completely different person than I was before the upheaval of the whole finsihing my contract/going to Kunming/getting sick constellation. But I don't have any new "this is what I'm doing now" concepts to help me relate to myself... if that makes any sense. I almost feel like I don't fully exist at the moment, let alone the realities I am suspended between!
So tomorrow I won't be on a camel trek. But I will be wandering my hometown, which is like a foreign country to me now... and I'll be wandering with only myself, a person who is more of a mystery to me now than ever before.
First of all, I am turning 30, which seems unbelievable. I have spent half my twenties in China and half in Canada, so I feel like my Canadian age is only 25. I guess that would make my Chinese age 5? (Sounds about right for the reading level... actually, naw my reading is better than a 5-year-old's!) My Canadian age of 25 sounds pretty accurate. I just don't feel like I have the full amount of experience living in this society that other people my same age and younger already have. There's so much I just don't understand about how you're supposed to do things here. So many adult tasks, like getting jobs, finding apartments, talking to bosses, networking, and sucking up to landlords, are things that I learned how to do in China. And I am pretty good at them... over there. Here in my own country, on the other hand, I feel a bit out-of-the-loop. I've never even seen the show Survivor.
Secondly, I am suspended between realities that don't even exist. I know, we all are, since the past is gone and the future hasn't arrived yet... but I really really am! I finished paying off my student loans, finished a two-year contract working at an offshore BC school in northeastern China, and was living in a lovely little apartment up the hill from the park in Kunming biding my time before I could go to the Sivananda yoga teacher training course in Vrindavan, India last October. My plan was to travel after my course: on my birthday, I wanted to be on a camel trek in Rajasthan smoking hash under the stars. Beyond that, I was coming back to Canada for January to go to another three-and-a-half month yoga development and teacher training course in the Kootenays.
It didn't work out that way. When I was in Kunming, I got really sick with a nasty strain of e.coli that also infected my blood. Altogether, the process of being hospitalized for days on end, being released and finding myself unable to digest almost anything, relapsing, and being readmitted (three times) took over a month, and during one of the "released" times I went to India... against my doctor's orders. Well, I already had my ticket! My plan was great! I didn't want to give up my course. So I went anyway, couldn't digest anything except the couscous I had brought from China, and after a week I had relapsed again and was in the hospital in India, and couldn't finish the course I'd gone there for in the first place.
I realized I should just go "home" to get well. So in mid-October I came back to Victoria to stay at my mom's house. I couldn't even digest plain oat bran when I got here. I couldn't digest any oils at all for two months. This lack of oil affected my body a lot, but my mental state even more so. I have only been increasing my digestion of oils over the past two weeks, with the help of a master of ayurvedic medicine. Thankfully, I am having great results so far.
So I say that I am suspended between realities that don't exist because basically my old plans are gone and my new ones are not formed. This past year, my common-law relationship of 4 years has dissolved, which I experienced as part of what feels like a mysterious transformation. I'm not sure if I will be able to go to my course in the Kootenays - it depends how my digestion continues to improve over December. Since I might go there, there seems to be no point in getting a job and getting a new place, but it is weird not having my own place right now! After years of being a student and then being on contract, this life of drifting with no job and no place of my own feels pretty ungrounded. But as I said, it feels like part of a mysterious transformation. I just feel like a completely different person than I was before the upheaval of the whole finsihing my contract/going to Kunming/getting sick constellation. But I don't have any new "this is what I'm doing now" concepts to help me relate to myself... if that makes any sense. I almost feel like I don't fully exist at the moment, let alone the realities I am suspended between!
So tomorrow I won't be on a camel trek. But I will be wandering my hometown, which is like a foreign country to me now... and I'll be wandering with only myself, a person who is more of a mystery to me now than ever before.
2008-12-03
Man Hunt!
The first time I heard of it, I thought it was a type of speed-dating activity organized by seethingly horny heterosexual women. Well, with a name like Man Hunt... come on!
Of course, it's not actually that type of hunt... but don't stop reading! You do get to touch people. When you tag them!
Yeah, you figured it out! It's a game of tag! Adult tag. Not "adult tag" in the sense of "adult videos," no, no, not that kind of touching, not naughty... unfortunately, no triple X's. It's just tag, for adults. (The word "adult" still makes me giggle. Am I immature?)
So far I have participated twice. Everyone uses paper-rock-scissors to see who gets to run away and hide within the several city blocks designated as the game area. The last person to be left is "IT." "IT" gets to chase the others, and root them out from their hiding spots, and TAG them. Once the others get tagged, they also get to chase and find people who are still not "it", and then tag them too. Finally everyone is tagged and the whole group meets back at the starting point for a second game.
If this game was on three times a week, I would probably go each time. I love it.
It is so excellent to be able to run around outside playing with people I don't even know. It's like being 8 (but better because I don't have homework and I decide when and if to do my chores). It's so refreshing to know that there are other people older than 10 (besides my own immediate friends) who are still willing to run around busy downtown shopping areas, risking stares and frowns from the more conservative set, to play.
It's great to be able to use public space in a way that is fun. It's awesome to run around playing on the same sidewalks where, in past times, I've walked to work, run errands, or waited for a bus to school. It makes my hometown feel more like it belongs to me again. It also satisfies a craving for something I always miss whenever I am away from China: the feeling that public spaces belong to the people, to use as we see fit.
Thank you Man Hunt!
Of course, it's not actually that type of hunt... but don't stop reading! You do get to touch people. When you tag them!
Yeah, you figured it out! It's a game of tag! Adult tag. Not "adult tag" in the sense of "adult videos," no, no, not that kind of touching, not naughty... unfortunately, no triple X's. It's just tag, for adults. (The word "adult" still makes me giggle. Am I immature?)
So far I have participated twice. Everyone uses paper-rock-scissors to see who gets to run away and hide within the several city blocks designated as the game area. The last person to be left is "IT." "IT" gets to chase the others, and root them out from their hiding spots, and TAG them. Once the others get tagged, they also get to chase and find people who are still not "it", and then tag them too. Finally everyone is tagged and the whole group meets back at the starting point for a second game.
If this game was on three times a week, I would probably go each time. I love it.
It is so excellent to be able to run around outside playing with people I don't even know. It's like being 8 (but better because I don't have homework and I decide when and if to do my chores). It's so refreshing to know that there are other people older than 10 (besides my own immediate friends) who are still willing to run around busy downtown shopping areas, risking stares and frowns from the more conservative set, to play.
It's great to be able to use public space in a way that is fun. It's awesome to run around playing on the same sidewalks where, in past times, I've walked to work, run errands, or waited for a bus to school. It makes my hometown feel more like it belongs to me again. It also satisfies a craving for something I always miss whenever I am away from China: the feeling that public spaces belong to the people, to use as we see fit.
Thank you Man Hunt!
2008-11-30
DIY Spiritual Practice for West Coast People
Before you read this, I must tell you that despite my long absence from the land of my birth, I really am a true west coaster. I have a deep and abiding love for our hippie heritage, our huggable trees, our gay-straight alliances, our edibles and our smokeables, and our international vegan menu. Don't let the sarcasm in this post - or the fact that I don't like it when people are baked ALL the time - allow you to think otherwise!
Someone read my post about the librarian and said to me, "Haha, was that librarian baked or what, man!"
That really got me thinking. I have not been here on the west coast, in my own culture, for a long time. I have forgotten how to give people the benefit of the doubt. In this culture everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, because here, anyone, anytime, could be totally stoned.
Maybe a lot of the painfully and irritatingly obtuse customer service people around here need to be given that benefit of the doubt whenever they display the worst of our (otherwise good) west coast slacker/space-cadet ethic.
Maybe one in ten west coasters, people like my brother who's always happy to chat with telemarketers, actually gives people this benefit of the doubt on a regular basis.
Maybe this portion of the population is really significant, and maybe they are a part of why everyone else thinks we west-coasters are so nice and easy going.
Yeah! Maybe a key part of our laid-back west coast culture has to do with the inherently tension-diffusing effects of thinking the following, when confronted with crap service: "Although you are annoying the shit out of me by your painful obtuseness, I recognize that in this unique cultural milieu, there is a high chance you're just really stoned, and hey man, power to, I mean you gotta do what you gotta do to survive your lame job workin' for the man... Far be it for me to go all big city and get irritated with you! I'll treat you as a buddy, buddy! And I'll talk to you and think of you as though you really were my buddy and we were getting baked together! It's all good! No worries!"
Yes! I am on to something! I could think that exact thought loop over and over whenever I am dealing with annoying people in institutional and commercial settings - at the bank, at the doctor's office, at the grocery store... It could turn into my own little do-it-yourself west coast spiritual practice. It would be a way of converting annoyance and irritation into the characteristic west coast traits of tolerance and compassion! I could even follow the positive thought-loop with a simple breath meditation: Breathing in, this annoying person might just be really baked. Breathing out, we are all brothers. Breathing in, I see this annoying person as my best friend when we are getting baked together. Breathing out, we are all connected. Breathing in, pass me the lighter. Breathing out, I don't feel so irritated with all these west coast slackers anymore... Breathing in.... pass left... breathing out... ahhhh...
Someone read my post about the librarian and said to me, "Haha, was that librarian baked or what, man!"
That really got me thinking. I have not been here on the west coast, in my own culture, for a long time. I have forgotten how to give people the benefit of the doubt. In this culture everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, because here, anyone, anytime, could be totally stoned.
Maybe a lot of the painfully and irritatingly obtuse customer service people around here need to be given that benefit of the doubt whenever they display the worst of our (otherwise good) west coast slacker/space-cadet ethic.
Maybe one in ten west coasters, people like my brother who's always happy to chat with telemarketers, actually gives people this benefit of the doubt on a regular basis.
Maybe this portion of the population is really significant, and maybe they are a part of why everyone else thinks we west-coasters are so nice and easy going.
Yeah! Maybe a key part of our laid-back west coast culture has to do with the inherently tension-diffusing effects of thinking the following, when confronted with crap service: "Although you are annoying the shit out of me by your painful obtuseness, I recognize that in this unique cultural milieu, there is a high chance you're just really stoned, and hey man, power to, I mean you gotta do what you gotta do to survive your lame job workin' for the man... Far be it for me to go all big city and get irritated with you! I'll treat you as a buddy, buddy! And I'll talk to you and think of you as though you really were my buddy and we were getting baked together! It's all good! No worries!"
Yes! I am on to something! I could think that exact thought loop over and over whenever I am dealing with annoying people in institutional and commercial settings - at the bank, at the doctor's office, at the grocery store... It could turn into my own little do-it-yourself west coast spiritual practice. It would be a way of converting annoyance and irritation into the characteristic west coast traits of tolerance and compassion! I could even follow the positive thought-loop with a simple breath meditation: Breathing in, this annoying person might just be really baked. Breathing out, we are all brothers. Breathing in, I see this annoying person as my best friend when we are getting baked together. Breathing out, we are all connected. Breathing in, pass me the lighter. Breathing out, I don't feel so irritated with all these west coast slackers anymore... Breathing in.... pass left... breathing out... ahhhh...
Greensnake Tries A Mind-Expanding Beverage
Two summers ago I had the good fortune to ingest a substance that made the lawn jump out into multidimensional fractal patterns before my eyes. It was a great experience, but unfortunately the substance that I took seems to have been a gateway drug. It must have been, because after that experience, I absolutely burned with curiosity and a desire to try other ways of altering my consciousness. But what substance to choose? Last December, a totally legal option presented itself to me: coffee.
I had always heard people saying that coffee is a drug. My health is really important to me and I am pretty conservative when it comes to vices (I'm not into alcohol, I don't particularly like chocolate, I don't have a secret stash of smutty jpegs on my hard drive, I've never watched Survivor, I don't have a driver's licence, I'm no gambler, and I don't even eat meat) so obviously I had never tried coffee before! I had always assumed that the commonly tossed-about phrase, "coffee is a drug," referred only to its chemically addictive nature. Did you know that 70% of the headaches in North America are due to caffeine withdrawal? But I digress.
So I started to think about it. Coffee is a drug... coffee is a drug... could it make the lawn hop out into fractals? I doubted it. But what could it do? Should I try it and find out if there was anything more to its "drug" reputation than just its ability to form a habit? Should I should I should I try? One night I randomly read online that some medieval sect of Sufis had used caffeine to get high so that they could commune with God. That did it - my decision was made. I was going to try it.
With a little help from my friend, I soon had a cup of Turkish Coffee in my eager little hands. I was so excited! I was going to get high, I just knew it!
The coffee was dark brown and it smelled great. The first sip, however, tasted terrible. It was bitter and left an astringent feeling in my mouth like herbal bronchitis medicine. I couldn't drink it quickly at all, so I just sipped. Start low and go slow, I reminded myself. At first, the only change I noticed was a slight sharpening of concentrational focus toward the cup of coffee itself. By the time the cup was empty, a thin sweat had broken out all over my skin. I felt like I could write a 40-page research paper on any topic at the library in time for dinner. Was this how those Sufis had felt before they communed with God? I started noticing details all over the room, and my attention was jumping from one item to another. So many interesting things to look at! I decided to have another cup.
My companion was not sure if I should do that.
I insisted, "Come on! I want to get high like those Sufis!"
"If you want to be up all night..."
"That's what they did! They stayed up all night communing with God!" Staying up all night seemed realistic. I felt like I could handle it. Was it a challenge? Throw it at me, I thought, I can do anything! I could get a lot done if I stayed up all night. It would be great!
After my second cup, those details were really standing out. The grain of the wood that the chairs were made of... the reflections on the windows... the clinking of spoons... the whole atmosphere of the cafe came alive, really. Of course nothing was standing out in a fractal- claymation-kaleidoscope way. But everything was standing out in an attentional way, inside my mind. I wondered if maybe I had had some kind of attentional deficit all along, and now the coffee was allowing me to focus my attention? On many things at once?
I realized that my verdict was in. Did I commune with God? No. But coffee was definitely a drug, and not just because it was addictive. I really felt that I had traveled to another plane of consciousness: I had experienced caffeinated awareness.
That Monday morning at work, I watched my co-workers with their coffee mugs and I smelled the coffee brewing in the pot. It was the first time I had ever been able to relate to their rituals. But I still didn't understand. How could something so mind-altering be used so casually in a place of work? In my imagination I subsituted other substances, like my favourite leafy greens, for the coffee. I couldn't imagine people walking around stoned in our office on a Monday morning. Why was coffee so socially acceptable?
I remembered my urge to write a research paper the day before. I think that although coffee is definitely consciousness-altering, the way it alters our consciousness is still compatible with our inherited protestant work ethic. It makes people feel like they can attack a task and get stuff done! And, as I sadly discovered that evening, users can become extremely habituated after only one use. Maybe the morning coffee doesn't affect most workers that much at all. When I did coffee again that night, I didn't get half the effect I had had the day before. I wasn't able to get the same intensity of experience until I had gone more than two weeks without doing any coffee at all.
In total, I did coffee 8 times over the past year. Although coffee exacerbates some of my least favourite personality traits, it is a great drug that's totally legal, socially acceptable in any situation except maybe during sex, and does change your head when you want to feel a different feeling. Nevertheless, I can't see myself getting really serious about it (if you say "grinder" I don't think of coffee), because it is so addictive, you get habituated so easily, and it has a ton of negative health effects. It scares the hell out of me that some people drink 8 cups a day just to feel normal. That's 4 times more than what I had when I first entered into the heightened realm of caffeinated awareness!
It's sad but true: I know that if I were to start to use this substance more often, my use would become abuse, because I would turn something that to me is still magical into just another requisite part of my daily routine. I'd feel cranky without it, but nothing special with it.
I had always heard people saying that coffee is a drug. My health is really important to me and I am pretty conservative when it comes to vices (I'm not into alcohol, I don't particularly like chocolate, I don't have a secret stash of smutty jpegs on my hard drive, I've never watched Survivor, I don't have a driver's licence, I'm no gambler, and I don't even eat meat) so obviously I had never tried coffee before! I had always assumed that the commonly tossed-about phrase, "coffee is a drug," referred only to its chemically addictive nature. Did you know that 70% of the headaches in North America are due to caffeine withdrawal? But I digress.
So I started to think about it. Coffee is a drug... coffee is a drug... could it make the lawn hop out into fractals? I doubted it. But what could it do? Should I try it and find out if there was anything more to its "drug" reputation than just its ability to form a habit? Should I should I should I try? One night I randomly read online that some medieval sect of Sufis had used caffeine to get high so that they could commune with God. That did it - my decision was made. I was going to try it.
With a little help from my friend, I soon had a cup of Turkish Coffee in my eager little hands. I was so excited! I was going to get high, I just knew it!
The coffee was dark brown and it smelled great. The first sip, however, tasted terrible. It was bitter and left an astringent feeling in my mouth like herbal bronchitis medicine. I couldn't drink it quickly at all, so I just sipped. Start low and go slow, I reminded myself. At first, the only change I noticed was a slight sharpening of concentrational focus toward the cup of coffee itself. By the time the cup was empty, a thin sweat had broken out all over my skin. I felt like I could write a 40-page research paper on any topic at the library in time for dinner. Was this how those Sufis had felt before they communed with God? I started noticing details all over the room, and my attention was jumping from one item to another. So many interesting things to look at! I decided to have another cup.
My companion was not sure if I should do that.
I insisted, "Come on! I want to get high like those Sufis!"
"If you want to be up all night..."
"That's what they did! They stayed up all night communing with God!" Staying up all night seemed realistic. I felt like I could handle it. Was it a challenge? Throw it at me, I thought, I can do anything! I could get a lot done if I stayed up all night. It would be great!
After my second cup, those details were really standing out. The grain of the wood that the chairs were made of... the reflections on the windows... the clinking of spoons... the whole atmosphere of the cafe came alive, really. Of course nothing was standing out in a fractal- claymation-kaleidoscope way. But everything was standing out in an attentional way, inside my mind. I wondered if maybe I had had some kind of attentional deficit all along, and now the coffee was allowing me to focus my attention? On many things at once?
I realized that my verdict was in. Did I commune with God? No. But coffee was definitely a drug, and not just because it was addictive. I really felt that I had traveled to another plane of consciousness: I had experienced caffeinated awareness.
That Monday morning at work, I watched my co-workers with their coffee mugs and I smelled the coffee brewing in the pot. It was the first time I had ever been able to relate to their rituals. But I still didn't understand. How could something so mind-altering be used so casually in a place of work? In my imagination I subsituted other substances, like my favourite leafy greens, for the coffee. I couldn't imagine people walking around stoned in our office on a Monday morning. Why was coffee so socially acceptable?
I remembered my urge to write a research paper the day before. I think that although coffee is definitely consciousness-altering, the way it alters our consciousness is still compatible with our inherited protestant work ethic. It makes people feel like they can attack a task and get stuff done! And, as I sadly discovered that evening, users can become extremely habituated after only one use. Maybe the morning coffee doesn't affect most workers that much at all. When I did coffee again that night, I didn't get half the effect I had had the day before. I wasn't able to get the same intensity of experience until I had gone more than two weeks without doing any coffee at all.
In total, I did coffee 8 times over the past year. Although coffee exacerbates some of my least favourite personality traits, it is a great drug that's totally legal, socially acceptable in any situation except maybe during sex, and does change your head when you want to feel a different feeling. Nevertheless, I can't see myself getting really serious about it (if you say "grinder" I don't think of coffee), because it is so addictive, you get habituated so easily, and it has a ton of negative health effects. It scares the hell out of me that some people drink 8 cups a day just to feel normal. That's 4 times more than what I had when I first entered into the heightened realm of caffeinated awareness!
It's sad but true: I know that if I were to start to use this substance more often, my use would become abuse, because I would turn something that to me is still magical into just another requisite part of my daily routine. I'd feel cranky without it, but nothing special with it.
2008-11-29
The Padded Truth
Today I tried to buy a bra.
If you know me or have read previous posts, you will know that I've recently lost a lot of weight, and not on purpose either (though I am enjoying my new skinny life). So anyways the tight squishy sports bras that I usually wear still fit fine... they are one-size fits all, after all! But my fancy ones, for wearing at job interviews and with certain more formal clothes, are too big around the ribs now that I'm a scrawn-dog. So I thought I would get another fancy one, one that would fit. And besides I heard there was a sale. Sometimes, as a female, it is socially good to look more feminine, i.e. looking like I have two seperate breasts that are the fashion-designated shape... instead of what I usually wear, which I have learned is closer to "binding" than actual bra wearing. Apparently "binding" is pretty popular in Taiwan, though from personal experience at the bath house I would say Russians have more need for it. The term has a range of meanings and one of them refers to the use of tight sports bras or other materials to squish your breasts, making your upper body look sturdy while decreasing the amount of attention paid to your breasts by people in your environment. People do it for lots of reasons including transexual reasons, but I did it unconsciously.
So today I went to the bra store and was I ever shocked! And I thought I was shocked last time. Last time I bought these things, I was surprised that the bras made of regular cloth were no longer available. It was thick foam instead. Well today I was shocked again - not only are most bras still made of thick foam instead of regular cloth, but, ah, the foam is now like an inch thicker at the bottom of the cup: the traditional "falsie" spot.
The store workers seemed shocked and dumbfounded when I asked where the bras were that did not come with such thick padding. It seems that over a few short years they had forgotten such things had ever existed. They had to really search. They had to "go look in the back." They finally found... one. (A red satin one.)
One worker with huge false eyelashes and a huge false smile announced in a very loud false whisper: "Actually we DO sometimes have them without the thicker padding!!! But normally not in your size!!! We have them sometimes for D and E cups tho!" Ok, so I guess that means my breasts are too small and I need padding to be seen in public. My mind buzzes. Right, C is definitely too small... especially my little 32C or 34C, which is, after all, a lot smaller than a more normal 36C or 38C that your average lady wears. But wait, (deep breath) that 38C would now automatically come with extra padding too, and... isn't C the most commonly worn bra size in the world anyway? Ok (deep breath) I don't feel so personally targeted after all. I guess someone has randomly decided that we all have to look an inch thicker than we really are.
I feel somewhat opposed to this concept. I mean what the fuck, right? It seems so false.
Don't be so negative, dear self. Maybe I should go easier on the bra industry. False, maybe, but not a complete lie. There are still actual breasts inside that bra. So it's still the truth. But, I protest, it's the padded truth!
If you know me or have read previous posts, you will know that I've recently lost a lot of weight, and not on purpose either (though I am enjoying my new skinny life). So anyways the tight squishy sports bras that I usually wear still fit fine... they are one-size fits all, after all! But my fancy ones, for wearing at job interviews and with certain more formal clothes, are too big around the ribs now that I'm a scrawn-dog. So I thought I would get another fancy one, one that would fit. And besides I heard there was a sale. Sometimes, as a female, it is socially good to look more feminine, i.e. looking like I have two seperate breasts that are the fashion-designated shape... instead of what I usually wear, which I have learned is closer to "binding" than actual bra wearing. Apparently "binding" is pretty popular in Taiwan, though from personal experience at the bath house I would say Russians have more need for it. The term has a range of meanings and one of them refers to the use of tight sports bras or other materials to squish your breasts, making your upper body look sturdy while decreasing the amount of attention paid to your breasts by people in your environment. People do it for lots of reasons including transexual reasons, but I did it unconsciously.
So today I went to the bra store and was I ever shocked! And I thought I was shocked last time. Last time I bought these things, I was surprised that the bras made of regular cloth were no longer available. It was thick foam instead. Well today I was shocked again - not only are most bras still made of thick foam instead of regular cloth, but, ah, the foam is now like an inch thicker at the bottom of the cup: the traditional "falsie" spot.
The store workers seemed shocked and dumbfounded when I asked where the bras were that did not come with such thick padding. It seems that over a few short years they had forgotten such things had ever existed. They had to really search. They had to "go look in the back." They finally found... one. (A red satin one.)
One worker with huge false eyelashes and a huge false smile announced in a very loud false whisper: "Actually we DO sometimes have them without the thicker padding!!! But normally not in your size!!! We have them sometimes for D and E cups tho!" Ok, so I guess that means my breasts are too small and I need padding to be seen in public. My mind buzzes. Right, C is definitely too small... especially my little 32C or 34C, which is, after all, a lot smaller than a more normal 36C or 38C that your average lady wears. But wait, (deep breath) that 38C would now automatically come with extra padding too, and... isn't C the most commonly worn bra size in the world anyway? Ok (deep breath) I don't feel so personally targeted after all. I guess someone has randomly decided that we all have to look an inch thicker than we really are.
I feel somewhat opposed to this concept. I mean what the fuck, right? It seems so false.
Don't be so negative, dear self. Maybe I should go easier on the bra industry. False, maybe, but not a complete lie. There are still actual breasts inside that bra. So it's still the truth. But, I protest, it's the padded truth!
Library Card Password
Today I went to the library and used their electronic catalogue to look up this one book, but I had a problem. So I went to the desk for help. This is what I said - see if you can understand:
"I used the computers here to try and put a hold on this one book, but after I entered my library card's bar code, the computer asked for a password. Even though I just got this new library card a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember anything about a password! So I hit the 'forgot password' button and it gave me a message that a new password has been sent to my email. But I can't log on to the internet on that computer without my library card password, so what can I do?"
That wasn't hard to follow, right?
Here is where the story gets strange:
The lady was like, "Do you have a library card?"
Uh yeah, that's the barcode I entered...
So she pulls my file up on her screen.
"Is this your phone number?"
Yes.
"Is your phone number 652?"
Yes that is my phone number, the one you are showing me on the screen.
"Is your number 2148?"
Yes, that number is my phone number!!!
"652 2148?"
Yup.
"So do you remember your password?"
No!
"You forgot your password?"
Yes.
"Do you have a password?"
I don't remember.
"It's not showing me your password, I can't see it."
Well my password is gone anyway and a new one has been sent to my email... which I can't access from those computers because only people with passwords can log on to the internet here... right?
"Do you want a new password?"
Yes.
"Do you want me to make you a new password?"
Yyyeeesss.
"Do you want me to make you a new password now?"
Yes! (Smile!)
"Ok I will use your phone number so you will remember it."
Ok.
"Ok?"
Ok.
"Is it 2148?"
Yes.
"Is your phone number 2148?"
Yes!
"Do you want your new password to be 2148?"
OK!!!!
"Your new password is 2148... all right?"
All right.
"Ok so it's 2148."
Phew.
Why did she have to ask me each question so many times? Was I really that hard to understand?
"I used the computers here to try and put a hold on this one book, but after I entered my library card's bar code, the computer asked for a password. Even though I just got this new library card a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember anything about a password! So I hit the 'forgot password' button and it gave me a message that a new password has been sent to my email. But I can't log on to the internet on that computer without my library card password, so what can I do?"
That wasn't hard to follow, right?
Here is where the story gets strange:
The lady was like, "Do you have a library card?"
Uh yeah, that's the barcode I entered...
So she pulls my file up on her screen.
"Is this your phone number?"
Yes.
"Is your phone number 652?"
Yes that is my phone number, the one you are showing me on the screen.
"Is your number 2148?"
Yes, that number is my phone number!!!
"652 2148?"
Yup.
"So do you remember your password?"
No!
"You forgot your password?"
Yes.
"Do you have a password?"
I don't remember.
"It's not showing me your password, I can't see it."
Well my password is gone anyway and a new one has been sent to my email... which I can't access from those computers because only people with passwords can log on to the internet here... right?
"Do you want a new password?"
Yes.
"Do you want me to make you a new password?"
Yyyeeesss.
"Do you want me to make you a new password now?"
Yes! (Smile!)
"Ok I will use your phone number so you will remember it."
Ok.
"Ok?"
Ok.
"Is it 2148?"
Yes.
"Is your phone number 2148?"
Yes!
"Do you want your new password to be 2148?"
OK!!!!
"Your new password is 2148... all right?"
All right.
"Ok so it's 2148."
Phew.
Why did she have to ask me each question so many times? Was I really that hard to understand?
2008-11-27
Far Out
I wonder why the west coast of North America is called "out" as in "going out west." And why is Asia called "far" as in "the far east"?
And where the hell am I?
Far east, out west, out west, far east...
It seems that no matter which continent I am on, I always somehow find myself in the far-out east/west.
And where the hell am I?
Far east, out west, out west, far east...
It seems that no matter which continent I am on, I always somehow find myself in the far-out east/west.
Yoga Camp
Here is a poem. It is fiction (meaning that this did not actually happen to me) but of course I can relate to the basic idea!
YOGA CAMP
They said balance
and I did not understand the concept.
They said use your core to stabilize your ascent
and I did not see the connection to the spiritual quest.
They said relax
and I railed, "I AM ALREADY RELAXED!!!"
That about ended it
and I was asked not to come back to yoga camp.
YOGA CAMP
They said balance
and I did not understand the concept.
They said use your core to stabilize your ascent
and I did not see the connection to the spiritual quest.
They said relax
and I railed, "I AM ALREADY RELAXED!!!"
That about ended it
and I was asked not to come back to yoga camp.
Something from before
Here is something from before. Before I got sick, before everything in my life totally changed. It feels strange that it was not even very long ago. This was originally posted on Facebook and I thought I would post it up here again to show that I once was a normal person, but that even then, I was always in transit. Yeah I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, now that I am almost 30, wondering about how I've been affected by spending half my twenties like a rolling stone with no direction home.
Cierra and Mark Go To Kunming, Part One: THE TRAIN
Cierra and Mark Go To Kunming, Part One: THE TRAIN
After the Hang On The Box show, which was the night after New Pants, Mark and I went back for our last sleep at Jason's place in the diplomatic compound. The next day we set out on a 40-hour train journey to our next destination: Kunming, known in China as the City of Eternal Spring!
On the train, we passed through the provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, and Yunnan. I was harassed several times by a railway worker with a disturbingly robotic voice who insisted on telling me stories, very loudly, in very nasal English. He also refered to Mark and I as "dinks". Apparently in China "dink" means "double income no kids"... actually I had heard that before, but isn't that for married people who are well into their 30s and have already decided to permanently not have kids? This guy was ticking me off anyway and I had already used pretty clear body language to show him that I was busy writing, so I just turned my head back to my book and told him not to say that word anymore because it has another meaning, a bad meaning.
"WHAT WORD, DINK? DINK? WHAT IS WRONG WITH DINK? WHAT IS THE BAD MEANING OF THE WORD DINK? DINK?"
"Nothing. No meaning. Stop talking."
"MY JOB IS TEN HOURS WORKING THEN REST, AND SO ON, THREE DAYS TO BEIJING THEN THREE DAYS BACK TO KUNMING THEN THREE DAYS OFF."
"I know, you've said so several times already."
"MY WIFE IS A NEUROLOGIST."
I tried not to laugh but all I could picture was this woman marrying him so she'd have a constantly available experimental test subject, and then not being able to stand him and shipping him off to work on the train on the longest, farthest route she could find...
Luckily, the other people in the train were fun. There was He Hao, Liu Pu Quan, and a wierd little kid whose name I never learned.
He Hao is an engineering student in Beijing and was on his way back to his home in Kunming for the holiday. He called his dad from the train and asked him to help find a place for us to stay when we arrived. When we got to Kunming, his dad was even waiting for us all at the train station and took us out for breakfast. He Hao's brother even invited us to his wedding next Saturday and of course we are going to go.
Liu Pu Quan is a true Dongbei (Northeast) guy from Jilin. He has three girlfriends who don't know about each other although their photos are all stored in his cell phone, and he dreams of opening rou chuanr stops on the sidewalks of every town, wherever he goes... even though he doesn't even eat rou chuanr himself. He had just graduated from tech school in Beijing and had been assigned to a work unit in the far southwest, farther than Kunming, and was on his way with only a backpack to the place he would stay and work, without leaving, for at least the next three years. He was headed about as far from his hometown as you can go without leaving the country.
Then there was the wierd little kid. He seemed so tame at first. I came back from getting some food in the food car of the train and saw a sweet little boy sitting at the window table with Mark studying Chinese character flash cards together. The little guy looked up and politely excused himself when he saw me arrive with the food. About 20 minutes later he showed up with some chicken feet for us and left again. Very sweet. Next, Mark and I took out our Sudoku books and were subjected to ridicule by He Hao and Liu Pu Quan for playing such obviously simple games for little kids. We said ok fine, you play with it... and our two compartment mates quickly found themselves stranded because they had boastfully started with "difficult" instead of "beginner"! The little guy came back and I taught him to play crazy eights. Mark went for a nap on an upper bunk and after Liu Pu Quan and He Hao admitted that Sudoku wasn't a game for babies, they joined the little boy and I for Nanaimo Rummy. It was all going very well until the little boy lost interest in the cards and noticed that Mark was missing. It didn't take long for him to spot Mark on the upper bunk, at which point his monkey limbs came out and he was swinging from the side of Mark's bed, shouting, "味， 老外，你 在干什么？" ("Hey foreigner whatcha doin?") at the top of his lungs, and clambering up to stick his head in Mark's shirt.
A moment later he was crouched back on the floor between the berths, wide-eyed and pale. "I looked in his shirt... and from here to here," indicating his neck to his belt, "it's ALL HAIR!" Liu Pu Quan seemed interested ("really?") but He Hao rolled his eyes. I said to the kid, "you're going to embarass him. Don't talk about him to everyone on the train." Then the kid started going bonkers! I had to put away the cards so he wouldn't wreck them and as I started to hide my sudoku book too, the kid even grabbed my sudoku book! He was flopping and flipping on the bunks and shouting and going apeshit! I tried ignoring him but to no avail. He Hao and I tried looking at a book together but the kid kept kicking and yelling and saying that he wanted something sweet to eat. Oh my god. How did Mark manage to sleep through all this? Finally He Hao gave up and realized there was no choice other than to wear the kid out. So he grabbed him and tickled him and held him upside-down and then held him down on the bunk and let him squirm. The kid's squirms got more intense so He Hao and I picked him up by the wrists and ankles and dragged him down the aisle pretending we were looking for a big enough garbage can to throw him in. He wriggled away and ran back to our bunks and started going wacky again! So He Hao just held him down, until finally, he was successful and the kid lost his energy and became docile again. Mark was still asleep.
Maybe I'd rather be DINK after all...
On the train, we passed through the provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, and Yunnan. I was harassed several times by a railway worker with a disturbingly robotic voice who insisted on telling me stories, very loudly, in very nasal English. He also refered to Mark and I as "dinks". Apparently in China "dink" means "double income no kids"... actually I had heard that before, but isn't that for married people who are well into their 30s and have already decided to permanently not have kids? This guy was ticking me off anyway and I had already used pretty clear body language to show him that I was busy writing, so I just turned my head back to my book and told him not to say that word anymore because it has another meaning, a bad meaning.
"WHAT WORD, DINK? DINK? WHAT IS WRONG WITH DINK? WHAT IS THE BAD MEANING OF THE WORD DINK? DINK?"
"Nothing. No meaning. Stop talking."
"MY JOB IS TEN HOURS WORKING THEN REST, AND SO ON, THREE DAYS TO BEIJING THEN THREE DAYS BACK TO KUNMING THEN THREE DAYS OFF."
"I know, you've said so several times already."
"MY WIFE IS A NEUROLOGIST."
I tried not to laugh but all I could picture was this woman marrying him so she'd have a constantly available experimental test subject, and then not being able to stand him and shipping him off to work on the train on the longest, farthest route she could find...
Luckily, the other people in the train were fun. There was He Hao, Liu Pu Quan, and a wierd little kid whose name I never learned.
He Hao is an engineering student in Beijing and was on his way back to his home in Kunming for the holiday. He called his dad from the train and asked him to help find a place for us to stay when we arrived. When we got to Kunming, his dad was even waiting for us all at the train station and took us out for breakfast. He Hao's brother even invited us to his wedding next Saturday and of course we are going to go.
Liu Pu Quan is a true Dongbei (Northeast) guy from Jilin. He has three girlfriends who don't know about each other although their photos are all stored in his cell phone, and he dreams of opening rou chuanr stops on the sidewalks of every town, wherever he goes... even though he doesn't even eat rou chuanr himself. He had just graduated from tech school in Beijing and had been assigned to a work unit in the far southwest, farther than Kunming, and was on his way with only a backpack to the place he would stay and work, without leaving, for at least the next three years. He was headed about as far from his hometown as you can go without leaving the country.
Then there was the wierd little kid. He seemed so tame at first. I came back from getting some food in the food car of the train and saw a sweet little boy sitting at the window table with Mark studying Chinese character flash cards together. The little guy looked up and politely excused himself when he saw me arrive with the food. About 20 minutes later he showed up with some chicken feet for us and left again. Very sweet. Next, Mark and I took out our Sudoku books and were subjected to ridicule by He Hao and Liu Pu Quan for playing such obviously simple games for little kids. We said ok fine, you play with it... and our two compartment mates quickly found themselves stranded because they had boastfully started with "difficult" instead of "beginner"! The little guy came back and I taught him to play crazy eights. Mark went for a nap on an upper bunk and after Liu Pu Quan and He Hao admitted that Sudoku wasn't a game for babies, they joined the little boy and I for Nanaimo Rummy. It was all going very well until the little boy lost interest in the cards and noticed that Mark was missing. It didn't take long for him to spot Mark on the upper bunk, at which point his monkey limbs came out and he was swinging from the side of Mark's bed, shouting, "味， 老外，你 在干什么？" ("Hey foreigner whatcha doin?") at the top of his lungs, and clambering up to stick his head in Mark's shirt.
A moment later he was crouched back on the floor between the berths, wide-eyed and pale. "I looked in his shirt... and from here to here," indicating his neck to his belt, "it's ALL HAIR!" Liu Pu Quan seemed interested ("really?") but He Hao rolled his eyes. I said to the kid, "you're going to embarass him. Don't talk about him to everyone on the train." Then the kid started going bonkers! I had to put away the cards so he wouldn't wreck them and as I started to hide my sudoku book too, the kid even grabbed my sudoku book! He was flopping and flipping on the bunks and shouting and going apeshit! I tried ignoring him but to no avail. He Hao and I tried looking at a book together but the kid kept kicking and yelling and saying that he wanted something sweet to eat. Oh my god. How did Mark manage to sleep through all this? Finally He Hao gave up and realized there was no choice other than to wear the kid out. So he grabbed him and tickled him and held him upside-down and then held him down on the bunk and let him squirm. The kid's squirms got more intense so He Hao and I picked him up by the wrists and ankles and dragged him down the aisle pretending we were looking for a big enough garbage can to throw him in. He wriggled away and ran back to our bunks and started going wacky again! So He Hao just held him down, until finally, he was successful and the kid lost his energy and became docile again. Mark was still asleep.
Maybe I'd rather be DINK after all...
2008-11-26
DysenterySlim(TM)
This is my sad-but-true experience disguised as a joke. Read on but please laugh, don't cry :-) (by the way, it wasn't really dysentery, it was actually an extra bad strain of e. coli.. but dysentery sounds more 3rd world, so.)
Ancient Beauty Secrets of the Third World Finally Revealed!
Reading this letter might change your life.
If you’re anything like most women, ever since puberty you’ve longed for a slimmer, trimmer, more feminine figure. I’m writing today to share with you a remarkable secret – one which has already helped me drop not one, not two, but 9 dress sizes over the past month! That’s right – the process was not only INEXPENSIVE and EASY to follow, but took ONLY one month. And today I’m going to share it with YOU!
Now you too can attain a slim and beautiful figure thanks to DysenterySlim™ – the ancient Third World diet secret now available for the first time to more Western women (women like YOU) than ever before!
Join millions of women throughout history in ridding yourself of ugly fat, today! Attain your unreasonable weight and size ideals! Quickly banish unsightly bulges, extra padding... even lose enough weight to stop your menstruation! It all depends how far you want to go: with DysenterySlim™ anything is possible!
Just a few drops of DysenterySlim™’s special formula* in your food or beverage is all you need to jumpstart our all-natural weight-loss experience! The entire process will be supervised by a trained** medical doctor at a very reasonable rate***. Just one month later, your friends, family, and HANDSOME STRANGERS will not BELIEVE the new YOU!
*special formula consists of naturally contaminated water from the third world
**medical doctors have certificates that are valid in third world countries only
***third world hospital fees total approximately 32.59 USD for two weeks of treatment
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what other successful DysenterySlim™ survivors have to say!
“I haven’t been this skinny since I was 12!”
-Jane, 25
“With the exchange rate, the hospital fees were really cheap. I didn’t even bother contacting my insurance company for coverage.”
-Nancy, 21
“I can’t believe it! All my favourite pants from my too-small box that I’d been saving for YEARS in case they ever fit me again ALL FIT ME NOW!”
-Marie, 30
“It was really easy. All I had to do was drink the formula. Then for the next three weeks, I relaxed in bed and drank 70 litres of delicious lemon-flavoured oral rehydration salts dissolved in Evian! I even got a bit of exercise going back and forth to the toilets!”
-Staci, 23
“I look like a fuckin’ supermodel!”
-Hawaii, 26
“The thing that’s different about this diet is that even though your breasts actually do shrink, they totally don’t shrink as much as the rest of your body!”
-Pammy, 28
“The special formula was really easy to swallow. I had mine in a tabouli salad and a waxberry smoothie at a tourist restaurant. I couldn’t even taste the DysenterySlim™ and it didn’t even really click that I was finally going to lose all this weight until the next morning when the process began. By that time I don’t even think I could have prevented it!”
-Hannah, 28
“My camouflage miniskirt that I haven’t been able to wear since grade ten looks absolutely HOT on me now!”
-Rebeccah, 34
“The rats in the hospital were actually kind of cute!”
-Chandini, 18
Well, girls, if you are not convinced by all of that GLOWING survivor testimony, then let me add a FEW QUICK FACTS that will help you make YOUR decision to join the MOST EFFECTIVE diet plan EVER!
*DysenterySlim™’s special formula occurs NATURALLY in NATURE! This is the only diet system on the market that was designed by GOD!
*DysenterySlim™’s revolutionary approach using a special formula containing only naturally contaminated drinking water from Third World countries is effective on ANY woman, regardless of previous dieting experience!
*DysenterySlim™’s special formula, because it is bottled at source, is delivered to the consumer – YOU – at a mere FRACTION of the price of other diet pills, creams, and preparations!
*DysenterySlim™’s fast and effective process is overseen by trained medical doctors** in Third World Countries whose fees are often LESS THAN 1% of what you would pay at home!
*DysenterySlim™ lets YOU, the affluent Western consumer, attain body weights that previously belonged only to the beautiful and exotic women you’ve long envied on the pages of glossy international publications such as National Geographic and Fighting Famine Today!
*DysenterySlim™ is not only a quick and successful diet – it is also a cultural experience! Now YOU TOO can share the same glamorously feminine silhouette that has been enjoyed by millions of poverty-stricken, malnourished, chronically dehydrated women across the world who have no access to clean water!
___________________________________
Ancient Beauty Secrets of the Third World Finally Revealed!
Reading this letter might change your life.
If you’re anything like most women, ever since puberty you’ve longed for a slimmer, trimmer, more feminine figure. I’m writing today to share with you a remarkable secret – one which has already helped me drop not one, not two, but 9 dress sizes over the past month! That’s right – the process was not only INEXPENSIVE and EASY to follow, but took ONLY one month. And today I’m going to share it with YOU!
Now you too can attain a slim and beautiful figure thanks to DysenterySlim™ – the ancient Third World diet secret now available for the first time to more Western women (women like YOU) than ever before!
Join millions of women throughout history in ridding yourself of ugly fat, today! Attain your unreasonable weight and size ideals! Quickly banish unsightly bulges, extra padding... even lose enough weight to stop your menstruation! It all depends how far you want to go: with DysenterySlim™ anything is possible!
Just a few drops of DysenterySlim™’s special formula* in your food or beverage is all you need to jumpstart our all-natural weight-loss experience! The entire process will be supervised by a trained** medical doctor at a very reasonable rate***. Just one month later, your friends, family, and HANDSOME STRANGERS will not BELIEVE the new YOU!
*special formula consists of naturally contaminated water from the third world
**medical doctors have certificates that are valid in third world countries only
***third world hospital fees total approximately 32.59 USD for two weeks of treatment
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what other successful DysenterySlim™ survivors have to say!
“I haven’t been this skinny since I was 12!”
-Jane, 25
“With the exchange rate, the hospital fees were really cheap. I didn’t even bother contacting my insurance company for coverage.”
-Nancy, 21
“I can’t believe it! All my favourite pants from my too-small box that I’d been saving for YEARS in case they ever fit me again ALL FIT ME NOW!”
-Marie, 30
“It was really easy. All I had to do was drink the formula. Then for the next three weeks, I relaxed in bed and drank 70 litres of delicious lemon-flavoured oral rehydration salts dissolved in Evian! I even got a bit of exercise going back and forth to the toilets!”
-Staci, 23
“I look like a fuckin’ supermodel!”
-Hawaii, 26
“The thing that’s different about this diet is that even though your breasts actually do shrink, they totally don’t shrink as much as the rest of your body!”
-Pammy, 28
“The special formula was really easy to swallow. I had mine in a tabouli salad and a waxberry smoothie at a tourist restaurant. I couldn’t even taste the DysenterySlim™ and it didn’t even really click that I was finally going to lose all this weight until the next morning when the process began. By that time I don’t even think I could have prevented it!”
-Hannah, 28
“My camouflage miniskirt that I haven’t been able to wear since grade ten looks absolutely HOT on me now!”
-Rebeccah, 34
“The rats in the hospital were actually kind of cute!”
-Chandini, 18
Well, girls, if you are not convinced by all of that GLOWING survivor testimony, then let me add a FEW QUICK FACTS that will help you make YOUR decision to join the MOST EFFECTIVE diet plan EVER!
*DysenterySlim™’s special formula occurs NATURALLY in NATURE! This is the only diet system on the market that was designed by GOD!
*DysenterySlim™’s revolutionary approach using a special formula containing only naturally contaminated drinking water from Third World countries is effective on ANY woman, regardless of previous dieting experience!
*DysenterySlim™’s special formula, because it is bottled at source, is delivered to the consumer – YOU – at a mere FRACTION of the price of other diet pills, creams, and preparations!
*DysenterySlim™’s fast and effective process is overseen by trained medical doctors** in Third World Countries whose fees are often LESS THAN 1% of what you would pay at home!
*DysenterySlim™ lets YOU, the affluent Western consumer, attain body weights that previously belonged only to the beautiful and exotic women you’ve long envied on the pages of glossy international publications such as National Geographic and Fighting Famine Today!
*DysenterySlim™ is not only a quick and successful diet – it is also a cultural experience! Now YOU TOO can share the same glamorously feminine silhouette that has been enjoyed by millions of poverty-stricken, malnourished, chronically dehydrated women across the world who have no access to clean water!
___________________________________
BY THE WAY if you are envying me at all right right now in that masochistic fashion-magazine-reading heart of yours, give your head a shake... Hate your thighs or your butt?? Be thankful for what you've got!!! Lotsa women and little girls in our world have to walk for six hours to bring water to their families every day, and it's usually not even clean or safe water at that!! If you want to lose weight donate your CAKE MONEY to UNICEF!!! www.unicef.org
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