Thailand, Ko Chang

The Washing Machine

The second earthquake I experienced in Japan was weaker than the first. It seemed merely asking, "What`s that?" turned both off like a password. There were no toppled appliances, cabinet doors thrown open, water mains set gushing, fires pressing up from the floor below or parents wailing for children. Nothing.
Nothing of horror but, surprisingly, a sense of calm... nostalgia. This morning I am eight again and living in the trailer out on Eagle Pass drive. The pale, predawn sky lends the bedroom a chilled breeze and I might have to wake up for school soon. Might have to take a shower and walk down the gravel drive out to the bus stop. Listening for the big diesel engine to grumble somewhere up in Lithia Springs or, on dark days, watch for lights in the mountain to trace the switch-back. Jake and I would shift weight in the cold and wonder back to the morning`s shower: it`s warmth. After getting out, Jake and I would take turns passing the hair dryer through the steam and drawing the fan of heat over us. We would run to our bedrooms and then dress grumpily by the heat vent in the floor, letting the hot exhaust gather on us in fragile layers. It would be time for breakfast soon. Scrambled eggs, bacon, maybe pancakes but wait... not yet, I can sleep for now. It`s early. Maybe 5... 4? Someone`s up. The house is dark. It`s warm in bed and something is making a noise? no not a noise, a... humming? I won`t open my eyes- still asleep- I can feel through the dark, the humming like a buzz, then it`s the house. I can feel the trailer shaking and the ripples of it through the bed and on me, like a pulse. The whole house undulating like a lone carriage speeding on tracks, the intervals quickening, the thuds getting softer as they blur together and I am at peace again, nothing can stop the train and it`s humming. It is going nowhere, not school or errands, only the in between. A restful nowhere.

What the he...?

I`ve always enjoyed Superman stories. Either played by Mr. Reeves, Brandon Routh opposite Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor (a truly inspired casting decision), comic form or even the critically panned Superman Returns videogame. It occured to me recently though that Superman`s characters share an interesting characteristic. Maybe it`s because the names roll off the tongue so easily but it seems that the letter `L` is tossed around the cast list like glitter on a craft project. Por examplo: Superman`s parents, Lara and Jor-El; Supe`s real name, Kal-El; his high school sweetheart, Lana Lang; adult love, Lois Lane; fellow reporter, Jimmy Olsen (that one is kind of weak but wait...); his follicly challenged nemesis, Lex Luthor.
I don`t understand. I can think of no symbolism in the writer`s penchant for `L` and it seems sporadically used. Lara and Kal-El are his Kryptonian parents but, Martha and Pa Kent are his Earth parents. Lex Luthor a purely human enemy but Zod an exiled alien General. Krypton?
Now Bruce Wayne had an origin in narcissism: a play on the creator Bob Kane. Maybe then it`s tied to the writers Jerry SiegeL and Joe Schuster- not likely. Eh, a nerd`s querry.

JumpStart

Japan and I are out of the honeymoon phase and the little island has started to fart in the bed. To be sure, I still love Yakiniku and waking up on a strange side of the planet but the luster is paling. To go out in public means to be seen in public and often stared at: not with wonder or glee but a grumpy curiousity. Youngens are more pleasant but some of the elderly wear panama hats and racism like they were in fashion.
At night, Osaka appears to be made of stars and there is a lively radiance about the swelling crowds but it is truly ugly under the sun. The city sprawl looks to be cobbled from a colorless lego set; safety and pragmatism dominate its design while charm has been edged out to the suburbs.
This though may be true of any metropolis but it`s my first home out of the mountains so my stone stays cast. It is not all gloom though because things are going to change. Like America, I have developed a stimulus package to reinvigorate my time abroad. 5 points.

1) Homecoming. I`ll be back soon to visit family at the end of March. My grandma is not doing well. Though it is a sad occasion bringing me home, I hope to enjoy a week with family and friends. People who`ve gone back home for a time tell me that it affirms the decision to travel: it`s fun to be back home but it will stay there while you`re gone.

2) The Philippines trip. May + one week on the beach= nice.

3) Spring`s coming back to Japan. Cherry blossoms and fine weather will let me leave the apartment to travel and sightsee again and enjoy something other than online TV shows and bars in the city.

4) More traveling. August and December give me major opportunities to leave the country and milk the Asiatic from a spring board here in Japan. Malaysia, Thailand, India and Bali are all in my sites.

5) Out of Dodge. Having a sure timeline for leaving is forcing me to soak up a finite experience. I can`t procrastinate over several years and then claim Japan had nothing to offer. Plus it gives me momentum for the ever exciting `next prospect`.

So, I`m getting ready to tie-off my adventure vein and shoot up a sweet dose of culture. But before I do... North Carolina needs to put on some makeup and wear that special pair of underwear, cause I`m coming home.

Storyless

If I knew how to work Excel I might graph my posting dates; charting the bell curve of mood driven slumps and creative humps against the ever stretching blogging timeline. And so now, chartless, I can only imagine lying uninspired in that familiar torpid valley.
This entry has no anecdotes or creative recollections, just a few facts and updates.
It will not become a trend.
I am officially on for a vacation in the Phillipines from April 29- May 6. I`m lucky enough to be tagging along with a couple far more organized than myself. They`re nice, British and well-traveled. We have two cottages on the beach which sounds too quaint to be true but gets karmically righted by an overnight stay in Manilla which is carry-a-gun dangerous. We`ll be staying the one night there at Chez L`airport which boasts a spacious dining area and a plastic seat bedding option. The flight and cottage cost about 1k total but apparently the day to day expenses are cheap there. It`s expensive. There`s a survivors guilt on spending so much on a vacation while other Americans are struggling in a very real way with their families. This is what I am traveling for though so...(insert moral rationalization).
That`s the big update. The stone causing waves in my still pond of daily teaching.
Though, I`d like to wrap up with a rare, teaching highlight.
- A desk, four chairs and a wide window along both walls of a corner room. Naoko is in her 20`s, shy, attractive, dressed in a dark blue suit the color of rumbling clouds outside. Across from her is a teacher, Nate. He is in his 20`s.-
`What did you do this weekend Naoko?`
`I went with family to south Japan.`
`My family...`
`Ah so desu, I went with MY family to south Japan.`
`Cool, what did you do?`
`We went shopping, sightseeing and we saw a show?`
`So, who all went with you?`
`...?`
`Who did you go with?`
`Ah, my mother, my father and my brother.`
`Oh really, what show did you see?`
`We saw a dogfight.`
Beat.
`Like two dogs fighting.`
`Yes.`
`Isn`t that illegal?`
`...?`
`Isn`t that... bad?`
`Oh yes, it was scary.`
`How did you see a dogfight?`
`They are very popular in places.`
`Oh. Could you please open your book to page 17 and read the title at the top.`

In the Night of the Heat

On the coldest days when the rain drives down quietly against the sound of traffic, with salarymen trodding past in their black suits and somber faces, it seems as if the city were mourning: how I imagine Britain on a shitty day. Nothing about Japan in February has stirred in me the slightest passion for sex so it is difficult to imagine what is inspiring the cats outside to screw so savagely loud. They are bangin` in my hallway and below in the street, slamming about in the building next door and twisting along the train tracks in town.
It started with the haunted cries. A deep, sorrowful sobbing and then the aggravated wails. They`ll stare at one another by the corners of buildings, face to face and screaming. Daring their would-be lovers to make a move. The moon has nothing to do with it, but it was full the first night I was scared awake. The squeals were so pained and childish. Like toddlers all over the city were being stabbed a little. An awful, awful screeching that crashes easily through the thin walls and glass of my apartment: something so horrific tied up in passion.
Now, they`re in the third week of the marathon and the games are scheduled for 3am until ? I`ve got a front row seat but I`d prefer a nose bleed.

The Horror (Part 2)

My shower is non-traditional by western standards. On a good morning I'm 6'2" and can sit in the tub with my knees pulled up to my shoulders. The water head is connected by hose to a spigot-switch on the bathroom sink: 12 o'clock for shaving, 6 o'clock for bathing. Now the tub itself rests above the plastic floor by a half hand or so and what I hadn't ever wondered was "How'd they run a drain pipe under there?"
They didn't. Not in the design. Rather, the sink and shower terminate into a narrow trough beneath the tub and run without benefit of a slope to a covered drain in the middle of the bathroom floor.
Enter the gnats. It's a perfect food-filled cave that will never, never see light: exposed hair tangles, mushy flesh, fingernail clippings, spreads of gooey mold and all the damp, festering rot. You can't clean it. There's no access door or angle to breach the narrow gap by the floor. To run bleach down the pipe only routes a thin line to the drain like a clean stream amidst sprawling, rotten banks.
I called the landlord: "Are the gnats seasonal?", "Do you have a special kit to clean this out?", "Is this the same mold that condemns buildings?"
"You should be fine. The gnats will die off when it gets colder and the molds not a problem because it's always there."
I hung up the phone, forgetting to ask if he wanted to check his science on that last one, and turned to the bathroom. Now, standing at the sink, I'm afraid that my foot will slip underneath the lip and I'll toe a mold slick. I would retch and, even after the foot was cleaned, think back to that gooey rot and scrub at it again like a MacBeth, "It just won't come off. It won't come off."
On those nightly toilet trips I'll pause at the door and check the tub first before going all the way in. It's ridiculous but sometimes I imagine that what's been growing underneath has slowly backed up and filled the tub. I think of Ghostbusters. When Dana was undressing Baby Oscar for a bath and behind her the tap quickened to a slime. It grew while they weren't looking and reared up in a slick mouth-arm, sucking after them. It was supposed to be a safe place. A place where things were made better by washing all the bad down a drain.
In the movie, Dana and Oscar escaped and Bill Murray made everything okay again. Maison Jeunesse #303's going to be okay too. But now I know where the trash really goes.

The Horror (Part 1)

I saw the first gnat in my bedroom. It stood still and bold against the ivory ceiling like a chip in the paint, fluttering about only when the partition shakily rumbled along its track, jostling the walls. It would be in different places throughout a week: the stove`s exhaust hood, the bulb on the bathroom light, clinging to an empty waterbottle as if stuck to ice. He was there in the tub too, right on the soap shelf while I showered. It was there that I accidentally killed him with a stray jet from the shower nozzle. 　
The next day he had mourners. Two gnats walked along the tub rim as if retracing their friend`s last moments. `Right here, man. I just can`t believe it. Right here.` Another couple consoled each other along a seam in the walls while a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grazed about the tub floor. I`ve grown use to the Carolina, pre-winter, lady bug infestations but these gnats had neither there personality or charm and I became concerned when their number grew casually into the uncountables.
I washed the few dishes soaking in the sink, took out the trash and checked my bags to route out any breeding grounds. The bags wouldn`t normally be procedure had I not discovered a rotting kumquat in my bookbag last month. It was a forgotten gift, stewed down to a pulp, mysteriously perfuming my apartment for weeks. The scent was pleasant, thickly sweet, and I was kind of sorry I found it. After the apartment was scrubbed down I turned to the bathroom. The tub gnats were given a biblical drowning; those daring enough to fly up were caught in a scalding sideways rain and the swirl about the drain was peppered with bodies.
I slept well.
Before work the next day I was fixing my hair in the mirror. I decided after the first few weeks in Japan not to cut my hair and it is getting shaggy. I`m partly afraid of negotiating with a barber in broken Japanese but mostly I want to see if I can pull off that artistic image I have always associated with long hair. Though now, it is too hot and I look like a sweating Beattle most times. It was then that I saw a gnat moving along my reflection in the mirror like a rogue mole. Turning to the shower curtain, I pulled it back revealing another insect horde built up on the tub walls and floor. I reeled, knocking my toothbrush off the sink onto the floor, and stepped out into the kitchen.
Out of ideas and disgusted, I hadn`t even a clear problem to solve... until I picked up my toothbrush.

The apartment's how cold?

I took a bottle of coke out of the freezer to thaw and it didn't.

A RaginGaijin First

Multimedia:
Spend a minute and 48 seconds with Johnny Cash before Reading.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9tAI1jeIlgs

I just wanted to say that I thank all you fine folks out there who give this blog a look every now and then. Lately I've been thinking about Mr. Cash's humble optimism and my own life. From growing up in a trailer around North Carolina and now living in a smaller place yet on the other side of the world at the start of a new year. This is as close as I'll get to a tune of my own.

I got a crib of my own and some steady work

Been subbin out steaks for thin sliced pork

And the people round town are nice enough

Got their signs covered up with cartoon stuff

Well, let the bikes roll on and the cameras flash

I`m doing all right for country trash

Pretty girls walkin round bout to break my neck

Learned a few words last time I checked

Ery now and then might see a shrine

Check out big Buddha and drink rice wine

And momma sent a box with a nice food stash

I`m doing all right for country trash

I got a thick loan that smarts real good

and four Pachinko parlors in my neighborhood

The govments got my back if I get too sick

and the time flies by pretty quick

Well, let the bikes roll on and the cameras flash

I`m doing all right for country trash

I only work 30 hours for decent pay

Even got a few hundred saved away

But The city`s all gray and I miss the green

and all the folks back home round the Blue Ridge scene

And it`s a strange place now that I`m here at last

But I`m doing all right for country trash

I`m doing all right for country trash

EVOO

I just broke open a new bottle of olive oil smuggled past customs and tossed out the empty, enigmatically kanji-ed one that, to me, is unreadable. Looking at the romantically rustic label and the familiar "Extra Virgin Olive Oil" brand I wondered if my old bottle was indeed "Extra Virgin" as well. The omelet was still gushy when I began to wonder what exactly made it the "extra". I have seen Spanish, Mediterranean, Greek, green, black, pitted and whole olives but never a simply, virgin; or for that matter, a post-coital olive: well, maybe the pitted ones fall into that header. It would seem that the category is black and white (either virgin or not) but Boboli and Carbonell keep insisting so I've decided that these particular olives must be doing something more active in their communities, like preaching abstinence. I knew people like these olives in high school and they can't be swayed so it's no wonder that trees have to deal with them too.
"Look it's your choice, but if it were me..." a phrase which inherently takes the "you" out of "your choice". "Look you can move to Spain if you want to, but if it were me, I'd think the food and language were dumb and move back home". I feel sorry for the poor virgin olives out there just trying to hang out around the branch but getting crap for not spreading the word.
"But the guys at the top of the tree really aren't that bad, I promise, and if you'd just talk to them for even a..."
"Stop it. I don't want to hear another word about those whores up top. You know what, sometimes I think you're just not virgin enough."
What with the economy dipping worldwide and gas prices slumping in the wake of an uncertain energy future, maybe there's a way yet to save some money. We can bring the "other oil" cost down and generate a little tolerance while we're at it: get more of the little guys on the market. Let 'em get some so we can too.

... you can eat pizza anytime.

Some foods you grow to miss and why wouldn't you. A mexican restaurant that serves bottomless chip baskets, brownies warm and fudgy from the oven or a hamburger with crisp lettuce, thick tomatoes and solid pickle coverage. But the past few weeks I have been getting fidgety for bagel bites. I don't like bagel bites. I ate them rarely as a teenager and even less often in college but lately I can't resist the idea and I think it has something to do with the sum of their parts: crisp bread and bubbly cheese, one after another. The hankering will pass but for now I have come up with a solution that is infinitely better than the real deal and was stumbled on rather than invented. A friend had recently visited Costco (of all things to make it overseas) and had racked up on bagels, shampoo, chocolates and olives in the standard "bulk" packaging. To an outsider I'm sure that such a food cache being hauled back on the train must look like an angry but not uncosmopolitan giant had been robbed. Could I speak Japanese (my enduring hypothetical) I might shake my head at the intrigued passenger.
"Son of a bitch all most bit me in half but would you look at this bag of walnuts! Closed that beanstalk down, man."
After a substantial bagel donation, I got the remedy. I had made salsa for a Christmas party, and had quite a few tomatoes left over. The recipe is simple:

Halfed bagel
Sliced tomatoes
Sliced onion
Thinly sliced cheddar cheese on top

Bake for 10 min in a fish broiler.

It has been delicious.