Aw heck, just blew away a relic of the saga with a <shift> refresh. Oopsie. I'm a loser baby. Lost what? Three sentences? That's it? Really? Review, review, thanks google cache. So easy to lose ephemeral electrons. So sad, so what. Remember nothing you put out here is private. And remember nothing whatsoever is really yours.
Quite a bit was lost in Philly. Not least Ekatarina. So many reasons I could have stayed. Such ridiculous piles of things I left behind. Poking around at UNIX admin jobs reminds me, all my certs are gone, left in Kensington and/or the basement at Unruh. Looking at going for a Master's with U of Liverpool reminds me, the Music Degree! Whoops! Some bank got a lot of weird stuff with their repo. DX7, Kathrin's menagerie, some papers that would have come in handy.
OMFG, Ali! Foreshadowing Teda? Intersection with Autumn? Torture of Cher, sheeit I'm sorry babe, tell me you're still alive.
Oi, the vagaries of Anglais. I am lost. So often I do not know where I am. Tianjin lacks 90 degree angles. Not that that matters, I could get lost in Manhattan where they're the rule. But that loss is also magical. Losing your way you find a way. I gotcher Daoism right here. I lika da Chuang Tzu I do I do. But just simply speaking, pragmatically and as conundrum free as I can be - what you find when you are lost you cannot find again. You may find it but you won't be lost anymore. So it will be different. I walked this bizarre phone district. Now I know it's just Nanjin Road. It isn't where I was lost. I've lost it.
I write at the 'ginnin, I writes at the end. Whadaya want fer nothin... rubber stewball? I lost my open mic night at the Garden Chiang Mai. Am I missed? Doubt it (they called it folk night after all)...
'spect I lost my audience long ago. Part of this SEO stoof I'm readin' stresses 'Make it accessible.' Have I ever made anything accessible? Where's the fun in that?
Sliced and diced tongue, that's the thing. Bark, memory. Sliced tongue at Elizabeth McInstry's, lo those times ago. Took a big helping 'cuz I thought it was ham. Oopsie again. Vectors are the fun stuff, tangents and multifaceted coruscacence. Archaisms and neologisms, guess I ain't nevah gonna sell nuthin. But I do get my karma, I do. Enjoying The Lancashire Witches until the vernacular bites. Memories of Por. The whole point of Por was the vernacular. But it's at least as exhausting to read as write.
One word how many tangents? Play. e and S, now either of them might get a joke but neither of them would get the whole. I play hard. Hardly? Hardy. Har har.Play with expectations. Play to lose. I didn't stalk no one suh, but people do want their fantasies. And my guitar player lived in the East Village. Does P really have a baby? How we wandered Manhattan. Left a message on John Cage's answering machine, didn'I? Did I walk her feet off too I wonder? Sorry e. Of course scrubbing the toilet with my toothbrush was comeuppance. But I expect I kissed you with that very mouth, so there.
disorg.org was lost looooong ago. No hard feelings, I wuddna done nothin but another vanity site. It may be bad karma for the feller what stole it, I dunno, the operative question would be if he worked for Network Solutions in those dark days, since supposedly it was registered to me. Until it wasn't. No notice, just the mysterious disappearance. Hell, in those days I had my own class C. Totally unroutable in AZ but whatever, I learned alot. Life is learning to lose, apologies gcarlin.
Mentioned somewhere or other that you will lose everything and everyone. Am I morbid yet? So this will become a very large page. Much has been lost already. I used to write with a typewriter. Where's that stuff now? Riding the blog all the way back I see it started in October of '02. What can I recover before that? O tons my friends, tons and tons. But even with the blogs' bits of self-referential, repetitive redundant soliloquy I stand corrected. So good, get it down, get down. I only lived in Thailand three years? And where are the lil e adventures? She may be reading my S ravings and think I'm raging at her. Ha ha. As if. Anyone reading? Why? Hey, I loved both but I only played with one. O, the things we lose. And how I loved L, how still I do. But these are just some of the people. How about motorcycling to Ayuttaya by accident? How about the monkeys of Lop Buri? Well, you can see some of them on the pics page. But Phnom Penh? Lost. Perhaps well. Except the noodles. And Teda. They feature in the newest pornautobiographattempt. How will I back fill? Should I? Every day's remarkable. Stay tuned, here's another free novel...
******
It's not a dream, it must be Chicago. Why am I parked at this cul de sac? Or am I parked? Where's the car? I certainly had a smoke. And there are streetlamps and a bit of grass. California? Five times I tried the CCIE, never passed. But this memory doesn't say where. I doesn't say who. I was with SB in Cali once, why? He finagled us first class when our plane was late. Only time I've flown first class. That I remember. Was I ever alone in Ohio? Yes but I think this is not that. Phoenix? The memory doesn't say much about temperature. Could be. Feels like I have a Volvo around somewhere, must be Phoenix, isn't Tucson. I think. Which Volvo? Or it could be a rental. 740 can't be living in Phoenix, wrecked prior. 960? Or rental. Or no car. Just the space. Not Chicago. Rental there but that escapade I remember. Except there were two. Is it the first one? When I got sick? Now there's a story you don't want to hear. A little like my first time in Laos. Except I had to go to the job interview. They'd bought my ticket and hotel. And rental car. Could be, could be.
Have an autobiograttempt that tries to remember every place I've lived. Better than this girl idea. But the latter may sell, mais non? Sax and violins. As much as I can remember. I hope C's alright. Her NYC pilgrimage will be twice as good as mine. But I won't force you to wade back through the blog to hear about the half used round-trip ticket. No, I'll put what I can here.
Hitting that firetruck. Slipping on the ice, what'd that do for my spine? Rolling the 740. Moto crash CM. So. Much. Blood. I won't talk about the girls too much, though they contributed to the sciatica too. I don't wanna hafta teach English forever.
Though it's paradisical. I'll blog it. Here we're reviewing the tortured, torturing, tortuous past. Which, thankfully I suppose, I remember little of. Free and easy wandering anyone? I gave you the Chuang Tzu, didja grok it? No big, maybe Asian Wisdom isn't. Works for me though. Most times. Doesn't it? I forget.
In Phnom Penh we indulged in a bit of sharing of the soap. I did, anyway. Once Maria left I moved to a room without a shower and devolved to the common one. This put me in the hall shaving most mornings. Rarely saw anyone else indulging that sin but few stuck it out for a month. Did share the sink with Le Frog one morning though, he may have been more of a fixture than I. So I watched the soap come and go. My own was infinitesimal. Cheap bastard? It's been said. Stole that soap from a Bangkok resort though, my karma's clear. I rationalize. Overpaid for the CM-BKK bus so I stole their pillow. Where's my five precepts, where? I do not steal what I haven't paid for. Somebody stole my razor. Well, I did share their soap.
The red handled Gilette had been with me a month. I left it's twin in AZ so re-upped in CM. I think at Kad Suan Kaew but don't remember exactly when. It must have been early, I need to shave regularly or disappear rapidly where the wild things are. But not too early, I'm a cheap bastard and would have looked for alternatives. My asian razor was blown apart by a too-solid cleansing rap. Before or after AZ? We digress. This red-handled one was certainly with me in Cambodia. Because it left me there. My ablution ritual generally consisted of soap wafer, razor and towel to the communal sinks then a shave while trying to avoid whatever drips happened to be coming through the ceiling that day. Post-shave I would take the razor and wafer into the right bathroom proper where a showerhead was available. I believe I did try the left one, without, but it was so traumatically ineffective the memory's lost.
But the memory of the towel, no it isn't lost. Like Adam's Hitchhiker, that towel was an all for me. Blanket, exercise equipment, even towel. Blankets aren't terribly important in July in Cambodia. But I've always wanted some cover when I sleep. The towel was that. I've tried many exercises for the sciatica. Dave of folk night gave me a good one. Raise your leg with a towel. Easy? I pronounce you sciatica free. It was not easy for me. It remains not easy but my current living arrangements have lent me a headboard of just the right height. And looking into other exercises has me questioning the efficacy, and possibly the safety, of using upper body strength to manipulate my legs. Dave's sciatica cleared up in a couple of weeks. I'm managing my pain pretty well, NSAIDs are really optional (but appreciated) now, but I don't know if it will ever really heal. The solution, I suppose, probably is to have a surgeon hack that bit of disk out. But there're other things to do with that money. And diskectomies are far from 100% effective. So when I lose my headboard the towel will probably return. Though honestly I've had to use my bathrobe here, I didn't steal their towel.
One day I forgot the razor on my way out. But that's the loss half of the story. What was gained? Every loss is a gain, vaccuums fill, needs are met or found not to actually be needs.
Daily I walked the dirt road neighborhood between my digs on Beuan Kak Lake and the convenience stores I'd found on one of my exploratory hikes. I'd call it a slum but it wasn't really. Some garbage in the street and unpredictable pavements or lack thereof but nicer than South Philly. I walked it because I enjoyed the lack of farang and because I needed water. Past tense? Walking that neighborhood is, yes, for now. And going to the stores. The little one lacked much. I don't recall if I ever found anything I needed there, I tried, spread my shrinking yankee dollars around. But the big one, they had everything. Except a decent comb. Bread, peanut butter and jelly, let me stop buying breakfast, a notable savings, coffee likewise, the aforementioned water... and a black handled Gillette. You may know black is my favorite color. What was gained?
My horse moved into my smoking lounge. He was a shy, retiring sort of fellow and I don't think he really wanted to join me. Somebody tied him there. But we got used to each other. I think. I certainly got used to him. More pics over at one of the 'phone' links, maybe I'll pull 'em in here. But now I'm rambling on my horse. And in so doing perhaps I'll dredge up a little bit of what it was to be the San Kampang farang squatter. Sneaking out of the kindergarten to smoke. Or evil of evils, not sneaking out on Sundays. Everything collapses, everything is born anew. I try not to let extinction bother me, that's natural too. But my horse and I, we shared some times.
When my marriage collapsed to the point I had to get out from under it or risk injury I moved into the kindergarten. After I was fired I became a bit of a nuisance. I suppose I still am, my library remains there. Perhaps soon to be lost. What loss has meant to my fortunate self so far is start over. But I will not have a horse again. Not that one at any rate.
Except that I did. O you can't go home again. But you can squat in a kindergarten when they've stolen your watches. Steve put me up in Randy's while I executed a visa run to Thailand. So I killed his fish. Randy's, not Steve's. And not intentionally. In fact I was rather heartbroken. Not as heartbroken as from not seeing P, but that's just life. I saw my horse on my return to SK. He had a girlfriend. Or am I just wallowing in self-pity while I oscillate the time-stream? I think there were three, actually. But one was my old companion, I'm fairly certain. Regardless, the next chapter is now temporally bracketed by this.
I wanted to ride my bicycle to Viet Nam, perhaps thence to China. I bought a mountain bike. I trained for months, admittedly somewhat interrupted when I went to visit my folks. But I borrowed Dad's bike while I was there, didn't entirely go to hell. The sciatica likes bicycling. More than motorcycling. The mind prefers motorcycling, much easier to go farther. The story of Nan will appear here. And Ayuttaya. But let's continue with this one for now.
Highway 1173 has a back way to Chiang Rai. Chicken found it once, with On's guidance. I could have done the same if it didn't involve a 50% grade. I may exaggerate. By a small amount. I got to the point that I could make it to that hill. And that involved some >10%s I'm sure, possibly in the 20s. Mountain bikes are cool, go for 0th, you can weave up a wall. But I cuddna take this one. I had to find another way.
I knew the other way of course. The front way. The Chiang Mai-Chiang Rai highway. I've done it at least half a dozen times on moto, even BC (Before Chicken). But it meant a lot more kilometers. San Kumpang and Chiang Rai both lie east of Chiang Mai, though the one south and the other north. This way would mean a large backtrack. Inconsequential if the goal was China but problematic if I wasn't ready, had more to discover. So I discovered another shortcut. The Bo Sarng Highway connects the other two. A mere 10K out of the way. I'd taken it before to see Wat Doi Saket but hadn't put that together. Doi Saket is one of the mountains in the way from CM to CR. Hadn't put it together because the interchange is not straightforward.
Head a wee bit west. And there she is, the highway. Head on home, we'll try this tomorrow, teaching demo Monday.
Have I mentioned the cigarettes I lost? No? What's this treatise called? Take them as given. Bought and lost actually. Do you remember the samosas? O the blog isn't lost my friends, I'm making this for you beacuse you might get lost over there. The samosas have nothing in common with the cigarettes I bought on Bo Sarng highway. Except they're lost.
I had to buy another pack. Was it the weekend? Must have been, interview Monday. Was I smoking in the house? I fear I probably was, it was the weekend. But there were a few nice views to be had going out. The wat, the empty lot, the semi-abandoned factory, the creek. No objection to hoing out except the inconvenience. Lazy bastard. And the next night I would try to ride my lazy ass over Doi Saket.
I might have made it a fifth of the way. It's really rather hard to say. I've done the distance many, many a time but this time I had no odo. Since I've paid attention to the landmarks, the house/market I'm going to tell you about and house of the red mother but that's all CM side, pretty straight forward. Where does Chiang Rai begin?
Well no matter how you slice it I did not get a fourth of the way. That mountain is steep, my zeroeth gear was barely adequate and the master link... o it had other plans.
I had intended to see where I was at midnight, perhaps start looking for a guest house or resort, I intended to ride all night but a couple of hours of rest was necessary. My chain started binding a littole before 12. I now know to take that sensation very seriously. But at the time I was ignorant. Deraileur problem? Sprocket? Pedal? I didn't know. Occasionally checked when I had decent light but my weaving strategy made the problem intermittent. So I thought I could live with it. I passed a market/bar sort of thing you find in the Thai mountains and the party was still going on. Who knows what they thought of the weaving farang. They'd have a chance to think more on it.
I pressed on. On and on. The binding was becoming more frequent, almost every chain cycle and more persistent, often locking the pedals no matter how I wove or back-pedaled. But I idiotically pressed on. Back-pedalling every cycle, weaving to the point I almost had a flat grade, but it kept locking. Finally I learned what it meant when the outer half of the link shot off and the chain parted. I parked and had a smoke. Looked all over for the parts. Put the remains of the chain in a plastic bag, try to keep the grease under control. I actually found what I now know to be te missing piece. It was completely mangled and I kept looking, thinking it must be a retainer ring and the real 'glasses' were elsewhere. If I really was giving you a free novel I'd go back and make this cohere, explain the genesis of the plastic bag and my later education in mountain bike master link anatomy but I am not. I'm certainly going to give you more than enough story but editting is either for editors or writers who get something other than self-satisfaction from their work, naw?
My chain was gone. I had very few options. I was a little less than a kilometer above the marketbarhouse. I coasted back down. I discussed my options in broken Thai. Not much broken English available. One of the drinkers was a policeman from San Kumpang. He could express that in English but my Thai is almost good enough to get by. It's good enough that I recognize a lot of vocabulary and I know the idiomatic propensity for misappropriation so I quickly understood that the mangled piece of my master link was indeed being referred to as glasses which makes perfect sense if you know the shape of the thing.
And so the cop insisted I eat. Said we'd go San Kumpang in the morning. I went to sleep with the drunks on the porch. Not the standalone one, the attached one. I may have had a position of prestige. I dunno but the mosquitos sure knew me. Not much sleep but copious blood donated.
In the morning the cop had disappeared. Or was a late riser. I continued my quest for the part. Bought a couple of envelopes of that supersweetslop they call coffee. First brewed cold, takes patience. No sign of the part (you know I had it already, yes?) Next brew I ask if I might bum a little hot water. Sho' nuf, mai penrai.
One might think with all I have lost due to my dreams in Thailand I might lay claim to more than this. But this is the crux of the biscuit, apologies Mr. Z, nobody cares what I had for lunch? Well then you have not had Issan Food methinks.
Aromatic. Complex. Hot, hot hot. Medicinal. I never found much to be excited about in Lao food. The Issan are a tribe in the Northeast of Thailand or the west of Laos, depending on your point of view. As far as I can discern. I'm prolly pretty close to correct, I even speak a little Issan. Lao food is unexciting because the tribe has taken all the good ideas. We might blame the French too, if we're the blaming kind. French was once one of my favorite cuisines. I'll still grant it sublimity but I can't say they're masters of spice any longer. French sauces are fantastic. They don't much compare to Kaeng Massaman. Or Kaeng whatever the heck it is at the Issan resaturant at the corner of 1317 and 121.