Why did I leave Kauai

The Fart

2011-01-11T14:02:00.004-08:00

I've been a nurse now for almost 22 years. That's a long time I figure, and working in the ER is the only thing that keeps me going in this profession. It's the continually changing environment and the unexpected that allows me to stay in this weird world of Western Medicine in which I frequently lose faith. I've seen a lot over those years and even though I've witnessed things I wish I hadn't or things that people shouldn't, I still can be shocked and amazed by an occasional left field experience. Last night is a good example. Not deep. Not life changing or even life altering but it was a new experience worthy of complaining, scratch that, writing about. I was accused of farting in front of a patient. OK, not a big deal like I said but it pissed me off because I didn't do it! And not only the patient, but her boyfriend as well said that I let out (and I quote) "a huge loud fart that stunk up the whole room!" Here's what gets me. The ER of any hospital can be a horrible experience for the average person having to visit one. Not only are you feeling miserable in the first place but you have to wait in line, often for hours, with a room full of coughing, sometimes vomiting, usually grumpy, just-as-miserable people who may have a different definition of 'hygiene' than you do. By the time you actually get back to see the doctor you kind of wish you'd never come to the ER in the first place. There are some people who know the system all to well and try to eliminate this wait by calling for an ambulance for things as life threatening as a toothache. The thinking is that by getting a $750 ride to the ER they will go straight back into a treatment room thereby avoiding the miasma that is an ER waiting room. What they forget, however, is that we ER nurses weren't born yesterday and we get really pissed off when people try to abuse a system that is already overstressed. It actually gives us a certain passive aggressive joy to watch the paramedics come into the ambulance bay doors, through the ER, and back out into the lobby to unload a healthy patient off of the gurney into the admitting receptionists hard plastic chair..."take a number, buddy, we'll get to you as soon as we can". Anyway, back to the patient who accused me of farting. What bugs me is that I wasn't even her nurse. I was just acknowledging the aforementioned misery of an ER and being nice to them by bringing extra blankets and soda's to make their stay a little more pleasant. After leaving the room for the second or third time, delivering a Pepsi and being more waiter than nurse, they put on their call light and the nurse caring for them entered the room. When she came out smiling she gathered all of us (this was too good not to share with the entire ER staff!) around the nurses station to share the news that I had just farted in room 6 in front of patient and family stinking up the whole room. After much levity and hours of ridicule and ribbing it became the joke of the day. Now, I can take a good joke with the best of them, but this is America dammit and I am innocent until proven guilty! It did help my case that the patient in room 6 came to the ER for an anxiety attack after losing all her money at the casino earlier in the day. But it still irked me that someone I had gone out of my way to help went out of their way to hurt. I'm figuring it was the boyfriend. He let one fly, got busted by his girlfriend and blamed it on the nurse. Dirtbag! Here is the skeleton in the closet...my mea culpa. I actually have farted in patient rooms before but never got busted...BUT NOT THIS TIME...I DIDN'T DO IT! Every other time it was when I was either changing an incontinent diaper, or giving an enema or cleaning up a nasty commode or...OK you get the picture. The rooms had already been a wasteland of biological-weapon air quality. A disaster by which, when adding a little more gas, couldn't really hurt the situation. So when confronted with this crime of fouling a perfectly fine room I got really angry. I guess you could say my angry reaction was just latent guilt for "passed" sins (couldn't resist).

Getting Itchy, Gotta Breathe

2011-01-08T13:22:00.004-08:00

I feel it coming on and the timing's all wrong. My heart and my belly are my barometers for change and the pressure is increasing as I know a high is in the forecast. How soon I'm not sure but there seems to be something at about the 2 year mark that sets me off. To hell with the 7 year itch, I have the A.D.D. version of that in which after 2 years the walls seem to close in a bit tighter and the colors look a bit duller and the rut feels that much deeper. Two years and I start asking myself that horrible question..."is this it?" Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? Is this how I am expressing my uniqueness and individuality and creativity in this lifetime? Of course I know I have to make money in this lifetime and I know that I am lucky to have the kind of job that allows me to serve others while having a wage that allows me to work part time. I'm blessed that way and appreciative...and my feet are itchy for more or for something different. In other words I'm a spoiled little bitch, but we already knew that. This constant moving around from ER to ER isn't the best plan for financial stability but my left brain never was very well developed. My retirement planner (me, actually, whenever I bother to think about retiring and hope that Social Security will hold out for 30 more years and survive the Republican/Obama ideology of war vs. social programs) knows this is a horrible strategy for having money in the distant future. But I can't fire him no matter how bleak my "portfolio" looks. Right now, my employer will match money that I put away for retirement. It's totally free money! How awesome is that?!!! I remember as a kid, my glass-half-empty Dad telling me there is no free lunch. Great advice. Probably better given to someone older than a 6 or 7 year old holding an 'all you can eat for free' Denny's kids meal, but good advice none the less. As an adult I think of it often. If I stay at this job for the next 20 years I might actually have quite a bit of money on which to retire. Did I really just write that last sentence?!! There truly is no free lunch or lunch money. All I have to do is trade my 50's and 60's for some financial security in my 70's so I can look back and wish I would have traveled to places I used to think were cool in my 30's and 40's. Did I really just write that last sentence?!! As I did there was a tightness in my throat, some chest discomfort, slight nausea and a shallowing of the breath...very similar signs of having a heart attack. Not too dissimilar to the feelings I mentioned earlier and yet extremely different. Kind of like how the feeling of being intensely in love feels a lock like being intoxicated only a lot better. Listen to your body...trust your gut I hear my inner voice crying out. There is an inner wisdom that bypasses the normal cognitive approach and we logical beings like to ignore it. Why do most of us dismiss intuition as silly, or foolish, or something only yoga instructors in their early to mid 20's listen to for guidance? Because if we did listen to our inner...our body's way of telling us right and wrong the whole world would change in an instant. From the food we eat to the way we talk with and about each other and the work we do and the wars we wouldn't wage to how we spend our free time would all be radically altered. If it feels good (to your soul) do it. OK I am digressing badly and I know this because John Lennon's "Imagine" is now going through my head... "and the world will live as one".
You can see where I'm going with train of thought. It's the justification I need for allowing me to start dreaming again of travel...of leaving...of adventure. When I look back at my resume there is a distinct bi-annual migration that occurs in my life. Almost always in the fall and specifically in October, I change jobs and move on. I'm almost a full three months behind schedule now and am starting to jones for a life change...THE TRIP! It's not that I want a new nursing job, that's almost never it...and it's not a good time AT ALL for me to be feeling this travel bug. But how do you control what you feel or when you feel it?

My Mom's Heart

2010-03-21T13:10:00.002-07:00

The monitor was grainy. Black and white in the dimmed room. The mass of tissue indistinguishable under the ultrasound wand being pushed between my mothers ribs. Blobs of gray snow and black shadows smeared across the screen until the rhythmic beating became clear. "Take a deep breath, Mary Frances". The technician instructed my mom, yet I couldn't help but inhale deeply and hold my own breath until directed to exhale. The ER nurse in me was watching intently; both fascinated by the technology and curious professionally, looking for cardiac abnormalities. Reading an echocardiogram is by no means my specialty but my eyes strained anyways, while looking for any valvular anomalies, or calcifications or blood flow aberrations. It was a detached, medical, calculating, diagnostic and safe place for me to be while my mom lie on the table in front of me. I didn't have to think about the fact that she had recently suffered a heart attack.
She was on vacation in Hawaii visiting my sister Martha when she noticed a general malaise and an increasing shortness of breath upon walking even short distances. And here I have to say that even on her best days my mom could never be accused of being a great historian when it comes to describing her physical symptoms. When I talked to her on the phone from 3000 miles away her description of how she felt was, "I just don't feel right". Hardly worthy of a 911 call. And to be fair, people can have "silent" heart attacks where the usual symptoms of chest pressure, nausea, sweating, etc. just don't occur. But it's hard to know with my mom, Mary Frances... a woman who can find a silver lining in just about any rain cloud. Like, oh, I don't know, seeing the loss of a limb as an alternative weight loss program, for instance. But the lingering fatigue and winded feeling upon her return home, landed us an appointment with her doctor. And mom's reaction to Dr. Wingren, holding the EKG in his hand explaining how she had had a recent heart attack? Classic Mary Frances..."Really, well I'll be." Puffing her way back out to her car after receiving the bad news, my mom said, "I don't know, James, do you really think I had a heart attack?" The question reminded me again of the powerful combination of Polyanna and denial that I was raised with and that I now employ as a coping mechanism in the face of bad news. But not this time..."Yeah, mom, I think you did".
I pulled back from the memory and looked at the pulsating screen of grainy lines. But this time I saw something I hadn't earlier. I saw the beating heart of my mother. I was no longer an analytical nurse looking for answers. I was a mess. I understood for the first time in my life the actuality that my mom is mortal. That she is finite. That the heart that I was watching beat with the precision of a clock right in front of me, was winding down and would stop someday. The rhythmic beating of her heart was hypnotic in the darkness of the room and with each beat I was drawn deeper into the blackness of the space inside. I felt more connected to my mom at that moment than I had since I was a child as I could actually see the source from which all of her love poured out of her. The valves would close, perfectly white, and then open again to a black depth that seemed bottomless, was bottomless. That unending source of love that has been with me from my first breath here. I was overwhelmed by the thought that I could actually see the endless ocean of love inside my mothers heart. It became timeless as I sensed the heart of my grandmother and all of her love and her mother and her great grandmother and on and on. I couldn't look away. Somehow that piece of meat on a TV screen transformed into life and love and a connection between generations that flows now through me into those that I love.
I can choose to see my mom's heart attack as devastating as it signals change and loss. But I know, deeply, that it it will always be there for me and in a very real sense beat through me. I am so grateful for having experienced it all. Thanks mom.

What Are They Doing Up There?

2010-01-08T10:35:00.004-08:00

I guess I'm just not well suited for it. The long haul, the monotony, the sameness, the tedium of being an adult. There is a gene I'm missing that almost everyone else seems to have. I think it gets activated at around 21 or maybe 30 years of age at the latest. I wouldn't know. It's the one where career building and learning about the details of money/society/politics/business kicks in and adulthood starts. For some it comes later in life and I'm still waiting at 47. "Maybe 50" I'm thinking. But that just sounds wrong. Fifty isn't for starting to figure things out. Fifty is for looking back and seeing your accomplishments and for watching that nest egg grow and for fantasizing about warm sandy beaches that you'll be able to visit when you retire in 15 years but won't because of the arthritic hip and your irritable bowel syndrome. It's not like I want to be an adolescent my whole life...that's not it. Partying and hanging with my buds isn't something I've ever wanted to do. It's more like I don't give a crap about the things that most people my age and even most people a lot younger seem to think about and talk about and worry about and spend time learning about. Retirement planning, 401-K's, investments, golf, meetings with division managers, the two week diving vacation in the Truk islands. I feel wrong. I feel like there is some big secret out there that I never was let in on. I think I cut class the day they discussed growing up. I have no idea how the system works. I read about the Federal Reserve and promissory notes and I'm more confused than ever. I laugh when I hear the term "futures markets" even though no one is joking. I can remember as a kid sitting in the backseat of the car driving in some city looking up at the sky scrapers thinking "what are all those people doing in there". I had the same damn experience last month. Millions of square feet of office space climbing up into the low fog of Seattle and I think the exact same thing! So I'm asking, "What are all those people doing up there?" I imagine dark power suits and meetings and business class airline tickets tucked into expensive shiny leather briefcases. I imagine stress and fluorescent lights and lots of money and after work, drinks like single malt scotch with the guys from the office...but what are they all DOING? Discussions of outsourcing and synergy come to mind but what they hell are they doing up there?
The other day my mom asked me why I never wanted to get into the management side of nursing. Thoughts of meetings with number crunchers came to my mind. Thoughts of data analysis and spread sheets came to mind. Money streams, patient flow, blah blah. I'd rather just actually take care of patients and help them to help themselves get better. It is hard work and yet at the end of the day I don't ask myself what I did all day...I work and take care of people by poking holes in their skin and pushing chemicals into their blood streams and...jeez, that just sounds messed up. But that's another topic for another day. I'm missing something here. Again with the question, "what are all the managers doing up there...why is it that managers make more than the people who actually do the work?" The system is totally backward in my mind and that once again makes me feel weird...like I'm missing something. Maybe I just can't beyond the concrete operational (geek reference to Piaget and the development of the intellect) thinking of a 9 year old. Like I'm missing that last piece of the puzzle that has it all make sense. It keeps me asking over and over in my mind how we all got to this place where we accept it as normal and right. It all seems cockeyed and haywire. It all seems false and strange. How is it normal that people spend most of their waking hours in cars driving to, and then hanging out in, buildings for pieces of paper so they can give those pieces of paper to other workers who raise their children and grow their food and build their houses and do all of the other things that normally would give them a sense of joy and accomplishment? Do you see where I'm going with all of this? The more I ask these questions of the normal world the more crazy and "childish" I feel. "The sane people in an insane society appear crazy"...that old chestnut. As I get older but just as unable to answer all these questions I feel, not quite crazy, but stupid, inept. Just asking the question seems stupid. Take the blue pill! Invest in futures (corn is looking awesome right now!) and enjoy the Glenlivet. But dammit, there is no blue pill...there is no 401-K. My retirement plan is to move to Dharamsala and spend my few social security rupies on chai and dhal and watch the snow melt off of the Himalaya's, breathing incense and spinning the occasional prayer wheel. Childish? Sane?...depends on whether your looking up at the skyscrapers or out from their tinted windows. Looks like I'll never grow up.

Lord of the Couch. By JRR Tolkien

2010-01-07T13:37:00.004-08:00

"If Frodo Baggins says goodbye, again, to one more hobbit I'm going to shoot myself...and take out a few other people with me". My wife Sheryl just groaned, stewing away in her own pain and trying to ignore my empty (unarmed) threats. It's what happens when people sit too long suffering through an entire day of non-stop TV...by choice no less. We weren't even sick with the flu or on forced bed rest trying to pass the time. It all began when we thought it would be fun to have a New Years Eve party involving our two teenagers and whatever friends they wanted to have over for the day and watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy back to back.
I remembered each movie being about three hours long and steeled myself for a butt numbing veg out of epic proportions. Now I love movies. I love the emotional impact and the visual beauty and the transportation to landscapes both interior and exterior that move me like few things can. I remember being rocked by the L.O.T.R. movies years ago and was looking forward a repeat. But doing the back to back thing was kind of daunting. Thank god it was dark, cold and rainy as it begged for the Great Indoors all day. To avoid the ordeal that the hobbits endured, staving off starvation by eating lembas ( geek reference to a sort of Elvish hardtack) we had prepared for the day. As Sheryl and I mounded bowls of pretzels, chips, guacamole, salsa, crackers, and hummus next to the gallon of assorted soda's onto our kitchen table, Corwin our 16 year old ordered the other teen staple of long haul movie watching...pizza. We planned for the movies to begin at 1pm thereby giving us plenty of time for stretch breaks/pee breaks/get outside and MOVE breaks plus a short dinner break. We figured that, as Frodo rode off into the sunset with Gandalf nine hours later (!) we would have just enough time to shout out our "Happy New Years!" by midnight. We planned wrong...for Corwin grabbed the 'Directors Cut' version of each film. You know, the one where Peter Jackson couldn't part with any scene...no matter how insignificant, tangential or LONG.
Have you ever seen the end of a marathon long after the winners have crossed the tape? Where the runners barely arrive, exhausted and flagging, soaked in sweat? That's what we had prepared for...the 26 mile as kicking of a 9 hour movie day. We hadn't trained much, not owning a TV and all, so we knew that there would be some end of the day fatigue. But we were not ready for the Ultramarathon of the Peter Jackson version of L.O.T.R. Have you ever seen the end of an ultramarathon? Probably not as watching people run non-stop for 100 miles doesn't make for very interesting television. The finishers of an ultramarathon look, well, bad. Incontinent of stool, poop running down their legs into their shoes, gaunt and dazed and skeletal they look a lot like the ER patients I see. Our 9 hour marathon had just become the ultramarathon of moviedom. And while the adults in the room shifted nervously, the teenagers couldn't believe their luck. Twelve glorious hours of couch surfing, TV and junk food all sanctioned and encouraged by the adults who always nag them to turn off the electronics and go outside for some exercise!
As Sam and Frodo began their long and epic journey I was starting to relate to them. A dark and painful road lay ahead. By the middle of the second movie, six hours later, we had shared many ordeals; black riders, bands of murderous orks, a guacamole shortage, the end of the Dr. Pepper, the wandering eye of Sauron and the onset of 'flat butt syndrome'. A painful and debilitating disorder characterized by numb ass cheeks, agitation of the lower extremities and a strong desire to spank yourself. By the end of the 3rd movie, approaching 2:00am, the pain of Sam and Frodo baking in the lava fields of Mt. Doom paled to our own agony of indigestion, arthritic joints, muscle atrophy and chair sores (a lesser known form of bed sores). But just as the love and friendship of Sam and Frodo deepened through shared hardships, so did those of our family. In the future they might not sing songs and write poems about our ridiculous yet heroic movie day, but it will be remembered for a long time to come. Roll the credits!

The Voices...The Voices...

2009-12-30T08:41:00.003-08:00

One thing about the long winter nights here in the great Northwest; introspection. The endless summer days which call for hustle and bustle are long gone. The gardening for hours after work or BBQ's on the West side watching the sun go down at 10pm or warm 8pm bicycle rides. Those busy times are way back in my memory and I can remember even then looking forward to the slower pace and the longer nights of winter. WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?! Ah, the grass is always greener I guess but God alive bring back the longer days and the warmth and the 4:30am sunrises...please! And even the bustle...especially the bustle.
Introspection. While not really wanting my life full of the distractions of the nutty, 24/7, overstimulated, over-caffeinated, "news" filled, "weather reports every 15 minutes and traffic reports every 12 minutes" world we all think of as normal, listening to the voices in my head all the time, all winter long doesn't really feel all that great either. I keep forgetting, as I lie there in my bed this morning, that the thoughts going through my mind are just the thoughts going through my mind. Nothing more and nothing less. The fact that I start believing them or the fact that by having those thoughts my emotional state is actually effected bugs me. I've read Eckhart Tolle, man. I should know by now, and I DO know by now that the thoughts upstairs have nothing to do with what is actually going on in my life. As I lay there this morning listening to how my life is not going anywhere and I'm just wasting away this precious gift of 'awareness' on 'time-wasters' like movies or DVD's I started to get that horrible feeling of worthlessness I get when everything isn't just perfect in my life (whatever that even means since everything actually IS perfect in my life...even the imperfections). I get taken away by those thoughts and transported to some land of pain where I am less and every one else is more. Where I am a loser and everyone else is a winner. Where I can NOT and everyone else can. I forget that those thoughts are only neurons firing in my brain and nothing else. The actual reality is that I was laying down wrapped up in flannel sheets. I was feeling the softest, smoothest skin on the planet (Sheryl's) and was well rested for whatever the day brought. It was a perfect moment...until I started to spin out on the thoughts in my head. I SHOULD be doing something else with my life. I SHOULD be...oh, I don't know...happier, deeper, more aware, more outgoing, less outgoing, more friendly, less banal...it's endless and it's absolutely ridiculous as there is no fulfilling the needs of my 'shouldy' brain. Have a shouldy day it says. I've been told I need to stop shoulding on myself. And I do when I actually remember what is real in my life and what is just crazy thinking. Sheryl just got a bumper sticker. "You don't have to believe everything you think". I love that. If only I could remember it. And that is why I am writing today. So that I can have this one way conversation and expose my dark self hatred to the world and just open it up to the light and see the thoughts. It helps. Thanks for reading...that helps too. Just knowing you're out there. The weather is still too cold, and the days still too short but it still helps dammit.

The Long Winters Night

2009-12-23T09:34:00.003-08:00

It's dark. The blank bland page stares at me daring me to write. Challenging me to be creative when all I have inside is a reflection of the the long winter days outside. In the darkness there is no reflection and as I stand at the nocturnal mirror I see just that. Yes, metaphor. I know, after 5 months of nothing in this damn blog I start up again with dark winter metaphors. But hey, give me a break here...not only have I NOT been traveling to stimulate my inner writer, I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Holy Crap! Talk about depressingly dark. I had to have Sheryl lock up the medicine cabinet and hide all the razor blades just so I could finish the thing. What a great read (hm, masochism anyone?)! It made me sad for that inevitable day when we go too far and the tipping point is reached and the end is nigh and the heavens will crack and the lord Jesus will come down and God will rain down his wrath upon all non-believers and the faithful shall rise up into heaven and rejoice for evermore in the love of a compassionate God while the rest of us burn forever wishing God were a bit more compassionate. But the second coming isn't really what I wanted to write about...at all. The Road, while being bleak, had the effect of me really appreciating all the wonderful things our ridiculous culture has created. When it's all gone; sunshine, warm food, chocolate, fruits shipped from 4000 miles away, hot tea, flashlights, cabinets with food inside, cars, the ability to walk out in the daylight unarmed...how sad. Not to mention the biggest loss of all, NATURE! The color green! Blue skies, fresh water, deep azure glaciers, salmon, open spaces, polar bears...oh crap, I shouldn't be walking down this road. "HONEY, KEEP THOSE RAZOR BLADES LOCKED UP A LITTLE LONGER"!
But right now we do have all these wonders. We have a beautiful life. We have plenty. We have what we need. We have love, and star fruit from SE Asia, and tennis shoes from China, and family with whom we are happy to spend time, not to mention great cheeses from France. And all of it is here right now in front of us to be enjoyed. I need to keep remembering the magic and the perfection of all that this world has to offer. Internally and externally, beauty is everywhere, even in the darkness. If I can stay present to that thought I can make it through another 16 hour winter night. Or another news headline about how our leaders in Copenhagen have sold the future of our life on the planet for short term profits (is anyone surprised here?). Or another...oh yeah, right, stay focused on the positive. Look in the mirror, with the light on, and see your reflection. You are absolutely perfect. With your messy hair and muffin topped belly and wrinkled skin and clothes, you live. Feel the air enter your lungs, you live. Every moment is kind of amazing... just because of the incredibly unlikely event that you even exist. We just get so damn used to existing it seems ordinary. IT'S NOT ORDINARY! My brain, my heart, nervous and circulatory systems seem conjured and fantastical and not to be taken for granted. How magical (and yes I really do mean magic) is it that I can write down my thoughts. How magical is it that you can read them on an electric device from wherever you are. It's all so mind blowingly cool! How can I focus on anything but the amazement of it all? And yet I can and do and get lost in the funk of the darkness. Gotta remember to keep the lights on... keep the internal spaces lit up with awareness and appreciation so that when I look into the mirror I can see a reflection there.

Complaining...It's What I Do.

2009-08-09T15:25:00.003-07:00

I'm at work right now. Thats right, busily taking care of the sick and dying in a level 3 emergency room on a Sunday afternoon. OK, not so much. And that's the thing about the ER, you just never know. Is it the moon and tidal changes that effect mass behavior? Is it boredom, or the fact that nothing's on TV that stimulate the crowds to come in to a flourescently lit windowless box and ask for Vicodin ("sorry, I'm allergic to aspirin, tylenol, aleve, or any other pain reliever that doesn't have the side effect of making me drool"). Because it's kind of dead right now. Not as in asystole (i.e. "CLEAR!") dead but more like the tumble weeds blowing down the halls kind of dead. Not that I'm complaining mind you...OK so I'm complaining but that's what I do and that's why you read this stuff. I've been thinking of changing the name of this blog to " I suffer...so you don't have to" because as I re-read these entries I realize, Jesus I whine a lot. But who doesn't like to read about others in pain...especially if you can laugh at them in the process of thief suffering...in a good way of course. But my feet still hurt from last night (when I was complaining loudly) when the ER was a total zoo which just goes to show that any time is a good time to complain...or read about it! Growing up I was frequently reminded that my name Bryner rhymes with whiner. Which is why, maybe, I look for rhymes in other peoples' names...especially if they aren't very flattering. Like my nephew Elliott (and this took a few minutes) rhyming with smelliot. Stupid yes, yet childishly satisfying. Which is also why, in three weeks time, and since I'm getting married anyway, I'm thinking of taking a new name. Sheryl is going to change hers and I don't really think Sheryl Bryner has a ring to it. I considered taking her last name but the Triblolet men I've heard about don't have such a great track record with marriage...or fatherhood for that matter...or citizenship...or...no, better stop or I might NOT be getting married in 3 weeks. I like new age hippie names like Frank Zappa's daughter Moon Unit but I'm still employed so that won't really fly. Something Earth-muffiny like Cedar was my first choice but not Sheryl's. Going back and forth trying to find a fitting last name has been tough but we're getting close as I almost have her convinced that Crowe is an awesome last name. I love birds. The crow is one of my favorite birds...sassy, smart and very dark. I love movies. Russel Crowe is one of my favorite actors...brilliant and hunky. All in all a great last name. The only problem is some rock singer that no one but Sheryl has heard about called 'Sheryl Crow' or something.
Ooops, gotta go. someone just came into the ER...must be Vicodin-thirty.

Filth and Faith

2009-07-25T13:27:00.009-07:00

I cleaned a house for my sister this week. It was a small place that I used to live in and rented from her two years ago. It's a studio really, with one room 15 x 20, a kitchen at one end and an old queen bed at the other. This week, opening the front door hard against piles of dirty towels I hardly recognized it. Three hundred square feet of living space. Small by any Western standards and yet this cleaning job before me had been turned down by all the professional cleaners in town. Standing there, I suddenly realized why. When I had moved into this place it was right after my bike trip to SE Asia and it seemed just right for a couple who lives with two teenage boys every other week. I mean really, who needs space and bedrooms and privacy and alone time and a spontaneous sex life anyways. Most Thai or Laos or Cambodian folks would be fine living here so why not us? Sheryl and I put up curtains around the bed and the boys slept on inflatable mattresses on the floor. It was what you might call "cozy". Turns out we're not quite as Asian-Developing-World as I had hoped we were. Cozy is sweet for about a week...two weeks tops. Then cozy becomes cute which really only lasts a few days or so quickly turning into small. Small becomes cramped after a month . As Fall sets into early Winter, with the sweating single pane windows, uninsulated walls and 24/7 space heaters droning on and humming their insufficient warmth, cramped just became claustrophobic and we just snapped...and moved into a palatial 800 square foot apartment. The magic of the simplicity and familial bonding of Asian living worn away by the schedules/desires/expectations of life in the West. But standing on that doorstep threshold last week pushing against the front door I realized that we already had lived in a palace back then and just didn't realize it.
I had been fairly warned by my sister that the place had been left in shambles by the previous occupant. Yet, even though fairly warned, I think "shambles" was being generous to whoever lived here. Cleaning up the shipwrecked flotsam of a life battered by the waves of sickness and mental illness is devastating. I didn't do it for fun or because I was bored, I did it because my step-son Julian needed a job and couldn't do this one alone. It was a selfless act of love. I also did it for the $60/hour...a self serving act of greed. Lastly I did it for my sister who was becoming desperate for the help. So there it was, the door only half open before the smell of the place hit us like a dirty fist. The stench was palpable, stale, fetid and cloying. It wasn't the kind of acrid nastiness of a steamy overused summer outhouse. Nor was it the poopy/farty tang of freshly sliced durian fruit. It was the smell of death mixed with rotting food...thrown into a fog of dirty old diapers. It was the smell of a diabetic nightmare and madness. It was the smell of a man in the last throes of a long battle with his body and his mind...a battle he had lost. The load of crap behind the door was barring entry as if to say, "Hey, we won this battle, this is our territory now". Samantha told us that the guy who lived here had been sick for a while before calling 9-1-1. He was hauled off by the poor EMT volunteers and flown to some mainland hospital and she heard that he actually survived. By the looks of this place, just barely.
Madness! So this is what an untethered mind, fully let go, looks like. It's not Russel Crowe's garage in the movie "A Beautiful Mind"...where he has 10,000 post-it notes stuck to the walls and all intricately connected by string, like some art director's spiderweb, and all fluttering in the breeze. That was eerie and kind of cool. This was more scary than eerie and there was nothing cool about this place. But we came prepared...physically prepared anyway, with masks smeared with so much Vic's Vapo-Rub that our throats burned and our eyes watered. Not nearly enough to deal with the dank air inside but it did help. Gloves and garbage bags and a positive attitude were the only other tools we needed for the next few hours. Emotionally however we weren't quite prepared and I'm not sure what those tools would be anyway. Hundreds and hundreds of wet, brown adult diapers were piled up on the floor between moist and smeared towels, half eaten boxes of cereal, smelly crumpled clothes mixed together with weeks and weeks of of strewn trash. On every surface half drunk bottles of juice breeding fruit flies or milk containers curdling yellow chunks of slime. The bare mattress wet and stained brown, surrounded by paper backs and paper wrapper of hundreds of Mounds candy bars and thousands of "Lifesaver" candies. Then I saw them. "Julian, STOP" I said as he was reaching down for another pile of filth. No, I wasn't worried about the ant collecting near his feet. All around the bed and bedside table were insulin needles. Little orange capped hornets waiting to sting. Fortunately, most still had their caps on. Unfortunately it meant that scooping up armloads of junk and bagging it up quickly was no longer an option. A needle stick in this environment, hell in this world, is a very scary thing. We were reduced to picking up each item and carefully placing them into the black bags. The good news is that neither of us got stuck. The bad news is that we had to observe each piece of grimy trash individually. We could both tell you now in full detail, if you cared to listen, how the molding spore patterns of a poopy diaper differ from the greenish hairy tendrils of mold in a half full can of refried beans.
It was horrible. There were incongruities that were jarring. Like dirty underwear on a counter top next to an open jar of olives. Or a box of Cinnamon Crunch cereal on the bathroom floor. It was disconcerting. Like going to the dump and seeing society's mixture of wast tumbling together under the bulldozer's scoop. But as visually weird as it all was, what really got to us was the smell. It stuck to my skin and hair. And even through the Vic's Vapo-Rub, the smell painted the back of my throat and no amount of clearing or coughing would remove it. But I only wretched once. Now, as a nurse I have trained myself for over 20 years to NOT wretch. Whether it be while a patient is vomiting or faced with some other horrible thing that we deal with in the ER, I don't wretch. Clearing out a sink full of roting meat and dairy products and opened cans of macaroni and cheese broke through those 20 years of training...it was just too much. Reaching my gloved hand into that brownish-gray miasma of goo brought up a smell that I can only say will be the smell that greets me at the gates of hell when I die. One wretch...no vomit. I held it down thinking I don't want to barf into this mask and drown in my own vomit...not here. "God don't let me die here in someone else's hell". The clog broke and the sink drained away, answering my prayers. I even looked for a pattern of Jesus in the muck wondering if one miracle could follow another so quickly, but none appeared. I don't think Jesus has been in this room for quite a while.
But that sink was the worst of it and when it drained and the smell abated somewhat, things got better. Well, except for the refrigerator full of melted and decaying foods that were slowly growing into one large dark green solid carpet of mold. After that though, the rest of the place was relatively easy. OK, not really, but less hellish anyway. Both Julian and I knew that taking this job was going to be hard as my sister gave us a clear heads-up. We both knew it was going to be gross and nasty and it most assuredly was. But there in the midst of another man's ruined life (through all of our boisterous "OH MY GOD"s and "HOLY CRAP"s, replete with barfing sounds and a camaraderie that accompanies shared hardships) crept into us both a profound sadness. We became quieter and quieter as we each imagined how it must have been for this poor fellow traveller as this shoe box of a space swallowed him whole in his own waste. "It's so sad" Julian kept saying and I never loved him more. Standing there in his painters mask and long orange rubber gloves, burned out from a long day of work, was this 14 year old guy who wasn't angry or resentful or callous or hard but full of love and compassion for someone he had never met. Someone whose horror he was having to deal with first hand and very unpleasantly. Someone who by letting go of the reins of his life was impacting our lives in a nasty way and Julian showed only compassion. He got it. Here in all this shit and ugliness shown the bright and brilliant light of open hearted understanding. Any one of us could go down this crooked road of slow death but for the grace of God. So we continued to scrub and clean with occasional random bursts of "yuck" or "oh, no...oh, God!" but only in the spirit of our suffering in the moment and never in resentment of the man who created the mess.
We ended up scrubbing the floors and pulling out the bed and pulling up the carpet and bagging up 50 or so black garbage bags of trash. The place actually looked pretty normal when we left but I'm not sure the smell will ever go away. I'll never step foot in there again as any warm memory of family closeness has been superimposed with new ugly memories. As we drove home in silence we both longed for a hot shower. We were happy to be returning to a home of sanity and order and were also happy that we had come through this ordeal more intact as human beings than if we had never had that experience. We survived a shipwreck together by picking up the pieces of a smashed up boat that we were never even on. And something happened to Julian that day and to our relationship. The 14 year old boy took a leap into young adulthood and we bonded more as emotional equals than ever before. It was a good thing we did and I hope we never ever have to do it again.

Sex on a Bike?

2009-04-07T13:00:00.002-07:00

It's here! I finally know it's here...today, 4/6/09, and it showed up. I was on my bike ( I love how most of the best things in life occur while I'm cycling. If only I could figure out how to have sex on a bicycle I could die...right then and there. But if I survived it then I'd know that life would only be a hollow, empty experience living in the shadow of that pinnacle. So maybe it's better I don't looking for that high. Plus, if I really think about it, sex on a bike would probably just be awkward and uncomfortable with all the sharp, pointy bits of brake handles and gear shifters and seat posts and...jeez, this isn't what I wanted to write about today...at all. To think about? Sure. To write about? No, so sorry) when it hit me. I had already limited my clothing to only a pair of cycling shorts and multiple layers up top. No long tights today. For the first time in several months my ghostly white legs were shining proudly with no worries of frostbite. The first steep hill of the day had me pulling over half way up and pulling off my long sleeved fleece sweater when I noticed sweat dripping down my crack (another issue of sex on a bike that I hadn't considered). But that wasn't the tip off as I've been sweating under 4 layers of jackets all winter. It was the smell. I was coming down the backside of that hill rounding a bend in the shadows of a thick stand of fir trees when a faint earth smell insinuated itself into the miasma of thoughts that I constantly try to ride away from. The faster I ride from them the harder I bump into the ones in front of me...like a stiff head wind (get it..."head" wind, HA!). Anyway, as I came out of that corner and into a straight patch of full sunlight the subtlety was gone and I was punched in the nose with a thick rich smell of earth, of budding pine trees, of green growth, and of life...all mixed in with a hint of salty Pacific ocean air. I was hit with the first taste and smell of SPRING!!!!! A giddy laugh escaped me. Not the maniacal laugh that accompanies getting over a grueling pass and racing downhill at 40mph in 30th gear. That is the laugh of accomplishment and congquering known by men like Lance Armstrong or Genghis Khan. I'm talking of that silly slipping-out-of-your-soul-when-you-least-expect-it laugh...more of a giggle really...known by all 1 years olds.
Maybe I'm over-reacting to the sun a little but damn it's been a long and cold winter! And I hadn't smelled warm earth in 6 months and forgot how amazing that smell is. How can dirt smell so clean and fresh? Also, I have been so anxious to get out on the road again and travel to hot, sweltering places. The bug has bitten and all I want to do is RUN (cycle really) for the border where I can ride all day and complain about the heat and rashes and stinky smells and the thoughts that rule my head. And that is what all this sun today has done to me... reset my brain and reminded me that there are other things in life than fluorescent bulbs and sick people and videos on long winter nights and fleece and long fingered gloves and snow covering my gardening tools. Those thoughts are starting to fade and old warmer memories are coming back to me, of Hawaii and Indonesia and Cambodia and Thailand and everywhere else that sweat has rolled down my crack. Like it is right now, sitting outside of Starbucks, drinking one of my favorite corporate created coffee drinks and getting caffeinated before work...and dreaming of travel.

ps As I rode to work from Starbucks I passed a bank that flashed between the time and the temperature. All my excitement and gushing over a 59 degree afternoon. Dammit.

What one writes about after taking the Landmark Forum

2009-03-27T08:31:00.006-07:00

I awoke today with a sense of sadness. A feeling like I was missing something in life...something deeper than what it is I now have. And don't get me wrong, I have a pretty great life. But it is a sense of loss that I can't seem to shake. The unremembered dream I had must have something to do with it. I was walking through the streets of San Francisco and wished I had the sense of camaraderie that the gay community seems to share (and no, I'm still not gay). There was an invisible wavy barrier (like in Star Trek when someone walks into a force field) between me and all the buildings as I walked down the Haight Ashbury and I knew that if I were gay...if I belonged, that barrier wouldn't be there. And yes I do realize that the same barrier exists for the gay community looking out from those buildings at the rest of the world...but this is my rant and this isn't about being straight or gay but about belonging. A sense of being in the tribe. I've looked for it my whole life and even when I'm in the middle of a community I still feel like I'm on its edge. I used to blame the different groups I was in for being too exclusive or too clique-ish. Whether it was an anti-nuclear protest group in college, or a sweat lodge group I attended years ago, or a group of actors working together on stage, or a professional group of RN's I work with in every ER I've been in, I just never felt like I belonged. I never felt comfortable in my own skin no matter what the situation was. Now I get it...I just don't feel that comfortable in my own skin no matter what the situation is! Um...DUH! It's not the group James belongs to but James! I'm not just now coming to this understanding, and there is no 2-by-4 smack-to-the-head moment for me, but there is a light shining in a dark cob webby place in my psyche that has been under-examined and hiding out. It wants to stay dark and undiscovered and unruffled so that I can continue to whine about how no one loves me and no one understands me and no one feels my pain. It's really destructive to me yet feels so right, so normal and it allows me to actually believe in what "I know is real" instead of what is real. What IS real is that the only constant in all of my groups/activities/involvements my whole life is ME and my cob-webby fears and self abusive voice that knows I'm truly unlovable so of course no group would fully accept me (hell, I don't even fully accept me!). So once again I ask the question, "where is that invisible thread I'm looking for?" "Where is that communal fire or drum circle or tribal dance inside that lets me know I belong to something bigger than me and my immediate family?" And through writing in this public journal of insecurity and self exploration I have come out with the answer I already knew of course...that I am that invisible thread. I am that communal fire and tribal dance that must love himself so that I'm able to accept the love of the community that already does love me. What a block-head! I'm kind of altering the quote (without changing the meaning of the quote) "you can't really love another until you learn to love yourself" to "you can't really know the love of another until you learn to love yourself". If I don't really love me then the love I feel from others gets put through my filter of "oh but if they knew the real me they wouldn't love me, or I better act a certain way or they won't love me anymore. Conditional. Fearful. Lonely. Time to remember to love myself and let in the love I feel everyday from so many awesome people in my life from family, to my love Sheryl, to people I work with like Jim Cole and Weyshawn, to people who actually read this blather like Margaret!

The Pro's and Con's of Cycling in Sleet

2009-03-08T12:42:00.002-07:00

First of all...THERE ARE NO FREAKING PRO'S OF CYCLING IN SLEET! I know, I just rode in sleet this morning...again. But to be really honest, I'm from California. I'm not even sure what sleet is. I've heard the Inuit people have something like 32 different words for "snow". In the bay area and Santa Cruz area we had one. That word was snow. It was wet snow or dry snow or heavy snow. There was hail of course (not that I ever saw it) but it was kinda like snow only more icy... like a "snow"cone without the neon blue flavored topping. But I digress. Snow pellets were, or sleet was, falling from the sky as I got on my bike and rode downhill for my morning ritual of pouring caffeine into my body before going to work. As I started the steep descent, thinking of my still-warm blankets, the sky opened up and visibility dropped to 30 meters or so. All I could see through my squinting eyes was the stop sign scream past me on my right. I would have loved to stop. Loved to have just turned around and crawl back in bed and not have to contemplate why the hell I put myself in these ridiculous situations. But then I looked down at my body and noticed that the sleet balls were bouncing off of my jacket and pants. Cool. That is a plus, this isn't getting me wet at all! So I started thinking about the pro's and con's of cycling in sleet. The next thought was that cycling in sleet is akin to cycling into a swarm of bees. Even though I had glasses on, the stinging sensation in my face kept my eyes to mere slits as each ice cube from a cold dark hell bit into my cheeks and nose and lips (how's that for subtlety). My mind went back to the "pro" side of the list and faltered in it's search...but at least my legs are dry I thought. My gloved hands were starting to numb at the fingertips and I added that to the negative column. Then I thought of a solid good thing that cycling in sleet affords...a certain smugness. A sense that I'm better than all of these weak people driving by in their #$%*! SUV's staying warm and dry and sipping their lattes and listening to nice music and having warm conversations with loved one's inside. The longer my mind stayed on that tack the more I realized that smugness was just a cover for resentment which is just a smokescreen for envy. So I had to move my smugness from pro to the con side. But at least my legs (which by this time were cold and numb) were still dry. "OK", I thought, "I'll go back to the place I always go when I'm riding and begin to question my sanity or at least my intelligence". NO CARBON FOOTPRINT!! I can feel ecologically smug if nothing else! I am good because I am ecologically conscious and aware and living more in concert with nature than these polluters all around me. Of course I immediately scratch this reason off the pro side of the list as I see the absolute hypocrisy of my thoughts. With my all wheel drive Subaru wagon, with my electric heat at home and my washer dryer and my water heater and my lifestyle of traveling around the world when ever I can and...
And yes, I do see a pattern here for the need to be better than everyone else! There is a smug factor here born of low self esteem, being vertically challenged at 5'7" (calling it short is so politically incorrect), and the continual need to compare myself to Gandhi, Einstein, Lance Armstrong, Verdi, Michelangelo, and everyone else who seems to have grabbed life by the balls and achieved their true potential. So many of us settle for comfort and adequacy, and mediocrity. It feels like a stone in my shoe. It feels like a boil on my ass. It feels like a toothache, that mediocrity. What's worse is that I don't even take off the shoe or lance the boil or go to the dentist. If I did, the responsibility of being pain free, or truly free, limitless to achieve my potential, would be devastating. It IS devastating and so I create limits for myself or blocks or walls or reasons or fears to keep me from reaching some state of grace. Some greater good. Something perfect. I feel like I chose mediocrity or at least if not chose it then stay stuck in some loop that says I can't have it...that perfect state of Grace.
And it's not an egotistical thought, like "I have GREATNESS in me that the world will never know, poor me." No. It is the crystal clear knowledge that we all have it. We are here to live in our fully actualized state. We are here to express our totally unique perspective and to do it fiercely and fearlessly. And so few of us do live like this that it saddens me and freaks me out. But really, I'm not sad for everyone else...to wake up is their own responsibility. I hope everyone achieves it. What an amazing place this planet would be without all the blocks we create to achieve our own greatness. I'm sad that I can see it just in front of me, almost taste it, yet am either too afraid or too confused as to how to get there.
And right now it hits me. On the pro side of the list for cycling in sleet is the amazing opportunity to naval gaze. Not literally of course as severe hypothermia would ensue. But the opportunity to once again go to that place where I can ponder what is the reason for being here. What can I do to achieve Grace. Do I need to do anything to achieve it or am I already there? Am I truly mad in a world I don't belong to? Am I awakening to a new place and realizing once again that it doesn't fit with the paradigm we all seem to have created?

My hands are frozen. My face is all red and puffy. My eyes can't stop tearing. I can't feel my feet and even though the sleet didn't stick to my pant legs it did kind of roll down onto my ankles and into my shoes collecting there like a mini snow drift of frostbite gnawing at my lower extremities. Those are all on the "con's" side of the equation. On the positive side? Naval gazing and a pair of dry pants. If I were you I'd stick to driving the Escalade.

James vs. James

2009-02-11T00:10:00.004-08:00

I am at a loss for words. I know you might be having a hard time believing your luck, but it's true...writers block just as I get back on the horse of writing daily. The biggest problem is that I'm reading an amazing novel called Shantaram. It's too good. And it floors me to read something that good because I go back and re-read my stuff and just get bummed at how banal and pointless it all is. Why do I have to be so cute or so pseudo-funny or make everything into a freaking joke? Hiding my fears around getting married again for instance in the story about buying a wedding ring and being lost in that whole world of diamonds and expectations and layers of cultural baggage. And then again why am I so freaking hard on myself and bother to compare my writing style with anyone else's...as if writing is some sort of contest or penis measuring device to secure my self esteem. It will never measure up...(OK, not the penis, the writing) as long as I continue to look for that sense of self worth from an external source. It has to come from within. Yet how can one build one's own sense of that if you don't have a tool box to use? Ah, the old Mr. Hyde voice crawling through my awareness tonight. Dr. Jeckyl not feeling too well and here comes the mass murderer of self esteem and feeling alright with my place in the world. No, we can't have that. Much easier to own my horrible self as it prevents me from having to move forward and improve my life. Much easier to wallow in the muck that keeps me from soaring. Life is right here in all it's glory and all I have to do is reach out and grab what I want and make this life what I want. But that means I'll have to actually figure out what it is I want. OK my BS meter is now in the red zone. I actually do know what I want and it's mostly to shut the #@%$ up. Buck up. Be aware of the whole Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde part of my brain that looks for misery in a life that is actually pretty sweet. Get off the pity pot as my friend Steve says and call 911 for the whaaaambulance. Jesus I can make myself sick of myself if I don't watch out. Self hatred is such an ego trip. After all, I get to think about James all the time! James is such a loser, James is mundane, James is insipid, James is...OK, I got the online thesaurus turned on so I could keep going here, but you get the idea...slamming James all the time is just self indulgence. So I'm off the pity pot, just flushed it as a matter of fact and man was that a stinky one. But on the positive side (for me that is), I think I'm over the writers block!

Post-op

2009-02-02T23:12:00.004-08:00

As I curled up on the gurney last night in room 6 of the ER (if one can curl up on a rock hard gurney) and started to doze, I laughed thinking, who in their right mind goes to an ER for some peace and quiet so they can sleep? But after what I've just endured, sharing a sleeping space with screaming trauma patients and vomiting drunk teenagers is positively serene. But this tale of insomnia has its beginning much earlier in the day. That morning my mom had cataract surgery on her right eye. I was to be her designated driver and all around support system if she needed anything. (Samantha, you're on board for the left eye!) It turns out that cataract surgery is about as easy as getting one's prostate checked. A few minutes of discomfort and some post procedural blurred vision is about there is to it (and I'm talking about the prostate exam here!). Except for the potential of being a menace behind the wheel while driving blind, my mom didn't really need the help. For 80 years old she doing amazingly well. Not one known for missing out on the opportunity for some good shopping or a good meal, my mom and I were having a big breakfast of huevos rancheros an hour after surgery. Two hours post op we were strolling down the cavernous isles of COSTCO shopping for massive quantities of over packaged stuff we can all live without. When I usually go to COSTCO I get a cart and start loading it with all the really cool and really cheap stuff that is at least half the price back home in Friday Harbor. Then about 2/3rds of the way through the store I start unloading the cart, realizing that even though it's all cheap, I really don't want it. Things like an 8 pack of Britta water filters, or a case of motor oil, or a 24 inch pecan pie. Fifty pounds of C and H sugar? AWESOME. Then over in the sock isle, seeing the diabetic coma in front of me, I strain to lift that indiscreet pink bag out of the forklift sized shopping cart and tuck it in amongst the 12 packs of gym socks or the cases of Hostess Twinkies. But COSTCO isn't what I wanted to write about today...at all. I wanted to talk about the fortitude of my 80 year old mom power shopping through the madness mere hours after having undergone surgery. It was great to see although I have to admit that she looked a little goofy wandering around aimlessly with a normal appearing left eye while the right eye was sporting a pupil the size of a basketball. It was disconcerting as an ER nurse to look my mom in the eyes. Not the disconcerting feeling you get when you are talking to someone with a lazy eye and one or both of their eyes wander around and you're never sure which one to look into while you are talking with them....switching furtive glances from eye to eye, afraid they'll be thinking that you're staring at their imperfect gaze. But the other disconcerting feeling...the one that feels like you're talking to someone who has just suffered a major head injury. When we teach new EMT students to assess trauma patients for brain injury, performing a pupil check is essential. It's important that the pupils are equal and reactive to light. That's the reason we are always shining bright lights in your face at accident scenes. (And here begins our tangential medical lesson for the day: Once your brain begins to swell after experiencing a traumatic event be it baseball bat to skull, or face vs windshield, or...well you get the idea, the pressure inside your skull increases and thus begins the process of herniation. This is when your brain gets pushed out of the big hole at the base of your skull. This of course happens right before you die. But before you die and after the brain swelling occurs all that pressure pushes on the optic nerve and that causes one pupil or both to dramatically widen...otherwise known as a blown pupil. A blown pupil is a late and ominous sign of a devastating head trauma. People with blown pupils tend to die. People with blown pupils don't tend to shop at COSTCO for 96 roll mega-packs of toilet paper.) So all that was to explain why I only looked in my moms left eye today after her surgery. It helped that she had this huge clear plastic shield taped ridiculously over her right eye that, while preventing her from rubbing the wound kind of magnified it at the same time. It was sad in that way that you get sad for dogs who wear big cones around their necks when they get stitches or hot spots.
But I started this entry with insomnia. I had a flashback last night of when I was back in Malaysia in the oldest virgin rain forest in the world. Leaches and brown rivers come to mind when remember that place. That and trying to sleep in a rotten shack of a building with a rat gnawing in the wall a few inches from my head. I remember that so fondly as it was kind of a turning point for me as I came to accept a crappy situation I was stuck in and just BE in the discomfort of it. I had this flashback while lying in a hotel room last night just a few feet from my mom in the other bed. I was yearning for the peace I found with the rat. I was yearning for lots of things while lying there...an ipod, the sunrise, death. You see, my mom snores. Not just snores but saws a mean log. Not just saws it but chainsaws it...with a jackhammer. I mean, there was a sound emanating from a woman just 5 feet tall that seemed to utterly defy physics. I was visualizing her vocal cords (I've been seeing a lot of vocal cords lately while intubating patients with a breathing tube) snapping under the pressure of such a force. I wondered if the vibrations could be damaging her healing eye wound. I first heard the preliminary sounds as she dozed off while I was still awake watching CNN. I thought it would be a good idea to stuff toilet paper in my ears before I turned out the lights. Useless. Pillow on top of head and plugged ears? Futile, not to mention uncomfortable. As the night wore on it seemed to get only louder until I could actually feel the vibrations through the air shaking my bed. I am not exaggerating here. The room actually shook. Mini earthquakes rhythmically driving me mad. A rat, a rat, my kingdom for a rat! I have traveled the world on a shoestring and have stayed in a lot of sketchy places and slept in a lot of crowded hostel and dormitory rooms. Groups of smelly, scratching, farting, snoring drunken men I've shared quarters with and none of them hold a candle to my short, little 80 year old mom.
About a half an hour before we fell asleep my sister Samantha stopped by the hotel room on her way to Seattle and to save money she stayed with us that night. She slept in the same bed as my mom. This is where the story gets even more bizarre. This is when I knew I had to blog about this night. This is where it all comes together and makes the pain almost worth it...nah not really even close. Samantha was married to a snorer. My grandmother was married to a snorer as well and gave my sister some sage advice when confronted with snoring...just whistle. Apparently my grandma figured out that the frequency of a whistle could stop a snore cold yet not awaken the perpetrator. But whistling takes a lot of energy apparently, as Samantha later told me, so she has devised a way of sort of moaning at a high frequency that is supposed to mimic a whistle and quell a snore. Well, I can tell you that whistling and moaning in a sing-song voice does not in any way stop an eruption of wheezy roars. What began as annoying and quickly became exasperating snoring took on a whole new flavor with the whistles. I got that creeped out feeling that none of this could be real and that I was actually going crazy a little bit and hallucinating. I mean really. And this is what did it. This is what drove me to sleep in a busy ER where screams of pain and retching seemed like sleep aids.

The Ring

2009-01-22T11:48:00.004-08:00

I'm getting married! You might be shocked to know that I even have a significant other as 1) I almost never write about Sheryl (in the interest of staying in a relationship with Sheryl) and 2) I can hear you wondering who would tolerate a guy so seemingly lost in the dark lint of his own belly button. But it's true and the big day is later this year in August...the 29th to be exact. So now, six months ahead of time, comes the inevitable planning process. Which leads me to today's rant about wedding rings. Not hers, that was planned last summer when I proposed. I wanted her ring to be as beautiful as possible and very traditional. Sheryl, you see, is anything but traditional. It's one of the many things I find so damn attractive about her. But she has lived an "on edge" and "alternative lifestyle" for many years of her life. We wanted our wedding (even though we plan on getting onto a large boat and waiting for orca whales to appear before we exchange our Buddhist inspired vows) to be more traditional. I know it doesn't sound that way but it's true. We have both been married before. Sheryl in jeans and a flannel shirt in front of a justice of the peace...and me in the woods wearing what can now only be described as neo-Baltic, gypsy inspired Indian chic. Sheryl's previous $20 gold wedding band, long since resold and melted down, always seemed to be a sore spot with her so I wanted this ring to be special...and traditional. After looking at a million rings that all start to blur (I mean, really...how many ways can a metal ring with rocks on it vary) I found one I really liked. The sales woman explained that there was a little "ppf" stamp on the inside of the ring. When I looked at her inquisitively she sort of sighed at my ignorance. "Past, present and future" she smiled. Like, by saying those three words a deep meaning was transmitted and understood by those who are (or about to get) married. "Oh, right, right. Yeah, past, present and future" I nodded back to her and scooted out of the kind of retail shop I try to avoid every other day of my life. "Past?" Damn, we've both been married before AND DIVORCED! So it's not as if we want to go dragging up the past as a guide for marriage. "Present?" We're doing well in our relationship right now and staying present to problems that arise and are still in love and the sex is, well, none of your damn business gutter heads, and we love raising two teenagers, so CHECK...the present is good. "Future?" WTF??!! Who the hell knows? I could get whacked by a bus on the way to work tomorrow or Sheryl could fall down our stairwell? As I was walking back to the car I wondered If I could have one of the 'P's and the 'F' scratched off but thought it might be kind of tacky and look kind of 'pre-owned'.
She picked out her wedding dress last night and it's a far cry from a flannel shirt. The 1920's style crepe-over-satin, cap sleeved dress (I know that description makes me sound gay but I'm still not) is also pretty traditional but it won't really cover most of her tattoo's so it's not as if we're going all Ronald and Nancy Reagan. I'll be sporting a new tux however, shiny shoes and all, so I'm hoping to get away from that Bosnia meets New Delhi bit I had going for me last time. In staying with the whole traditional thing I need to get Sheryl a matching wedding ring. I kind of forgot about that part...until she reminded me the other day. It turns out the ring before the wedding is called an "engagement" ring... only to be followed up with another ring (matching of course) called the "wedding" ring. Who knew? I do, now...and will plan accordingly. Then came the time to pick out my ring. In my defense I will call it ring shopping fatigue (or just plain frugality)but it seems that all the silver colored bands that I prefer look EXACTLY alike. Whether titanium, white gold, silver, stainless steel, or platinum they are all shiny silver and kind of boring and perfect for doing the job of saying "Hey pretty ladies, sorry, this hunk of a man is taken!" So I was surprised at Sheryl's response when I said "Hey look, here's a ring on E-bay for $14.95 with free shipping! A discussion was had, let's say, about the relative quality of different precious metals...value...money...quality...money...value...quality. In these matters, my grandfather Temple taught me, it is better to let the women's prerogative prevail. So it looks like along with my shiny black shoes I'll be wearing a shiny silver (scratch that) white gold wedding band. It's funny what comes up when discussing something like a wedding. Something as pragmatic as where to plan the reception becomes super emotional. What one wears becomes of the utmost importance. Emotions wear thin and ...Oh, God, we haven't even approached the subject of invitations yet!

Naked

2009-01-22T06:03:00.000-08:00

"Hey boys, settle down or I'm coming down these stairs AND I'M NOT KIDDING!". I was standing stark naked in the locker room of the local fitness club the other day and my friend Margaret was shouting down the stairwell like a mom who has been in a cramped car too long with too many kids. She was yelling at a bunch of little boys who were totally out of control. In Margaret's defense being in the club after school during kids swim time feels exactly like being in a cramped car with too many kids! A shot of fear ran through me even though I knew it was a bluff. In thinking about it now, safe in my home in the middle of the night, with clothes on, the fear came from one of two places. Not wanting my naked ass to be exposed to my friend Margaret OR, hearing that voice triggered memories of my own mom yelling that same exact phrase at me when I was an out of control little boy. It's kind of amazing what will randomly rock me from my normal ho-hum brain activity and give me a little jolt. All those little kid neurons that are still up there in my brain will get fired off when I least expect it.
So now, as a 46 year old man, I'm looking back and trying to find out what programs still run this old computer. What garbage-in garbage-out routines are still running through me and confounding me as I try to put new, healthier programs into my subconscious not to mention the boys I'm helping to raise now? Because I sure don't want these awesome kids to be run by the low self esteem paradigm that has chewed its way through my life. The programs that run just under the radar and often over the radar and loud and clear. The "you're too lazy, too unfocused, too spacey, too sensitive, too insensitive, too 'whatever I want to slam myself with today' voice that rarely if ever shuts the hell up. Why. Why ask why I guess...it's there so deal with it and be aware of it and don't let it run my life. Is it just me or does anyone else out there hear the constant chatter in their own skull...and if you do what strategies do you employ to quiet them...drugs, alcohol, sex, running from event to meeting to chore to event? Band aids. I'm thinking death might cure it but who knows. No, I'm not suicidal...far from it as I'm not even depressed today. I'm actually feeling great. It's just that I awoke last night at the way too quiet hour of 3am and felt my heart as it pulsed in my ears. I started to watch my mind actively search for things to fret about and chew on. Old dusty corners of my brain were peered into looking for dust bunnies of guilt or regret. The flashlight of awareness was brought out to search under the furniture of past relationships or hurts or awkward situations where I have embarrassed myself. Looking to highlight once again all those times when I have screwed up so I can feel terrible all over again. The visceral gut punch of a memory is just as strong each time it is relived. That well worn road still hurts my feet every time I walk it. Why? What need do I have to search for places and feelings that make me feel bad? Are they unresolved situations or emotions that need to be sifted through until the murky water is clear and the silt is gone? Or is it that I don't think I deserve to be happy and just enjoy this life...and when my calm/rested mind can't take the incongruity goes hunting in the darkness. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. I'll stop whining now and just put some clothes on in case Margaret comes down here into the murky depths and wants to kick some out-of-control-little-boy's ass.

The Usual Questions

2009-01-20T14:04:00.004-08:00

Familiarity breeds, what, boredom...comfort...um, brain death? It must. How else to explain the group behavior I saw today (and everyday) while riding the ferry home from work today? As I've mentioned before, I live on a small island in the Pacific North West. It's a pain in the ass, it's inconvenient, it's dark all winter, it can be claustrophobic and can be oppressive when the clouds pile up in November (and stay until June!) from their rain gathering campaign across the North Pacific ocean. Pile up like a traffic accident. Cloud after cloud speeding through the air, crashing into one another and crying constantly at the loss of blue sky and light. The carnage continues until there are no more clouds to be seen but only a flat gray cloak of a sky with no definition and no hope of ever going away. Only a cloying blanket of dim moisture hanging above and weeping.
(OK, today is actually stunningly beautiful without a cloud in the sky. Hoar frost clings to the shadows on the ground and the water we are sliding through looks like the window pane of an old Victorian bay window. Not a perfect invisible reflection but textured just enough to be pleasantly interesting.) I couldn't actually write about the flat dull gray skies while they occur because it pushes me a little too close to the "What's the point of it all" side of the BIG QUESTION. The other end of that scale, and the one I am pondering today is, "Oh my God, how can this planet be so perfect and integrated and so damn beautiful?" It's not that I've begun a prescription of antidepressants this week...it's just that the sun is out and the sky is that perfect cold winter blue with no brown haze of summer. How can that not make the funk in my head go away? You know, the moss that builds up under one's eyelids like plaque or the lichen that grows in the sulci (google it) of my cerebrum. Which brings me once again back to where I started (in my own twisted head anyway)...familiarity.
It is a mind killer. As the Washington State Ferries ply these waterways they pass pristine islands. Trees carpet them fighting for light and space all the way down to the rocky shoreline. Not like the planned forests of recently logged tree farms to the east...like bad hair plugs on a bald mountainside. These are rascally and diverse and dense. I just saw a bald eagle sitting on a rock next to a buoy eyeing the kelp-draped low tide outcropping. Seals and river otters swim through the dark green waters. It is an amazing part of this planet to be able to call home (yes, even on a rainy day). But I wouldn't have noticed any of it had it not been for the ferry captain. He or she must have been bored enough to try an alternate route today. Normally the ferries stay on a fixed route. And even though beautiful, the same sights seen too often can become routine. Even when I consciously look for the more subtle details, familiarity kicks in and I end up reading a book as magic floats by just outside the salt sprayed window. Today, instead of passing by the south side of Blakely Island we slid through Peavine pass to the north. Books all around the ferry were put aside and the people were up and about quietly staring at a rarely seen part of our own county. Snags overhanging a low cliff ready to fall to a watery grave...a bright green meadow leaning at an impossible angle...a steep mountainside packed with fir and cedar trees. We were mesmerized as it slid slowly east. It's not as if it were that different from the south side of the island but it was just the fact that it was different at all. As soon as we passed through the narrow channel the sights were once again familiar. The looks of interest and appreciation were soon enough gone as books and magazines were once again raised and we all went back to wherever it is we go that is not here...right here. Now, I'm not preaching...or if I am it is only to myself and have dragged you along for the sermon. But how do we stay awake and alive to all the amazement that is always right in front of our freaking noses? The smooth cool feeling of the keyboards under my fingers right now...the beauty of all the love that is given and received constantly...the pain and suffering that surrounds everything there is...the power of our kids asking us a question and trusting our answers...our spouses constancy/sexuality/support...the taste of a carrot pulled from our garden...or even the fact that it will grow at all! My friend Margaret likes to quote the Bob Dylan line "Those who are not busy being born are busy dying". It's a good line...makes me wonder how much of my life I spend dead. But that's a rabbit hole I'd like to avoid going down today...it's too beautiful outside.
CONGRATULATIONS TO BARACK OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just One More Reason

2009-01-14T23:59:00.002-08:00

I don't hate nursing anymore. I used to when I would work 12 hour shifts for six days in a row only to spend the next week recovering and dreading going back. Now, however, I have recovered from the burnout and actually enjoy my job. There are a lot of reasons why I enjoy going to work these days. This blog entry is NOT about one of them...quite the contrary. This entry is about something I hope I never see again...which is why I have to share it with anyone willing to read this mess.

A guy should change his socks, say, at minimum of , oh, I don't know, every 3 days? I'm being generous here I know. Customarily I change them every day as I'm sure do most of you. Rarely I'll go 2 days if I haven't done the laundry in a while and I'm in a jam (toe jam?). Three days is really over the edge and done by the desperate few who find themselves on a long backpacking journey. But even these folks find a stream somewhere and rinse out the sweat and funk from days of hiking so they can sleep at night in the enclosed space of a tent. I mean, has your own foul odor ever awakened you in the middle of the night... when you roll over and that little puff of air shoots out of your sleeping bag and hits like the sour gasses of a compost heap? It's disturbing to think that your own smell can wake you up. It doesn't jolt you awake like a thunderbolt but insinuates itself into your consciousness just enough for you to do three things: 1. Stop all movement. 2. Pull your arms out of the sleeping bag and put a vapor lock on the top edge to keep all future gasses IN the bag. and 3. Promise to yourself and God that you'll do laundry first thing in the morning. When I was a teenager I'd come up to San Juan Island every summer and stay with my sister Samantha. She had an awesome dog and I just loved it. That Dog (a mid-sized pointer mind you) would crawl into my mummy bag and down to my feet every night and we'd sleep together wrestling for leg room all night long. But after a summer of sweaty boy smell, dirty feet smell and dog smell my sleeping bag would out gas and stink like a laundry basket and dirty dog pillow with top notes of old wet sponge. It was a wonder I could crawl into the thing by the end of the summer but it's amazing what one can get used to.
Which brings me around to what I wanted to write about in the first place. My job...or more specifically my shift the other night. As I said, it is amazing what one can get used to and my patient in room 4 had got used to things no one ever should. STOP! As I write this I'm realizing that no one needs to read about all the detailed horrors of the human condition. There are things better left unwritten (most of my blogs some might say!) and what started out seeming like an excellent gross out subject for blogging about now seems just really sad. So I'll do what I should have started a long time ago and self edit. No need to continue today's great story of another person's suffering. There is way too much sadness and loneliness (and the physical fallout from all that pain) in the world. Help alleviate it in any small way. Thanks for reading. But I did like reminiscing about my smelly summers with Samantha on San Juan.

Full Moon Party in the ER

2009-01-11T13:11:00.003-08:00

The emergency department where I work is small. Ten beds comprise the whole thing. When it gets busy we have to run pretty fast. The nice thing is that it doesn't get that busy too frequently. Having written that I know I'm going to get my ass kicked tonight when I go to work. ER nurses are a superstitious lot and even though I never used to be I've learned to never use the "Q" word while working. Every ER I've ever been in from Hawaii to Seattle is afraid of the word "quiet". It's weird, but true, that when someone says "It sure is quiet tonight" all hell will break loose within 30 minutes. Someone will walk in having a heart attack as the scanner pages out the fire department for a bus rollover and four ambulances roll up to the door. I used to even joke about it when I first started working by loudly saying, "Boy, it sure is quiet in here! HA HA". There would be a few seconds of silence as people stopped talking and turned to glare at me...right before the scanner started squawking and the ambulance bay doors flew open. I didn't do that for long as I kept getting hammered with critical patients every time I said it, not to mention people stopped talking to me. So I've learned to be superstitious with the best of them. I even once worked with a doctor who wouldn't let anyone say the word "pizza" when he was on shift as he was convinced it had the power of the word "quiet". Not believing anything carried the weight of "quiet", one night I joke to him that we should order a pizza later on (I know, I'm a slow learner). He only glared at me (obviously not getting the hilarity of the joke). Hours later after an impossibly busy night of trauma codes and critically dying patients I fervently apologized for my lack of faith...kind of like a professional confessional (ba da boom!).
Last night, there was a full moon. You can only imagine, that if the "Q" word (I have to go to work soon so I'll stop saying it now) works on our imaginations so strongly, something like a full moon wreaks havoc. I'm not sure what would happen if someone actually said the "Q" word ON a full moon night and I hope I never do. Let's leave that monster under bed. So, it was a rather qu, no, calm (a thesaurus is helpful when doing emergency work) night in the ER last evening when I walked by room 5 across from the nurses station. Sitting in the wheelchair next to the bed was a woman that from behind appeared to be having a seizure. Head and body twitching rhythmically and quite energetically. I would have run in and thrown her in bed but there was a nurse standing right next to her asking her questions (and the fact that she weighed approx 350 pounds was also a factor). People having seizures don't answer questions. She was. Here begins the full moon weirdness I thought as I walked into the room to assist. This poor gal was rambling on about her ten thousand symptoms and how the EMTs broke her foot so she couldn't get into bed without help. I steeled my spinal muscles and assisted her to her feet, correction, foot. Did I mention the 350 pounds part of this story? She stood bent over the bed, "wait, wait, wait! Give a minute to get ready here!" As I looked at the other nurse and prepared to roll my eyes northward, the patient startled me back to the present. "Are you offended by nudity?" It was a question that I was totally unprepared for. Multiple answers filled my mind as my colleague busted a gut in a way that only medical people can...full on gut busting belly rolling laughter without making a sound. I bit my lip and filtered through the appropriate responses. "Yours or mine" was the first to be crossed off my list. Rapidly followed by "Oh God NO!". "Yes" would have been a lie though the easiest path. All that came out was "Not at all". Cool, calculated, professional. My answer wasn't really necessary though because by the time my answer came her sweats pants were around her ankles. The mu mu slipped off her top in a speed that belied her girth.
There she was.
"I'm a nudist" was the next thing she said as she started her bizarre shaking all over again. "You have GOT to get in bed right now" was the next thing I said as we tipped her onto the gurney. As I hurriedly left the room I passed a young guy bent over in agony hobbling to room 4. He was pale and sweaty and holding onto his belly. I followed him into the room and started and IV while he writhed and writhed. He could barely answer the questions I was asking. He was in the worst pain of almost anyone I've seen before. That should have set off the first alarm bells. The scars on his belly had shown previous surgery so I was thinking of all the things that could have been causing this much pain. What I didn't think of (and why is their diagnosis always what I don't think of) is that this guy was here to get free drugs. He faked it well and actually writhed enthusiastically for over an hour and a half so I guess he deserved the 3 milligrams of dilaudid (ie, "good sh%#" in his world) he got before he put on his beanie cap and when no one was really paying attention pulled up the collar of his jacket and slid out the door with his ass hanging out of his hospital gown. Not a good look for a criminal. What really pissed me off about the whole thing is that at the same time he came in the ambulance bay doors opened up and brought in a critical head bleed (ie stroke). My energies were then split between someone who really needed all my attention and some jerk who wanted some good narcotics (not to mention the IV site he went home with to give himself all the drugs he could shoot into it). If you see someone out there with an IV hanging from their arm and a hospital gown on, do me a favor and kick him in his bare ass for me. It's now a day later and I'm already excited for the next full moon to arrive.
When I was growing up my dad had a telescope with an 8 inch mirror. A very powerful thing that he would take up onto the hillside on his place in the Santa Cruz mountains. We kids would look through it and see the rings of Jupiter and distant galaxies that were really just blurry stars. But I loved looking at the full moon and all of the craters and even the shadows of the edges of the craters. What a magical place our world is and looking up at the moon was a reminder of that magic. How I wish I could recall that magic of a full moon. These days, hidden behind a thick layer of cold northwest clouds, it now represents haunting memories of drug seekers and unhealthy nudists.

Dale

2009-01-07T10:14:00.006-08:00

The car raced up to the emergency entrance and abruptly stopped with one of those wet skids that send shivers down a cyclists spine. Today I wasn't cycling, sadly, but working the ER and waiting for people to come skidding into the hospital.
"Hey, a guy needs help getting out of his car, he might be having a stroke."
The call for help came from Dale, our security guard who was already at the car door when I got outside. A worried looking woman was standing at the passenger door and I asked her what the problem was as I stuck my head inside the cramped little Toyota.
"We were just sitting down to dinner when suddenly he couldn't speak to me".
As I looked at him I had that instant, "Oh crap", feeling in my gut and yelled at him. "Hello, I'm James, one of the nurses here, can you tell me your name?" For some reason I tend to yell my questions at patients who are more critical as if my anxiety level is related to their ability to hear. Now, as you probably know, one of the symptoms of a stroke is a really bad headache. So it must be really annoying then to already have a throbbing cranium when some nurse comes along and shouts into your face. If he actually could have spoken he probably would have yelled, "Shut the hell up young man, I'm not deaf here I'm just having a stroke!" Followed rapidly by the question, "Why are you asking me stupid questions if my wife just told you I can't answer them?"
What was it that gave me that "Oh crap" feeling as soon as I looked into the car? Was it from some mystical 6th sense that medical people develop over years of practice? Or was it maybe from the fact that he was slumped over and limp with his eyes rolled back into his head? Because actually we nurses and doctors and paramedics and EMT's do develop that 6th sense and it is real. It is an odd thing but there is a psychic connection that exists between people that when listened to strengthens over time like an atrophied muscle. A connection that tells your gut "something is not right here...this patient is not OK", even when, by all outside appearances things look good. An example of this is actually on our trauma reports when we take phone calls from the medics out in the field. We check boxes to help determine the severity of a trauma patient. Things like, 'Did the patient lose consciousness?' or 'How fast was the car going?' This way we can prepare the ER for the severity of the trauma coming to us. But there is one box on the list that trumps all others...'gut feeling of the paramedic' who is actually with the patient. There is no quantifying it but having a person just being with the patient and feeling somehow how the patient is doing is more valuable than a lot of our data. Because, deep down we are all connected. We are communicating in ways we don't even know or acknowledge. If we did in fact open up to the realization that we are touching and moving each other in unseen ways, and feeling each others' pain and suffering, it would force us to really be loving to one another. Rather than that, God forbid, we tamper down the subtleties that connect us and instead focus on our differences. It's a lot easier not having to care so much. But not really...not in the long run and at the cost of loneliness and a feeling of emptiness that accompanies our perceived separation. But that isn't why I started to write this entry today, not at all.
A lot goes on in the first few seconds of seeing a critical patient. Visual cues from how the patient is dressed to skin color to posture and breathing rate etc. Auditory cues from what they are or aren't saying, what is everyone around them telling you. Olfactory cues like is there alcohol on their breath or do they smell of cigarettes. The list goes on and on and I won't bore you (sorry, too late?) but suffice it to say that it can be a bit stressful at the very beginning as your brain processes thousands of bits of data in a very short time to direct your next action. Maybe I'm writing this to justify the fact that when I shouted my question to my patient in the car, and his wife outside said "His name is Wayne" my mind heard the name Dale. I heard Dale and dammit, his name was now firmly Dale. In my own defense I have bad hearing and both Wayne and Dale have a long A sound. Also, Dale the security guard was standing right next to me helping me get the patient, Dale, into the wheelchair. Whatever. I put my index fingers into the patients hands and shouted, "Dale, squeeze my fingers"...no response. "C'mon buddy squeeze my hands tight!" This time there was a strong and equal grip from both hands. I was happily surprised as I was expecting one grip to be much weaker than the other if he squeezed at all (a classic stroke sign). He was actually able to stand and move to the wheelchair and my mind was starting to think of the many other neurological problems that could present like Dale but stroke was still high on the list.
I quickly wheeled Dale into the ER bed 1 and his wife went off to register him in admitting. A lot of things then happened in the next 15 minutes before we whisked him into the CT room for a CAT scan. For a play-by-play it went something like this.
"Dale, we're putting you on the monitor and giving you some extra oxygen now". With this, Dale gave a grunting noise.
"OK, Dale, we're getting an EKG now hold really still". "Hhrrmmph" was all he could muster".
"Dale?", now a more agitated grunt, "I'm starting an IV don't move your arm".
"It's all good, Dale, I'm taking you to CT now to get a picture of your brain".
You see, I like to think I'm a good nurse. And a hallmark of good nursing isn't just skill level and speed and knowledge base but also patient advocacy. I was keeping Dale in the loop. Keeping him oriented to what we were doing even if he couldn't understand I was hoping he could hear and understand some of what we were doing.
This time his lips moved and a long "NNNNN" came from his mouth. "Hey Doc, I think he's perking up a bit, maybe this is just a TIA" (mini stroke that has no lasting neurological impairment) I said, and as we pushed his gurney down the hallway someone from admitting came and put a name band on Dales wrist. Once in CT I had to let him know to be as still as possible for the exam. "Dale, hold as still as you can for the next 2 minutes and we'll be all done". This time his eyes opened and he looked confused and mouthed, "NNN NNN".
I reassured him with "It's OK Dale your in the ER and we're taking good care of you". I was feeling really good about the care we were giving him as he was in the CT room in record time with bloods drawn and all the diagnostics done and in the bag. There was only one thing that was a little concerning. When I got him onto to CT table I looked down at his wrist band and instead of reading Dale as I expected, I saw the name Wayne. Two thoughts ran through my mind as the pencil thin red laser scanned down his face. Either someone put the wrong name band on Dale which I could easily fix...or I had been calling this poor guy by the wrong name all this time.
I pulled him from the CT table back onto the gurney he was looking at me now quite clearly and I knew he was rapidly improving but he was still unable to speak. His eyes were tracking mine now although he did still look a bit confused. The CAT scan was encouraging and showed no signs of a bleeding stroke. "It's alright, um...Dale" (hell, I was already this deep, might as well go all the way), "so far so good".
The TIA symptoms were rapidly fading away like memories of a bad dream and he was now trying more successfully to enunciate. Apparently Dale wasn't lying there just worrying about his terrible stroke symptoms and the possibility of never speaking again or going through months of occupational and speech therapy. He was lying there wondering if we were treating the right guy for the right problem because the first words he uttered were...and the most important thing he wanted me to know was..."NNNOT....DALE!"

Of course the names have been changed to protect the guilty...except mine! We laughed about the name exchange all night and "Dale" ribbed me mercilessly. As I was going home at the end of my shift change that night I heard him yell across the ER, "Goodnight Dale"!

Why are we born if only to suffer and die?

2008-12-28T23:04:00.011-08:00

I just got something today that others have probably understood for much of their lives. I'm on to something. The fact that I'm 46 and just got it is both sad and joyous. Sad that it took so long and joyous to finally have it. It's new so it's still fleeting and I just forgot what it is so hold on while I go look for it again. You see, spoiler alert!, I'm a seeker. I keep searching for that thing that helps make sense of this craziness called life. Some existential Rosetta Stone that when discovered will open my eyes and decypher the secrets of it all. That "AHA!" of deeper understanding that will finally end the lifelong search. The search for the Emerald City at the end of the yellow brick road...or more fittingly the clicking of the ruby red slippers and the AHA! of "There's no place like home". "If you can't find happiness right here in your own backyard then you sure as hell won't find it wandering through hell and back"...to paraphrase from one of the best movies ever made even though I'm not gay in any way. But seriously, can you imagine Judy Garland spending the rest of her life in a black-and-white-Kansas tilling the dust bowl soil, living out her days making Jell-O salad for the endless family reunions? Sadly, I can too! Yet the sadness of being totally stuck in the middle of nowhere, USA, with no vision of what is beyond the horizon is the opposite side of the coin of being grounded in this lifetime with a sense of place and purpose that I seem to be missing. (Although I am partial to a desperate Dorothy singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"looking for that mysterious rainbow's end than the smug and perky girl back from a life changing journey telling us there's no place like home.)
And that is what I'm talking about here...the thing I started to blog about in the first place. What I'm starting to understand more about myself is that I'm getting tired of always flip-flopping back and forth between opposite poles of an experience. Desire and fulfillment. Yearning and contentment. Hunger and satiety. Happy and sad. A penny is neither heads nor tails...it's a penny with both heads and tails. I'm realizing that there are not two opposite coins in my pocket...one of pure emptiness and one of pure fullness, but one coin with its opposite sides. One experience of being that can be seen from either side at the same time. When I'm truly happy where is my sadness. When I'm sad where did my happiness go? It's not like I can't see the deep horrors of the world when I'm sitting on top of it! The horrors are right there and I can even feel them on the other side of the coin in my happiest times if I try. I'm finally just owning up to the fact that all of my experiences and all of my searches are just the internal machinations of my hamster wheel of a brain running as fast as it can. Searching for some final answer to my questions is just a desire for the hamster to slow the hell down. I don't actually want to stop asking questions and searching but it would be nice not to expect an answer.
Otherwise put, I'm just getting the depth of bumper sticker philosophy 101: Wherever you go there you are. And I'm getting that there is both sadness and joy in that fact. How sad it is that I will never really escape this guy, James, and see the world with totally new eyes and thoughts and a freshness that layers of curmudgeonly crust seem to filter out. Oh, to see without the lifetime of cultural judgements and parental neuroses and educational blinders and fears and mistrusts developed over a lifetime of imagined monsters in dark places and real monsters in the light.
And yet, what a joy to be able to breathe this air and feel the snow or rain come down only as James can do it. A witness like no other on this planet who is his own distinct piece of God or Gaea or the Universal energy that drives the whole thing. I love Mike Meyers and even if his last movie was crap I like the message that we are all our own guru's...or...G.U.R.U (GEE, YOU ARE YOU). That is so damn stupid but I had to fit it into this blog somehow and I've managed to do it so HAH! Again, I'm only now just understanding the non-duality of experiencing the opposite sides of the same coin at the same time. Being stuck and unable to escape myself...and the freedom of being myself and experiencing it fully as only I can.
What the #*&%# am I talking about? I'm talking about a grown man who is finding deep meaning in cheesy platitudes. I get it! The journey in life is the destination! While I'm contented I am still looking for contentedness. The closer I get to finding IT the harder I'm going to have to search for it. There is no answer out there, yet I'm going to find a lot of joy in searching for it anyway. In this lifetime there will not be an "AHA! I have achieved total contentedness" moment. Yet in that knowledge I have a sense of contentment that has eluded me. It's not like a lost sock where you finally give up looking for it in the dryer for the 40th time and decide to just go out and buy another one. It's more like I'm gonna keep searching as it is the search that brings me joy. The ache of desire and the amazing discoveries that are all part of it. My cycle trip across SE Asia is a perfect metaphor...did it even really happen?! I rode and rode almost every day looking for "it" and never discovered "it". But my god the search was incredible. And new sights both inner and outer filled me with an aching joy. I was alive. Only now do I realize that I never came back from that trip to where I was before...and in a way I never left. I'm just James who looked then for the same things I've always looked for but in a much more exciting and aerobic way... the answers to the questions with no answers.

Man Down

2008-09-14T22:22:00.007-07:00

"Aid 1, respond to man down. Unconscious, unresponsive."
I was sitting down with my father at the cafe in town overlooking the ferry landing on a beautiful late summer day when the pager went off. "This sounds like a bad call Dad, I gotta go on this one." He was disappointed but understood and I rode my bike to catch the ambulance before it left the aid station. Man down. Such a non specific complaint and I mentally ran down the list of all the possible reasons one could be unconscious; strokes, heart attacks, low blood sugar, overdose...the list is exhaustive. The one thought that didn't go through my head was a 3 day alcohol binge . It certainly occurred to me the second I opened the door to the tiny room this guy calls home. Squalor and sadness greeted us as did the smell of old stale air mixed with vomit and evaporating bottles of beer. The patient was coming to and was not unconscious nor unresponsive. Just very drunk and dehydrated and wishing he were unconscious. Dried bloody vomit was on his clothes and the stained yellow sheets as well. The room itself was disgusting and the landlord, no... slumlord, should be made to live in one of these rooms to atone for the sin of actually charging others to stay here. Brown paneled walls darkened the already dimly lit room. The brownish shag rug was filthy with old stains and some festering new ones. Our man was lying in a single bed that took up 2/3rds of the width of the room and more than half the length. A tiny dresser/desk cluttered with dirty laundry, encrusted food take out containers, empty bottles and other flotsam of a shipwrecked life was crammed against the wall at the foot of the bed. Above the dresser was a TV mounted to the wall and the History Channel was going on about some long forgotten WWII battle. Distant explosions echoing through time into this mans bombed out hell hole of a life.
Outside... the crisp, stunning, cloudless Indian Summer day was almost oppressive in its glory. And this room was its antithesis...the dank and foul air begged for an open window. What an appropriate metaphor I thought. This guy is surrounded by the beauty of San Juan Island and yet the internal squalor of his soul is causing so much ugliness. There is no judgement from me...no smug feeling of superiority as he is just a mirror of my own craziness. A cracked and dirty mirror to be sure, but one that shows me how all of my own sadness and anxiety and pain come from an internal source. The world around me doesn't change that much from day to day but my mood can, and in an instant. My pain doesn't come from external sources, I know that much. But I just choose to deal with it all in a different way. Not by binging it away in a desperate alcoholic stupor, but by whining about it on the internet. Hoping that by explaining it to people that I'll never meet there may be some understanding of our shared humanity. We're all just cracks in the massive mirror of this existence that reflects light back from above. And those cracks each refract light in unique ways that make up the kaleidoscope of this world. Maybe that's why we're here...to share our experiences and to shine back different ways of seeing this world and therefor understand more about ourselves and others in that sharing. If so then I thank my new teacher and hope he can teach me this lesson in a way that is a little less destructive to himself. Maybe this man down will lift us all up somehow. God I hope so.

Room 13

2008-06-25T07:47:00.006-07:00

He met her in the "chow" line at the Mountain Glen retirement center a little over a year and a half ago. He was standing in front of her and at just about six feet tall blocked her view to the food service table. Eighty-three years had slowly sandpapered his spinal column down but he still stood tall and strong. He felt a tug on his jacket hem and looked down to see the 4 foot 11 Marilyn staring up at him. "Hey, what's your name? You're new here." None of the formalities or coyness of awaiting proper introductions. Those contrivances were for those who have the luxury of time. At 92 Marilyn didn't. Her spine was rounded and she walked as if she was looking for a penny she just dropped. But what she lacked in posture she gained in a beautifully wrinkled, old sweet face. He was new to the retirement community. He was new to the retirement community lifestyle. After his wife died 8 years ago he got accustomed to living alone but never really liked it much. After a bout with cancer and the following radiation treatments, his family convinced him that it was time he got some help. He told her his name was Ed and he was a bit flustered. It wasn't so much her brusque nature that got to him. It was her fiery red and tousled hair. That it had been too long since her last 'beauty parlor' visit went unseen and Ed was instantly taken with her. So he did what any ex Royal Canadian Air Force pilot who had seen a lot of action in WW2 would do in that situation. He turned around and fretted about this cutie in line behind him.
I met Ed yesterday in the ER when he came in complaining of nausea and vomiting for the past week. " Think it's my new medication... I just can't eat". He became nauseated just after taking a new prescription and he thought it would get better over time, but it hadn't and now he was here. "You seem a bit dehydrated, Ed" I said and told him he'd feel a lot better after a few liters of Normal Saline flowed through his veins.
He told me he went back into his room that evening at Mountain Glen and said to himself "Goddamn it, Ed, if you don't call up that girl then you don't deserve to live". He grabbed the phone list and a few minutes later he had a date for Saturday night. They hit it off right away both knowing the attraction was there, "but what really got her was when I asked if she danced. 'You dance?', she asked me, and her eyes got really bright. That's when I knew I had her!"
The vitals signs were all taken, the perfunctory exam, the IV stick and the blood draw along with an EKG were all done now. My drunk patient in the next room was sobbing and screaming about how life was so hard that she couldn't take it anymore. She had crashed her car into a tree and was blaming everyone including me for her pain and problems. I could hear the obscenities through the walls and was glad to be sitting with Ed and Marilyn. Glad too that old age had at least spared their ears from having to listen to their neighbor. "Do you think they'll keep him overnight?" Marilyn wanted to know. "No I think we'll top off his tank and you guys can go back home in a few hours if he starts feeling better". He was already looking better with his pale cheeks pinking up a little.
They danced that next week. Then they danced four nights a week and every chance they got. "Ballroom's Marilyn's favorite" Ed told me. They danced and they fell in love. Marilyn had lost a husband to cancer not 2 years ago and the pain of that was being washed away in the magic of a new love she could not have imagined at 92 years of age. They got married just over a year ago. They are still honeymooning even here in the ER, as they looked sweetly at each other and she stroked his forehead. I thought it was funny that couples learn to finish each others' sentences even after knowing each other for such a short time.
When I hung the 3rd liter of fluid they asked when they'd be going home. I told them that there were a few abnormalities in the blood work and that the doctor had ordered another test. "Not bad really, just that your liver enzymes are a little elevated". I got Marilyn a cup of coffee and for that received a big hug. Flashbacks of my grandmother seeped into my body as her bony frail body squeezed me. Her head coming just up to my chest...a rare feeling for a guy 5'7".

The results of the abdominal ultrasound crashed into the room like a drunk driver...killing joy and dreams and Big Band music remorselessly as it plowed first through Ed and then Marilyn. The liver cancer was advanced. The doctor explaining this was trying to be as optimistic as possible but you could see the color draining from Ed's face. Marilyn looked sweet and calm while holding Ed's hand. When she stepped out of the room Ed looked at me and whispered "I don't think Marilyn heard the doctor...I don't think she understands". We sat and talked about time and death. Ed wasn't ready to die yet. He had a lot of things to do still. A whole lot of dancing with Marilyn. I told him to take as much pain medicine as he could and dance till his legs dropped out from under him. I reached out to shake his hand and neither of us would let go. I suddenly loved him as much as my own grandfather to whom I never got to say goodbye. I never wanted to let go. But the ER was hopping now with a trauma code 5 minutes out. As I walked back to the nurses station, Marilyn grabbed me shaking and we hugged in the hallway for minutes until she asked me how long I thought he had to live. She knew alright, only too well the steps of this dance.

Note: Names have been changed of course. There is no room 13 in this ER or any I have worked in. I guess it's still considered unlucky if you're superstitious. Ed was in room 12. Right next door.

Nebraska

2008-06-05T23:07:00.003-07:00

The plane smelled of cabbage and potatoes. I was still in Seattle, albeit rolling down the runway at SeaTac airport, and already I was feeling far from home. It was the smell...and the 300 pound mother that was way too comfortable sharing half my seat with me. I used to be really touchy-feely in my 20's; you know, walking hand in hand with friends down the street or hugging all the time. And, though I've lost some of that I wouldn't say I'm touch phobic or need tons of personal space. But having strangers rub up against me in an airplane, forearm on forearm, ass on thigh, really creeps me out. Of course if that stranger happened to be really hot and had dark intentions I might have a different take on the situation. Let's just say this stranger wasn't...and thank god, didn't. And again, there was the smell of boiled cabbage. I was flying to Omaha, Nebraska and already had more than a little apprehension about the trip. I was actually quite anxious about spending two weeks in a mid-sized, Midwestern city. I know this sounds silly as I have recently cycled thousands of miles through parts of Asia just over a year ago. But being born and raised on the West coast of America, I have more of an affinity for liberal cultures and exotic spicy foods than I do traditional family values and Jello salad. In other words, I'm a total snob. I know people are people everywhere you go, with the same issues and concerns and fears. But I know too that we're just better out here on the coast! So I was afraid. Afraid of the food I'd have to eat for two weeks. Afraid of being in a land of Folgers coffee and dead air. Air not blown-in, cold and fresh, cleansed by thousands of miles of Pacific ocean, but air thick with farm chemicals... pre-used and exhaled by the millions of people west of me. Afraid too, of the folks immortalized by the national media...the ones that have more of a liking to the NRA than Greenpeace. I was heading to red state country wondering where I'd find tofu and rice milk. Snob yes, and watching this mother next to me constantly chiding and "no-ing" and riding and "don't-ing" and nitpicking her little girl (for being a little girl no less) had me guessing that she hadn't received her last subscription of Montessori Now or Today's Parent. You know, those "helpful" magazines that try to prevent you from creating a totally neurotic and miserable person in your own image that furtively looks around while biting her nails down to bloody, painful stumps.
I've always like cabbage. I've even planted a few in my garden this year. But the smell on the plane had me thinking of German food gone bad. Bad from years of Midwestern tinkering. Tinkering like, oh, I don't know, removing all spices and exotic flavors and replacing them with extra boiling and salt. It was becoming oppressive and I was actually looking forward to the thick Omaha air. Not that I'd be out in it that much. I was here to take a two week crash course in learning the art of being a Paramedic. A year long class boiled down into two weeks for nurses who had critical care/ER experience and who also happened to be active EMT's. Both of us! The class itself was long and hard and demanding as we practiced intubations in the OR's of the areas hospitals before our 8 hour lectures, then practiced running ambulance calls out of the city's many fire stations afterwards. Long days for sure but somehow I began to gel into the rhythm of sleeplessness and stress. And unexpectedly I really started to like the town of Omaha. Obamaha it ISN'T. Blue state, not. And the food... I actually took a photo of my burrito at a local Mexican restaurant. A burrito! How can you screw up a burrito? Easy, by burying it in melted Velveeta cheese. Sadly I ate almost the whole damn thing and I wasn't even drunk. But the park along the river, the beautiful old Creighton University campus and the little downtown section that had the charm of an old frontier outpost now yuppified with "too cute" boutique shops and even a real cafe with espresso, was surprising and very sweet. It made me forget the segregation only a half mile away where I was instructed to never go and never park my car...better yet, never even think about that part of town. But go there I did.
Station twenty one. The knife and gun club was located on the edge of that crappy part of town and I stayed there one evening waiting for my first gunshot victim like a kid waiting for Christmas. Would it be a gunshot wound (GSW) to the head with airway complications?! Or maybe a GSW to the chest with a collapsed lung that I could insert a needle into and re-inflate! Or maybe a stab wound to the belly that would be bleeding badly. OK, I know it's sick but after sitting in a classroom all day and going over this stuff and how to deal with it, you kind of want to get your (gloved) hands dirty and use your knowledge. The trouble is that there is a known phenomenon called the student syndrome. If a student is standing by waiting for something bad to happen it never will. Hence, the only calls I got that night were abdominal pains NOT from guns or knives but from constipation. Without going into details I will just tell you that after being on the receiving end of these patient transfers in the ER, as a nurse, heart sinking while the medic tells me an enema is probably in my future, there was a certain glee in dumping off that same patient and getting back out on the open road!
Station forty three. Another sketchy part of town that had good trauma potential... except for the student syndrome that followed me around Omaha. After nights and nights of sitting around catching up on the golf channel (there is something odd about firefighters and tons of crappy TV) a potential winner of a call was finally paged out as an assault with injuries. Here it was at last. My trauma moment. Pulling up to the house in Crapville, there were multiple cruisers with lights flashing and the scene was determined to be safe. As we entered the house, (and why is it that almost every house I saw in Omaha was cluttered with piles of dirty dishes/magazines/ blankets/trash and smelled of old laundry, dirty pets, and cabbage?) a father and son had gone at each other and the son appeared to have won. It didn't help that the dad was in his late 60's! I guess if your drunk dad comes at you with a baseball bat, even if he is a sexagenarian you might break a pane of glass over his head too. But who am I to judge...OK it was really f%#@ed up and this was like Jerry Springer except live, in the back of an ambulance, and I was holding this old guy's carotid artery as he was saying "What do you mean I'm going to jail...He's the one who cut my throat!" Strains of the banjo music from Deliverance twanged through my head as we bounced toward the hospital.
Two weeks have never rushed by in my life so slowly. The airport was like a church for me on the last day in Nebraska. A safe haven to thank god for better things to come in my life. Like Seattle...in just a few short hours. Seattle and Washington and it's smell of freshly ground coffee, pine trees and cabbage free sea breezes.

Going On Another Bike Tour!

2008-05-31T22:30:00.004-07:00

For about a month this summer Sheryl and Corwin (14) and Julian (13) and I will be going on a bicycle tour of the central California coast. Starting in San Francisco and ending up in Santa Barbara we will cover over 400 miles of beautiful coastline and epic countryside. When I tell people this, most of them look at me quizzically like I've just told them I suffer from pica. But far from being crazy or eating shards of metal or cotton balls, I'm really excited to share my love of cycle touring with my family. The thing is...I'm way more excited than they are. Sheryl's game, she's all about it. With her new Surly "Long Haul Trucker" named Buffy (all cold steel, NW winter gray frame accentuated with pink fenders and pink everything else) she can't wait. It's the boys I'm worried about. How do I motivate others to fall in love with my passion? Or if that is too tall an order, how do I at least get them to pedal 40+ miles per day without moaning too loudly? Because really, listening to them complain for hours at a time about their pains and anxieties sounds like...well, a lot like triage nursing. One thought I have is to ride just outside of earshot so if they do moan I won't hear it. Another idea is having as much fun with the whole process. So we named the bikes...gave them a little personality. I already mentioned Buffy, named after the vampire slayer who can kick butt and look all girly doing it. My Rodriguez is named Fidel. It's long story about Rodriguez being the surname of Cuba and my political leanings (viva la revolucion'). Corwin is on Cypher (sounds techie and cool)and Julian is riding Ronaldo after the soccer great. And because I want them to be ready physically for the rigors of daily touring, I have become the training nag. "If we don't get in a whole bunch of 40 mile days before we go we're all going to suffer!" Now, there is a really cool thing about being a kid/teenager...you get to live in the now. There is also a really uncool thing about being an adult...you get to nag about the future. So the boys don't get to see our bike outings up the hills and into the headwinds as muscle strengthening and stamina building. They get to see that James is taking them away from the comfort of the couch and the warm familiarity of surfing the internet. It must kind of suck to have me as a step-dad sometimes. It would be like living with your high school gym coach that motivates with speeches and anecdotes about the benefits of hard work and exercise when all you want to do is watch YouTube videos and hang out relaxing. So I'm left with this catch 22 feeling that I'm damned if I nag and push too hard about training, and damned if I don't because the trip, if not prepared for, will be a nightmare for all of us. I know this because some of the training rides have been as fun as listening to a Tony Robbins motivational speech. Or worse yet trying to BE Tony Robbins. The constant questions in the "How much further do we have to ride today" category are hard enough to deal with but the negative comments like "This hill sucks!" really tests Mr. Motivator, my inner coach.
Today however changed my attitude and erased most of my anxieties. Today we cycled onto the ferry for a ride on the mainland. It was new and exciting to be riding in a place we had never ridden. A 30 mile ride through some beautiful farmland and forests brought out the best in all of us and we rode with zero nagging and only a few complaints of sore thighs and fatigue. It was an awesome day and I think they got it...the cycle touring bug. No set schedule. Riding through beautiful places. Eating a healthy lunch on a public picnic table. Feeling physically drained/beat-up and yet triumphant at the end of the day all high-fives and smiles.
We'll see if it lasts as I'll be nagging them again for a midweek ride in a few days.

Spinning

2008-02-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

I've been reduced to riding indoors. I've caved. I ride the spinning bikes at the gym and sadly I actually enjoy it. The machines are comfortable, I sweat like a pig and I feel like I've actually ridden a bicycle. Forgive me Jesus for I have spinned. I even looked on ebay the other day at dvd's that show a road slowly passing by at about 10 mph. Put your bike a foot away from your TV screen, push play and start pedaling on a trainer and suddenly you're riding up a Colorado mountain pass or down a quiet New England lane in the fall or along a stretch of California coastline. A fan can give you that headwind feeling and all that is missing is that little cafe up ahead waiting for you to pull in and have an iced coffee. Oh, there it is right behind me in the kitchen...the fridge.
OK, what I'm trying to say here is how many times or in how many different ways can I complain about the cold weather here in NW Washington state? I know riding indoors is lame and I know that I have the freedom to chose to live wherever I want. And since I actually do chose to live here, then why complain about it? My only answer (also lame) is that it helps. Misery loves company. And if I want to bitch about being cold all the time (and yes Margaret I do) then I have to come to the sad realization that life has been reduced to writing about the weather. It's now 45 degrees outside, overcast with a chance of showers later in the day. Highs expected to reach 49 with a low of 37. If your from anywhere else in the world multiply those numbers by 5/9 and add 32...or is it divide by 9/5 and subtract 32...oh how I miss those metric days of anywhere but here. It's hitting me hard today. I want to ride my bike. Not just spin in a health club and not just around the island on a nice warm day. I want to ride my bike around the world and eat weird food and meet amazing people and be uncomfortable and smelly and strong and breathe the warm humid air that is dirty from slash and burn and too many cars. I want to be with people that forgo working for living. People that have a retirement plan that includes Alpo for dinner instead of 401k's. I just met a guy in the ER that had chest pain. He was worried because his dad dropped dead from a heart attack at 69 years of age. One year after retiring. Life is short and fragile and wasting any of it seems like a crime... and if so, I am a serial criminal. Sheryl tacked up a scroll on our bathroom wall the other day that we found at the dump. "Every day, think as you wake up...Today I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive, I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it." It was written by the Dalai Lama and I love it. Of course it goes on to talk about helping and benefiting others and not getting angry at anyone (which may be why it was at the dump) and I kind of blow that off but hey, half of a great message is better than none. It's kind of how I approach the bible or any religion too. "OK, I kind of like that section here but, ooh, this part...not so great."
So, back to spinning. I guess the fact that I sit in a room and spin my wheels while going nowhere is a pretty good analogy for my life right now. Hurry up Spring, this is getting old!

8 freaking hours!

2008-02-06T23:19:00.000-08:00

My friend and constant motivator for all these recent blog entries, Margaret, commented recently that I should "quit yer bitchin" about my latest random complaint. After doing a quick mental calculation I realized that fully 89.65% of my blog entries were bitch sessions. I got kind of sad realizing that all I do is sit in front of my laptop and come up with funny ways to complain about the events or people in my life. The sadness lasted for 2 maybe even 3 minutes until I realized how much money I was saving in psychotherapy bills. Airing my dirty laundry (bike shorts) and neurotic foibles in front of whoever is bothering to read this far is strangely satisfying. Plus I just re-read an entry from Thailand (where I was sitting next to some guy who was oozing his fat ass onto my lap) and actually laughed out loud. That was very cool...entertaining myself like that and sitting in a room all alone chuckling out loud like a nutter. So bitching I will continue to do while pondering new names for the blog like "the curmudgeonly cyclist" or "crusty bike man" or "nasty attitude on two wheels" or "my ass hurts and I want you to read about it"...you get the idea but that isn't what I wanted to write about today...at all. I want to complain some more.

Try this. I dare you. There is a door. And behind this door is a room of people that are all sick. Babies are crying next to people who have migraines next to people vomiting into ridiculous "emesis basins" designed to hold just slightly less vomit than your stomach can. Invariably there will be sitting nearby someone who has reached the end of his rope and can't take much more...suicidal or homicidal, it could go either way at the moment. Next to him, well not really next to but as far away on the other end of the couch as possible, are the two-fers...family members who, since they had to bother bringing in a loved one might as well get checked out too. All of these folks have been waiting for over an hour (OK, two or three) to get through that door to see a doctor. You hold the key to that door...You are the triage nurse of the Emergency Department. You are the gatekeeper. Opening that door you grab the next chart from the pile and all the expectant eyes in the room look up hopefully like you're Jesus. But you have no miracles. Instead of passing out fishes and loaves or even some great advice on how to live and not be so judgmental, you shout "Bob Smith"over the din. One man stands up and walks toward you...too sick or angry or resentful by now to even smile at his change of luck, as all the other eyes change from hope to disdain. That is the easy part. Now, sit in that room behind the door for 8 straight hours and listen to people explaining (often in graphic detail) about their physical problems. But you don't just listen to their ordeals... aches/pains/drainages/sores/bowel movements/urinary flow rates/oozing body piercings...oh I could go on (and will in the future believe me) you inquire about the details. If "tell me about your bowel movements" doesn't elicit the response needed (and if they're over 70 don't worry, it always does)you have to pry further. No one really likes to ask another fellow person if their poop is bloody, tarry, smelly, stringy, hard, soft, pellet like, mucous tinged, lighter, foamy or diarrheal. For me however, it's my mantra...my money maker.
There is a special room reserved for me when I get to hell. It is the triage room and I'll be the triage nurse. I really haven't lost my compassion for the suffering of others. I feel badly for all those poor people stuck out in the lobby, feeling like death, or maybe wishing for it, and waiting for the help they have come looking for. But to be surrounded by the constant pain and the constant crying babies and constant NEED effects me and I get resentful. The antidote is humor and it is in laughing at the absurdity of human existence. And of course, complaining about it all.

Bike On My Car or I'm a Deep Person

2008-02-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

There's a bike on my car. Once again it sits on my car more than I sit on it. 1) I feel like I look really cool with an overpriced bike on my car...like people will say, "Whoa, that guy must be intense if he's riding in this stinky weather". 2) I live on a small island that is dependent on ferries for transportation to the mainland. This can be a major pain in the ass. The ride across the straight is beautiful but makes a trip to a bigger store or dentist an all day affair. Just the ferry unloading process can feel like a Costco check-out line. Car after car crawls off the boat turning your one hour and ten minute ride into a 90 minute test to not go postal. It's the sitting. The interminable sitting. In the summer you sit in the ferry line for up to 2 hours to get on the boat then up to another 1 1/2 hours on the boat as it goes from island to island dropping and picking up other people not going postal. The first few times it can be "quaint". That's what people think and it's why they buy WAY overpriced homes here (sorry Samantha you know it's true). The patina of quaint wears off eventually...somewhere after you're into year 3 or so of an astronomical mortgage. By the time I get to my car I'm really done sitting. So I fire up my car and, breathing someone elses exhaust, impatiently sit some more. And in a circuitous route I'm back to the subject of my bike on my car. Having a vehicle with a bike on it makes me too tall to get stuck over in the side lanes. It gets me into the center of the boat...the coveted middle lane. First group off the boat. So not only do I get the hell off the ferry sooner, I look intrepid doing it.

Bicycle Porn

2008-01-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

So what does one (me) do when it's 30 degrees outside and there is ice and snow on the ground and one wants to go for a long bike ride? If I were a total rock star cyclist I'd put on my long fingered gloves and 14 layers of breathable yet windproof protective clothing and go for a ride. Sadly I'm not that guy. I just read in the Adventure Cyclist magazine that a guy rode across a stretch of Australian desert with his only water source being what he could carry and the rare well he would stumble across. He lost 30 pounds in that 40 day ride and probably whatever sanity he started with as well. People have come up to me since the SE Asian ride last year and said how intrepid or brave I was to have done that. I'm not sure how following my bliss and working a daily diet of great vegetarian food and cold Beer Lao after a hot day on my beautiful bike deems me studly but I'll take those empty compliments. Memory is a funny thing. It's so true how we forget the pain and remember the beauty and fun and joy of past experiences. Life can be crappy at times so it's a nice touch that god threw this wrinkle into the mix and let's us remember the past with longing and fondness. Now, as I look out the window and watch the snow fall and pile up in the streets, I don't remember the crotch rot or the loneliness or the long smelly bus rides or the misery of the humid mid-day sun. I think of friends and people I met and bonded with or of the beauty of the strange vertical mountains of Southern Thailand. I even think fondly of Khao San Road in Bangkok. That overly dreadlocked and body pierced orgy of alcohol and Euro-youth looking to get laid...or at least a tan while munching on a bag of fried crickets.
The snow here acts like a blanket of Versed causing event memory loss. For my non medical friends Versed is a drug given for short term medical procedures that hurt like hell. Things like setting a dislocated shoulder or cramming a three foot long camera up your ass (aka colonoscopy). It is a great drug to have before these procedures as it not only really helps you relax, it causes amnesia of the thing just performed. I always smile when a patient who just minutes before was screaming out in pain and misery awakens and asks when we're going to begin the procedure. It can be hard to convince someone that, yes, that tube really did go that far up their rectum when they have no memory of it at all. {That was a hideous tangent...I'm so sorry} So the snow removes the pain of the worst of last years ride and all I remember is being warm and enjoying it all. Craziness to be sure but I can't even get outside now without feeling the bite on my skin as the wind blows in from the north. So, to get back to the original question of the blog... what to do now? I'm stuck on the computer reading about other people adventures or looking at bike porn. Its a sickness I have to admit. Something I'm really not proud of...and something that can be very addictive. Bike porn. Looking at photo's of bikes and the gear just stripped from their sexy frames. Panniers pulled off like lingerie or racks just waiting to be mounted onto that frame. The pictures are endless and there are so many things to look at and desire that I almost feel dirty. Lighter pedals, stronger wheels, bigger bags, softer seats, beefier panniers, the list goes on and on. As does the ever present desire. When I can't look at any more pictures I'll spend time cleaning my bike. My bike is clean...really clean right now as I've rubbed my deraileur too many times. My chain shines right now. And chains should never really shine. But all this loving care has changed my relationship with my bike. The love affair is back and after taking her for granted for so long, I love my bike. She is strong and beautiful and black and with a little TLC she treats me like a king. If I could only get on and ride!! Yeah, my stepson Julian and I went for a ride a few days ago but the numb fingers and ears made it kind of painful and I couldn't conjure even a drop of sweat from my frozen body or my fading memory. So I come in from the cold and go back to the bike porn. I guess looking at a hot bike is better than sitting on a cold one...OK not really but all I'm trying to say is I'm missing Kauai and Thailand and Laos and.........

WORK

2008-01-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

Be careful what you ask for. As for me, I've always been afraid of the 9-5 work week. It's not that I'm lazy and don't want to work (OK, it's not that I'm super lazy and never want to work) it's just that I've always thought that work was a means for getting some money together so I could enjoy my life. It seems like we have lost the idea that life is rich and multi-layered and fun and an exploration for learning and growing...like a field trip for the soul. "OK everyone, you've just been born so get your things together and get on the bus, and don't forget your lunch bags...we're all going to planet Earth this lifetime...should take about 70 years, so if you need to pee just go ahead as we all seem to have diapers strapped to our asses." I rather like that analogy. It beats the current paradigm of life as a shop-a-holic frantically rushing through a Wall-Mart on December 22nd. At the risk of sounding like a Chicken Soup for the Corporate Wage Slave book I'll shut up. I'm just saying that when I work day in and day out I get that glazed look of subdued panic in my eye and wonder ...isn't there more than this? DRIVEL!!!
It's pathetically awesome. I love sitting here at "work" listening to myself whine and moan about things most people have dealt with a long time ago. Or at least they buck up and do what they need to do to feed their family. I am so spoiled and so privileged to be able to "blog" about how much I don't like to work. As a kid I often heard how Bryner (my last name) rhymes with whiner. Hmmm, those kids were pretty astute.
So I have asked the universe/god (who in my head sounds like a British James Earl Jones) to NOT be a 9-5 wage slave but make money in a more creative way. So I'm proud to say that now I'm a slave to my credit card debt and oh, the freedom that I get from that is astounding. I chuckle at how I once worked 40 hours a week. I feel so much more free than my friends who say, "Oh, I'd love to go on a walk with you but I have to work." And I casually and in a sly knowing way say, "you mean it ISN'T the weekend?" What I am trying to say is that I'm an idiot. Freedom isn't free. I saw that on a bumper sticker between an NRA sticker and a support our troops sticker and always thought it was a comment on how we have to kill other people so we can continue to shop and drive unabated. Now I really know what it means. Freedom costs 9.9% (minus the air miles) and at the rate I'm going into debt about $150 a month in interest fees. 'Cause here's the part I forgot about. If you chose to work a whole lot less you actually have to spend a whole lot less. Dammit!! Math was never my forte'. You see, I'm not the sanctimonious snob I appear to be in this blog. I buy crap. I am a consumer and as much as I'd like to seem "evolved" both spiritually and ecologically, I'm a hypocrite. I am conscious of my actions and try to limit my impact on the earth but let's be real. Anyway...
I'm sitting here at "work" this morning looking out the bay window at the almost-full moon shaped like a dropped melon, shining on the oily black waters of the Puget Sound less than 30 meters away. Across the channel are the lights of Vancouver Island and Victoria. I can't hear a sound in this darkness and I'm rested from a full nights sleep. It's the end of my shift. Without any details, I get paid to be on standby. Thirteen hours of night shift and I can sleep when I want with a pager on. So NOT working the 9-5 gig means that I juggle. I juggle 4 jobs that have hours all over the map and yet it seems like I still have a lot of time off to spend getting deeper in debt. I'm also an EMT and even though it is technically a volunteer position it has its benefits...like all the Raisinettes/M&M's/Kit Kats (the perfect trifecta of chocolate treats) you can eat. I also am working at a spa in Friday Harbor as a massage therapist. I know, I know, and before you get all freaked out let me say there are no nail techs or eyebrow specialists anywhere to be seen. It's all about the healing environment and not so much the pampering of the rich and spoiled. There's nothing like a good massage to get you back into your physical body and out of your busy monkey-mind. And lastly I'm back in the ER working 12 hour hell shifts running non-stop to pay that credit card bill down a bit. An added bonus is that the ER will provide hours of blogable material (I thought I was messed up) when things get a bit dry around here (yes dry, like the second half of todays blog). The nice thing about the ER is that it is only on-call. There is something so powerful for me to be able to say, um, "NO" when the hospital calls and asks if I want to work today. It's funny but I often say yes...there is just a bit of breathing room there when I have the option to say no. In many ways I wish I could just be happy doing the 9-5 thing like so many others seem to be. The water cooler thing, the discussion of last nights episode of American Idol, the cubicle with pics of the kids etc. I'm getting an upset stomach just writing about it!
Sure, I know I'm crazy, absolutely nutters. Aren't you too?

Missoula, Spandex capitol of Montana

2007-08-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

I was just in Montana. I have yet to see Brokeback Mountain so my preconceived ideas about rednecks and cowboys there were still intact. The fact that Missoula is a university town and that there are more bikes than cows there has me thinking that this may not be your average Montana burg. What made it special for me (and the reason I went there) is that the epicenter of the self-contained long distance bicycle touring world is here. Adventure Cycling Association headquarters here was giving a seminar on bicycle tour leadership. Hmm, you mean I might actually find a way to get paid to naval gaze and wonder why I was born if only to cycle and die?
Sure I'm barely employed and broke but did someone say "road-trip"? It was weird to be on the open road again after being 'home' for the past few months. Actually it was awesome and I love the way a road, yes even I-90, lays out ahead of you into the distance like a long welcome mat. "Come on in the adventure is right this way"! The weird part of it was having the bicycle over my head instead of under my butt. I kept looking up longingly through the sun roof (OK for all you people who actually like to drive safely with your gaze fixed ahead...or for any liability attorney's...yes I realize driving is an inherently dangerous activity and one should drive with both eyes on the road at all times and with the utmost prudence) as bugs splattered my bikes head tube and handle bars. I thought about the difference between travelling by car and by bike and wished I could have pulled over and just started pedalling. Smearing moth and yellow jacket carcasses across my windshield I felt my sore back and flat ass melting deeper into the seat as I brushed off the crumbs from my most recent snack. I used to get a sore back and sore ass from cycle touring too but felt alive getting them. In my Subaru I felt like the passing scenery was a TV show behind the windscreen as my heart rate stayed steady at 60 beats per minute. And there is something that happens on long car trips that hasn't been discussed much. Something that I'm willing to risk embarrassment and self exposure to get out into the open. After a few hours in the car it feels like something foul has crawled into my mouth... and then died. It's weird. I can go a whole day on a bike without brushing my teeth and feel fine...OK, looking for a toothbrush by then but not desperately. But travel by car for over 6 hours and I begin scanning for the next rest area and a razor as my teeth have grown a five o'clock shadow! Is it just me? Maybe it's that cheap greasy-spoon Folgers you had two hours ago (Seattle coffee snobs, just say no). Maybe it's the 5th Hostess Ho-Ho you just ate justifying it as "energy" to keep going. Whatever, it's wrong and it had me once again wanting to be cycling instead of driving up those rolling hills of Eastern Washington.
But that's not what I wanted to write about...at all. It was great to be surrounded by people who not only wear lycra shorts and really loud jerseys but who talk eat drink dream discuss (ad-nauseum) and obsess over bicycling and the world of bicycling. I'm still not a gear head, nor in the same league as most of these folks, but what a joy to be discussing the finer points of packing a pannier or the road conditions of Malaysia with people who have been there and packed that. We spent a lot of time in the class room going over the finer points of touring and personality conflicts that arise when people are pushed out of their normal routines. We talked about how to organize camping gear and how to find the next campsite. But the big issue of cycle touring seems to revolve around food. People need to eat...a lot apparently, when they ride thousands of miles in a summer. Five thousand calories/day to be more scientific. We learned by doing. We had a budget and went to the store and shopped for the number of cyclists in our group as if we were on a tour. We prepared the food as if we were on a tour...2 cooks per meal. The problem arose when we ate as if we were on tour. Five thousand calories per day is a lot of food. Especially if you are sitting in a classroom. By noon after gorging a huge multi-course breakfast, my belly would just begin to feel normal again. LUNCH TIME! By the time dinner came around we were all feeling bloated. And yes we then overate again. For three days the food orgy continued until we finally went on a 35 mile ride with the group. I can blame the massive meals or I can blame the strong headwinds but I think I need to come clean and blame my lack of riding the past 2 months for feeling so wimpy on this ride. It's not like I was the last to arrive or that one guy on a trip that everyone is always waiting for (while passively-aggressively glancing at watches as he crawls in). It's just that I felt weak. It happened when I was leading the pack into the wind. I was starting to breathe really hard and must have been a bit wobbly because Rod (who is the director of the tour dept. and also a bicycle racer so give me a break already) blew by me. It's not the fact that he blew by me that had me going...it's how. It was no stomping/standing move where a guy throws his bike side to side to fly uphill. That would have been easier to take. It was subtle and beautiful and so relaxed that was devastating. I realized right then how hard cycle racing must be. When you are suffering and hurting and working at a maximum it can't be good to see someone just slide by as if they were sauntering past your dinner table with a martini in hand. I wondered just how many more journeys must I take until I can look so smooth on a bike. Apparently, a lot more journeys and a lot less 5000 calorie food days!

This is it

2007-08-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

Today is the last time I'll set foot in a spa. That is until I make it big and can afford a $135 hot stone massage and a $75 pedicure. My nails will look like crap for a while and that thought wrecked my sleep. I'm up early and putting on my 100% polyester uniform also for the last time. A person should never wear polyester against their will. Actually upon deeper thought, a person should never wear 100% polyester at all. The slinky way it rubs against my skin. The way it avoids wrinkling even though I ball it up and stuff it in the envelope drawer at work every night before closing only to put it on unwashed the next morning. The passive aggressive little bitch in me actually likes this feature because I somehow feel subversive and alternative by seeing how long I can wear a uniform before washing it. I know this is a rather disgusting and inappropriate {and pointless} thing to do but I like the cognitive disonance of it all. Like in the opening scene of David Lynch's Blue Velvet where the camera shows a normal "beautiful" suburban scene and slowly pans down under the perfect lawn to the slithering wormy substance it's all built on. A perfect analogy for the spa. So I stand behind the counter in my own little personal funkiness to remind me that it's all a sham. There is so much toxic energy and stress behind the thin veneer of polyester and fake smiles that my cheeks (and soul)hurt just thinking about it. That's what really has me running for the exits. I want a life of authenticity. I want a life not veneered over by "niceness" and pretty smells. The stench of an open sewer in some back alley of Phnom Penh isn't my favorite thing either, but walking through it I knew I was alive. Better yet so were the people living in it. Not just existing but living and selling and buying and hustling and bustling and laughing and crying and crapping in the streets. People there hang out with family...and struggle. The cake eaters (thank you for that term 'anonymous islander') here don't really struggle and still feel the need to take a "spa vacation" to get AWAY from their kids. Again I think of the words of the Dalai Lama who notes that income level and happiness are inversely proportionate.
But back to polyester. It's an amazing substance and so unnatural I can feel the sking tumors growing, slowly growing, throughout the day. It also reminds me too much of my first "real" job at Jack In The Box. But instead of coming home smelling like a double cheese bacon jack and french fries, I arrive home to Sheryl smelling of canteloupe/lime infusers or jasmine/burnt sugar candles. Agreed, it is a step up but if I account for inflation I probably made as much or more at 16 years old than I do now. The deep fat fryer is looking better all the time...

Spa ER...or Little Spa Bitch

2007-07-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

OK, it felt good to quit and knowing there is a light at the end of the spa scented tunnel will make the next two weeks a happy place in my mind. Even if the spoiled class still continues to pamper itself to heal the pain of a cramped yacht or maybe even a bit to much sun on the skin (causing irreparable oxidizing damage which can be cured by our REJUVENATING line of skin care products), I will leave this spa scene with my head held high knowing I have helped out on some fundamental level. Like when I used to be in the ER assisting on a cardiac code that turned out well, I have helped out on some deep meaningful level with spa emergencies I never knew existed until now. It seems I'm destined to be surrounded by emergencies. In the ER we had "trauma codes". When a horrible traumatic injury occurs speed is of the essence and we would prepare the ER before the patient arrived. Here at the spa we have Drama Codes. Nails seem to be a more common but not less traumatic SE (spa emergency) than eyebrows and for that I am thankful. But still, I am getting tired of women coming in NEEDING her nails to be repaired ASAP. Nails are something I think about when I need to trim them. I never knew they could be obsessed about...incessantly for people who don't have real things to worry about. Chipping is a real issue for sure, but let's not forget the angst of scratching or smudging either. And when I have to deliver the bad news that we don't 'do' acrylics (not that I know what that really means) it is never received well. So while these are true emergencies and something I don't want to discount, they are like level one emergencies compared to the level two emergencies of eyebrows. But neither of these comes close to the level of a bridal party crisis. I suppose if my folks were spending $100,000 on my wedding I could be more empathetic but it's really hard when bridezilla and her minions come in knowing that her wedding will be just the best wedding ever but could be totally ruined if her toenails aren't absolutely perfect. When they all come in stressed and on edge, I somehow care just that much less. That attitude makes me want to pull a Nancy Reagan and "just say no". "Oh I'm sorry, did you NEED a 2:00 pedicure?" "Hmmm, and pictures are at 3:00?" "We could squeeze it in at 3:00..can you ask the photographer to wait an hour or so?" The ensuing look of hatred/panic I get is so much more valuable than the tip I just lost. Priceless.
OK, so I'm a passive aggressive little spa bitch. I know that.

Product

2007-07-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

You'd think that learning the in's and out's of working in a spa would pretty much be easy. You'd be right actually. So it was surprising that before we opened, 2 reps from the line of product we would be selling came up and gave us a week-long training. Product. Not a product or the product, but product. It sounds more important, more weighty, almost substantial when there isn't an article preceding it. But it's not substantial, or important, so a ONE WEEK LONG training about gels and shampoo seemed excessive. I mean how could 2 women talk non-stop about face creams, cleansers, toners, moisturizers, rejuvenators and anti-aging anti-oxidants for a whole week? For those men married to women who use these things I'm sure you understand...but I was shocked. It's not that my girlfriend Sheryl is make-up phobic (she's no stranger to eye liner or and occasional lip gloss) but she tends to discuss "product" as much as the average person talks about colo-rectal cancer (which happens to be one of my favorite dining table discussions by the way). But the shock is wearing off now as I am surrounded by people (OK , I'll say it...women) who 'talk product' all the time with customers who want to know what cream or topical treatment will make them look the youngest. Here's a secret from spa boy...NONE OF THEM DO!!! People go into a facial treatment looking old and lets just be honest, they come out looking refreshed and relaxed...and OLD. It's like when someone asks you, "does this dress make me look fat?" No it doesn't...the fact that they're fat makes them look fat! But back to the training week (i.e. product brainwash session). If you take a small truth and surround it with lies and package it right, it all looks to be true. Like this...

When we got to the training area I knew who the reps were right away. Remember the Sesame Street song that was designed to help us differentiate objects from one another? "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong..." It went through my head as I saw these women fresh in from California. Surrounded by fleece, jeans and Birkenstocks their high heels and professional casual business attire made them stand out. That wasn't the only thing standing out as breast implants are apparently also de rigueur for the female sales rep/product trainer. Their bright personalities and perfectly bleached teeth shone like the southern California sun against the contrasting drizzly Northwest day. Settling into the morning lecture with a cappuccino in hand I was thinking how this was my first day at work in about 8 months...since swinging through the trees over in Kauai running zip-line tours. This was going to be cake and I smiled as the dazzling rep started the power point presentation. It seems I was woefully mistaken and mentally unprepared. I knew I should have made that cappuccino a double as these spa pros started using words like superoxide dismutase (a powerful anti-oxidant...duh!) and Pelargonium Graveolens (or geranium for you non-spa plebes). I was starting to worry about some final exam because my unfocused mind kept wandering from thoughts of breast implants and $150 bottles of face creams to cycling Southern Thailand and meeting people in the middle of Nowhere, Cambodia. People who couldn't care less about the pH of their skin and how to tone it but could sure use that $150. Not for the first time (nor the last believe me) did I begin to wonder about me and a spa environment being a good fit. The Southern California reps were working the crowd by the third day or so and even the most die hard granola's of us were dying to moisturize and were questioning how we had made it this far in life without using daily skin balancing creams. We were all given goodie bags of sample product and every time I went to the bathroom I would secretly apply some moisturizer around my eyes and wait for the crows feet to disappear. The disappointment was visceral by the end of the week as I still looked almost 45. I wanted results, not the shiny, greasy skin with a few zits that I was seeing in the mirror. I was supposed to be excited about selling this snake oil to women and play on their fears of not being desirable anymore. Instead I was getting anxious that I was in some kind of cult as all the heads in the room were bobbing up and down with every new declaration of how this line of product could rejuvenate the skin...while that line of product could restore the skin...and this cream balances while that one restores. Meaningless adjectives sounding real. Making claims that can never be proven nor disproven as they were all subjective. My internal bullshit meter was red-lining as the unsubstantiated claims kept coming. Things like, "We all know our bones are made of minerals so we came up with a line of mineral salts that when taken in a bath have beneficial results for the entire body. But remember these are not to be used on children under 6 years old or pregnant women." WHAT?! These smelly salt baths sounded more dangerous than a years prescription of oxycontin and the room full of massage therapists were yellow-highlighting the words pregnant and 6 years old. I was imagining hypercalcemia and thumb sized kidney stones from one bath too many and cracked up. We could have used those salts to rim our margarita glasses and given it to a 6 year old with no deleterious results yet these gals are telling us not to take a bath in it??? At that point (actually it was a lot earlier... somewhere on the first morning of training) I tuned out and tried to relive the glory days of sitting in a urine soaked latrine on a boat in the Mekong River.

SPA...Salus Per Aqua (health by water). How did going to natural hot springs for relaxation and health benefits get hijacked by people who sell fake relaxation via laboratory created scents (cut grass/ white pepper) and who play fake music (liquid mind VII) that could have been generated by (and has the soul of) a computer program? And who are these people who come in so afraid of the natural progression of aging or of death that they spend $400, without batting a fake eyelash, on 'product' designed to keep them younger looking? But the real question is why am I working in an environment I have no interest in, assisting people for whom I have no respect? That's it. I'm quitting. As of today. You are the first to hear of it. I just made up my mind that life is too short and I'm done. TAKE THIS JOB AND SPRITZ IT!! Well off to work to tell my boss...wish me luck.

Spa Boy #1

2007-07-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

Before I begin today's blog about the silliness of the rich and stupid, I need to tell you about the dangers of percocet. For the past 18 years I have told patients that any narcotic pain reliever can cause constipation. Never having needed one it was all just professional advice learned from my pharmacology text book. Of course, I've had to deal professionally with those side effects after people return to the ER 4 or 5 days after an injury...it's called digital disimpaction. Without getting too graphic, and oh...am I tempted to, digital refers to the fingers and disimpaction refers to the removal of stool (no not a stool) from someones ass. But the personal experience of a percocet constipated post op bowel movement was like trying to birth a calf out of my ass. I have empathy. So be warned. Drink lots of water if you are taking narcotics...and PUSH.
OK, spa boy story time. Working the front desk of a high end spa in a posh resort town is, um, let's just say it's not a career choice for anyone over 17. So to pass the time I try to figure out how all the clients have made their millions. Old money trustafarians are easy to spot...they treat me like I don't exist. As much as that pisses me off it doesn't bother me as much as those who I imagine are the CEO's of oil companies or managers of musical groups like Boyz-II-Men. Being ignored by them would be a blessing, but there seems to be a need for some of these people to let every one else around them know how important they are by acting rude. It's like the money is a self esteem band-aid and since it might be the only thing going for them it gets pushed in my face as a sign of superiority. I know this is might sound like sour grapes...but two things are true: 1) I'm a bit of a classist and don't really like the rich...and 2) I never generalize or stereotype people...and 3) my dark side is a bit jealous. But not really. Not when I think of the girl with the eyebrow emergency at the spa the other day. I realized then that tragedy can strike the rich just as hard as the rest of us and all that money can't protect us from true grief.

Manicures, pedicures, facials, hair 'blow-outs' (I'm still not clear on that one either), hair up-do's, make-overs, body wraps, mineral rubs, massages of all flavors, and regretfully, eye brow shaping. We do it all. Upscale with all the scents and candles and scented air infusers you'd expect in a posh spa. You know the smell I'm talking about. Candles burning with scintillating names like Mango-Tangerine or Citrus-Mellon. My favorite is Ginger-Pomegranate. The next time you are in the store go sniff a pomegranate...there is absolutely no aroma to a pomegranate. This annoying fruit might taste sweet/sour and vaguely like some kind of berry but there is no scent. But anyway, all these smells are designed to make you feel warm and luxurious and relaxed and ready for a wonderful spa day. Like a house full of the aroma of freshly baked cookies, you just feel good. All those feelings however were shattered the other day when we heard a scream and noticed a woman running for the bathroom. One of our esthiticians came out and said, "I only plucked out a few before I handed her the mirror." Then we all heard the sobs coming from the bathroom. Including the people in the sound proofed massage rooms. In any spa there are the multitude of "products". Some are for exfoliation, some for moisturizing...you know. We have a spray, like a spritz really, that is designed for relaxation. As soon as the sobs became audible there was a flurry of women running down the tastefully carpeted hallways and someone had thoughtfully grabbed the calming spritz. I wish I could have been in that bathroom to see the scene as they all tried to calm and soothe this woman's pain with their "spa voices" and spraying her in a cloud of calming mist. It didn't work. Ten minutes later a harried woman came in the front door, cell phone in hand, looking for her daughter. I just pointed to the back hall, "she's in the bathroom". I needn't have wasted my breath as the sobs were guiding her. Ten more minutes and a less harried dad came in also carrying a cell phone. The sobs continued...for 45 minutes. I entered the facial room where the damage had been done. And there on the table, like fresh evidence from a crime scene was the pair of tweezers and fewer than 10 eyebrow hairs. How much damage could have been done here I wondered. Forty five minutes and way too much sobbing later I found out. As she came sniffling to the front desk I gave her face a quick furtive glance...not wanting to draw attention to what I was sure was going to look like some disfiguring goiter. Her eyebrows looked absolutely normal. I mean NORMAL! Her mother told me, over the sniffling and nose blowing of the daughter, that "she is very sensitive about her eyebrows." "NO SHIT", I wanted to scream but gave her my sympathetic understanding nod reserved for those men who come into the ER with a foreign body stuck up their butt and say they have no idea how it got there.

The Fall

2007-07-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

The universe acts in weird ways. I think I've finally figured out something or have turned a new page in my life and BAM things just go in the direction they want to whether I'm ready or not. Or as my friend Robert Lester says, "The grandfathers turn up the heat when we don't listen to what they have to say". Well the heat has been turned up and I've been burned. After a good 4000 miles or so riding in SE Asia without a scratch I crashed off my bike last month and fractured my left wrist. All those crazy highways and insane Bangkok streets and killer mountain passes and I'm fine. Here on the back roads of a quiet little island I get cocky and try some steering tricks and come slamming down onto the pavement. This happens on the way to training for my first job as a massage therapist...ONE DAY AFTER I GET MY MASSAGE LICENSE IN THE MAIL!! When I hit the ground my4th and 5th fingers went instantly numb which I guess is a blessing because the rest of my twisted wrist and hand hurt like I'd never felt before (since I have never actually broken a bone before) and I hope to never feel again.

But now, a month later this is all old news. After a $20,000 surgery and a month of walking around with a gimpy left wrist I'm feeling weak, lazy and fat (not to mention the $20,000 debt thing). I want to feel strong and pain free again. And I just want to ride my bike dammit! OK, so I'm whining...I'm allowed, i earned it. I know intellectually it's too soon but I don't care. When I go to do something simple like open a door or wipe my butt I remember why I'm not yet on my bike...BECAUSE IT FREAKING HURTS!

So many lessons to learn here...patience, humility, pain control, and all the blessing in my life that I'm once again reminded to be appreciative of. Like the fact that I'm alive. Like the fact that I'm generally healthy. Like the fact that I have wonderful people in my life like my family and my friends. Sure I might whine but I know in the big picture all is good baby. Within 20 minutes after my crash, as I was in a car heading to the medical center here in Friday Harbor, I saw a young man with cerebral palsy or some other type of neurological disorder walking down the street. Maybe I was delirious or in shock but I was just so appreciative of all the gifts of health and strength I've been given during this lifetime. It's only my wrist, thank you god.
Thanking god for a fractured wrist may constitute insanity. But so is riding down the middle of Bangkok traffic with The Specials blaring from my iPod. So is sleeping out in a jungle in Thailand with no food or water. Come to think of it so are most of the things I have chosen to do lately so I guess that defines me as insane. Welcome to my world.
But the title to today's blog refers as much to my new found job situation as it does my cycling skills. I've fallen from the responsible place of ER nurse to almost being a massage therapist to...Spa Boy. Which would be a great name for a blog I think. Waiting for my wrist to heal my new boss, the spa director kept me on as a receptionist/spa attendant. I'm grateful for that as it keeps some money coming in while I recover. But making a little more than I did in high school at age 45 is humbling. The fall. Status, perfect health, financially responsible. It's been a long summer and it isn't even half over. But just as I can see the benefits in lessons needing to be learned from breaking my arm, there is one benefit of being the spa boy...lots of writing material. Coming soon...the eyebrow emergency.

Getting back on the horse of run-on sentences

2007-05-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time for me to start writing again. My fingers rest here on the keyboard and, while not quite trembling, they look up at me questioningly and ask for direction. Not confused exactly, but like 10 lost pre-schoolers who took a wrong turn on an afternoon field trip. Which way to go now? What to write after sitting in solitary for almost 2 months now? OK I'm exagerating again and I know that 's not like me but...whatever. Solitary is an exageration. Unemployed, confused, and more relaxed than I've ever been is not. All the angst and worries about money and about self esteem and about changing careers (after 18 years of nursing) and leaving what I know and moving toward a future that is uncertain and new...hmm, sounds like travelling. And like travel this new unemployed part of life (it will have been 3 months by the time I actually start working again...after 6 months on the road) is awesome and also full of struggles. Three months of not working and being at home watching the days get longer and the temperature slowly rise is a lot different than 3 months on the road. Lots of time (too much) for naval gazing and wondering what it's all about. Yet I recommend it to anyone. It amazes me how much time and energy we spend around our work. When we don't have work (and this is important...nor a TV) the day opens to an empty canvas of opportunity. What do we do with all the time? How do we want to spend our life energy? What have I done with this opportunity?
1) Catching up on Season 2 of 'LOST' . I know we're into season 3 but I have no TV. And to hell with the naval lint, I want to know what Locke's obsession with the hatch is and sure Sawyer is hot but I hope Kate hooks up with Jack even though he can be such a jerk sometimes.
2)Surfing the internet like I'll find something worth looking at while knowing there isn't but looking anyway...like at the headline news which leads to looking up factoids that you have no interest in like the Mariners' standings in the AL West division.
3)Avoiding writing in this blog like avoiding an acquaintance who has left you a message and wants you to call back but you don't because the guilt you have for not calling back is weaker than the desire to not call back even though it would enable you to delete their message from your answering machine. So I avoid and yet I want to write. I like to write. I like the image of being a writer and romanticise being a writer. A new Thoreau on a small island in the NW with scarf waving in the cold wind around my neck , a modern day Hemingway doing battle with a bike instead of a fish or a bull. Or even a Dave Barry or David Sedaris will do...knowing that people will read this and laugh and say to their friends "Oh my god, have you read James' blog entry today? He's so funny and talented I wish I could meet him...maybe he could give our commencement speech next year". That sort of thing.
4)Catching up on sex
5)Riding my bike in circles around the island
6)Gardening. This will be a whole blog entry someday as it is one of the most rewarding things I've done since getting home (except for watching LOST). There is nothing like getting your hands dirty and clearing a plot of land and preparing the soil and picking out what you want to grow and planting the seeds and watering and watching their little leaves poke out while contemplating the mystery of life and how it and the food it will produce can come from a little seed. OK, so maybe parenting comes in a close second but since I don't have kids I am guessing gardening is more rewarding by far. I am proud of all the new accomplishments of my babies...like when they first sprout or when they drop those cute little first leaves that poke up from the soil and differentiate into tomato or pea or basil plants that they are supposed to grow into. The hard lessons of life like transplanting and thinning only seem to make them stronger!

So here we go. Another adventure in writing and blogging and blabbing. The domestic blog until next winter when I go to India and can feel all adventurous again...although this time with the love of my life Sheryl...who you will get to meet soon enough...hold on sweetie.

San Juan Island!

2007-03-26T08:28:00.001-07:00

I've been craving this for months and here I am...sitting on a beach log with my back to the ocean and looking at ducks (mallards and buffleheads) floating on a small lagoon. Their invisible feet propelling them effortlessly makes it look like they are being blown randomly by the cold wind that is biting my neck. Driftwood all along the beach sticks up out of the sand at random angles like long forgotten tombstones shining white in the harsh low angle of sunlight. A monstrous blue heron circles silently overhead before alighting on a fir. I'm not sure if "alight" is the right word as the tree branch bends precariously under its weight. A big yellow cloud of pollen puffs off in the breeze under the giant bird. It is spring here and I had forgotten the amount of pollen a single fir can generate. The pollen reminds me it is spring. The sun is still low in the horizon even though it's noon, and the wind keeps nipping at my exposed skin. But in this little sheltered area the sunlight feels good on my face. Walking earlier along the path through the giant trees I saw no one. I heard only the sounds of birds and wind in the trees and the small wavelets licking the shore. What made the tears come was the smell. I hadn't expected the power of the smell of the pine trees. I hadn't missed that smell at all as the odors of Asia can be overwhelming. The heavy wet decaying smells of the jungle, or the hot smokey stench of all the roasting meat-stick vendors, or the ever-present funk of open sewers. The humidity of SE Asia made the air feel used , like I was breathing someone else's sigh. The halitosis of hundreds of millions of people was at first oppressive but I soon acclimated and forgot the subtle and fresh scent of a cold pine forest after a cleansing rain. Even though the wet earth smelled of mushrooms and ferns and moldy wood it was the fresh scent of nature... and things occurring as they should. There were no tuk-tuks fouling the air or clouds of diesel billowing from tail-pipes. As I wandered the path it led to the shore and the smell of the sea mixed with the pines and I finally felt home for the first time.
At home for the first time...both in my own skin and on this island. I'd walked this path many times before but never as this man at this time in his life. I walked it alone and enjoyed it more than if anyone were with me. I have been here for 5 days now and haven't called anyone or seen any friends...only family members. I'm still in a state of transition and being alone with James is a thing I have never been comfortable with until now. I'd always look for someone to spend my time with in the past. I'd try to plan my day around who I was with or what I was doing next. Even when walking on a trail I would be thinking about what the next thing on my days agenda would be. I'd hurry through the walk to get it done or over with and check it off my list so the next thing could be done. It was as if my entire life was a thing to be lived after I was done doing the thing I was now doing! The harder I ran looking for the next thing to do, the less attention I gave doing the present activity. Sure I had a busy life and lots of things going on but I never really enjoyed those things. I've grown up a bit. I need to slow down...not for my body and not for lack of energy, but for lack of joy. Do I get some prize at the end of this life for being busy? The prize comes now by enjoying this precious moment. I think spending 6 to 8 hours a day pedalling, always pedalling, doing the same thing even in different places and with different amazing experiences broke me of the "what's next" habit. Even though I constantly still wonder "what's next" in my life regarding career and ways to make a living, it's different. I can spend time alone now with James and actually like my company and not have to wonder about the next minutes or hours...they will, no doubt, lead to the next career path no matter how much I stress about it.

Re-entry

2007-03-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

Back in town for less than 24 hours and I'm sitting in an old high school gym waiting for the "music" to begin. I moved out of this town 5 years ago and looking around the crowded bleachers is like a time warp. My god, it feels like I never left as I see the same faces that I used to and will again, daily, for the foreseeable future. Five years and the circle is complete. I left here after a divorce suddenly shrank this already small island north of Seattle. It seems big enough again. Big enough to breathe and big enough to start over. And if I ride around it 10 times, big enough to feel like I'm on a bike tour...in Iceland! I am so NOT ready for the freezing wind and rain that has met me in the NW. OK, so it's in the 50's and cloudy and I'm whining but crap, I had a heat rash on my scrotum a week ago and now I almost miss it.
Sheryl, the woman who waited (sometimes patiently) six months for me to come home from Asia, and I are here to listen to her younger son Julian play the trumpet in his band concert. The kids look excited and anxious. The parents look more like...resolved. I mean, when is the last time you attended a 6th grade band concert. Sitting here it hits me that 5 years is a long time. The passage of time for me seems like a blink and the mirror doesn't change that much from day to day even though the grey is more prominent and the wrinkles deeper. But there are kids here playing a horribly arranged Star Wars theme who were just out of kindergarten when I left. It seems to me that their parents have changed much more drastically than I have as well. Of course they have. I'll never get old. I'm different than everyone else! Old acquaintances walk by. Whoa, is that...? Or, man, ...isn't looking so good these days.
Then I see him. Sitting there in the trumpet section playing 3rd trumpet. The smallest kid in the band, hunched over and reading his music with a nervous intensity. I can't tell if he is any good through the cacophony of mistuned wind and brass instruments but he is the clearest thing to a past life experience as I've had in a long time. This life, that is, in my past. Memories of being the small, scared, runt of the school playing in my first band concert, desperately seeking approval, flood my thoughts. I don't have any children of my own. How else can a 44 year old guy go on a trip for 6 months and be so "irresponsible"(and not be on a 'deadbeat dad' list somewhere)? So, I haven't been to a school event in a long time. I realized with some clarity that this concert (or football game or baseball game or debate) is one reason people have kids. To remember, to relive, to continue ones unrealized dreams through another. You get to hit the rewind button and play it all over again with a mini-me. For a few minutes I became that little kid as he played and struggled and persevered and stood up to take a bow. It was a sweet melancholy. I remembered how, even through my fear of making a fool of myself, I would come through and feel elated and feel the love of family, and feel successful. Of course the music was awful tonight, just as it was 33 years ago when I sat in that same chair in a different gym. But it sounded so sweet as I got lost in the drama of one kids struggle and in the drama of life continuing on just as it should. It's funny how we all torture ourselves voluntarily, in our own ways, and struggle so we can grow. Growth is a painful process so we hate it and yet crave it because without it we die. I realized this past year that pain, while not really a friend, is an ally. The changes I've experienced this year have been so enriching while also painful... whether through cycling, a crumpled relationship or some yoga asana that twists me in ways I don't want to be twisted. I have spent so much time avoiding that which helps me grow...hmmm. So this new pain of being cold all the time, and aimless, and unsure of what is next, and not cycling daily, and living in the "real" world again, and living "an ordinary life"...what lessons am I to learn from this time in my life?
I'll find out soon enough but in the meantime I'll just go play my trumpet with Julian and watch us both grow.

Home!...Now What

2007-03-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

Bangkok to Seoul to San Francisco to Seattle...30 hours. I feel numb and tired and lethargic. I also am a bit confused as to what is next and where I'm going. For the past 6 months I never really knew where I was going until I got on my bike and started pedalling. That I had just got out of bed in the morning, eaten some breakfast and had another diarrheal stool was enough direction for me. Now I sit and look out at a cold and cloudy sky, wet pavement and windblown trees. My bike is in a box and my panniers are put away. What do I do now? I have identified with "being a traveller" and feeling "special" somehow, and now that part of me is gone (until next time)... What part of me will fill that void? Who am I now if I don't cycle and be adventurous and hunt for an internet cafe so I can write (brag?) about it and get all the love and feedback from friends and even people I've never met?
And of course nothing has really changed at all. I awoke this morning and ate some breakfast and had a poop (if you must know it was solid, brown and it floated) and still have no idea where I'm going...but I know I'm not pedalling there...too freaking cold! Not to mention that my rear rim is bent and god only knows what other disasters await me when I open the shredded box that contains my once beautiful bike. So the cycling adventure is over. It replaced the zip-line-tour-guide-adventure part of my life. And that replaced my E.R. nursing adventure. I realize of course, as I write this, that all those things just describe only one aspect of my life while I was experiencing so many other aspects at the same time. So why do I feel like I have to identify with parts of my life instead of the whole? Do I have to be doing something cool to feel good about who I am like some 18 year old with a self esteem deficit? What about this guy who has been the constant through all these life changes? He's still here and is the constant. He is still naval gazing (especially here in the NW with dark cold clouds and really good coffee) and laughing and loving and breathing and self-doubting and second-guessing and worried and care-free and putting his body into wierd yoga positions and then asking why. He's still asking what it all means and looking for the point in any of this. James is still here, the constant. And constantly whining and laughing and crying and knowing that this is the next adventure...this moment and this second. In the words of Bob Marley (who, before the trip I used to love and now just flinch when I hear, as every Asian bar catering to Westerners overplays his hits ALL THE TIME...and don't even get me started on the Jack Johnson rant!!), "when one door is closed, many more is open". These new moments are all unfolding right now to creat my present adventure. And that they all add up to make a life of meaningful and meaningless moments but moments none the less to be experienced as only I can.
I thought I would wrap up this adventure of mine with relevant anecdotes... or comparisons between the East and the West, or sone poignant moment that defined what the trip meant to me. I find that I can't do it. I will continue to write stories and memories from the recent bike trip and I will write about moments from this new adventure. On one of my last days in Nong Khai, I was writing in my journal trying to keep back the tears and a woman sat down and asked me if I was a writer. It was the first time I ever just said yes, and let it be. This trip has given me that incredible gift. It may be crap. It may be good. But I write and I put it out there for people to read and I found out that I love it. I want to thank you for reading it and commenting and keeping me going when I was pissed or down or discouraged and tired. People whom I've never met like Stoder, or met once like Wheelz or acquaintances who now feel like a friend...Margaret! Hopefully you'll keep reading because if I fail as a writer I might need to borrow some money from time to time! And I need help picking a new blog name...send me some ideas... as I know now why I left Kauai.

Relax...Take Deep Breaths...Balance

2007-03-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

Over and over this past week I've heard those words repeated. I've been in a yoga retreat in Nong Khai, Thailand for the last "adventure" of my trip. Pancho, my yoga instructor and all around spiritual community builder here, has a background in theater and those three reminders were uttered just as you would imagine a yoga teacher should. They came slowly, stretched out and breathy. It worked: I actually relaxed and breathed deeply and found my balance. The yoga class was perfect for me as the focus was on breath and quieting the mind (not that I need any mind quieting at all) and the improved flow of pranic energy. This is the kind of inner work I've been seeking the whole trip and here, and found it in my last week in Asia...without pedalling! The inner journey experience while cycling was difficult and yet invaluable. Through stubborn perseverance and lonliness and determination I overcame fears and my own insanities of which I've mentioned before. I found an inner resilience and strenth and self respect I never knew before. I discovered a James who I like that I never knew before. I found scrotal pain I never knew existed before!! Yoga is analagous (except for the scrotal part) but takes a very different approach. Through cycling, I became more aware of the dispiriting inner voice that always whines and wants to quit when things get hard (easy gutterheads). I could settle into a cycling rhythm that allowed me to gently but assertively hold an uncomfortable but maintainable edge. And I got a lot stronger physically. And as the riding was just what my stagnant yoga practice needed, the yoga was the perfect ending for this trip. Abused and overworked muscles and tendons and bones that were never meant to move that reptititiously for that long, day after day and month after month were worked and stretched in a different and more wholistic way.
I cycled into Nong Khai and followed an inner beacon that often leads me to right where I need to be. It's weird and I don't know how it woks but I'm learning to really trust it. Lost in the bustle that is day market stall after day market stall I saw a sign saying Mut-Mee guest house. I had signed up for the yoga class weeks earlier and thought maybe the Mut-Mee people could guide me there. A small, quiet, tree lined side street led toward the guest house. Pancho's yoga studio and home are both next door to the Mut-Mee. Providence led me to the right place once again and I was glad as it had been an 80km ride from the nature preserve in Laos and the direct sunlight was bearing down as if through a magnifying glass. I hopped off my bike and smiled knowing this was going to be my last stop on the trip and it was over looking the Mekong river. The smile soon faded when I looked around at all the white faces and the young hippy set eating western food. Once again I was in Thailand and yet could be anywhere. Americans, Dutch, Germans, British and Canadians...all being served by the Thais who didn't really mingle. But by the next day my dismay had evaporated as I realized very few people were drinking. A lot of these people either lived here or were long term renters who came for the yoga/neditation classes...then fell in love with the little community of new agers, and decided to stay. Here was a group of like minded, spiritual seekers that spend way too much time naval gazing. It was a place that would have had my friend Cary looking for a semi-automatic weapon. I was in heaven. An 11:00 post yoga breakfast would last 2 hours as we would discuss things like whether morality is subjective. It's kind of embarassing to write about now because none of us were even stoned. The atmosphere and heat just fed these discussions until the 2:00 meditation hour started. I actually had a hard time leaving the Mut-Mee after 2 days and just languished at the tables reading or waiting for another conversation to start up. There was a little bookstore and an art studio and people playing music all around and shady banana trees and a thatch roofed restaurant and the flowing Mekong behind it all. I spent one of the most relaxing weeks of my life there (even though the yoga retreat was physically and mentally difficult) and was sad to have to leave. Especially since the train from Nong Khai was taking me back to the familiar and evil haunts of Bangkok.

Roberto, squared

2007-03-18T22:59:00.000-07:00

I've already written, OK whined, about my first days' ride out of Luang Prabang, Laos. It was a 80 or 90 km day (already repressing the pain) of mostly uphills and heat. But I failed to mention that this is where I ran into Roberto. And his friend, Roberto. The guest house was at the top of the hill and I was dead tired as I pushed my bike into the storage room next to the restaurant. The storage room also had a large mattress on the floor and doubled as someones bedroom but no one seemed to care I was parking my bike there. It was then I saw a beautiful new Trek mountain bike next to the fridge and piles of veggies and fruit. My sense of "off the beaten track" was offended, but I looked forward to talking trash with another cyclist. It's the kind of conversation that will make the average non-cyclist fall rapidly into REM sleep. You know, "how many kilomteres did you go today" and "how much water did you drink" and "what did you think of that last hill" and the like. It's weird but we instantly have a connection. No matter where we are from or how old or how different, a cyclist out here is a kindred spirit. So I sat down and was thinking about my upcoming noodle soup when a very handsome and ruggedly stubbled Italian guy came in and sat down at another table. I walked over and sat down and he introduced himself as, you guessed it, Roberto. After 2 minutes the conversation ended. It was clear the kindred spirit thing was not going on here, at all. At first I thought it was a language issue, but his English was pretty good. You know that feeling when you really wish you hadn't just sat down and committed yourself to a conversation with someone you have absolutely no connection with and you feel sort of tight in the throat and chest and a little squirmy and fidgety and you start looking around for empty tables and thinking up excuses for why you have to eat alone and can't come up with a good enough one to make it hide the fact that you'd pretty much rather eat anywhere else in the world than at this one table? Yeah, that was the feeling I was having just as his giant, bald headed, bird faced friend named, mm hmm, Roberto came and sat down with us. I was relieved...for about 2 more minutes until the same feeling crept over me and the silencio at the table became strained. I tried the always reliable, "George Bush is a moron" line of conversation but it fell away almost unnoticed. I tried the well worn bike-gear-blather but again a big miss as he didn't seem too interested even in his own cycling adventure. As a matter of fact he didn't seem interested in much. He had just met his friend, Roberto, in Laos and Roberto was following Roberto via bus and carrying a lot of his gear for him. I was wishing Alisa would hurry up and save me from this scene but since she and I were needing a lot more space than a small box of a room with two single beds can provide (i.e. wishing the other would accidentally ride off a mountain cliff), she was in no hurry to share dinner as well.
When dinner came we all dug into the food and I finally noticed the eyes of these two mis-matched Italians. They were bleary and bloodshot. When the conversation was thus directed to the always popular subject of drugs they both perked up and the discussion was lively. Both in their 30's and a bit old for constant drug use I was startled to find out that this was why they liked Laos so much. With the constant pot use, and smoking opium when available, I wondered when the one Roberto had enough time or energy for bike riding. It was like a full time occupation with these guys as they discussed the different aspects of drug use here in Laos.
We vowed to cycle together the next day and I finally escaped off to bed. By 9:00 the next morning there was no sign of Roberto, or that his bags were anywhere near being packed so Alisa and I took off. We ran into him later that day. Since his buddy had all his gear on a bus somewhere, he caught up with us easily...even after smoking his morning joint. That afternoon, found the two Robertos staying at the same guest house as Alisa and I, once again. This place was a jewel that every passing cyclist had mentioned to us. As an aside, after cycling for hours and seeing the cars, busses and mopeds passing, and having long internal dialogues with oneself, it is a rare and wonderful treat to see a geared up, loaded down, cyclist coming from the opposite direction. I always like to stop and chat and it gives me another excuse to not pedal. There are an amazing number of us cycling fools out on the roads of the world and even if it makes me feel a little less "special", it's always good to share the pain and information. The ones that make me feel like the wuss I am are the ones who have cycled from their homes in Europe somewhere. Through the middle east and Pakistan, into India up the Himalayas into Tibet, through China, maybe dip in Kyrgistan or durka-durkastan until they find some beach in Thailand to hang out on. I find them heading north, cycling home...2 years or so later. Along this stretch of road every cyclist had mentioned the hot springs just outide of our next destination. After 2 days of mountain passes the decision was a no brainer and we altered plans so as to stay at the bungalows just next to the hot springs. The steep mountains and woods surrounding the place were beautiful. The atmosphere, even though built right on the main north/south route of Laos, was serene. "Main route" here means an occasional truck or bus passes as opposed to a smaller road where nothing passes. A large square pool had been dug out right next to the road but a little further up the hill was a hot stream that, nestled in the trees and boulders, soaked away all my muscle tension and pain. In the morning I was glad I had chosen the stream to sit in as there was a group of locals that were brushing their teeth, doing laundry and bathing, soap and all, in the big pool. The two Roberto's were sleeping in apparently, once again, so Alisa and I took off after a snack, vowing to eat in town. We didn't want to repeat last nights dinner experience. The Roberto's must have had the munchies last night because the food that arrived at the table was sketchy and had no similarity to what was ordered. I'm used to that by now of course but the disparity had reached a new level. Why Roberto chose to order schnitzl in northern Laos was a mystery. So was the plate of food that arrived about an hour later. My vegetarian noodle soup had more huge chunks of meat in it than noodles but it looked rather like chicken so I picked out the bits and ate the rest...and I hate doing that! But they must have run out of chicken because the mystery meat that everyone else ate brought up the topic of eating dog meat in Laos. Apparently eating a dog that had yellow fur gives one more power than if the dog is another color. In Thailand a yellow dog will be exported (as pets of course) and fetch up to 4000 Bhat. That is almost $150!! As dinner here was dirt cheap the meat must have come from some poor black mutt. No one felt very good the next day.
Riding along in the afternoon heat I discovered how Roberto can do so many drugs and cycle around Asia so well. As passenger truck passed by I heard a "ciao" coming from the back and saw the Roberto's waving amiably with big grins and a bike tied to the roof of the truck. "Hey, that's cheating" I yelled smiling and waving, forgetting all the trains and busses I've enjoyed over the past few months. For the rest of my time in Laos I kept running across the Roberto's. In Vang Vienne they came up to our breakfast table, already hopelessly stoned, and ordered their second breakfast of the day as ours looked so delicioso. Later that day I ran into them heading for the "happy pizza" place and they were discussing the magic mushroom shake with which to chase it down. In Vientiane we cycled passed them once again and they invited us to visit them at their guest house later in the day. I never did get there. I think we took our relationship as far as it could go...even though I ended up really liking these guys. I can't even say why. Maybe it was just seeing a familiar face everywhere I went. Maybe it was their relaxed attitudes and constant smiles. But ultimatley, it's not nearly enough as stoned people are really boring. Pleasant maybe, but boring and I couldn't face another evening with the Roberto's.

International Womens Day...Laos style

2007-03-16T00:36:00.000-07:00

My third day at Lao Pako nature preserve and things were moving as slow as possible...just the way I like it. My morning herbal sauna was over and I was wondering what to do. The sauna was amazing. I had to meander through a hot jungle to get to the sauna house. The small wood structure with a grass roof was on a gentle slope just above a stream for the refreshing dip afterward. Most people describe this part of Laos as a sauna and wonder why anyone would want to go from one sauna to a hotter one. I wondered that too as I stripped down and entered the steamy dark room. But I realized that day, that if one steps from the hottest fires of hell into the more reasonable fires of Laos, it makes Laos seem rather refreshing...which it isn't. From under the hut a pipe leads horizontally out to a small boiler sitting over two long logs that had their ends pushed into a fire. Its a great system. Someone puts eucalyptus leaves and other "herbs from the jungle" into the boiler and if the room cools down too much you just run out in all your sweaty nakedness and shove the logs farther into the flames and streak back in. It was plenty hot however as I stepped into the steamy abyss. The herbal smells and wood smoke mix with the hot wet air as I melted into a puddle of sweat. The smell was cooling and counteracted the heat which allows one to stay longer than is prudent. Not known for prudence, I hung out in there for a good 30 minutes before feeling the (by this time in my trip, normal-post-cycling) effects of dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. The lightheadedness was kind of nice and for a dollar one of the cheapest highs in Laos. That and Beer Lao, but I've already discussed the magic of Beer Lao. And since I've decided to go back to beer abstinance (which as we'll see in a minute lasted all of three hours) I felt great. Stumbling into the cool stream I stared up at the leaf speckled sky and smiled at how perfect this moment was. The dizziness wasn't clearing after I took 3 or 4 more trips to the steam room and started to wonder about the "jungle herbs" that were in the steaming pot above the fire. Back at the resort however my mind cleared after 2 liters of water. It was then, in my paralytic state, that I realized that Phut was talking to me. It was 90 degrees by now and it took me a minute to formulate an answer to his question. He just stood there waiting for my answer. Either he sees a lot of really drugged out tourists or, like everyone else in Laos, is so mellow that waiting 20 seconds for a reply is not abnormal.
"What party?" I asked. "You know, I told you yesterday my village is celebrate international womens day". Leaving the shaded, open deck/reception area and cycling in the blazing midday heat didn't sound really fun after a dehydration high. But how often does one get invited to a Laoatian villiage party? (As it turns out...all the time but how was I to know?) "Of course I'm going" I said, and thought, 'as soon as my legs lose that gelatenous feeling.'
I set out at about 1:00pm instantly remembering it was the hottest part of the day. In the clear cut jungle area I was surrounded by the pleasing and mystical sounds of wooden cowbells. The sound was all around and weird since I could only see an occasional emaciated cow in the scrub. I always think of percussion instruments as each bell has its own tone. With dozens of them tinkling invisibly and no other sounds and nothing around for miles it was my own private concert and I stood in the shadeless road smiling once again at Laos. It was the sweat pouring down my asscrack that pulled me from my reverie and I rode on to the small village. The booming subwoofers told me I was close. When I got to the school field there were maybe 150 people sitting outside under the trees. Plastic benches and stools were set up in front of a wall of massive speakers as a guy with a microphone in his hand was shouting excitedly into it. Being the only white guy in the crowd I felt a little uncomfortable realizing that this was their party and I was crashing it. Even though I had been invited, my host was back at the "resort". Just blend in I laughed to myself as I leaned my bike up against the fence. I haven't really bothered locking my bike these days as I have had no reason to. Back at home I would have put the chain through both wheels and found something strong to lock it to. Here in Laos it feels way safer than my own country. Maybe its just because they are all so wealthy I shrugged and went off into the crowd. The musicians had taken over the mic and were blaring some nice sounding Laos pop which has a swinging little reggae beat and great lyrics. Actually they were singing in Laoation which pissed me off but didn't seem to bother anyone else. People were staring at me while I was leaning up against a tree trying to be as inconspicuous as possible but the looks were not hostile at all. A handsome young guy in a starched shirt came up to me and invited me over to his table of friends. I told him I'd be right over and made a detour to the beer stand. There were 3 tables set up for concessions. One for chips and sunflower seeds, the other for meat stick snacks and the biggest by far was the Beer Laos stand. Grabbing three large bottles of beer I headed back to the group of friends who had cleared a spot for me. They were all well dressed and looked fresh whereas I had on a sweaty dirty T-shirt and some natty shorts. They didn't seem to care as their gaze was fixed on the beer. I was a hit as I opened them up and passed them out. But even though they were pleased, no one grabbed a bottle but just kept them together in the middle of the table. Then I realized that there were no cups and started looking around for some. The last pot luck I attended at home someone always brings the cups and plates...its an unspoken expectation and they always show up. Then at the end of the party we always gather up the trash bag and throw away 5 pounds of plastic. No such waste here! Someone stood by my side and poured me a half cup of beer and waited. I took a sip and continued the tortured conversation of where I lived etc. The guy pouring beer was still at my side and my young friend said "You must finish your beer". I thought it was some sort of macho thing about not sipping beer so I downed the rest. The guy pouring looked relieved and grabbed my cup, refilled it and gave it to someone else. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! I don't know how many of us shared that cup that day but I was there for 3 hours and it was going strong when I left. I was at the table of college students who were visiting the village for 4 months teaching English to the local kids. They all wanted to speak English so I had the same conversations over and over until one woman asked me if I wanted to dance. The music was too loud in front of the speaker wall and that's just where everyone was. The Laos dance, as a generalization of course, like they live...very relaxed and slowly. Kind of like a reggae sway...you find that groove and hang with it. Everyone in the crowd with the same move and all smiling and laughing and loving the afternoon. Everyone includes the cool teen-agers, the married couples, the old ladies dancing together and a few drunk old men dancing alone. I was surprised to see that everyone was drunk as well. The Beer Loas was flowing hard but I was a bit shocked to see one 60-ish year old woman pouring beer down the throat of another older woman. As the beer soaked the front of her shirt they both just laughed and supported each other with a free arm. It was International Womens Day after all and these girls were milking every minute of it and having a blast. After many, many half cups of beer later and dance after dance with half the village, I had an experience I've never had before and gave me just one more reason to love this country. While dancing and looking out over the crowd I realized I was looking out over the crowd! Being 5'7" on a dance floor usually allows me the view of armpits and bouncing breasts...OK so not all bad but still a bit claustrophobic. Here the tops of heads were swaying and I could see to the horizon which was also swaying! It was time for me to go back to the lodge and drink something other than Beer Laos. I had to extricate myself from the party and especially from one guy who wanted me to sleep at his house all night...but not really sleep. The bike swayed a bit as I rode out of town they all waved and smiled and shouted goodbye.
The women here in Laos got one day off this year from cooking and sweeping and toiling and harvesting and slaving away. They took that day and, here in this village, played just as hard as they work. Unbridled joy in a crowd is a rare thing to see...it's a memory that I hope stays with me for a long time.

Hey...I'm not dead yet!

2007-03-12T00:19:00.000-07:00

I've been out of computer range for a while now but thanks for all the feedback...I'm so so so pleased you have enjoyed this blog. But don't stop now!!
I've been crying a lot lately. Well, not a lot, but sporadically and at inconvenient times. I have just over a week left on this journey and while I'm ready to go home I hate to leave. It's not Thailand that I hate saying goodbye to however. It's the entirety of it all. The intensity, and growth, and all the challenges and the meeting of those challenges that travelling has brought me. But that trip home is still a week away...lets go back a few days. Crossing the Friendship Bridge from Laos to Thailand was too easy and it was when I got to the immigration stop that I realized that the "adventure" part of my trip was over. The ass-kicking hills and the out of the way places and the general sense of being off the beaten track were all behind me now. In front were the 8 lanes of immigration checkpoints. The area was clean and organized and with yellow "king" shirts everywhere it was a stark reminder of being back in "civilization". The official smiled and warned me to ride safely as he saw I was on a bicycle. I was recalling my introduction to Laos a few weeks ago at a small border crossing where two grumpy officials in military fatigues unhappily stamped my passport and wouldn't answer my questions. But once beyond those guys Laos was the friendliest place I've ever been. If Thailand is known as the land of a thousand smiles then Laos would have to be the land of a whole lot of really smiley, high-fivin', happy people that don't resent you being in their country... at all. Cycling into Nong Khai I was amazed at all the traffic. Only the biggest freeway in Vientiane was this busy. I had become used to a newer, better pace. Here in Thailand people stopped at the red lights because there might be a car coming from another direction. In Vientiane (lonely planet calls it the most laid back capitol city in the world) people would come to a red light, realize no one was around for a mile or so, and run it. It seemed sensible enough to me even after I passed numerous painted outlines of mopeds on the road. At first I didn't understand. Then I came across fresh paint marks that were surrounded by monks praying for the souls of the deceased while family members held candles and flowers.
The pace was especially slow in the last place I visited in Laos. It was a nature preserve 50 km out of Vientiane. It was a nasty ride there as the air quality was some of the worst I've seen over here in Asia. This city was a smoke filled oven and even still I was a bit sad to leave it. Vientiane, for all its charm and crumbling French architecture, amazing baguettes and French food, incredibly ornate Wats and the smilin'est people on earth, is kind of a crap hole. I love Vientiane. You can't not love Vientiane. You love it like an old widower loves his 17 year old mangey, stinky, flea ridden but sweet dog. The dog that wants nothing more than for you to pet it... but the pustules on its skin make you think twice because you know intuitively what that skin will feel like all crusty and moist under your fingers. And you know what your hand will smell like after petting the thing, just as the old man inevitably offers you a pretzel or some other finger food that you can't politely refuse. So you have to excuse yourself to his bathroom for a hand wash but notice the bathroom hasn't been cleaned since his wife died and makes the the dog look positively sparkling. THAT is how you love Vientiene. Only the bathrooms aren't as clean and there is never soap or towels so your post anal scrub and cold water rinse while wiping your hands on your sweaty, salty bike shorts don't really improve your hygiene. But this isn't what I wanted to write about today at all. Back to the nature preserve.
Alisa rode about half way out to the park with me as she said she needed some exercise. Of course she was suffering from classical separation anxiety as we were going our own ways. Her fear of all the Laos children running up to her while cycling and giving her high fives was starting to take over her rational mind. She regarded me as some talisman of protection and didn't want to be on her own anymore. She had convinced herself that some 5 year old would take her out with a high 10 unless I was riding out in front. It's amazing what heat and electrolyte imbalance can do to ones mind. During the ride I had to give her the almost cliche, "Do you think your brother Lance worries about all the little French kids high 10-ing him everytime he has a hard climb up the Peloton?" speech. It seemed to work as she was able to shout out a few weak "Sabaidees" to the kids we passed. After 24km Alisa turned around and we said our goodbyes. As I watched her shrink in my rearview (with a tailwind dammit) I thought about how nice it was to travel with a friend who just happens to be a stronger cyclist that I. She pulled me up more hills than she will know and when the headwinds blew I was the perfect gentleman with a ladies first attitude. We managed to have only a very few arguments and I can count on both hands (OK toes too) how many times I wanted to kill her. Travelling is difficult. Travelling at close quarters under difficult conditions with a total stranger nearly impossible and yet we pulled it off and remain friends (until she reads this blog I'm afraid...sorry about the separation anxiety BS Alisa...but it is kind of funny). I also thought, as I travelled into the boonies, how nice it was to be travelling solo again. There is an openness that occurrs when alone and opportunities for self discovery present themselves. Actually the opportunity occurs with each pedal stroke (or each second of our lives if you will) if you pay attention. And I was paying attention as the road changed from paved to red dirt. I felt hot, dirty, sweaty, tired, strong, alone, connected, anxious, calm, concerned and care free. I FELT! I was alive and I knew it. This is life...this endless pointless spinning of pedals was life and I was in it and part of it all. This was my thought...and even before my usual afternoon opium dose! But still this isn't what I wanted to write about.
I'm sitting on the banks of the Mekong river looking across into Laos. On the main road over there an occasional car or moped drives by lazily. I miss that pace. I am in Nong Khai which is celebating some week long festival with amazing energy. Every night the streets are packed with stalls selling meat-shapes on a stick or fresh fruit or candies or coconuts or strange drinks like the black colored liquid with gelatinous chunks that taste like dirt and grass. Every other stall it seems is selling DVD's and the TV's with attached mega speakers pump out Thai karaoke. From distorted speakers, music overlaps the sounds from other distorted speakers. The shrill voices of hawkers trying to yell over the music. The masses all shuffle as if on a conveyor belt along streets too crowded to pass. Smoke from the noodle stands mixes with smoke from the "meat-stick-people" which mixes with the smoke from the fish grillers. Everywhere are blinkey lights and big stuffed animals and there is a screaming raffle give-away and small roller coaster rides for the kids. At the end of the street on a large stage a karaoke guy is singing between a group of Thai go-go dancers with black knee length boots. I pass by a TV showing mangled corpses being hauled out of some horrible car wreck (shown by the local EMS group). It all adds up to sensory overload and it is mad. Seeing as how I spent the last 3 nights in a nature preserve I'm not really that receptive to Thailands ability to overstimulate.
Lao Pako preserve sits on a 90 degree bend in the Na Ngam river 50km and a world away from Vientiane. Riding the red dirt roads through tiny unnamed villages with grass thatched huts I started to think I was lost. An hour and a half of jarring dust will do that. But finally a small sign pointed down a white sandy road and 3km later I was at the "resort". Surrounding the reserve was a flat desolate clear-cut area but once inside the park the beauty of the jungle was all around. The air was cooler and cleaner and the sounds in the trees calming. There were more staff than guests here and this place was laid back even for Laos standards. One of the activities on the notice board was "relaxing"...just under "reading a book". At the entry to the place was the omnipresent "sweeping guy". The Laos love to sweep. It's like a national past time. Everywhere you go someone will be sweeping. If there is another ice-age the Laos need to take up curling as a winter sport. Curling being about as exciting as Bocci ball...the other national past time in Laos. I think the reason sweeping is sweeping the nation is because of the brooms. Very flat and made with a wispy soft straw and a handle a foot too short, it's about as efficient as a size 10 Reebok for pushing crap into a pile. So a 15 minute sweep job takes an hour. Add to that the Laos sense of urgency about finishing anything and we're up to 90 minutes. But it's hot over here so I give them credit for even being aboe to move. Besides the gentle , slow, pushing of a broom the only other noise I heard was that of wildlife. The river slid silently by but the birds and insects and wind in the trees was serene. For the next 3 and a half days they would be my soundtrack of Laos.
But I think I started this blog with something about tears...not sure it was a long time ago. I feel torn between the pain of leaving and the joy I've had this year. But pain isn't even the right word...these are tears of being overwhelmed by an amazing journey. These are also tears of gratitude for a world so beautiful and for me being able to experience it. I went for a hard ride yesterday and while pushing it as hard as I could, I just lost it...screeaming and with tears streaming down my face. I am going home. My trip is over. I am not the same man I was 6 months ago...and of course I'm the same man. Travelling has kept me awake and alive and vibrant. I want to bottle it and take it home with me and sip from it and get drunk on it everyday! But I fear the "other" James. I fear my own sloth and laziness and self-doubt and inertia. I fear my own ruts and the shovels with which I dig them. The shovel of comfort. I fear toilet paper and cleanliness and hot running water and soft beds and all that I take for granted at home...how to stay aware and awake there?! I just read The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran and this struck me poignantly: "...or have you only comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes the host, and then a master". As doubts and laziness and comfort can drive me, so also can the fear of those things and I continue to move, to seek, to travel. It is time to find a balance between them...it's time to go home. My new mantra is, " Do not let comfort be my master".

Who would've thought this was why I left Kauai

2007-03-03T05:43:00.000-08:00

Hey! I have new photos up on the link if your interested check em out.
The heat was getting to us. It was the end of the day and after 10 hours of cycling out of the mountains and onto some level ground we were ready for the kick back part of the day. After heading south for the past 10 days the road started north again and the light headwind was getting annoying. Then after getting lost on smaller and smaller roads we were suddenly found. The dam appeared around a bend and we were almost to the guest house. Then out of nowhere it appeared. The road just shot up at an angle I hadn't seen since Thailand. One thing about Laos roads...they may be never-ending and damn steep but they were engineered with the idea of people actually using them...unlike Thai roads of which I've complained enough! But my legs were now jello after the long day and had nothing left, at all. We were both surly but I just lost it and started cussing and yelling at that hillside like it gave a damn. It didn't and around the next bend got even steeper. The spewing vitriolic hate that I let forth was powerful and started pulling me up the hill. Alisa was fighting her own battle and couldn't deal with my tantrum and told me to shut the hell up. I stood up and pedaled harder and with each stroke of my legs the cussing became more nasty and creative. I was out of earshot of Alisa now and having the big tantrum of this trip. My legs had re-developed the heat rash of southern Thailand and I was red-faced, soaked and mean looking when we came across two guys sitting at the side of the road. They smiled and pointed up the road when we asked if we were going in the right direction toward Na Nam. Normally this would have been encouraging but today everyone had the same response with differing estimates of distances. Ten kilometers back someone said, "Yes, Na Nam this way...maybeee 5 kilometers". Normally this kind of thing happens all the time here as people want to be friendly and polite and make you feel good. Normally this is an awesome trait that I love about SE Asia...friendly, smiling, and helpful strangers. These two pointed straight up the hill and said "Yes, maybe 2 kilometers". Normally I would have said thank you but it was good that I was panting so heavily or I might have started screaming at them to shut the hell up. As it was I rode off yelling at the road again and revelling in my hate fest. The power of anger is amazing and I tore up the hill using most of the little energy I had left. Turns out it was about a kilometer as the hill topped out around the next twist. And 2 hours later, I was feeling great and drinking a cold beer lao with the owner of a restaurant who used to work for the American secret airforce. ( Aside Alert! You know, the CIA funded nightmare called Air America that bombed most of Laos to hell trying to stop Ho Chi Minh as well as the communist insurgents in Laos. The airforce that ran more sorties in Laos than were run in Viet Nam! The secret airforce that dropped over 1000 pounds of ordinance for every citizen in Laos causing untold pain and death. Why didn't I learn about this crap in school, dammit?!) He still loved America and Americans and was so warm and sweet to us. With rotting teeth (some moving disturbingly as he talked) and love in his eyes he told of us repairing airplanes for the Americans. He didn't seem to care about the politics but he sure liked working with all the Americans. That was after his 9 year career of being a monk. In the morning he performed a ceremony and, putting a cloth bracelet on my wrist, blessed me and my family and wished me a safe and happy journey. It was a touching and wonderful connection in which two strangers from opposite ends of the world are sharing something bigger than each of them. But lets get back to my pain and infantile behavior for a minute.
The reason I began todays blog with my tantrum is that I realized something about myself in that rant. I can be a total whiner. I can be weak, or a crybaby. I can moan about the littlest things and I can be a real ass sometimes. In the past I always wanted to improve and change and "better" myself thinking that those traits made me unlovable. I got it, out here on the back roads of Laos, that nothing needs to change but the rediculous voice in my head that thinks I'm somehow incomplete! Ever! Somehow I came to understand (blame the heat) this week that those annoying traits make me human, not anything else. Sometimes they can even be assets. I don't have to be a certain way or have to change anything to be lovable. I've come to love myself on this trip. AND THAT IS WORTH LEAVING KAUAI FOR!! Having that realization has given me a feeling of completion and I'm ready to come home. I'm homesick for family and for my love, Sheryl and for a sense of groundedness that travelling often doesn't afford.

Vang Vieng

2007-02-26T22:17:00.000-08:00

"This place feels like a border town". I said it, but Alisa was thinking it as we pedaled in from the mountains to V.V. By the way, if you were wondering why I didn't blog about Alisa in the last post it's because we separated for a lot of the first days climb. Listening to her very good advice, I shipped at least 10 pounds of gear back to Bangkok so I could keep up with her. As a result, hmm... how can I put this politely, I kicked her ass up and down those mountains!! Bring it on Lance! Anyway, for the past three days we had been in the boonies and stayed in places where the tourists are not backpackers and not westerners. That always makes me feel superior to everyone else traveling. It's like I have it figured out and all these poor suckers are just along for the ride following mindlessly some route chosen for them by Lonely Planet. The fact that I am surrounded by them right now in an internet cafe is not lost on me, at all. But I still do feel superior...it's the curse of the low-self-esteem-afflicted I'm afraid. Coming back onto the backpacker circuit also has the downside of seeing how cheesy mass tourism really is. A few of us here and there eating noodles from some hole in the wall is one thing. But Vang Vieng is the antithesis of that...a town created for tourists by people who think (and quite correctly I'm afraid) they know what tourists want.
For example, bars. Not just a few bars to cater to the thirsty, but a main street that is bar after bar after bar. This town is a tiny, dusty hole with 2 main streets and maybe 30 bars. But it isn't Khao San Road with blaring, pumping party music. It's TV bars. Every bar has either a big screen TV or multiple TV's so you can watch from any table. The tables are low slung affairs with pillows on the ground so you can lie down and take in the show for as long as your high lasts. TV bars with themes. Like the one that shows only episodes of the smash hit FRIENDS. Over and over, day after day, one mind numbing FRIENDS show after the other. I was trying to imagine the hip LA english that the staff at that bar were learning by listening to Matt Le Blanc and Jennifer Aniston. But not for long because we passed the TV bar that shows the SIMPSONS ad nauseum...DOH! So this dusty town with nothing but guest houses, bars and internet cafes feels very border-esque. The problem is that the border is no where near here.
As the sun went down and we walked around, it hit us both how this is the new-milennium opium den. Pizza places can sell you a "happy pizza" with marijuana on top instead of oregano and you can get a magic mushroom shake. After that you can lie down and trip your way through Homer Simpson as long as you'd like. And people were...lots of them.
Today it is hot. Really freaking hot and the sun is out full strength. Not the filtered sunlight we've been getting up in the hills from all the slashing and burning...no it rained last night. The rain cleaned up the air nicely but took away the smoke filter and now it is really (did I mention) HOT! It is so hot that my pride followed all my strength and we found ourselves planted in front of a TV bar watching some excellent movie choices like "My super ex-girlfriend" and then "The Pink Panther". Thankfully the power went out before some other movie started, and we remembered that we were in Laos. As in S.E. Asia Laos... as far away from AMERICA as you'd want to go! So we left and walked down the street as the power came back on and we stared at the opium dens anew and felt instantly superior to the losers who could come all the way to Laos just to watch TV. That's why I'm here now at the internet cafe really getting my fill of Laos culture before dinner and the next movie!! It's all really just a hoot and only gets obnoxious if I judge it, myself, or anyone else for that matter.

Sabai Dee!

2007-02-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

The grass really isn't greener. Not always. The past 3 days have been some of the hardest cycling yet in the lost mountain ranges of N Laos. I wouldn't change any of it for a second. Riding up STEEP hills that go on forever with sweat stinging in my eyes? Love it. Coming around a bend in the road only to see the asphalt snaking up the side of the clear-cut, burned out hillsides and disappearing into the smoky distance? Love it a little less. Making eye contact with some tourist, half my age, looking bored out of her mind as her bus passes? Priceless. As hard as the last few days of hot and humid riding have been, I feel like a million dollars just sitting here in this internet cafe. I am alive. I am tired. I have just accomplished something that was worth doing. And my ass is killing me.
The road from Luang Prabang to the capitol city, Vientiane is the major highway running north-south in this part of the country. Occasionally a car passes. It is no wider than a country road and no passing lanes, that is what the blind curves are for. On the steeper downhill sections I found this out by passing trucks and cars on these blind curves as the diesel spew gets nauseating on the long descents. Even though the people in the back of the truck (and there are always people in the back of a truck) are smiling and waving and giving me the thumbs up, I still want to pass them as it is the rare chance a cyclist gets to pass a motor vehicle. It is so satisfying...like lane splitting in Bangkok. There is some psychic connection that one has with blind curves the longer one drives over here. It is the only explanation for the ability to pass blindly yet knowing you will survive. Sure you may have to hit the brakes as hard as you can a few times. Sure you might have to force the car you're passing to cram on his brakes a few times but in the end everyone survives and speeds off to the next curve. I think I've mastered it after watching enough cars try it...although I have been wearing my helmet religiously just in case.
As soon as Luang Prabang was in the rear view mirror the hills started with a gentle warning. Eight hours later, and the warnings gone unheeded, I was at the summit of a hill dripping in salty sweat and "over it" as my niece Juelianna would say. The previous three hours and 20km had been spent on one solid climb. No little downhill sections, at all. No little spots to coast and let the blood back into my thighs. No spots to relax and spin gently so the lubricant in my knee joints could circulate. Just a continuous UP in my lowest gear. In those three hours I think I experienced four of the five stages of grief researched by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Hour one found me in denial that a mountain could actually go on like this for 20 km. This rapidly moved into anger that a mountain could go on like this for 20 km. The second hour found me in the stage of bargaining with myself, god, the imagined truck driver that might stop and ask if I wanted a ride...anyone or anything that would listen. As no one stopped, and god seemed preoccupied, and I got sick of whining (yes it's possible), I started to move into the fourth stage...depression. But the amazing thing about riding through Laos is that it won't let me get depressed. The scenery is just so beautiful. Even if it is deforested, and a lot of the hillsides are baren and black from slash and burn aggriculture, and the smoke is so thick from all the burning that you can barely see the next ridge (as well as having bronchial pain from deep breathing it all day), Loas is still a beauty. I wanted to ponder the destruction of the earth and how we are all on a one way trip to environmental suicide (because we all know how helpful and useful those thoughts are!) but the damn kids kept interruping me and kept me smiling. Small villages lined the way up the mountain and every time I rode through one all the kids would shout as loud as they could, "Sabai Dee!!!!" A village here is defined as a row of wooden structures on stilts with palm leaf roofs lining either side of the road. No side streets in these towns as the structures were precariously perched over steep drop offs. Under the houses were pigs and chickens and lots of dirt. And even gasping for air I couldn't help but shout back a sabaidee. From dark doorways kids would appear and always waving and shouting hello. From unseen places a shout of sabaidee was frequently heard. The bigger kids, from 4 to 10 years old, would run out to the side of the road and give high fives as I passed. It was a great feeling and so encouraging to have all these little guys rooting for me. I could imagine what it must be like to be famous like Lance Armstrong or Julia Roberts for a day! OK, maybe not, but those are the kind of messed up thoughts that passed through my mind as the electrolyte imbalance got more critical.
The last hour of the ascent felt steeper yet and I moved into the fifth stage of grief...acceptance. Breathe in for 3 pedal strokes; breathe out for 3 pedal strokes. Repeat. The breathing took over the thinking and it just became an exercise of stubborn will. Just keep pedalling and you will get there. And as I did pull into town and found a guest house, I felt like a rock star. Mick Jagger maybe, or one of the other dinosaurs who should have quit long ago... but still, a rock star. And the guest house up there? Let's be nice and say it wasn't a 5 star resort. It didn't have running water and the beds looked eerily similar to the bedbug infested things that I've "slept" in before. The dank shower room consisted of a 50 gallon oil barrel (Shell Oil logo still visible) full of cold water. There was an small empty bucket outside and I took it towel clad into the back kitchen (and you really don't want to know what is in a back kitchen in Laos...let alone the front kitchen). There the bucket was filled with boiling water from a huge pot being heated by a log fire. Mixed with the water from the oil drum, that bucket bath was better than most showers I've ever had. Washing away the funk that had accumulated on my body was all that mattered and it reminded me once again of all the crazy little things we not only take for granted, but get so upset about in our daily "struggles". Yet another reminder that travelling is such a great teacher. It can show us our craziness by stripping from us our familiar expectations...and replacing them with that cultures' crazy expectations.
I awoke bite free and ready to do it all over again and that's exactly what I did...for the next two days. Each day the power in my legs decreased. I rolled into Vang Vieng last night vowing that now I will take a day off and play in the river here and drink lots of Lao coffee. The sludge that just a few days ago I complained about is now a favorite staple and drug of choice. Super sweet, thick and chewy! Unfortunately this town is all about other drugs of choice and is a hot spot on the backpacker loop. But that is for tomorrows blog.

A River Journey Down The Mekong

2007-02-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

Let me try to describe what the last two days of travelling in Laos have been like. And I preface this with the fact that my ass hurts more now, after 2 days of non-cycling, than it has since early Malaysia. A two day long-boat trip down the Mekong River from the border town of Huai Xai (yeah, I can't pronounce it either) to Luang Prabang on a hard, straight backed bench right out of a southern baptist church will do that to any butt. The pain really started before the boat ride, next to my ass...in my wallet. What should have cost $15 for the journey ended up being $30 as no one would tell us where the boat dock was. Everyone wanted to sell us tickets but mystery surrounded how to buy directly. One official looking booth next to the sign to our destination was occupied by a guy who pointed up the road when we asked to buy a ticket. Since we had just arrived on the bank of the river in this new country, up the road was, basically, Laos. The advice we got from everyone varied from "Go to the bus station" (we're thinking NO!) to the ubiquitous "can not". We finally caved in and bought the ticket from a guest house as the boat was leaving soon (or so we thought). Following the tuk-tuk on bicycle for 1/4 mile led us to the docks but the damage was already done and we had been fleeced. Fifteen dollars for a quarter mile bike ride...hey, it's a lot when you're spending $2.00 for lodging and $1.50 for meals!
Patience takes on a whole new meaning when travelling and especially travelling with the herd of backpackers all trying to find the next new thing and using the same Lonely Planet book to do it. We all packed into a boat approximately 10 feet wide (to hell with the metric system!) by 100 feet long. I say packed because there were maybe 200 people on this boat. The bicycles were stored up top and all bags were under the floor boards by 9:30am and we were ready to go as it was getting hot. By "we" I mean all the passengers. The crew was way more relaxed than the rest of us however and we didn't do much more than sweat and wait for the occasional straggler (or wiser tourist who had done this before). By the time the engine fired up, to the cheers of all, and we pulled out of the dock/sand bar it was 11:30 and our butts were already complaining. The Brits on board were whining that we were behind schedule as if a schedule actually has meaning over here, and the Canadians were on their 2nd or 3rd "beer-lao". The Canadians were definitely having more fun than the rest of us. But the fact that they were Canadian meant that their livers were well primed for 90 ounces of beer before breakfast. For those who have been to Laos (and I've been here for all of two days), Beer-Lao is more than a beer for the backpacker...it's a way of life. For just about a dollar one can get a good buzz on a 32 ounce bottle of nice, hoppy, light beer. The beer being light and delicious, and the weather being hot and humid, one beer just doesn't seem to cut it for most of the backpacking set. The philosophy of more is better takes over the philosophy of moderation after the second beer. And the resulting drunk fest that occurred on the boat was kind of depressing and yet impressive. People were getting to that place where , holding up a big 32 ouncer in each hand and waving them at passing monks seemed like a good idea. I've seen people drinking a 32 ouncer for breakfast as I'm still picking the sleep goo from my eyes and trying to focus on my lao coffee (read sludge). Lao coffee is another bloggable item that I just don't have the patience for but suffice it to say that sludge is a kindly description. Don't get me wrong, it'll wake you up...like a marching band will wake you up, like Led Zepplin will wake you up, like a Laotian hot chili poop will wake you up!!! Yeah, it'll do the job but in a painful kind of way. The cup, filled one fourth with condensed milk, barely sweetens and whitens but without it the enamel peels from your teeth. I've had 3 cups this morning and you can see how the clarity of mind is effected! The golden triangle indeed. To hell with heroin, the drugs of choice here are beer lao and lao coffee.
All right, back to the point of this entry... the river trip down the Mekong. The river is a brown and beautiful glassy mess. Cutting through places accessable only by river gives one the feeling of exploration as the steep hillsides and river banks were almost totally void of habitation or signs of human activity. Jagged twisted rock formations poke up like sharks teeth or striated fins from the murky brown water. Large forested areas mixed with ferns and palm trees gave it that strange feeling of "I've-been-here-before-except-for-the-tropical-bits". You know the feeling. The air was hot enough that you wanted to jump in the water half the time. The other half you remembered that this river starts in China and that the definition of a river in China is 'something that takes toxic things downstream away from you'. It was easy to remember that however, because anywhere there was a back-eddy, and therefore turbulence, a foamy brown baseball sized sludge-nut formed. It looked like the Mekong was making its own styrofoam and shipping it downstream with us tourists. So instead of looking to the river to cool down we would go to the bathroom. The floor was puddling with god knows how much beer lao pee. And the amazing quality of my new Thai baggy pants to drop into it still amazes me. Holding up the pants and trying to pee and then trying to tie them up again on a rocking boat can be challenging. I failed that challenge and will just tell you that the wicking ability of thai cotton to soak up liquids of any nature needs to be studied. It's uncanny how wet the bottoms of my pants became with an ungodly mixture of watever was on that dark and wet floor. Sitting back in my seat I did notice the cooling effects of urine soaked trousers but couldn't really enjoy it as I also imagined the bacteria colonizing my shins.
There were more people than seats on the boat and the overcrowding gave one the feling of claustrophobia mixed with a big party. In this case a frat party. Going to the back of the boat to pee was an experiment in balance and not stepping on the toes of everyone in the isle. But in the back was the engine "compartment" and a group of sleeping beer-lao soaked backpackers all intertwined and going deaf in the roar of the room. The engine was totally exposed and screaming at OSHA defying decibels. On it were flowers and rice offerings that kept this motor running. It was important as any engine failure would probaboly mean sinking at the downstream pace we were going and the jagged rocks that were jutting out from the banks of the river. And back here too was the Thai Bob Marley who was dreadlocking some young westerner's long black hair. It was as if everyone I had seen for the past month on Khao San Road had been placed in this boat as a cruel joke by god for some forgotten sin. It was everything I find obnoxious about travelling along the backpackers well worn route and I was trapped just a few feet under my bicycle. I was on this boat for two days...9 hours each day.
The second day everyone (even the Canadians!) who had been drinking crazily was subdued and either reading or listening to ipods and trying not to barf by the looks of them. What had the day before been a party boat was now a church service with prayers of delivery and forgiveness coming from the upright benches. A 10 hour church service. And as fun as that sounds, I was dying to get off this beautiful and horrible little long-boat trip down the Mekong. By the time I got to Luang Prabang I was begging for some of those monster hills of N Thailand and the feeling of desperation watching Alisa shrinking into the future. In two days we leave for Vienne Tien and I'm sure I'll be begging for the party boat and a cold one. The grass is always greener, as is the river.

A Quick Addition

2007-02-18T06:31:00.000-08:00

Just added a new link to view starring my partner in cycling crime. The fact that she doesn't complain at all just makes me hate her even more! Enjoy.

Alisa Armstrong

2007-02-17T23:58:00.000-08:00

OK. There is a piece of the story I've left out for reasons of pride and ego and self-respect. Her name is Alisa, she's 28 years old and we've been cycling together since Chiang Mai. And before you gutterheads get the wrong idea...no it's NOT like that...at all! We met up in Bangkok about a month ago after she read my blog and sent me a hello. She was also hiding in an internet cafe while avoiding the pierced and tattoo'd dreadlockers that knuckle drag their way from Khao San Road to Soi Rambuttri in search of the next bucket of mixed drinks. She came across this blog and we were soon emailing and setting up a time to share cycling exagerations (which proves that this verbal diarrhea of a cycling blog hasn't been a total waste of time). She was solo cycling N.Thailand and as usual I had no solid plan. So we went our own ways only to meet up again unplanned in Chiang Mai. When we decided that it would be fun to travel together up into Laos, I had no idea that this woman was Lance Armstrong's twin sister! The fact that Lance is in his late 30's has no bearing on this discussion. Growing up with Lance was tough Alisa assured me. Always having to wait for her older twin on the hill climbs and having to listen to him complain about the headwinds grated on her nerves to be sure. But the testicular cancer period was especially hard as she not only saw him through the ordeal but watched as he got all the attention and became the media darling while her own superior cycling skills were never appreciated. I think that to this day (7 "stolen" Tour de France victories later) she secretly resents Lance.
There is nothing new in my experience of feeling inferior to people...men or women. In many ways, women hold a greater power over me than I can explain. And knowing that I give them this power doesn't seem to change its emotional impact. So it was a familiar yet defeated kind of sensation when Alisa and I headed out of the rice paddies and straight for the mountains. I have been priding myself on my physical abilities after months of cycling and thought that I was strong. As a 44 year old I was also beginning to feel like I have a handle on what kind of mental strenght it takes to solo tour S.E. Asia. As Alisa began to shrink into the distance ahead I started questioning both those assumptions. Instantly in my lowest gear and struggling, I could barely make out that she was still into the middle of her gear cluster and had tons of lee-way "for when the hills get difficult". It was a foreshadowing that I didn't need to hear. She just got smaller until she disappeared around a bend. When I finally got around one of the harder bends she was standing there eating a creme cookie and sipping water like we were on a picnic. The last thing I could have done was eat a creme cookie without barfing or inhaling the dry crumbs while catching my breath. That was day one. She would say things that were supposed to be encouraging like, "It takes more energy to push a bike up a hill than to ride it". "Huh", I would say, not letting her in on the fact that if I possibly COULD have ridden up the hill I would have! By the end of the day she saw I was truely struggling and realized that I was getting washed out. She would give me words of encouragement that somehow just didn't work. Things like, "I don't have nearly as much crap in my panniers as you do. No wonder you're going so slow". Or, "You're legs must have atrophied over the past 6 weeks of not cycling". Sitting here now I can see the remarks as they were intended. A way for me to save face without too much shame. At the time my ears heard things like, "What dumb-ass packs a plastic pet cat or 5 pound hatchet in case he comes across a coconut to eat?" Or, "God your legs are weak."
It turns out that Alisa is a professional bike tour guide back in Washington and is used to people doing stupid things and not being quite in shape for the rides they plan. She's seen it all before and my antics were not new to her. Even though I know this about her and about myself, it still sucks to get my ass handed to me by a woman! So the other day we crawled out of the mountains and hit some fine flat rolling hills of a river valley. Just after a noodle lunch I said we should kick it down a notch and just spin for the second half of the day. It was hot and we were dripping sweat in the full afternoon sun. She agreed and as we rode off I hit the gas with a post lunch blood sugar boost. Once out of the steep hills I started feeling great again as I could finally get off my lowest gear and make some time. It really felt great to power up and watch as Alisa shrank into a small dot in my rear view mirror and then disappeared. "Who's got too much crap in their panniers now sucka" I thought as I hit a cruising speed of 16 to 18 mph. Then up ahead I saw the first of the short but moderately steep hills. It took a lot of energy but standing up while pedalling I could keep the momentum from making me hit my lowest gear again. No Alisa behind and I was still good...until maybe 3 to 4 similar hills later. It was near the middle of one of these little soul stealers that I saw her coming up from behind. From a speck to a blob to a discernable cyclist to Lance's sister I could see her advancing rapidly. It was uncanny how quickly she was catching up and made me feel...well, slow. My pride was now attatched to the thought that "OK, maybe you're stronger than me on the hills but dammit I got you on the flats!" I was now peddling almost all out but it was no use. Training with Lance had given her all his competitive drive and she overtook me within a minute or two more. She smiled at me as she said, "Hey I thought we were gonna take it down a notch here!" Then she was gone...blowing up the next hill as I hit the well worn low gear and spun my way up. Anyone who has done any sport knows that a lot, maybe most, of performance is mental. Being in shape and training correctly are important to be sure but if your mind gets beaten...then you are beaten. I had just been beaten and at 85 degrees it was killing me. After a few more hills Alisa pulled over and waited for me while drinking some water. A bit of advice here for those who have just kicked some ass. Never ask the person whose ass you've just handed back to them how they're doing. The responses given can be wide ranging but I chose the face saving "good, good, good, no worries!" So off we rode and it was only a few minutes later that I realized I wasn't doing so well. My upper lip was sticking to my upper gums giving me that skeleton look. No matter how much water I'd drink I resumed my psycho smile...my lips were cracking and I had cotton mouth so I couldn't even swallow. I was dehydrating and couldn't keep up with the water I needed. At about the same time I bonked.
There is a funny phenomenon in cycling called bonking. Sorry again gutterheads but it has nothing to do with what you are thinking right now. Bonking is another word for hitting the wall... a.k.a. pooping out. The blood sugar high I had just been running on peaked and I felt like my legs had instantly turned to gel. There is a fatigue and weakness that occurs and though I got hungry and weak, the last thing I wanted to do was eat. As I rode more and more slowly Alisa pulled over and saw the bonk face. "You need to eat, dammit, follow me." We went to a roadside stand and drank coke and orange drink and I jammed cookies in my mouth while fighting the urge to throw it all back up. After 20 minutes the world became clearer and the edges of things lost their hazy sheen. Even though I was thoroughly beaten down, I was grateful that Alisa had come to my rescue and forced me to eat and drink. I have now lost all illusions that because I'm a man I should somehow be a better or stronger cyclist than a woman (though sometimes I look at her gear ratio and think I could be just as strong with that wimpy Mt bike set up!). That notion was unceremoniously kicked out of me a few days ago. But if you (male or female) ever get the chance to ride with Alisa...pack lightly.

A Whole New Ballgame

2007-02-15T00:52:00.000-08:00

Never...ever, as an adult, have I had to push my bike up a hill. After thousands of miles of bicycle touring in Europe, the U.S. and Asia I have finally had to face the shame and defeat that N. Thailand has dished out. Everything...all the moaning, whining, complaining, and even wimpering that I've done so far? Forget it. It's all been the writing of the uninitiated. Like someone complaining about the heat of black pepper before tasting a red chili. But I now have been initiated. Northern Thailand has shown me things I thought only God or satan could. The places of despair and anger and futility that pull things out of you that you wish would have stayed in. Sure there were the hot days of hallucinations and talking to myself down in S. Thailand...where sweat stung my eyes and blurred my vision. Sure there were the lonely days of wanting to have a conversation longer than "hello". There were times after cycling for days that progress could hardly be measured on the map. Ahh, the good old days.
Riding out of Chiang Mai was a joy as it had been almost 6 weeks since I had been on my bike. My legs felt good and rested. I now realize that rested means atrophied...6 weeks of sitting and menu gazing makes for lousy traing. But I was finally headed out of town toward Laos knowing I would soon be off the crowded polluted highway. Fourteen km later and a right turn showed a world that is quiet and wonderful and full of water buffalos and rice paddies. There is a feeling that I get when I am out here propelling myself quietly along, using no fossil fuels and watching the world pass by that I can not describe. Self reliance, pride, elation, alive, physically strong, adventurous, ecofriendly (OK, I can describe it) are some words that come to mind. There is a peacefull understanding that all is right and all is as it should be. Had I known that just 6 hours later every one of those feelings (except eco-friendly) would be stripped from me and left me to feel just weak, inadequate, tired and stupid I might have turned around. Nah, everyone I met already had warned me about a new kind of hill in N. Thailand but I didn't listen. It's not like I would have changed my plans but maybe I would have unloaded a few things before the hill climbs. Things like Presta, my new battery operated shiny, golden, one-armed, waving kitty-cat that I thought would be hilarious outside my tent every night keeping me company as I camped out. Presta was weighing heavily on my mind, and without the hilarity, the first time I hit the monster hills. Or other things like clothing that I bought for friends back home, books, a knife that no longer opens, or the down jacket that I might use someday, or the 2 extra pairs of shoes (rumor has it that the king of Thailand has only 3 pairs of shoes...and I'm right up there with him...on a bike!). OK you get the point, a catalogue of the absolute useless crap that is in my panniers being hauled up the mountainsides of this country doesn't make for the most exciting reading. I just wanted to be clear about the feeling stupid part.
I've ridden some steep mountain passes in my time. And there is one thing they all seem to have in common that is lacking in Thailand...foothills. The nice little rollers that introduce you to the mountains ahead. The ones that say, "Welcome, friend, you are going to have to get it together soon because in a little while your gonna be in a world of hurt"...like a puff of air on a still day that warns of the impending storm. Here in the paddies of nowhere, minding my own business, the looming hill just ahead seemed to say, "What the hell are you doing on a bicycle?" It's a question I've asked myself over the past 3 days many times. There are no foothills here. From rice paddie to steep incline, the road changes incline so fast that I have to rapidly downshift into my lowest gear to avoid losing all momentum. The roads start steep and stay steep. Or worse they tend to get steeper. On day one of my re-introduction to cycling, after 5 hours of HARD riding, the hills just went crazy. Surrounded by the most amazing scenery of steep cliff sides and tumbling valley walls and coffee plantations, the road just shot UP. The switchback ahead curled around the bend recalling a paved spiral staircase. I was already exhausted and sore and my knees were having discussions with my common sense. I just buckled. I had run out of wimpers long ago and just shouted out a big F#%$$& to the world who didn't seem to care a whole lot. I was still 2 km from the summit and the sun was starting to head down. I was beaten...done...paralyzed. I stood there for the longest time as mopeds crawled up and cars groaned in first gear spewing black clouds. I got it together and started pushing my bike up the "staircase" having to stop every 10 steps or so to catch my breath. My pulse hovered around 160-180 just pushing Presta and her mobile home up this road. Now it's acually harder to push 80 pounds uphill than it is to cycle it, but when your legs and the gear ratio on your bike meet their limits you get off and push. I don't know how long the last 2 km took to walk but the carrot of the town/lodging/and food kept me going. As I walked, I also considered the other thing that most roads (outside of Thailand) have in common...some sort of engineering. The sort that puts turns in roads so as to make the ascent easier...or at least doable. Maybe it's cheaper to just go straight up the hillside though, as that seems to be the common theme in roadbuilding here.
As the milemarker read zero and the summit came into view, the town didn't. I was met with an amazing view of mountains and trees and valleys as far as I could see. I was also met with frustration. The light was fading and I was done. To the right the road stretched uphill. To the left a steep drop to a town and hopefully food. Yeah, I went left and what had taken me hours to achieve had been erased in a mind-blowingly fast and scary descent in just about 5-10 minutes (a descent that I would have to climb the next morning!).
What occurred just outside of that town strengthened my faith in humanity as there was no store or market for food down here, and no lodging. I was brought to the house of a man in 50's who set up a place for me to sleep on his floor and cooked me the best meal of rice and some green beans that I've ever eaten. After dinner, when I bit into the bar of imported chocolate I just started giggling like a fool. I'm not sure why. And he smiled along. The connection we shared was limited by language and culture and yet it was deep because it transcended both. He was a human being helping fellow man and it is a lesson I hope to remember for a long time. It washed away a lot of the pain (that and the HOT! shower) and gave me courage to get up the next day and do it all over again.
I'M NOW NEARING LAOS AND MAY BE OFF LINE FOR A FEW DAYS...OR DEAD...SO STAY TUNED.

Body Fluids or So THIS is Why I Left Kauai

2007-02-11T01:26:00.000-08:00

A friend has talked about bloggers block. It is real. This is how I combat it...I appologize wholeheartedly.
Why the hell have I been getting sick so often? I asked the question again all night last night as I kept myself up coughing and sputtering. Then it all started to piece together...like an infected puzzle; the lack of vigorous physical exercise, the stress of crowded cities, crowded trains, and crowded planes and basically just crowds. But the biggest piece of the puzzle was the hacking woman, coughing moistly and incessantly, on the Petri Express to Hanoi, Viet Nam. She kept coughing without covering her mouth but since it was on my sister I felt pretty OK about it all. Instant Karma I guess as Samantha is healthy and back in the US and I am stuck here coughing up pieces of lung tissue.
Viet Nam has had several outbreaks of bird flu this year and as much as I think the whole bird flu pandemonium (not pandemic) is a media driven non-event {be afraid and support pfeizer and the economy with a trip to the doctor to get an immunization} the fear of it entered my mind as pieces of crap keep getting hacked up from deep inside my body. As an aside...I know!...there are countries in SE Asia that now have millions of outdating immunizations and they are trying to decide wheather to spend millions of very limited health dollars on a "maybe" when there are so many critical issues facing them that are NOT maybe. Remember Y2K!! Anyway, the crap that is coming out of me is a lot like...crap...thick green bird crap. I think I've got a case of bird crap flu...the first case noted anywhere! Call the CDC and have them analyze my phlegm (by the way, I used to live in a house with a guy who did that for a living...analyze peoples' phlegm...he hated his job) and it can be confirmed. I swear, if I hacked up one and spit it onto your windshield you'd think a bird had just flown by...with diarrhea.
Phlegm. The laymans term for what respiratory therapists and medical professionals call sputum. It has always been my least favorite bodily fluid. It is referred to us (read ER or ICU nurses) who use the term "professional" a little more irreverently, as lung butter. In many, many ways it's not the worst of the effluents that spill from our bodies...certainly not the smelliest. That prize would have to go either melena ( a very nasty runny, black stool of digested blood) or emesis (plain old barf). A little tangent here to meditate on the word stool. It has always been a mystery to me how two nouns could have the same name and be so different. For one is something you step on and the other is the last thing you'd ever want to step on! But where was I...oh, vomit. The word can be a noun or a verb but either way it is a powerful thing. I mean, when you smell someone elses poop, do you suddenly have to poop too? Everytime I clean up a trauma patients' barf encrusted hair (and sure I generalize here but trauma=alcohol ingestion and alcohol ingestion=a recent pizza meal...trust me I'm a nurse), I start to wretch. I've never actually vomited on the job but I've wretched a lot...with some serious close calls! And even hearing someone throwing up (having an emesis lacks punch don't you think? I mean, it sounds like they could be ordering something from a cocktail menu...OK not really) kind of makes you curl your toes right? You set your jaw hoping you won't be next. That's why I hate it when a poor sick patient gets those watery, bugged out eyes and desperately says, "Oh God, I think I'm going to throw up!" I fear the ER chain reaction as I reach for the amplifier that is their barf bucket. It's like a megaphone for the gastro-intestinally challenged to broadcast their condition. I've never measured how far the sound actually carries but half a football field down a narrow hospital hallway would not be exagerating. The heart monitors of those unlucky patients closest, speed up...it's like an epicenter of nausea spreading outwardly and dissipating as it gets quieter. It is an odd thing really as we don't react that way when we hear a burp...or a fart. So yes, vomit is way up on my list of least favorite bodily fluids.
Melena is just as bad. When one digests their own blood and then passes it, (and why God, does it almost always have to be incontinent?) there is an odor that is indescribably foul. It is a good thing that a patient in this condition is so desparately ill and needing emergent care. Otherwise the instinct {called self-preservation} of every nurse, to barely slide the door open, slip in a bucket of soapy water and a can of glade(with the instructions to hit the call light when finished) would take over. Even in the most caring RN. So yes, again, Melana is not a favorite.
Sputum, however is the worst. This is a personal ranking of course as we nurses in the ER have this discussion not infrequently. For me the greyish creamy color, and most of all the tenacious consistancy of sputum, gets me gagging all the time. A slimy and thick gob of lung butter can alternatively slide down a napkin onto your unsuspecting arm. Yet once there it will fight all the water pressure in the hospital to hang on to it. Yeah, it's like that.
Oh I could go on reminiscing...but since no one is left reading this thing (I hope), why should I bother. And even if it isn't what I wanted to blog about, at all, it has helped me to remember one of the reasons (OK 3) for leaving nursing for hopefully cleaner pastures. It also, unfortunately for you, has helped to break up the bloggers block like a good old enema...but I'll save that story for later.

GERMS!

2007-02-08T00:59:00.000-08:00

OK all kidding aside...maybe my sister has something here. I'm sick as a dog once again and figure its those damn germs. I awoke with abd cramps and diarrhea and have been coughing for the past 2 days and now habve bronchitis!! Back to bed!

How to Travel?

2007-02-07T00:36:00.000-08:00

Alone again!!! My sister and nephew are somewhere over the South China Sea right now and I'm 5000 miles from home and back in Bangkok happily sitting at Taewez Guest House wrapped up in a blanket of polluted fishy air and the familiar sound of tuk-tuks. When I left here three weeks ago I was fantasizing about shooting every passing tuk-tuk as they roared by in a blaze of blue smoke. After Hanoi they've regained their cute status. I do not miss the constant honking of Viet Nam. But I must say the unbelievable frenetic energy of that country, and Hanoi in particular, makes Bangkok seem like a retreat for PTSD sufferers. I'm almost happy to be back in Bangkok...almost. There is a warm and humble greeting that Thais give you upon meeting. A simple "yo" or "whattup" or "hey" in my world is transformed in Thailand into a kind of reverence for the person you are meeting. Hands in prayer position and a slight bow while uttering a soft "sawadee kap" are the mechanics behind it. What gives it the humanity and warmth is the eye contact and the sincerety of the accompanying big smile. I feel truely welcomed. Sawadee kap could mean "my ancestors would have whooped the asses of your ancestors had they met" and it wouldn't matter...I'd still melt. Upon boarding the airplane to Thailand from Hanoi I was sawadee kah'd by a beautiful Thai flight attendant. The past 2 weeks of the Viet Namese greeting, "Xin Chao", happily melted into the past. Into the nebulous and watery world of memory and unread journals. Xin chao is said in the same way we would say "yo" or "hey" with all the intended depth and connectedness. It was nice to be leaving Viet Nam even if I was bound for the crowds of Bangkok. For even in this city of 10 million (people/cars/tuk-tuks/carcinogens) the people are willing to connect. The Viet Namese less so (again, except for Phan, whom we met up with in Hanoi and took us to dinner, and was even warmer so disregard everything I've just written). Sometimes I wondered if it was because we (the U.S.) dropped over 5 million TONS of bombs on the place, and 80 MILLION gallons of toxic defoliants like agent orange. Or when the war was said and done, somewhere between 2 and 3 million Viet Namese were dead. And in the south those we just abandoned were left to be killed or "re-educated" by those in the north. Sometimes I thought about these things...when a Viet Namese wasn't too warm and fuzzy. But I have to say that we were treated amazingly well for such a recent and terrible history. Of course we were mercilessly ripped off by everyone who could. But that had more to do with being rich than being American as every tourist I talked with had similar experiences. My sister called it "the revenge of the Viet Namese" and she was able to use that phrase frequently. The Viet Namese were able to exact a painful, slow, unceasing barrage of the senses and wallet in much the same way they won the war. Small attacks, never full on. Hit and run so you only realize the damage after it has occurred. Like the time I traded in a book for another one and then actually bargained my way to a higher price than the seller originally quoted. Everyone laughed as I pulled out my dong (easy now gutterheads, dong is the currency over here!) and half way down the street I groaned out loud as I realized that "the revenge" once again had hit my wallet. Actually it's all just economics and I really think that, just like the Cambodians, everyone here wants to move on and focus on the present and the future...the past just hurts too much. BUT...this isn't what I wanted to blog about today...at all.
I need your help... some feedback. My sister and I have been having a running dialogue about travel. How to travel and what is it that makes it worthwhile and what actually is the best way to do it. One way to NOT do it is to have one person, i.e. my sister, pay for the entire trip. Don't get me wrong here...it's been great having an all expenses paid journey for the past 3 weeks. The problem is that she with the pocket book usually gets to make the final decisions. Samantha hasn't played that card at all, it's just that it is hard to make the person paying for everything stay in a place she really doesn't want to. The weird part of the scenario is that I always want to stay in places that would save her tons of money but also be a whole lot less comfortable. The second class 19 hour petri dish of a train ride is a good example (pee puddles and all). Another example is food. Viet Nam has millions of noodle stalls and street vendors where hygeine takes a back seat to "adventure". Hanoi has these street corner places where plastic step stools used as seats spill out to the curb. Kegs are out in the open pumping up the cheapest beer in the country and the corners look like a vibrant and fun way to pass the time and eat a $2.00 meal. We gave these a wide berth and dined in a beautiful french colonial restaurant that served the best ratatouille stuffed aubergine this side of Paris. Beautiful decor, great service, awesome food and a decent little house red (a bit woody maybe but with a nice finish) to wash it all down. OK, you get my point. When in France...go big! When in Hanoi sit on a stool, shoo away the occasional cockroach and eat chilies like you'll never poop again! So we discussed these diferences in travel style and tried to compromise. I whined enough about the horrors of clean sheets, air-cionditioned rooms, maid service and swimming pools to get MY way the last night of the joint trip. It is here that things went wrong...terribly wrong. Maybe it was the fact that we had been on the move all day with taxis and airplanes and schedules. Maybe it was the fact that we had stayed up till midnight the night before waiting for the hotel (mid-range compromise) staff to break the door knob off our room door so we could get in (we locked the keys inside). I think it was the combination as well as the not too distant memory of a train ride that still gives my sister scalp scratching nightmares. It all led to the inevitable and only argument of the entire trip.
I got to chose our final nights lodging in Bangkok. At $7.00/night (for the family room mind you) it's the cheapest place we've stayed in Asia (although I prefer the term inexpensive). The room we reserved had 2 large beds, air-con, and a private bath. The only problem was that the staff reserved it for the wrong day. Fancy foot work (giving us someone elses reserved room before they got there) ensured us a place to sleep. This room had two big-ish beds, AC, and a bathroom just down the hall. Samantha was definitely "NOT HAPPY" but what could we do? The place was full and we were exhausted. Samantha went off to the bathroom and came back livid. The toilets were squat style (bonus in my book!) and some splash-back ended up on her feet. Not a big deal unless the water system for the entire neighborhood was shut down...which it was. Add to this scenario the afforementioned germ phobia and things begin to teeter precariously. She was realizing that for the next two days she would be airborn, sleepy (having had only 3 hours of sleep), cranky, dirty, unwashed and possibly stinky...with pee on her feet. She was getting less happy the more she pondered. Her comment, "If I had my way I can guarantee you we would have stayed in a a neighborhood where the water system is not shut down!" didn't help my edgy tired mood. I was taking it personally as I not only chose this place, I love it. The smell of fish from the bustling market across the street has the odor of authenticity. Plus it masks the stench of the sewer gas! It was past midnight now and we were all surly and the room was hot. It was time for sleep. I turned on the AC and crawled in bed. When the air-con unit failed to respond I thought 'hey at least we have a good strong fan', but wisely chose silence knowing this would be the proverbial straw breaking her back. She doesn't sleep well without the room being cool. Her response surprised me though as she chuckled in agony; broken and reserved to an evil night of dirty teeth and sweaty sleepless tossing and turning...with pee on her feet.
As an aside, I woke up at 8:30 and the water had been restored. I took a cold shower (who needs hot water when it's so hot out anyway?) thinking how much I love budget travel and the joys of having rock bottom expectations. The handheld shower hose, if precariously balanced on the pipe coming out of the wall, allowed me to rinse my hair using both hands. The fact that I had to do so bent over at a 90 degree angle and putting my face within inches of the squatter ("hey, the skid marks are almost gone!") in no way altered my outlook.
I think there might be a problem here. Maybe my other sister Martha can find a diagnosis in the DSM-4 (ultra-low self-esteem disorder?, happy with horrible conditions condition?, self-effacement syndrome?) and email me some treatment options. God I hope not as I just got a whiff of the buckets of snails and eels from the market and I'm recalling the coast of France. Travel is good...it's all good!

Mopeds

2007-02-04T07:21:00.000-08:00

All across SE Asia I've seen hundreds of thousands of mopeds and the further north from Singapore I get the more there are. I thought Bangkok was bad until I got to Phnom Penh. I thought that was bad until I got to Ho Chi Minh city. Hanoi blows them all away as there is no comparison. The sidewalks are actually parking lots for them as there are just too many. As there is no room to actually walk on the sidewalk, the thousands of mopeds that constantly flow by honking, do so within inches, sometimes bumping their handlbars into you. We arrived by all night train this morning and couldn't believe the choking streets. This is the first place so far that I'm glad I don't have my bike. The intensity of the traffic here is too much. The constant stream of noice and horns and stimulation is agitating and tiring and aggrivating. I'd be road kill in minutes. Our train was a 19 hour festival of noise and the stench of urine as our berth happened to be next to the "toilet". I use that word generously as it was more of a hole in the floor, surrounded by pee puddles, than an actual toilet. The puddle of urine that sloshed toward my birkenstocks every time the train rounded a bend threatened to soak my socks. They somehow remained dry, but all the same I tracked in a smelly, wet trail of pee from the bathroom to our room. The sheets were the color of storm clouds but not as fresh. Mine were covered in footprints which led me to wondering if the person using my linens had previously been to the bathroom. The berth had 4 beds (2 up and 2 down) and we 3 shared it with a Viet Namese woman who had a frequent and very moist cough. You know that smokers-cough-early-in-the-morning-hacking-up-a piece-of-lung-tissue sound? It was that, except more often and a little wetter. It was on this leg of our journey that I learned the true depth of my sisters fear of germs. Not quite the Howard Hughes level of paralyzing fear (I didn't see her lining the floor with Kleenex tissues...not while travelling anyway) but way up there in my dads league. Our conversations of germs and lice and cockroaches and bedbugs dominated the train ride and made the 19 hour journey fly by in no time. The luster of budget travel was wearing off rapidly for her as I happily wrapped up in a dishwater grey blanket and buried my head in a matching pillow case. That night Samantha slept with a hoodie on zipped all the way to the neck. I'll give her some slack though (even if she did have Elliott checking her roots for lice tonight) as it is getting colder the further north we go. But everyone has had long horrible train rides in Asia and it isn't really what I wanted to write about, at all.
Yesterday we were in Hoi An which is a beautiful small town in the central coast of Viet Nam. Old Chinese buildings line a small river and the back alleyways and narrow streets are lined with tailors and shops selling brightly colored cloth lamps. At night the place lights up beautifully with thousands of hanging balls and shades swinging in the evening breeze. Another thing that makes this downtown area special is the lack of cars. Several streets are car free zones that are meant to be pedestrian areas. While I generally applaud the removal of cars from all roads, interstates included, I haven't noticed much of a change in the decibel level of these walking streets. Mostly because the mopeds have more than filled the noise gap. Nature abhors a vaccuum as noise abhors a silence (as is demonstrated by the constant jibber-jabber inside my head) and the Viet Namese abhor driving without constantly honking their horns. I think it's all about power (isn't everything?) as the lowly moped is the bottom feeder of the traffic stream...the lower rung on the ladder. So the horn is a kind of "beeeeep, back off you pedestrian, or cyclist, I've got 75cc's of hell under my ass and if you don't back down you're gonna get hurt!" "OK, maybe not very badly, but back off!! That's the thing with bullies with big horns... all bluster. Because in the end the moped driver knows (as none wear helmets...loud horns save lives man) he will end up on the wrong side of the E.R. if he goes up against a truck or car, or pedestrian, or dog...hell even a curb! So, with all that pent up rage boiling inside and no one to take it out on (safely) the only pressure relief valve comes in the form of a cute little trumpet button under his left thumb. But maye, as a cyclist, I'm just projecting my powerlessness onto all these moped drivers who are just tooting their nasally horns defensively, in a gesture to keep themselves (and in many cases their entire family-5 people on one moped is the record so far) upright and alive. I'm considering a pedal powered air horn myself as my bell sounds kind of ...gay. When I hit my bell people don't generally scatter out of my way as much as stop and smile. No, on second thought I'm not projecting...at least here in Viet Nam. I have proof. Of all the multitudes of mopeds I've seen there are only a handfull of differing brands. They mostly have innocuous names that have been market researched and sanitized to offend no one. The ubiquitous wave and its offspring the wave 2 are good examples. When the pack of hundreds of waves line up at an intersection and the signal changes green, a veritable tsunami is unleashed...ba da boom! Add to the waves names like the future, the dream, the viva, the boss, and my personal favorite the spacey and you'll get the idea of generic sounding marketing. But in Viet Nam I've come across a different moped. Sure it looks similar, but how could you drive the ATTILA without wanting to kick some ass? Or at least want to honk your horn all the time! No, Viet Nam plays by different rules and (again with the bad decisions of the U.S. leaders) any country that names a mode of transportation after a hun is not to be messed with!

It Must Be Love

2007-01-29T07:38:00.000-08:00

"Hello"! It was dark and on the beach last night as I went for a long quiet walk so the two voices surprised me. Hello I called back to the black lumps on the sand. "How are you"? I walked over to the two voices and there in the dark moonlight were two very attractive 24 (so they said) year old Viet Namese women. One very drunk and flirty and the other sober but just as flirty. Now, the average guy would have thought one of two things at this point. 1) Don't pinch me now as I like the way these dreams usually end. Or 2) I don't remember being killed or suffering a heart attack but all those good deeds paid off and I make it to heaven! But I've already mentioned-OK discussed thouroughly and at length- how, via face cremes and astringents, I'm not the average guy. My first thoughts were confusion as I tried to figure what kind of scam these girls were going to work on me. That lasted all of 60 seconds as, in under a minute the drunk girl grabbed my hand and held it to her face. "I want to be your girlfriend, will you be my boyfriend"? I told her I already have girlfriend. "But you not married?" I tried to explain that it didn't matter because I was in..."but I love you, you no love me?" The bus trip earliet that day took around 4 hours to go about 100 miles. In that short span I saw 7 to 10 billboards along the way reminding people of the dangers of HIV in Viet Nam. They were all in Viet Namese which is as legible to me as Thai or Chinese, but the graphics were clear enough. The cartoon figure of Mr. Happy Condom (or the poor emaciated cartoon HIV victim who obviously hadn't shaken hands with Mr. Happy C.) were effective reminders to wear a helmet. Those billboards flashed through my thick head as I realized that these weren't just friendly girls...they were friendly working girls. I explained that I liked them very much but no, I didn't love them. The drunk one let go of my hand, pouted severely and promptly passed out with her head on a coconut. So much for my sexy animal magnatism that I initially thought drove these girls to lusty desire. But it left me to have a conversation about love with the conscious one. It went something like this. "I love you". "How can you love me when you don't even know me?" "We go back to your bungalow now"? "Look I'm 44 and you're 24, I'm an old man". "In Viet Nam" she said smoothing out the sand and writing the numbers for emphasis, "man 64, woman 24"! We both laughed and I wrote the number 28 saying "no older than this for you". She laughed again but in a different way that let me know she knew it should be, yet won't be, true here. We soon ran out of topics for conversation as my two words of Viet Namese (hello and thank you) can only get you so far (but in this situation far enough!) and her English was limited to talking about her profession...kind of like a stock broker or a Boeing engineer. Every sentence led back to my bungalow somehow and she was as good as any hungry street hawker in Bangkok. "I have a girlfriend", "yes but you no married". "I'm too old", "no you good age". "I can't be your boyfriend I leave in 2 days". "You be my boyfriend 2 days then". We were going in a circular route to nowhere but laughing a lot getting there. It was time to pull out my trump card. "My sister is in my bungalow so we can't go back there". When she finally understood, after repeating the odd sentence 3 times, it was like a misfire, a sputtering of an engine and she had no quick comeback...no instant response. At the moment she realized she had wasted the past 15 minutes trying to sell herself to me something changed. Not a hardening or pouting attitude, nor an angry huffing off in frustration(both of which I expected). She softened and smiled and relaxed. Just then she looked behind me as 3 more potential customers were walking by. As they passed I heard one of them give me the "MM-HMM". You know the sound. Accent on the HMM as the inflection rises on it at the same time. It's the sound every mother gives to every kid upon the discovery of some sneaky behavior. That sound that so economically delivers maximum guilt. It had the exact effect on me as if my own mom had said it. I wanted to run after them shouting "no, wait, I only wanted to talk to them"! Thus buurrying myself further. Wisely I didn't. But I did feel a shame that was too strong for the crime of only talking to 2 young pretty girls who just happened to be prostitutes.
I said my goodbyes and shook their hands with a friendly "I like you very much, you are both (no I don't love you!!) very pretty". The walk back to the Bungalow ( and Samantha has no idea how much I appreciate her being there for me-asleep) had me asking the question youv'e probably been asking for the past few paragraphs. Why did I hang out and chat with these girls once I knew what they were after? The answer isn't as clean or simple as I wish it were, but that doesn't make it any less true. On the one hand, being raised a bleeding heart liberal makes me believe that people are basically good, and make bad decisions...usually a lot of them. Except for the ultra right wing conservative republicans that is, who are basically bad people that make bad decisions. Part of me wanted to hang out with these Viet Namese girls and just get to know a piece (no not that piece gutterheads!) of this lifestyle/culture/desperation. To make contact with them in such a different way than they are used to...a human way, as fellow travellers on this path of life. On the other hand, being raised a bleeding heart liberal means that I have no guiding moral compass...wishy-washy or Godless in the parlance of the Bush doctrine spin doctors. Chosing my morality by the way it feels at the time. This part of me (yes, that part gutterheads) was very intrigued by sitting next to two young pretty women who would have sold me an instant of bliss and a lifetime of shame. Was I testing myself? Was I playing with a razors edge trying not to get cut? Or was I just experiencing a moment in south Viet Nam that was weird and fun and uncomfortable? Yes to all of the above! The titilation died rapidly when early on I realized no matter how thrilling or exciting or taboo, I can't separate sex from love. I already knew this intellectually and it was nice to have the feeling confirmed. At that point my choice to engage in conversation (if that's what you call continually refusing to have sex) was about connection. Not much of a connection to be sure. But maybe the next time they hear the phrase "I'm American" they won't instantly recoil. Maybe they'll look back fondly on a moonlit night in January and laugh at the funny homo they met who travels with his sister!

Slummin' It

2007-01-28T00:42:00.000-08:00

I love traveling down here in Cambodia and Viet Nam! Seeing how the people live here has really enriched my life!!The infinity pools are fabulous and the umbrella drinks strong and cheap!!! With all this opulence and wealth I kind of wish I was born Viet Namese. I've even looked into emigrating as the thatch roofed palapa I'm now gazing at (on the sparkling white sands of Phu Quoc Island off of the southern tip of Viet Nam) is surrounded by lovely fair-skinned Eurobabes. The thing holding me back from getting my green card is that it seems a bit more modest here than S. Thailand as none of the babes are topless. Thankfully all the Viet Namese seem to have been removed from the entire area except the kitchen, and boy can they cook! I almost forget that I'm not in Hawaii anymore as I look out amongst the pale sunburned flesh eating a baguette and an omelette. And the coffee here is top notch as Viet Nam is one of the worlds biggest coffee exporters ...which just puts the icing on my whole "meet the local people" cake. Day two "in country" and just got an email from Sheryl that noted I aways say that whatever country I'm now in has "even nicer people than the last place I visited!" But I'm going on record here that the people of Viet Nam are a lot less friendly tham in Malaysia, Tahiland, or Cambodia. I could blame it on the American war (what we call the Viet Nam war) but after my last blog on the history of the U.S. in Cambodia that doesn't work for me. It's funny though how the few people we meet color our view of an entire population. Through sheer laziness we will judge the behavior of millions of (in this case) Viet Namese on a few rare encounters...which are usually initiated by someone who wants our money. Knowing this and totally disregtarding it I can say with 90% confidence that the viet Namese people are not as friendly as others in S.E. Asia. Except for our new aquaintance Phan who might be more friendly so I could be wrong about the Viet Namese (a 10% chance). We met her in Phnom Penh and she invited us to meet up with her in a week or so in Hanoi. I've tried not to write about the hotel we met in, as it was a new low in cheezy travel. But with the trauma fading into the distant past I can face it now. The Riverside...an 8 story block tower just across from the Thon Le Sap river. Back in 1962, in a small city in, say Ohio this might have been a nice place. No, it wouldn't have but it would have been cheap. At $35 in Cambodia, it should have bought us a night of luxury. Instead it bought us hallways filled with cratered matresses smelling of cigarettes and rooms reminiscent of e.coli! Now, I'm not really sure if e.coli has an odor in and of itself but it thrives in the large intestines of all of us so you get the idea of the bouquet of the rooms. Besides the gaseous-ness of it all the hotel had the charms (casino included) of an all night shriners convention after last call. But that isn't what I wanted to write about, at all!
Phan met us here over a breakfast that I could tangent on for a page or so but lets just say "CHEEZY" without the cheese. She was instantly warm and welcoming and open with her opinions of Viet Namese politics as well as American politics. She has a PhD in water resource management and her daughter is on a full ride scholarship at Harvard. Just an ordinary Viet Namese family she assured us...so emigration to this land of wealth and warm sandy beaches sounds better all the time. Oh, except for the crushing poverty, pollution and overcrowding that the American pig-dog capitalist propagandists like to call the "real" Viet Nam. They talk of filthy packed markets with piles of rotting vegetable shavings in the middle of the alleyways slowing foot traffic to a crawl. They talk of the throngs of moped drivers being way more aggressive and seemingly needy than in other countries. They talk of people being more dour and less full of joy than anywhere else in S.E.Asia. And, oh sure, we've seen some of that too...between our hydrofoil high speed boat ride and beach resort we are now enjoying. And I almost got sad about it too until I remembered that you can either focus on the good or you can focus on the bad. And isn't that what our left wing media excels at? It's always so negative! So I'm jsut going to stay positive here and use my own experience as a guide. And that experience tells me that about 80% of my time here (and Cambodia too!!) has been spent surrounded by crisp uniforms, smiling people who respect me so much they call me sir, pools to die for and great food...the baguettes almost make me think I'm in Paris (except the beaches remind me of Mexico)!!! I don't mean to be all polyanna about this place, at all. We have had some difficulties for sure. Like the time 2 days ago upon our arrival when we went into a stinking bustling market and were greeted with grimaces instead of smiles. That was kind of hard. And after Elliott had to wrestle his new Ipod out of the gripping hands of some really poor kid it made me anxious to pull out my new Samsung camera as well. That uncomfortable moment for me was kind of hard too. Also, the bargaining here is a lot harder so Elliott's new watch cost us $4.00 instead of the $3.00 we should have paid...and over time that bargaining stress becomes hard. So whoever said adventure travel is dead obviously hasn't been to Viet Nam. And if you need another example, the beaches down south here are so deserted it makes you feel like an adventurer! So yeah, I'd say that Viet Nam still has it's share of hard travel AND adventure travel!!! But tired of slumming it in our $18 resort room we'll fly to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow and stay at a refurbished 1920's hotel that promises 4 stars and a swimming pool...I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!!!

The Horror...the Horror.

2007-01-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

Phnom Penh Cambodia!! While I love S. Thailand, and Kuala Lumpur is special to me, and Bangkok full of great memories and hideous traffic, I think Phnom Penh is my favorite city yet. The only regret I have is flying into it instead of cycling. I'm now laughing at my earlier inexperience when I wrote about the chaos of Singaporian traffic. If chaos means no predictable order of patterns then Phnom Phen traffic is the epitome of chaos. Cars seem to go in any direction they please, red lights are loosely interpreted as stop or slow down a bit, and merging is a total random event. The only rules I can discern are... never actually stop moving, and size matters i.e. get the hell out of the way of anything bigger than you. So you can see why I would want to cycle this city so badly as I could flaunt any traffic laws and any laws of self preservation. But somehow it all works and the liquid flow moves slowly along the path of least resistance. Waiting for this flow to stop to cross a street would be foolhearty as it would never come. So while chanting my new Thai mantra of "They don't want to hit me, they don't want to hit me" I look straight ahead (never look into the eyes of a driver here it only confuses them and and that is not good when you are a potential speed bump) and begin the journey. The flowing machines and steel somehow part, and without quite knowing how you did it, you're on the other side of the street except with a big shaky adrenalin rush. In simply crossing the street, Elliott has found a sport more exciting and cheaper than skateboarding!
But I write through the eyes of an ex-cyclist who misses his frequent brushes with death or pain. Phnom Penh is so much more than insane roads of course. It is the beauty of fading french colonial architecture glowing warmly in the setting sunlight. Or a filthy night market smelling of fish and feces (a good name for a string quartet by the way), next to a woman cutting the heads off of live fish next to my nephew begging Samantha to video the gore. It is the amazing and genuine smiles of the people who, even though harrassing you endlessly to ride tuk-tuks or buy photocopied versions of lonely planet books, quickly lose the sales pitch and engage in warm conversations after you say "no" for the millionth time. As we chat, there is physical contact with an arm on the shoulder or elbow. Even the monks are touchy feely (but not in a creepy way so get your mind out of the gutter) as they instruct me in the 5 basic laws of Buddhism (like the 10 commandments only less filling). For a people who have had such a painful, horrible and recent history of genocide it is amazing! When people ask where we are from I say "America!" and (after the obligatory disclaimer that we have a horrible president) they almost always say what a great country it is. I have never considered lying about my nationality here even if this is the one place where I should have to!
The United States of America...what is it about our country? Since travelling in SE Asia and loving almost all of it (OK so Bangkok mostly sucks) I have come to appreciate things about my own county that I always took for granted. Things like toilet paper, traffic patterns, seat belts, the lack of constant harrassment, and emissions laws. Although I have to admit the toilet paper thing is over-rated as I've given up on it and prefer the pressure-wash of the wall bidet. I feel cleaner and fresher and god knows it feels like a fire hose after some of these flaming stools (also a good name for a band by the way) one has to suffer over here. So, while I do love home and my friends and family, The more I learn about our history the less respect I have for the U.S. OK, here we go...an angry rant.
In 1970, during the height of another pointless and unwinable major war (no not Iraq) my country began "secretly" bombing a soveriegn nation that was officially neutral in the area. Secret... unless you were Cambodian! North Vietnamese troops were using Cambodia as a way to get to south Viet Nam and also transporting weapons to be sure. Our response? Carpet bomb the country side in Cambodia hoping to stop the enemy. Hundreds of miles from the Viet Namese border, the United States was killing hudreds of thousands of innocent Cambodian farmers and villagers. Hmm, bombing soveriegn nations and thousands of dead innocent civilians...at least we won't make that mistake again! All this isn't new information to me of course, but what is new is just how that insane decision in that insane war set the stage for the rise of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pots genocidal rampage. In a very direct way we are responsible for the deaths of between 2 and 3 million people. People either executed, starved or worked to death. That figure (besides its unimaginable size) is freaky. How can these estimates be off by 1,000,000 peope? The Khmer Rouge were nothing if not meticulous record keepers and S-21, the Phnom Penh museum that was once a high school before being converted into a prison and torture center has thousands of organized, numbered photographs of prisoners that stare at you from a very recent and gruesome death. So where is the one-million-person-question-mark? In a country with a population of 7 million in 1975 we are talking about 40% of the population! Were they lost in the carpet bombs? Blown up in a landmine field ( as an aside...seven people died the other day trying to diffuse a few of the 4 million estimated landmines still buried here. And landmines have move down to #3 on the list of causes of death for Cambodians. By the way a warm round of applause for Bill Clinton who refused to sign an international treaty banning the use of landmines after almost every other nation in the world already signed it. But I'm OK with it because the national security of the United States is dependent on having small explosive devices under other countries' soil... kind of like oil Speaking of Bill Clinton, he just happened to be here in Phnom Penh last month. I wonder if he could look into the eyes or dropped a few Rial into the cups of the one legged beggars that are prevalent here)? Or is the million person question mark from the destroyed records of the psychopatically paranoid and insane Khmer Rouge? These inhuman people, who were just like you and me in any other situation, turned the clock back to the date "zero" to begin the great agrarian utopia. A utopia with a national anthem that goes something like..."Oh Kampuchea, with fields and roads awash in blood, let this blood of the peasant martyrs fuel the hatred..."etc. but with a lot more references to blood. Now here's a utopia I could party in! With anyone educated or tainted by the west now dead in a mass grave, we could invite Mao Tse Tung over for some old school ethnic cleansing. Oh crap, he died a state hero didn't he? Let's see...scratch Hitler off the list-suicide. Saddam...dead. Osama RSVP'd that he's still hooked up to dialysis and can't make it. Noriega-doing time in Florida. Nixon, who started this whole mess...died a crook. That leaves a bunch more on the long list but for the short list I'll just speed dial George Bush (OK both of them) and we can party among the pieces of clothing and bones that continue to poke up from the soil of the not yet totally exhumed mass graves just 12 kilometers from the capitol of Cambodia. Here, in just one of the 65 or so killing fields spread throughout the country, there are over 60 large mass grave pits that pot-hole the land. Every year the rainy season exhumes more bones that are left in the ground for us to walk over and on. Eight thousand skulls are on display here in a stupa built 13 stories high. Over half of the victims remain in the ground. It is sobering and sad and horrible. The horror of the Khmer Rouge...killing their victims with shovels etc. to save on the cost of bullets and turning up the music on the loud speakers to drown out the screams. The Khmer Rouge who, in the height of their paranoia attacked Viet Nam in 1979. Since they were anti-Viet Nam they were funded by...yeah, the U.S. government!! After the atrocities had been known to the world!! Am I angry? Hell yes! How can I not be angry and disgusted by the atrocities of war, of pointless bombings of civilians, of genocide and know that it was due to, in large part, my own government?!
Thank god that part of history for Cambodia is over and that Cambodians have the most amazing capacity for forgiveness on the planet. The old Cambodia that bordered Nazi Germany, Iraq and Crawford, Texas is gone and the new one is bustling and vibrant. We all owe it, literally, to come here and visit this amazing place and spend tons of our American dollars here. It's easy as it is the currency of choice here.

Really Big Balls

2007-01-18T23:38:00.000-08:00

Thank the lord! Or in this godless country thank Buddha. I'm no longer in Bangkok and if I have to see another freaking wat, I'm going to recline under a bodhi tree. The biggest reclining Buddha in the world is at Wat Po. I don't know what po but I can tell you when (a long time ago) and how big (it's huge!!). You see the reason I want to recline, if I have to suffer another Wat, is because that is the position Buddha took just before entering into Nirvana. SO, and stay with me here...I was saying in a really funny way (actually not that funny since I have to explain the subtleties) that if I have to see another wat I'm going to die. Ha Ha...oh never mind. I'm now in Phnom Penh Cambodia and it is HOT. I flew into the city, instead of cycling, and that was kind of weird (and really easy). I could contrast and compare the differences between flying and cycling but their kind of obvious so I'll just say it is cooler and higher and you don't sweat nearly as much on a plane. But...it is so nice to see a city again where the horizon can be seen through trees instead of spaces between skyscrapers. The city is bustling and full of energy and dirty and smelly in places and yet feels super friendly and has a small town feel donwn near the river. Another bonus is that the horizon is kind of blue instead of this grayish dishwatery Bangkok brown thick substance that comes off on your towel when drying your face even after washing with a deep cleansing non-astringent, alcohol free product brought in from Seattle by a sister who is helping my skin attain its natural lustre. But that isn't wat (kidding) what I wanted to blog about...at all.
There is a museum in Bangkok that is so inappropriate for kids under 12, that my 10 year old (OK 11 in 3 days) was in heaven lurking around looking at photos of decapitations and eviscerations. The forensic museum at one of the hospitals near our hotel was strange and creepy with cabinets full of actual murder weapons and the bloody clothes of the victims. There should have been a "you need to be this tall to see the disgusting exhibits" sign out front but there wasn't...so all of you wanting to call CPS just relax...the nightmares only lasted for a few hours. One big crowd pleaser was the actual bodies of several murderers who had been "naturally mummified" whatever that means and their almost dry, leathery bodies were standing in some stainless steel...um...drip pans for lack of a better word. And the drip pans had some brownish goo in them of which Elliott kept trying to determine the source. On second thought go ahead and call CPS...Samantha should be home in 2 weeks or so. But it didn't just contain the remains of murderers or their victims... this was a forensic museum after all. In the pathology wing there was a model display of intestinal parasites enlarged a few milion time to the size of footballs. Feeling the effects of these bugs is bad enough but to have to look at them with suckers and tentacles as big as my head was enough to restart the cramps all over again. Elliotts favorite bizzare thing of the day (and there were many) was the photo of some poor guy who was sitting on his balls. I mean literally sitting on the biggest scrotum you never want to imagine! It wasn't even covered up...just a wrinkled flesh colored hippity-hop that swallowed his penis into an innie of an indentation. Fillariasis had messed up his lymph system and for this poor man it caused massive scrotal swelling. Even better, for Elliott that is, was the guys actual scrotum sitting in a jar (ok, a huge jar) of formaldehyde next to the photo. A beachball of a reminder that size really, really does matter...and the good news my friends is that it is definitely OK not to be the biggest on the block!
It was all kind of lightly creepy and campy and it will make for some good fireside stories for my nephew. Tomorrow it won't be so, as we go to the famous Khmer Rouge prison S-21 in Phnom Penh and then to the killing fields just outside of town. I know that this journey won't be for fun. But for tonight I am enjoying everything about this beautiful old city.

The Furry Man

2007-01-16T02:52:00.000-08:00

Lane splitting my way up to the front of the parking lot called traffic, I unclicked from my pedals awaiting the light change. You know that feeling when you know someone is staring at you...that spider sense tingling somewhere on the back of your neck? I felt it standing there in the mid-day heat and tried to pass it off as sweat pouring down my (yes unhelmeted) head. The sweat was aready streaming down my forehead and, mixed with my favorite moisturizer, into my eyes. The back of my hands were sweaty wet-wipes and totally useless in clearing the tears. Standing there in my tight lycra shorts, form fitting and very loud campagnolo billboard of a cycling jersey, surgical mask and ipod earphones it's no wonder someone was staring. I looked like a depressed, asthmatic Lance Armstrong wanna-be...with an ipod. But the woman in the car two inches from me wasn't interested in my lycra, or my shapely figure, or even my sad looking affect. She was pointing at me and laughing and saying something to her driver and pointing again. I lowered my mask and smiled and dazzled her with 50% of my Thai vacabulary. "Sawatdee Kap" (or "hello" for the logically challenged) I said. This wasn't intended to be super funny but her laughter was raucous as if I'd told her my most recent favorite joke (emailed to me by my dear friend Paul in Ohio-not mean 'torture massage' Paul. The fact that I actually laughed out loud when I read this joke indicates 2 things. 1) I have been away from home too long and 2) I desparately need people to email me more jokes... "What did the fish say when he ran into the wall? 'Dam'!") I'm laughing all over again. That one slays me. Anyway, I didn't tell her a joke at all. Her amusement seemed to come from somewhere on my body as she reached out and stroked my forearm. Had she been years...no, deacades younger it might have been a lot more interesting. But she wasn't and the gesture was just curious. I continued smiling uncomfortably at her and wondering when the freaking light was going to change. Then the source of her delight became apparent. She suddenly pinched up a batch of blonde forearm hair, tugging it until the skin lifted up all goose-bumpy. That really set her off until we were both guffawing. I reached over and rubbed her smooth hairless arm and noded as the light turned green. It was one of the weirdest, short-lived , non-verbal cultural exchanges I've had yet. Giddy local smooth skinned Thai woman has "first contact" experience with strange, hairy, crying, western man.
It just made me realize, once again, how much I like travelling and how much I like Thai and Malaysian people. If I had been in Seattle at a stoplight and some nut-bar reached out and pinched my arm hair (and I realize that by harping on this point it makes me sound like I have fur instead of skin...its a lie) I would have freaked out. The cool thing about travelling is that I'm the nut. All this craziness that is Bangkok-Chiang Mai-Thailand is normal and I'm the lycra stranger in a strange land. The other day at the airport, having dressed up for the occasion of seeing Sheryl again, I struck up a conversation with an old Thai man. After the usual niceties, he wanted to know how I liked the Thai people...concerned that I'd been robbed or taken advantage of. After ensuring him that I really like the Thais and have never had any problems, he leaned toward me and said knowingly "It's because you dress like a poor man". I looked down at my slightly wrinkled fake Polo shirt, mostly clean shorts and tattered but functional Birkenstocks, and had to admit that next to his creased polyester pants and "kings yellow" windbreaker complete with the kings emblem on the breast pocket, I looked a bit worn down. Maybe even a little sad. Again, in Seattle I might have told him to "piss off"...or at least try to defend myself by explaining the nature of this trip. Here I just laughed and thought, "Hey that's not a bad strategy for fending off theives...just look shabby!" Apparently it's worked for me so far as all I've lost is my bike computer.
God knows how many people I've offended over here ( not as many as my sister Samantha has managed to in just under 48 hours..you'll have to ask later), but that is the challenge and joy of travel. I have walked into stores or hawker stalls more times than I care to remember and enthusiastically said "Thank You!" instead of "Hello!" Never has anyone rolled their eyes or made fun of me or tried to make me feel like an idiot (I do that all by myself). They may laugh (wouldn't you?) but never maliciously. Trying to figure out cultural roadmaps is sometimes harder than figuring out the actual road maps...and I've been lost a lot over here. I wish we gave everyone we meet in daily life the same latitude and space for mistakes that we do when we travel, or that is given to us as travellers. It would be a lot more fun to laugh at all of it than to get so offended and angry. The Thais seem to understand what we don't or have forgotten. That there is no need to take all of this craziness so seriously. Relax and bust a gut over how insane this lifetime is. It is all a cosmic joke and we are all the fools. How else does one explain the Tuk-Tuk for Pete's sake?

Who Am I?

2007-01-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

Who am I? Yes here we go again, and if your reading this Cary just skip it all together and go to the next post. Because I realize that this is the only question that matters. If unanswered and even unasked then the rest of life seems rather random. I am a seeker...always will be. And as much as I would love to just let this life fly by without introspection, sounds a lot easier, I can't (though you wouldn't really know it from reading this blog). Who was it that said an unexamined life is one not worth living? I don't know but I do know that for me it is true. For until I find out who James is, everything just seems like running on a hampster wheel. I just re-read the side bar on this blog page, then re-read many of the entries over the past few months. Were they even written by the same guy?! Going on some journey looking for inner truth? Who am I kidding?! I end up writing volumes about other peoples' appearance or behavior. I end up writing about the physical hardships or the humor of miscommunication. I end up writing fluff...which I actually enjoy and so do many others it seems. So maybe the side bar is perfect. As I step toward truth and deeper understanding of all of this and start getting close to it, I go for the easy way out and find the cute, humorous tale/anecdote every time. I'm not judging this as a bad thing as I occasionally crack myself up. You get the added bonus of having vicarious diarrhea which is a whole lot better than real diarrhea! As an aside (yeah I know I never get off track), in Tibetan Buddhism there are many levels of "hell" or a really bad next lives. One of them is the "hot flaming poker up the butt lifetime" where that is your existance for however long you live in it. I often wonder while I'm squatting on the Asian style toilets, cramping up with tears in my eyes, if whoever came up with this particular nasty idea had travelled to Thailand and ate at the same hawker stalls I have...because he hit the nail (or hot poker) squarely. Anyway, it seems like I'm often copping out on exploring the deeper reasons for travel as I'm too busy seeing and doing some really cool and fun stuff. Stuff like scuba diving off of Tioman Island in southern Malaysia or rock climbing in amazing Krabi, Thailand! And I'm not whining here...I've had a blast. But my sister Samantha and my nephew Elliott (aka butthead) are flying in tonight and I realize that this trip is going to change character drastically for the next 3 weeks. Time to dust off the vaval and have a gaze before the distraction of constant family brings me back to this "reality". OK, here we go.

Surely I am not James W. Bryner Jr. That is my name of course given to me by my parents 44 years ago and I like it well enough. But it isn't ME just as "a rose is a rose by any other name" (even if I don't smell as sweet after my Bangkok sweaty-ass-crack-bike-ride today). My passport even says that is who I AM and the photo even looks like ME. A bad photo by the way... as if I was given a large dose of Thorazine before some low quality mug shot was snapped. And even though I've lived a life of crime (see last blog) no mug shots were taken until this one. Ten years. It's a long time to have to look at this picture. As you can see above for yourself. And for those who don't know me? I'll paraphrase Richard Nixon "I am not a crook...or a psychopathic killer"(he, for those of you under 30 and educated in the U.S., was a "bad man". You can google him or better yet 'wikipedia' him. But don't bother My Spacing him as he's dead.).

That picture was taken 2 years ago now and not a single cell on my face in that picture is still with ME...so I am definitely not my body as I regenerate a new one of those overy few months or so. Is this body then just a bag of skin and a food tube from mouth to butt, occupying space as a container for the real ME...my soul? If so then why bother and why not let the soul run free because this thing is kind of goofy shaped with all kinds of needs and pains. It burns in the mid-day equatorial heat without a good moisturizing sun screen, and keeping up with my nails is just tedious. Or am I the air that comes in and out of this cellular tube/bag? Because without the air I am dead...or at least this tube/bag is. How about the food that shares the same space as I do once I eat it...is it me? Am I it? Once again, no food or water...no James. And what about you? I am certainly not me without a you. I can't be me without a you, it is all a relationship. Is there a writer without a reader? There really is no seaparation from me and you. No you, no me...Know you, know me (sorry about that, I just couldn't resist the cheezy bumper sticker reference "No Jesus, no peace..."). Then, there is no separation from all of this that we experience (foods events thoughts dreams) and even things we can't experience. Because I really don't experience the space between me and this computer screen but without that space there would be no differentiation and I couldn't BE. What a beautiful thing this all is. It means that we are not only all connected but that we are all essential...the mosquito that is buzzing my head right now, and the guys outside tearing up the street driving me crazy at 12:30 am. Just as George Bush needs to be apart of it all so do we who oppose all he does at home and Iraq. For what is a 'warior of peace' without a war? Just a warrior ( now I'm really sorry as that is a truely meaningless and cheezy sounding bumper sticker style quote). I have no idea where I'm going with any of this but it is exciting because I feel so connected to everything instead of so alone or pointless. It's why I continue to ask the question. And of course I'll get back on the hampster wheel tomorrow but maybe I'll walk it for a while before getting all rodent-psycho again...maybe not.

p.s. For those of you who think I've gone off the deep end or have been taking mushrooms stored in a box from the late '60's you're wrong. For those of you who think I'm reading too much Alan Watts...spot on.

The Thai Massage

2007-01-12T23:31:00.000-08:00

I thought my new travelling friends Paul and Kelly were...well...friends. Turns out they're really mean. Oh sure,they said they had the best intentions by suggesting a few different places for a Thai massage. And sure, a Thai massage sounds wonderful, but my God...have you every had one? I recently did and the whole time I kept grunting out the only four letter word that came to mind...PAIN (I know what word you were thinking of)! Maybe I'm just super sensitive from all the face cremes and product I use but Crikey these massages hurt. I have had two now as I wanted to give it a second chance and thought maybe the practitioner the first time was just aggressive or something (hmm, come to think of it she too was recommended by Paul...coincidence or a pattern of latent aggression?). No, I think Thai massage is just a painful mistranslation for "this is gonna hurt". Read the sign "Thai Massage" but think Thai Pain, or Thai Torture, or...ok you get the idea. Sheryl also got a massage and kept looking over at me and laughing as I made contorted faces of concern. But she said that her experience was quite enjoyable. And Paul and Kelly will sometimes go every day for a stretch. What am I missing here! I know, more pain. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 3 times, um...well... hmm. Let me try to describe the exerience.
You know those weird one-fingered police holds that can drop the biggest (American) football player to his knees begging for mercy? It's like an hour of that...but seems longer. Not that I've ever had the police grab me like that...well, OK, they actually did once...no twice. But that was different! I mean who didn't get arrested for trespassing on airforce bases in the '80's protesting Reagan's MX missle system? Even the actor Robert Blake was in the fray, getting arested for protesting the opening of a nuclear energy plant that was constructed on Californias biggest and most active (San Andreas) fault...however, probably not the best example as he recently spent a lot of time in jail before being acquited for the murder of his wife. It's what we did then, protest I mean...not kill our wives, because MTV was only in its infancy. Now that there is so much better programming we don't have time to protest things like MX first strike nuclear weapons!! But it warms my heart to know that Reagan went down in history (and only American history) books as such a great and wonderful leader. I'd like to read an El Salvadorean history book someday, or Guatamalan, or Nicaraguan, or... well, pick a country. Woah, TANGENT ALERT!! But police holds are intended to inflict pain while massages aren't. Here's the deal. I just spent the last year before this trip in massage shcool in Seattle. I learned Swedish massage which focuses on relaxation and healing. Thai massage focuses, it seems, on pain. And at home, when setting up for a massage my routine goes something like this; close the curtains, get a soothing color of sheets that coordinate nicely, light some incense if desired, light up a few candles, make sure my water fountain tridckles 'just so', chose a nice smelling oil (season appropriate of course...citrus in the warmer months!), and put on some mellow music (anything but enya that is). If time allows, a warm foot bath and a hot cup of herbal tea tops off the experience nicely. And we haven't even come to the massage yet which is ( and here comes the "shameless plug for my massage practice when I return to Friday Harbor to set up shop" part of the blog), if I say so myself, an amazingly relaxing and restorative process. Let's contrast this with the last Thai massage I received. And I'll preface this with the fact that I was rapidly getting sick when I got the massage and had to hold down my lunch while she worked over...er...on my back, so I wasn't in the most tolerant of moods. As I was lying there I noticed the ambiance of the place. Of course I realize that massage comes in many forms (including torture) and that what matters is the massage and not the frilly (Sheryl would call this "puppy dogs and rainbows" part) accoutrements that accompany it. However it just feels better when you can relax...which means having the TV turned off! Or at least turning it down so I don't hum along with the jingles and cause my practitioner to laugh spasmodically. Or at the very least STOP WATCHING IT while you are giving a massage. I caught her glimpsing at the screen during one especially tear producing vulcan death grip. And if the cell phone rings, don't answer it. And if your 5 year old is playing drums with a pair of chopsticks, have her go outside. And if your co-worker is also giving a massage try not to chat too much. And if the guy collecting the money is sitting at the desk next to you, have him not stare too much. Bad flourescent lighting I can live with...bad Thai soap operas just take me out of that hoped for relaxed place that I never found. So much for atmosphere...and we haven't even come to the massage yet. The aforementioned police grips, pushing hard into points of pain, me flinching and gritting my teeth, the twisting and popping of joints ( which is rather satisfying in its own way)...it's all here as well as the hyper-stretching of muscles. My favorite being the one where you sit up and the practitioner places her knees in the small of your back, grabs you under the arms and hauls you backward hyperextending the entire spinal column. The sounds in the room are momentarily drowned out by the snapping of vertebrae as you look down at your toes and smile to see them wiggle when you ask them to. I know Paul and Kelly are laughing like Austin Powers' Dr. Evil while reading this, but I'll get you guys...someday, I'll get you!

Feelin' Good!

2007-01-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

You know that feeling when you've been sick on and off for a week and you wake up feeling really good? You tend to over-do it on day one don't you? Let's call today "day one". A week ago I had the Nausea/Vomiting/Diarrhea triad...the unholy trinity that can pour its wrath on the colons of all western non-believers. But as I became a true believer and the ring of fire that is my ass returned to its normal hand scrubbed self, I caught the upper respiratory infection that is tearing through the family running the guest house where I'm staying...cough, fever, snot. Great timing for Sheryl to come halfway around the globe to wait for me to recuperate. But the vacation from my vacation was sweet and Sheryl and I visited many Buddhist shrines, rode on elephants, floated on bamboo rafts, and did a bunch of other stuff you really don't want to read about. But today, with Sheryl somewhere over the Pacific and me with 100% colonic and respiratory fitness, I decided to ride my bike UP to Wat Than Doi Suthep.
Other than to move my slowly flabbing butt, the reason I did this was to get away from the innumerable Jesus-of Nazareths that have descended, nay, pilgrimmed to Chiang Mai recently. Really, it's weird; long brown stringy hair, scraggly beards, emaciated, dining vegetarian (although the vegan thing is never really mentioned in the bible) and wearing undyed brown burlap gowns and head scarves circa 5 or 6 B.C. There are many of these guys around and usually with a few desciples in tow...dressed similarly but with dreadlocks. And yes there is a Mary Magdeline along with them as well, although I've witnessed no actual feet washing. These are not the Khao San Road pierced and tattoo'd sketchy set, but a kind, soft voiced, smiling group of soap dodgers from the late '60's era and I find myself wanting to lay palm fronds at their feet. That or ride as fast and far away from them as possible down a steep mountain road helmetless! I just had an epiphany...THEY ARE ANOTHER REASON I LEFT KAUAI!! Just before I left the island of Kauai I saw a Jesus guy in the same uniform of brown rags (although Sheryl just updated me that someone must have donated a new sheet to him as he was kind of spiffed up at last sighting) and as I was pulling out my palm frond he squatted up against the wall of Borders Books and lit up a joint. Very disappointed that it's all just another fasion statement, I put away my frond worried he might smoke it. Maybe it's just another fasion craze here too since that new movie The Nativity has just been released, or maybe it's a sign that I need to be following. Not sure but that isn't what I wanted to blog about...not at all.
Doi Suthep is a gorgeous 14th century temple built on the spot where an elephant, carrying a relic of the Buddha, died while looking for a holy place to put the thing. I know just how the poor beast felt as I wondered what they'd build when I died of heat stroke. But thank Buddha (or his evil minions) that all the temples here have tons of food and drink stands where one can rehydrate and another can profit! I was glad the Jesuses hadn't followed me or else there might have been some serious over-turning of tables around this Wat. While drinking my second amazingly delicious coconut, I thought about how far I'd ridden today. The Wat is about X kilometers from the center of town and straight up hill with an incline of YX% bringing the ratio of meters moved forward to meters climbed to about XX:YY. In other words, my bike computer was stolen and I have no idea of any of that data. Thank God, because who really cares how fast I go or how far, and what the average speed is or how many verticle feet I've gained today (and you know I'd blog it so thank your stars). This is the kind of crap that gets in your head when you're in the middle of nowhere and it really wears on you. "Wait" you think, "how can I be so tired now, if yesterday I gained 250 more verticle feet by this time already today"? Like the way you feel is dependent on the data in a computer! And as I write this the two guys next to me in the internet cafe are getting so angry and disgusted by the slow speed of their computers that in a way the computer is controlling their thoughts and emotions...hm. When I first saw that my computer had been stolen I was so angry I cursed the thief to get multiple boils and pustules all over his body. But only a few days later I was laughing at myself and thanking the poor boil covered guy for easing my load as well as my mind. And, they say that ignorance is bliss which makes me just about one of the happiest people alive. So now I measure things in "pretty far", "very fast", "damn steep", and "no freakin way!" The climb up to Doi Suthep was a moderate "no freakin way". Moderate only because my panniers were back at home. It is a steep climb that for some sick reason I wanted to do without stopping...in the noon-day sun...wearing a surgical mask (it's not like I miss nursing that much but the air here in Chiang Mai is about as fresh as a burning Marlboro). From the base of the mountain it took an hour and ten minutes (watch not stolen!) of sitting and standing in low-low gear (bike lingo for "don't ask me how many teeth are on my chain ring...don't care") to get to the summit. It took 18 minutes of ear to ear grinning to get down. Life is good again when I can sit on my bike seat without tears of pain welling up!

Poopin' and Barfin'

2007-01-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

Without getting super graphic (your welcome) todays title says it all. Chiang Mai is an awesome city in northern Thailand...well, at least the bathrooms I've visited are nice! This town has a funky "if I were in the U.S. I'd be a Santa Cruz or a Santa Fe (not Ohio!)" vibe. Yoga studios and vegetarian restaurants abound and for some reason (too stoned?) there aren't many dreadlocks around. I'll blog more later when the car parked on my head allows. Happy New Year!

Escape From Bangkok!

2007-01-03T03:21:00.001-08:00

Finally, after almost 2 weeks in this hell that is Bangkok I'm on a train north to Chiang Mai. I know I recently said I loved this city but that was on Christmas Eve and I was enjoying the melancholy of loneliness and the amazing night lights that can intoxicate. But Bangkok is draining. I wake up tired, I eat tired, I walk tired, I ride tired, I drink coffee tired, I refill the cup with a double espresso and still I remain exhausted. Ten million people are all rushing around in the deafening roar and the hazy thick air. Ten million people struggling to get by, to eat, to get to school, to make ends meet, to make love, to find peace in their surroundings and to find peace within, to get to the end of another day. I know that I will never understand how it all holds together without the wheels flying off. The jostling to get on to a crowded skytrain with bodies pressed on all sides. Or stuck on a bus in traffic that hasn't moved, literally, for 45 minutes. The ear peircing roar of constant internal combustion engines...how do people live like this without going ballistic? The only answer I can find is that they are all too tired. All this shared frenetic energy is too much to take and the mass consciousness is worn down and worn out. How else can you explain the rate at which civil servants do their jobs? Or the fact that I pass out the second I get on the water taxi (no, I'm not trying to avoid paying the fare! Tried that already...they wake you up.) and upon waking notice about 30% of the passengers are immitating dash board bobble-heads too. There is just too much of...everything... here. And the human brain wasn't wired to deal with all of this mass buzzing. Maybe that's why I haven't blogged in a week...just too tired. But now I'm on a train north with my girlfriend Sheryl who just flew into Bangkok for a visit and already I feel better. Except for the ringing in my ears that appears to be a permanent souvenir from Bangkok. A constant reminder of where I don't want to retire. I can trace some of this white noise to a few Tuk-Tuk rides I've been on recently.
How can a small three-wheeled vehicle make so much noise and pour out so much blue smoke? Every one of them has a muffler. I know this because I look, wondering how many hearing-aid-free and oxygen-tubing-in-my-nose-free years I'm being robbed of when one drives by. And there every single Tuk-Tuk is...mufflered. Wet with oil dripping mufflers that spew smoke and scream out painfully. And I wonder why they even bother putting them onto the exhaust manifold in the first place. (Disclaimer: I just had to ask Sheryl if a muffler attaches to a thing called an exhaust manifold. She nodded instantly and probably wondered how I could ask such a stupid question. As if I'd asked her if we breathe something called air. But you'll be glad to know that this in no way has caused me to question my sexual orientation...really.) Because to my ears and lungs the "mufflers" only seem to direct and amplify the sound and smoke. Maybe that's what they are disigned for in Thailand...pushing the choking smoke and blasting "Tuk-Tuk-ing" away from the drivers and toward the sidewalks. But that doesn't make any sense, or isn't working as all the Tuk-Tuk drivers are deaf. That or my pronunciation of Thai is worse than I feared. Because usually, after a third attempt at stating my destination and the accompanying third look of confusion, I'll either give up and walk away or get taken to the wrong destination. And believe me, that is no treat because then the re-negotiation of fares starts all over. And this time the driver has the upper hand because now I am hopelessly lost in a city of ten million people of whom the vast majority speak less english than my hearing challenged driver. And try saying this in Thai..."OK, we agreed on the fare from Siam Square to Soi Rambuttri. The fact that we are now on The Last Place I Want To Be Street, and YOU drove me here, shouldn't change that fare" (go ahead, try it, I'll wait). I don't, and instead I pull out a map and a finger ( no, not THAT finger) and we haggle out a newer and more painful price. But that's not what I wanted to blog about...at all.
Sitting in the train station tonight while waiting for departure I thought, with some concern actually, what a perfect bomb target this would make. Not a normal thought for me but quite understandable after last nights multiple explosions throughout Bangkok that killed 4 and injured dozens. Sheryl and I were just blocks from one explosion sitting in a movie theater eating popcorn. An anouncement was made that the movie was cancelled tonight and we had to leave. In the lobby were soldiers with helmets and we knew something wasn't right. We didn't know what to think when the entire mall and then the entire downtown shopping core of Bangkok began evacuating. We finally got a Tuk-Tuk out of there (they were all asking three times the going rate...except for the one we took that got lost!) and when we got to our guest house the mood was subdued. All celebrations and fireworks shows had been cancelled. Everyone was glued to CNN which looped images of Saddam Husseins body over and over again. I became incredibly sad as James, the inn keeper, toasted us with a weak "Happy New Year". What kind of year is this going to be? What new world order are we creating? Violence begets violence. We can not have war and expect peace. Somalia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afganistan, Darfur, and now Bangkok? As much as I'm glad to be leaving this city I grieve for it. The people have showed me nothing but kindness (that, and a monster instinct for haggling). They are so gracious, and especially so, given the pressure cooker of overcrowding, pollution, noise, grime, heat, humidity and the struggle to survive. The last thing they need is the added stress and anxiety of random terrorist attacks.

Merry Christmas...or..Am I Gay?

2006-12-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

Did I just say that I loved Bangkok? Only 24 hours ago?? What a difference a lonely Christmas day makes. Actually what a difference getting hit by a pick-up truck on a super smoggy ride downtown makes! Cut off, and with minimal time to react I grabbed my brake handles too hard. And as my rear wheel went up in the air and I had no choice but to let off the brakes and plow into the side of this guys truck. I grabbed onto the side of the truck bed to prevent hitting the pavement and held on until he realized he was dragging me and stopped. This time I did leave a dent, but only in his car. I came out with a small scratch but more importantly my bike is fine!! The time for selective helmet wearing is over as I got a good scare today. But that isn't what I wanted to blog about...no, that is boring. I want to talk about one of my favorite topics (not bugs), my neuroses!
My close friend Cary sent me and email the other day about these blogs. She is scratching her head (acually banging it against the wall) once again in response to my whining about trying to "find myself" on this journey. She's had to put up with these rants for 28 years now and she's just about had it. Reading her comments I could almost hear strains of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and Judy Garland crying, "There's no place like home". And that isn't because I'm gay, or sectretly craving those ruby red sequined slippers (actually those slippers are kind of hot and I think I may declare my heterosexuality a little too often and maybe even too loudly). Maybe I am a little gay...actually I think I might just be...no...I'm gay dammit and proud to wear the colors of the rainbow!! Especially the softer, yet bright pastels that bring out my summer tones...um, sorry about this Sheryl but what a great forum for me to come out and tell the world! This does explain the face creme and hair gel that occupy my toiletries kit (as well as the fact that I call it my toiletries kit instead of a shaving kit)... because I have been discarding any non-essentials from my panniers all along S.E. Asia to lighten my load. The roads of Malaysia and Thailand are strewn with my non-essentials. You know, things like toilet paper...and underwear...although as I write that I'm thinking that one or the other of those two things, doesn't matter which really, would be considered essential. Especially if I were gay. So that sort of trends me toward straight. And wait, when I have sexual thoughts or fantasies every 20 to 30 seconds (and who doesn't) there is always a woman invoved! OK, good, you know what? I'm straight dammit. Straight and narrow path for me...sorry David.
Good God are you still reading this blather? Got a bit off track...oh, right. The reason I hear Dorothy "...and Toto too? Yes, and Toto too" is because I know that Cary is right. Why go looking for yourself in far off lands when the answer is right here in your own backyard. (Cue the music and roll credits). But a quick explanation of Cary is in order. She is not only my very first girlfriend/true love, she is also a life long friend who keeps popping up after long abscences and tells it to me like it is. Very strange to have a connection so deep after all these years that cuts out all the crap and filler (maybe she could be my editor) and goes straight to the point. She is pragmatic, I'm obviously not, and thinks all this naval gazing is a waste of time. Like at the end of the day all I will discover in there is a sweaty ball of lint and no enlightenment (other than I need to find some Q-tips). In a way she's got a point. What did I expect to find over here in the back roads of Asia that I wasn't finding at home (besides crotch rot and blisters on my ass)? Is the answer to "Who am I" or "Why am I" more likely to be found in some overly ornate Buddhist temple than it is at home? I mean, the Buddhist temples are so dazzling and beautiful and gaudy that I really don't want to close my eyes and travel inward. I want to look around! But if I do close them, the whir and click of a thousand cameras competes with the constant clanking of baht coins landing in the brass donation boxes. Hardly ideal for inner journying.
Or am I going to discover "The Real James"cycling in the middle of nowhere sweating out my electrolytes faster than a San Francisco bath house workout? (Hey, is that another gay reference?...because I'M NOT...really...although my face creme is by L'Oreal which is not a good sign...but I've tried Nivea and I just find it too greasy, you know?) God, sorry...I was, yeah, finding the real James. By now, if Cary has made it this far into this mess of a blog entry then she has bloodied her monitor with her forehead. (Ibuprofen my friend, 800mg three times/day is the max dose but take it with food.) Because even asking that question has her thinking (and emailing) "Shut the hell up and live your damn life instead of wondering how to live it!" "Instead of asking 'who are you', just be you and enjoy that you are you for f***'s sake!" (She can swear like a sailor if she wants to.) It's a great wake-up call every time we talk or email and I find myself nodding my head in agreement. Then I look down at my belly button again and ask, "But how can I just be me or enjoy being me if I don't know who I am"? The naval never answers. So I keep staring at it and think about the next days ride into the boonies in search of some far off Buddhist temple...sorry Cary.
Hey it's Christmas day in the real world...Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Christmas Eve in Bangkok

2006-12-24T05:08:00.000-08:00

Hey New Bangkok Photos!
In one corner of Santi Chai Prakan park near where I am staying, eight people on a makeshift stage (nine if you count the white guy listening) are playing traditional Chinese instruments and singing. It is sad, occasionally raucus, beautiful, rhythmic and reminiscent of howling cats, sitars and dulcimers. It is not Jingle Bells. In the opposite corner a Thai Capoera group is singing and clapping around two dancers/fighters who spar in flowing slow motion. Along the sidewalk an old white hippie teaches a "George-of-the-jungle" rhythm to a young Thai woman wearing a tie-dyed headscarf. Three stoned dread-lockers lie in the grass as a stunningly beautiful and tattood mother chases the toddler that just rebounded off of me like a diapered bumper car. The silver-blue and pink sunlight reflected from the Chao Phraya river has faded and the dim light remaining comes from flourescent tubes tied to sticks that are hammered into the grass. Some ambient light reflects off of the moldy and once-white castle like walls of Phra Sumen Fort and a small Buddhist shrine. Old men sit on benches watching the tuk-tuks speed by billowing massive amounts of blue smoke as bright ferries, lit up like Christmas trees, float by on the now black water. Above it all are the illuminated suspension cables of Phra Pinklao Bridge, asymetrically lighting up the sky like a giant broken harp...with...cars on it. I'm alone on Christmas Eve and I don't care. I kind of hate to say it, but I've just fallen in love with Bangkok.

The Boring Blog

2006-12-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

My God, I think I've been in Bangkok too long. I'm starting to like it and today was even a little boring as I took a very enjoyable water taxi to a very enjoyable sky train to a very hot and crowded weekend market that was half tourist trap and half locals flea market. Bargained for some goodies (used down jacket and a used coat. So much for Kauai...back to WA state for me) and then went to the ultra modern mall The Siam Paragon and drooled over Maseratis and Ferraris before watching a lame movie called Aragon. Sounds like a sleeper of a Seattle day except for the heat. The only excitement came when once again I tried to order some food. There is some weird vortex of energy that surrounds my ability to order food. Actually I order it just fine I think, but what comes to my table is without exception not quite what I ordered. Point to a menu item, butcher the Thai pronunciation, repeat myself two more times and when I think the waitperson has it down, I close the menu and smile. The smile isn't because I just successfully ordered something but because I enjoy trying to guess what exactly will come from the kitchen. Somtimes it's just a question of volume like when I ordered a beer and two big fourty ouncers showed up opened and ready to drink. Do I look like that much of a lush that the waiter didn't stop to think for a minute that maybe I didn't want two monster beers right out of the gates? But then again this is Bangkok where you can walk by a table and a couple will be trying to make eye contact around a two foot tower of beer equalling 5 liters or so. So OK maybe he didn't think twice about my alcoholism. But the odds of getting it wrong every single time are kind of astonomical. I try to keep all extraneous words out to simplify things but forgot today and said "No rush, I'll just sit here and watch some soccer". The blank look I received was uncomfortably long but was then followed up with "one minute sir". He brought over another waitress to translate the fact that I "wasn't in a hurry so no rush" but it was sort of a moot point by then. The soccer match was brilliant by the way, as neither team scored. And in England that means it was a good match. In America it's called boring. Another reason it's good to not be in the U.S. right now...I can enjoy a boring soccer game. So that is all I have for now...I'll try and do something stupid and suicidal tomorrow so I can be a bit more "edgy". Merry Christmas to everyone, and to everyone a good night.

Khao San Road

2006-12-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

OK I just posted a few more pics on flickr.com so hit the link button if you're interested.
Is every western man in his 40's and wandering alone in Bangkok lazy, perverted or hungry? It's not like I am (well, 1 out of 3 maybe and you have to guess which one). If not, then why are the only people who talk to me wanting to sell me food, a ride on a tuk-tuk, or some sort of sex show that has women doing things that I don't want to see them doing. If curious about sex shows, ask my sister (again you'll have to guess which one) as she got "roped into it" the last time she was in Bangkok. Oops, sorry Samantha! Yesterday a tuk-tuk driver got all excited as I was walking down the street alone. And when I refused a ride he furtively glanced around then asked if I was interested in a sex show. Again I refused (yes really) and wondered if he was going to pull some food out from under the seat and try his luck a third time. I wouldn't have noticed if he had because my attention was now on the "food" stall next to his tuk-tuk. Fried bugs. How many times do I have to embarass myself here and tell you how much I hate bugs? They were dead, which is how I like them the most, but they were definitely cooked and ready to eat. As in "to ingest"...which is how I like them least...even less than in my pillow and hair. And these were not the same as some cute little worm floating at the bottom of a mescal bottle. You know, the bottle you pounded while on holiday in Mexico and got so drunk that you didn't care anymore and swallowed it whole. No...these were big and ugly and deep-fried. COCKROACHES for Pete's sake...huge ones! And praying mantises and yes even some worms in the mix. Why, I tried to imagine, would anyone not living in the deepest reaches of Borneo or maybe Ohio (that was for you Wheelz) ever pop one of those silver dollar sized things in their mouth and start grinding. It really can't taste that good. And if it tastes just like chicken then just eat a freakin' chicken! It's all exoskelton, dammit, which means shards of wings and legs will have you begging complete strangers for a tooth pick or some floss. Is it the protien lacking in ones diet that drives them to it? Is it too much reality TV that is normalizing the most abberent behavior? Or is it just drunk, bored, and stupid over tattoo'd/dread-locked/pierced 20 somethings looking for the next story to tell back home to their friends that smoked up the money they were saving for their Bangkok trip?
Because they are all here and they are starting to get on my nerves. The freaks I mean, not the bugs (well them too). I never realized that in order to travel out of the European continent/England and under the age of 23 you had to tattoo your face, or at least puncture it a few dozen times. I have been travelling with a German couple for a few days and it seems that once you're in your late 20's this travel restriction is lifted. Niether of them have spikes coming from their cheeks nor can you see behind them through dime-sized holes in their 'tribal' earlobes. But I hope they make it home alright. Apparently in order to be admitted back into your Euro country of choice you have to look even worse than when you left. That is the only explanation I have for the dozens of white people sitting in chairs in the street getting horrible hair extensions or worse the ubiquitous (and ultra cool only if you're from Jamaica and too stoned to find a comb) dreadlocks. Don't get me wrong, I love Bob Marley as much as the next white guy (AFRICA UNITE!) but I draw the line at dreadlocks. Actually I draw the line a lot closer than dreadlocks, which makes me old, and a target for the aforementioned sellers of food, sex and motorized transportation. But that seems a small price to pay to have my hair smell like shampoo rather than stale cigarettes and sweat (and bugs if they have an odor). I don't really care what people do to their own bodies of course. It just seems sad and kind of desperate to be 19 years old and trying to be so different than everyone else (just like all your friends) that you permanently out-do Michael Jackson...permanently. As in full-sleeve tattoos that run up necks to behind ears. Or facial tats, or gaping earlobes, or spikes all over the face. Whatever, I guess it makes me appreciate being an old boring guy. An unemployed-cycling-around-SE Asia-homeless-having-the-time-of-my-life-meeting-awesome-people-and-making-lifelong-friends-full-of-life-old-boring-guy. But at least I have two tattoos so I'm not that boring! Whew, thank god for ink.

BIKER DOWN!!!

2006-12-20T01:26:00.000-08:00

It finally happened. And in the most likely place it could have...downtown Bangkok. Hit by a car for the first time ever. Actually I've been hit before, in Seattle and Singapore, but never actually went down until a few hours ago. Today however I left my mark on a late model Mercedes-Benz before hitting the hot pavement. Hey, at least it wasn't a crappy old Toyota or even worse a sub-atomic little Proton made in Malaysia! And my mark was just really just a smudge as my hand wiped clean a section of the passenger door covered in dirt. The thing is, and I hate to admit this, I totally deserved it. I deserved getting creamed really but I got lucky (that or the Buddha is watching out for me). Today I was craving a hard ride and in Bangkok there is only one way to get it. By riding with no regard to rules or laws or personal safety...mine or anyone elses (I smacked down a jaywalker stepping between two cars today as well but he'll have to blog about that on his site). Traffic in Bangkok is legendary and today the only difference was I got to play in it instead of being stuck in it. Lane splitting, riding between lanes of non-moving cars, is legal here (I think!). As the hundreds of cars are jammed into parking lots of narrow lanes, the thousands of mopeds drive wrecklessly between them. When the space between the cars fills up with mopeds it becomes fun and adventurous to ride on the yellow line separating the opposing lanes. Like a game of chicken with potentially disastrous results, the oncoming cars swerve just enough to let my handlebars breeze by their rearview mirror. The first few times is nerve wracking and sphincter challenging but after a while it is a crack-up and I end up laughing out loud or occasionally "whooping". Take note if you want to try this sometime...when passing a bus and there is a bus in the oncoming lane...brake hard and swerve behind bus number one. Buses don't play chicken. Underpaid drivers working long hours don't really care a whole lot about me. It's nothing personal. Now, if I were driving a car I would be cussing at the absolute idiot riding like he has terminal testicular cancer that has metastisized into the reasoning section of his brain. All testosterone and no thinking (as I write that I realize it describes about 97% of men between the ages of 18 and 45 but you get my point). I can't even blame suicidal thinking as I stopped taking my anti-malarials two weeks ago. It's just adrenaline. Some people ski, some rock climb...I ride into traffic head long passing everything in my way with no regard for my life. It is immature I know and I'm not really proud to describe my behavior, but it's brilliant. And all was going great until I mis-judged a bumper by a millimeter or so and hit it with my pannier. The swerving out of control didn't last long as I went down fast using the Mercedes as a way to slow my descent. Water bottles and concerned looks were all over the place but the only thing bruised was my pride as I suddenly realized what a complete asshole I had been. I picked up my scattered gear from the middle of the road, pulled over to the side, put the headphones back into my ears (I know I know...) and thought about what a jerk I can be sometimes. Then I jumped back on my bike and passed everything in sight, laughing like a maniac at the oncoming traffic.

Food

2006-12-18T02:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why I'm having such difficulty with food these days. It's not like I'm not trying. Thai food can be some of my favorite in the world so am finding myself continually surprised at how boring some of it seems to be. I guess when the Thai waitress sees how white I really am (by just looking at my american fanny pack and noticing I can only say "hello" and "rice" and "thank you") she tells the cook to make my dish milder than my moms homemade Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. Sorry Mom. Phad Thai, red curry and noodles, green curry and rice, yellow curry and shrimp...all sounding mouthwateringly delicious and above all HOT. But... close my eyes, forget the consistancy, and I can hear my mom calling me to the table with "soups on!" And if she were here, I'd ask her to pass the Wonder Bread and "I can't believe it's not butter" spreadable margerine to spice it up a bit. But it's not just the subtle flavors and hot spices I miss from the "authentic Thai food" from the U.S., I also want to explore all the options of "real" Thai food that are available to a vegetarian...both of them. It can be difficult to find, and most of the time I don't worry about the things that at home would have me calling the waiter over to the table faster than you can say "organic, non-GMO, locally grown, free-range tofu". Things like fish sauce or oyster sauce... or even fish or oysters! Shrimp is now once again a staple and even though I love it and it tastes just as good as I remember it 25 years ago, I prefer to eat more simply ( like Snickers bars and corn chips). So I guess it isn't that strange when I freaked out half way through my banana pancakes this morning upon finding they weren't totally vegetarian. If you consider that the ants I had been chewing on are actually some form of meat that is. The pancake arrived on the plate looking beautiful, fluffy and rich, with bananas on top cooked to perfection. And if you look closely at a banana, you'll see little seeds throughout just about the size of tiny ants, won't you. So I didn't really notice that the specks were ants until I put a second helping of honey on my plate. The honey came out of the bottle kind of chunky style and sure enough full of ants. Breakfast was done for the day as the thought of how many I had actually eaten destroyed my appetite.
The rest of the day was awesome fun with a beautiful swim in the Andaman Sea under a 300 foot cliff face, swimming into caves, taking a long-tail boat ride and soaking up some sun with friends. And I actually forgot about the bug breakfast for most of the day until I crawled into bed and sat there for a while relaxing. A small black bug walked across the sheets and I flicked it off like a booger as I lay down. Another one came my way and I flicked it off as well. Looking up at the ceiling while on my back I felt a bite on my leg and noticed another small black insect burrowing into my skin. As one who leans toward Buddhist beliefs I usually try not to kill anything. Bugs included. As the welt started to form on my calf, I ground that bug into just another stain on the dirty sheets and noticed with alarm the number of small moving spots that were now crawling toward my body from the head of the bed.
I am no fan of bugs (recall the leeches story) and actually have of a phobia of them. Spiders are OK (as they eat other insects) but I have to catch them in a glass to let them outside when I find them in the house. The other night in Bangkok while eating at a food stall I looked down at my feet for some stupid reason and noticed the ground wriggling with cockroaches...not just one or two but ground wriggling numbers of cockroaches! I looked really stupid eating my soup with my feet up on my chair but I was wearing flip flops...and the bugs were everywhere! Over here the roaches grow really big and the thought of them all around me on my feet wrecked my dinner as I crammed down my food in record time. But last night was even worse. The number of little black bugs kept increasing until I looked inside the pillow case and saw a writhing mass of bedbugs. Pushing back the thought that my head had recently been on that pillow I let out a kind of girly squeek and threw pillows out the bedroom door. More bugs kept coming from under the sheets and from between the mattresses and I was lamenting the fact that the guest-house management had left for the night. I was exhausted and wanted to sleep more than anything after a long day in the sun. But by 3:00am I gave up the battle, after the slaughter left hundreds dead, and went out in search of another hotel. I found one for twice as much and happily paid the $7.00 (US dollars I'll have you know) for a bug-bite free nights sleep. It was too late to see the humor in the fact that I had started this day eating bugs and ended it being eaten by them.

The Birthday Party of a King

2006-12-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

Arriving in Bangkok at 4:30 am and assembling my bike and panniers after the night of sleepless halitosis was bad enough. But riding into the downtown darkness of the 8 lane highway, over rutted and cracked shoulders strewn with glass, while avoiding the traffic inches from my rear view mirror just topped off my 24 hour day. Crossing over Phra Pin Klao Bridge the blackness of the water below matched my mood. The city was darker than I expected it to be and I felt lost and alone as I wound my way toward Khao San Road and Backpacker Central. This is the area of Bangkok full of cheap accomodation and the type of people that like cheap accomodation. I definitely fit into that category even if I'm no stranger to an occasional shower and some soap. I knew I was getting close when I saw a white guy fully tatooed riding his skateboard down the middle of the street (dreadlocks flowing like snakes from his head) as the three wheeled tuk-tuks avoided his drunken gyrations. Khao San Road was full of trash, beer bottles and a few drunks but not much more. I rode over to Rambuttri Road which still had one bar full of young Europeans drinking hard in the never ending party of Banglamphoo district. It was 6:00am.
After a long nap I awoke to a sea of yellow polo shirts all heading toward Sanam Luang which is a huge central park near the Royal Palace and the Wat Phra Kao. By the time I got to the park there was a mass of yellow like I've never seen. Hundreds of thousands of Thais had come out to celebrate their beloved king's birthday. Almost all of them wore the kings color yellow. It was hot and humid and dusty and packed with people jostling through the narrow spaces between stalls selling any and everything. I could feel myself getting that "Oh my god let me out of here before I go ballistic" feeling. You know that one, where for football fields around you in every direction there are thousands of sweating people bumping into you until you can no longer breathe. And to get a breath of fresh air here you will have to fight your way through them all. Sweat was dripping down my legs and back and trying to get to the edge of the masses was agonizingly slow. My bike was wider than the shifting yellow path ahead. It was then that I realized that going ballistic wasn't an option. Everyone in this crowd was relaxed and cordial and polite and CIVIL to one another. My claustrophobia and ensuing panic attack was apparently not being exerienced by anyone else here. The Thais were all relaxed and patiently having a nice day at the park. I was feeling my sanity being tested and noted that it was barely passing that test...C- at best. Long yellow lines that stretched for maybe a half mile led to mystery places...bathrooms?, juice stands?, I never found out. Smaller yellow lines led to the ever present water stands, and meat-on-a-stick stands, and fake yellow Izod shirt stands, and furry-brightly-colored-animals-that-squeak-or-pop-out-their-tongues-when-you-squeeze-them-stands. I edged to the perimiter and got on my bike and merged (continually avoided being run over) into the madness of buses and tuk-tuks and mopeds...all adorned with yellow passengers. Weird to see entire city buses filled with yellow shirts and not imagining some sort of summer camp or football team outing. The city was one big lemon chiffon custard...or else I was getting really hungry. Even though yellow has never been my favorite color, it was quickly becoming one I could hate.
After another nap it was dark and mercifully cooler. Wandering aimlessly I noticed that everyone was watching TV. Store fronts were crowded for blocks with people all looking inside at the same channel. Live coverage of the big celebration. The King of Thailand was being driven down the Main streets of Bangkok as hundreds of thousands of Thais held candles. White lights dripped from the trees along the way. It was all occuring only a few blocks away and I ran toward the massive crowd. A yellow ocean lay in front of me as I came to the main boulevard. Lights and candles and a calm patience were everywhere. Then, as the white Cadalac slowly approached, blocked from my line of sight by the thousands in front of me, the crowd began standing and undulating and calling out "hello!" in very polite but excited tones as the candles were waved up and down. It was sweet to see so many people that excited yet so composed and quiet. I tried to imagine a similar experience but couldn't. Ghandi wandering through a throng of adoring Thorazine addicts gets close but that's just a weird visual.
Fireworks are nice, sure, and who really doesn't like them? But after seeing many years of fireworks displays, they have rather lost their ability to amaze or really excite me. Of course, this is only true in the event that they are detonated at safe distances from myself or large crowds. But here in Bangkok they do things a bit differently. The closer things that have the potential to kill or mame get to me personally, the less boring they become. Trucks on a freeway for example are rather boring. When they come within a foot from my bike it can be thrilling actually. Psychopaths are another example. Back home, on the fourth of July, a barge would be set up, out on the water away from people, and the fireworks would be launched a thousand feet up into the air so all could watch in safety. Risk of injury usually reduced to sparkler burns or an occasional misfired bottle-rocket. So it really did surprise and scare me when the first explosions from just across the street began. I looked over to see 15 foot columns of flames and sparks shooting up from just over the heads of the crowd on the sidewalk. The concussions from every shot could be felt deep in my chest. The proximity alone would have contituted this as one of the most exciting fireworks shows I've seen. Then, as the colorful explosions above appeared, I thought that they seemed lower in the sky than I'd ever seen. Surely there are standards and codes for the height that explosive fireworks need to be launched. That is obvious. Why then did these seem to be going off way lower than what I thought that should be? Different codes? Indifferent operators? Maybe it was just me. "Maybe not", I realized as a big green spark trail from a huge explosion fell onto some guys yellow windbreaker and set him to jumping around patting his shoulder. Every laughed at that and it was infectious. For the next half hour I was staring into the sky howling with laughter like a madman as explosions were all around me and sparks rained down, occasionally causing someone to momentarily panic. It was madness. With a wall of fire to my right and brightly colored sparks raining from the sky it was absolutely the best fireworks show in the world. Near the middle of the show, however, in mid howl, a big piece of shell casing from one of the bombs hit me in the face. I stopped laughing then and noticed that the ground was covered with coconut-shell shaped casings that were falling with alrming regularity. Then someone else almost caught on fire and we all started laughing again. Happy Birthday King Adulyadej... and many more!

Beam Me Up...

2006-12-04T15:40:00.000-08:00

It's so weird. I stepped onto the transporter, fell "asleep", and the next thing I knew I was in Bangkok. On TV it always looked so fast as they dematerialized and then reappeared somewhere else almost instantaneously. In Thailand it took 11 hours and my body is feeling the effects. The bus was amazing however and the attendant served drinks, snacks and a moist towlette at the end of the ride. The only problem was that I had to sleep with a man last night to make it happen. And listen, kudos to all the women of the world. Sleeping with a man absolutely sucks. I mean, most Thais are really thin even though there are food stalls every 15 feet or so on every street in the country. Anytime you want a bowl of noodles or a plate of rice or mystery meat on a stick, you don't have to go far to find it. So how is it that everyone is so thin? Everyone except Jabba the Hut sitting next to me. It must take him forever to go places as he has to be stopping at every one of these stalls to grow this big. He's actually not that huge. I'm just being mean after a long night of snoring and oozing onto my seat. At one point I almost elbowed him hard in the ribs and yelled "Hey Stinky, shut the hell up and get back onto your seat if you can fit in it!" But I didn't, as losing face in Thailand is not something done lightly. Being a good steward of my good nation I sat quietly and hated him in a seething molten pool of hatred and disgust. Let me explain. It's 7am and I've been up almost all night so I've earned this rant.
First of all there was the way that this guy slowly encroached into my space. I first noted the warmth of his sking through my clothes and was really creeped out by the fact that somehow his flank had seeped under my right ass-cheek. "Like liquid", I thought, "he is spilling onto my seat!" Then his left arm started to rest on mine as the chain-sawing of his open mouth startled me from non-sleep to full awakeness. There is only one guy on the bus snoring, why god... But that wasn't the worst of it...by far. I wasn't going to yell "stinky" for nothing. This guys breath had me leaning my head as far as out into the isle as I could and my neck still has that "slept wrong on it all night" feeling. The sheer lack of oxygen was bad enough but the stench that emitted from that hole! It was a mixture of old cigar breath, a beer drank maybe an hour ago, and fish. Really. I sat there and had the time to figure it out like a wine-taster discerning the specific "nose" of some horrid liquid brewed at the local slaughterhouse. Then someone behind me broke out some durian fruit roll-up and started chewing away on it. Back in Malaysia I met a very sweet retired couple who gave me a bite of their durian fruit roll-up. "The good stuff, from Thailand" they assured me. They were dying to see my reaction I could tell. Durian fruit is amazing. If you've never had it then you've missed the experience of eating a solid fart. From the first bite the sensation hits from deep inside your nasal passage like wasabe mustard. But instead of the hot pain of wasabe you get the smell/taste of a fart (someone elses mind you) that stays with you long after you swallow. The old couple laughed as I smiled weakly and lied "not bad". "Westerners think it taste like toilet" he said said to his wife and they laughed even harder. As the durian gas filled the bus I was almost grateful. But it didn't actually hide the halitosis of Jaba, it just added another layer to the cacophany of odors.
It was then that I came up with the idea of dropping a breath mint into his guano-emitting cave of a mouth. A tic-tac might do it, but being rather small it might go down his trachea and deep into a lung. More than the ensuing coughing fit resulting from such and act, I worried that a tic-tac lodged deep in a lung would do absolutely nothing about his breath. "A mento's, my kingdom for a Mento's". If that got lodged in his airway it would stick in the trachea and kill him. I smiled at the thought. Suddenly I remembered that I had bought some Juicyfruit gum at the bus station! I pulled out the pack and shoved several pieces into my mouth and for 15 joyous minutes all I could smell was gum. I laughed thinking of William Shattner overacting into his communicator. "Scotty... Scotty, get me out of here Scotty!"

Language #3 Talking in Fluent American

2006-12-02T07:18:00.000-08:00

After practicing my Thai all morning on my 110km ride, I flawlessly ordered my vegetarian lunch. It was delicious! And by about the third bite into it noticed the hunks of dead chicken. Dammit! So much for flawless. The after lunch ride was a bit painful as my colon was reintroduced to the muscle tissue of another animal. How do you meat eaters do it? I'll spare you the soap box and politics of meat and just cop to the fact that it really was tasty. Maybe the meat showed up on my plate because I'm out of practice. And I'm out of practice because I've been speaking American! And I've been speaking American because I randomly bumped into the American couple here in Krabi that I originally met in Malaysia (OK another shameless plug for their website www.northstarjourneys.com). It was a great reunion and we hung out continuouslyfor the past two days. There is something that happens while travelling that makes friendships more immediate and more intense than at home. Maybe the knowledge that you only have a short time together condenses the experience and makes you cut out the filler that normally occupies most friendships. There is something more to this connection, however, as we all acknowledge that it feels like we've been friends for years.
I said speaking American and I meant it. I first realized it when Paul gave me the measurements of something big in football fields. I instantly understood the size of it without having to convert meters to feet to yards to football fields. The metric system is lame. I mean, sure it's logical. Sure it's neat and clean. Sure everything can be divided by 10 or multiplied by 10 which is really efficient. But if someone says "that is probably 450 meters long", I'm too busy converting that length into football fields to hear what comes next. Everything should be measured in football fields, it just makes life easier. Then late one night sitting on the curb in front of their guest house we had the inevitable conversation that every real American has. I realized that even though I haven't missed it, the topic hadn't come up until now. Of course I'm talking about Gilligan's Island. I haven't owned a TV now for over 15 years and yet there we were discussing the personalities of Mary Ann and Ginger. The relationship between The Skipper and Gilligan or...well you get the idea. That part of growing up, the afterschool television experience, is such a huge part of our collective psyche that many years later we have a common bond that, as silly as it sounds, runs deep. We barely touched on Star Trek (the Captain Kirk and Spock years of course) and for the first time having this discussion I didn't mention the Brady Bunch...which is probably just as well. In Kuala Lumpur I had tried to describe to my German friend the concept of a situation comedy about WW2 Prisoners of War but her horrified look of distaste kind of quieted me down. Paul and I just cracked up recalling Hogan's Heros' Schultz and Colonel Klink. Kelly was sweetly smiling but not as animated and I found out that she was more of a PBS kid. Sesame Street and The Electric Company were more her role models for TV and it sounds so much healthier to me now as I write it down. That led later to a discussion of the best kids album (and most aggregiously politically correct) Free to Be You and Me. After our discussion I now have a deeper under standing of why Kelly is one of the most mellow and gentle people I've met in a long time. We're all going to meet up again in Bangkok and I'm stoked. Not just because they're so fun to be around, but also there is a huge part of that topic that we left out, and need to complete. Sure we might have broken out a short verse of "It's alright to cry" from Free to be... but none of us sang a theme song from one of our beloved shows and that is an American birthright.

Language #2

2006-11-30T02:00:00.000-08:00

Even though excited to get to Thailand, I hated leaving Malaysia as I grew to love the place. But after 5 weeks or so the hardest thing to leave behind was the language (OK and the food and the people and...). But oh how I miss the days of a good old "selamat pagi". I had studied bahasa Malaysia for a month or so before before leaving so I could at least find a toilet and food when I got there. Laziness and denial let me get to southern Thailand with not one word of Thai in my lexicon. Turns out I should have been studying Thai instead of Malaysian. The language situation is the exact opposite of what I had imagined. Everyone in Malysia seems to speak some English and a lot speak it well. In Thailand not many speak it well and there are quite a few who have no English words in them what so ever. And the written script? Where are my roman letters!? It makes it very hard to find anything or go anywhere by bike if I can't even phonetically try to read a town name. So that has been hard for me and boo-frickety-hoo! "Of course they speak Thai, you ninny, youre in Thailand!!" Oh my God, here come the voices!
I use the Lonely Planet guide book for a ton of information and it is great. For language tips, it's useless. When for the first few days here I tried to say "I am vegetarian" people would just shake their heads and pick up a fish or chicken part. I would point to the noodles and veggies and eventually come up with something to eat. Finally at the guest house in Krabi the owner pulled me aside and helped me out with some key vegetarian phrases. That night I tried it out and sure enough some veggie plate came to my table and it was delicious. The next night I tried it out again and more head shaking...which has been my response of late. Back at the guest house today, I tried my one phrase out on a group of women sitting with the owner and they all just laughed. Apparently I have been going around Thailand asking every food vendor if I'm a vegetarian. I guess my answer is yes when I refuse the meat held up to me in response. Language is tricky and I like to point a lot more now than I ever have. "I'd like one more Thai iced tea please" is easily translated to pointing my index finger at my empty glass then holding up the number 1. Simple, effective, yet not conducive to much more. If you can tell me how to sign "What subject did you study at University" please send it to my comments section... with photos! Well, it's almost 6pm here so off to dinner...hmm, wonder what will end up on my plate tonight?

Language

2006-11-29T19:35:00.000-08:00

There are no words to describe just how beautiful these islands off of S.E. Asia are. Magnificent! Stunning! Breathtaking! Hmmm. Geologists have named this type of formation a karst which doesn't really inspire me, for one , to start packing my bags or dust off my passport. And that's the problem with language, isn't it, trying to convey a personal experience using conventional words. Experiences that no one else (out of over 6 billion people!)will ever have...no matter how crowded the beaches get or how worn the sidewalks. Only my experiences, sifted through my culture, and my upbringing, (not to mention my filters that unconsciously weed out the bits of information that don't quite "fit"), only these matter. They are mine alone, but how do I share them?
By the way, and as an aside, I've taken to placing rhetorical questions at the end of my sentences these days, haven't I? I think I sound more European, or at least British, and really who doesn't want to sound more British? It's a new influence from all the English travellers I've been talking to. It seems like they need confirmation of what they're saying to verify their reality, doesn't it? And it is weird if you try to answer the question because they've moved on, unconscious of even having asked it, and look at you a bit like "Why are you interrupting me", don't they? Sorry, it's a dangerous path to start trodding. A bit addictive, isn't it?
Anyway. Yesterday I rode 126km or so. I like using the metric system because it sounds so much more demanding to ride 126km than the standard British 75.6 miles, doesn't it? So I'll have to blame it on the intense heat and humidity instead of the distance."It" being my insane behavior of talking to/shouting at myself. Since today I am writing about language I think it is only appropriate, if not too revealing, to let you in on my conversation with myself. Not the ones we all have that take place in our heads. But this one, that was at full volume with shouting and arguing and crazy laughter. I'm guessing that this phenomenon is shared by others who spend a lot of time doing physically demanding activities alone: marathoners, triathletes, blue water sailors, and trombone players...sorry dad! If not then I truly am losing it out here. It began with some "beeps" and "boops" as I sang some be-boppy jazz riffs that were just passing through my head. Then, "There are strange things done in the midnight sun, by the men who moil for gold", came blurting out of my mouth, inspired maybe, from some long forgotten neuron in my brain that just died of heat stroke. One of my favorite poems from a great poet Robert Service...and for the first time I really understood the word "moil". That's what I'm trying to say here, with language and experience. How could I have understood, at 16 years old, moiling for anything? If it's possible to moil your way through a bag of Dorito's, or through the channels of afterschool T.V. shows then, yes, I would have understood better Robert Service. But yesterday I actually moiled and I think that's why the poem came to me. "Moil" I said, then shouted and then laughed at the rediculousness of that word and me yelling into the Thai afternoon. But I was now on a roll and from that word sentences sprang, stories, country western songs trying to find a rhyme with Kuala Lumpur (try it sometime), and even characters. I had the cockney house wife screeching at the snooty BBC World Service headlines. I had the Irish Priest and the lucky charms leprechaun arguing over their purple moons and green clovers. But my favorite was the stereotypical stiff-upper-lip WW2 British Major who always rallied his troops through the worst of the worst. He's the one who pulled us (me) through the mid-day heat. "C-mon, lads" he'd (I'd) shout, "this is nothing!" "Why, I could tell you stories of the jungle heat in Rangoon..." and off he'd be 'tut-tutting' and 'stiff-upper-lipping' his (my) way down the road. It worked brilliantly too! The kilometers flew by as I shouted and grumbled and accented my way to Krabi which like I said is "stunning", "breathtaking" and "beautiful"!
All throughout Thailand so far, people shout out "Hello!" from wherever they are...homes, yards, shops, and fields as I ride by. It may be a stereotype but the Thai people really seem welcoming and open. Yesterday however, looking down at my legs which had developed a bright red rash with welts in places (too much heat I think), and my black shorts with weird white lines of dried salty sweat, and my dripping front grill of a chest that was marked with dead bugs, I realized that I didnt hear nearly as many hello's. Either I was starting to look too far gone, too foul or just too nutters to be Hello'd to anymore, or maybe I just couldn't hear them through all my screaming and arguing.
OK time to go check my meds.

New Photos

2006-11-29T04:42:00.000-08:00

I have to go either vomit or poop or both RIGHT NOW! But go check out some new pics of the trip if interested. I've made it easy for you too! Check out the new link on the right side of the screen!